The brilliance of Friends, its wish fulfillment & why Phoebe is the worst
By: Spenser Milo
Tags: Friends, Television, Pop Culture, Netflix, TV Series

There’s a fantastic moment in storytelling during Friends’ fourth season finale. After spending nearly the entire life of the series playing will-they-won’t-they with Ross and Rachel, Ross is about to get married in London. Everyone is there except for Phoebe, who is very pregnant with her brothers’ triplets, and Rachel, who is there to help Phoebe get around and to avoid her heart breaking when Ross finally gets married.

Indeed, the drama of Rachel racing to the other continent to inevitably interrupt the wedding provides enough entertainment and conflict for all of the beloved characters, but the finale has a trick underneath its sleeve. Knowing very well that the longevity of Ross and Rachel is about to wear thin, and considering that the couple basically defined the show into its massive popularity, the writers of Friends had to steer the show into a different direction for the course of a few more seasons. They had to create more stories, more conflicts, more drama and comedy in this finale or the show would be going on five seasons of being about Ross and Rachel and whomever stood between them.

Thus, we see the start of Monica and Chandler as they secretly sleep together in a moment of friendship and intoxication. From that point on the shift in Friends changed and the rest is history.

The show tried to replicate that moment, of course, in its weakest season —season eight — where Joey accidentally proposes to Rachel after she’s given birth. However, that’s just one truly average to scattered season among ten, so it’s not too bad in the grand scheme of things. It’s remarkable that Friends pulled off being as solid as it was for ten seasons and only six main characters. Considering that not one friend is missing from one episode, and that no one joins the cast full-time is amazing and rare in the current climate of TV. Truth be told, Friends still creatively stands out as one of the best sitcoms of all time.

Yes, this is a piece about Friends in 2017; well after the show has ended and well after the show became available for streaming on Netflix in January. It’s just that Friends is now encased into the holy zeitgeist of television (Netflix) for everyone to view in its entire complexity.

To some, Friends is basically the mold that made most of what’s currently on television and still remains better than anything it inspired. Like Cheers before it, Friends being available on Netflix provides a unique viewing into one of television’s most popular series and can now be examined through the lens of why that is.

Other than the moment I explained above, Friends was so popular because of how willing it was to just be funny and comfortable in its own skin. Joey and Chandler are single guys with dramatically different sex lives, while Ross pines for his true love, Rachel. Monica tries to have it all, while Phoebe cares less about any social construct and Rachel builds her life from the bottom up. In the midst of the hilarity, they all can sit down, sip coffee and bitch about their lives while cracking wise. Who doesn’t want that? It’s the best way to live. It’s wish fulfillment.

Friends being a wish fulfillment series might be a big revelation to those who never quite understood its grasp. Just imagine having a six-person friend group who always understood boundaries, inside jokes, family history, and were legitimately there for you whenever you felt lonely — there’s not one moment in the series where a character feels alone in their problems.

Not only that, but everything that would be best for the characters happened all the time (the closest comedy to share Friends’ idealism and positivity is Parks and Recreation). Everyone gets

the best apartment, the best marriage,

the best roommate and

the best job.

It’s no wonder why each friend is the best representation of a friend in their type; Joey is the best lovable oaf, Chandler is the best, sarcastic, hopeless romantic, Monica is the best cook and life coach, Rachel is the best-looking inexperienced person, and Ross has the best education and future with a heart of gold.

That leaves Phoebe.

Phoebe is such an enigma on Friends. There are times when she works for and against the show. As far as believability goes, there’s no way that any of the other friends would associate with Phoebe after Rachel moves into Monica’s apartment in the pilot episode.

There’s even a plot in season five where Rachel fears she’s going to be phased out of the group due to Ross’ failing marriage. In her panic, she describes that she always figured if there were to be one person tossed out of the group, it’d be Phoebe. “Honey, come on! You live far away! You’re not related. You lift right out.” And she’s right.

Phoebe stands out in her uniqueness, her struggle, and her philosophical views. There’s no way any of the friends wouldn’t slowly phase her out of Central Perk. Phoebe literally had a traumatic life. And no one seems to care whenever she brings that up. Granted, this is a sitcom, after all, so the serious conversation on how Phoebe feels about her mother’s suicide would be a total halt to the funny times. Still, though, a moment of caring wouldn’t hurt.

However, simply not having any real ties to the group wasn’t Phoebe’s worst problem — it was the fact that each story of hers was completely isolated from everyone else. At most points, a friend would grab hold of another friend and bring them into their conflict — the show worked best when it did this — and thus hilarity would ensue.

Phoebe rarely had Joey, Chandler, Monica, Rachel, and/or Ross put into her drama other than when she goes to meet her dad (and Joey, Rachel, and at one point Chandler are with her in the taxicab) or another instance. The alternative option the show had with her was to thrust her into someone else’s turmoil, making her the odd solution: Phoebe posing as Joey’s agent, Rachel messing with Chandler and Monica’s secret through Phoebe, and Chandler working with Phoebe to make engagement plans for Monica — that last one makes little sense because wouldn’t Rachel, the fashion designer and best friend of Monica, be the best candidate for picking an engagement ring? You screwed up there, Chandler.

Season nine does save Phoebe, though. After years and years of never committing a story-arc to Phoebe, she finally gets one to the tune of having a serious boyfriend in Mike (played by Paul Rudd). True, she had a one-off moment with Gary the cop, but that never actively affected the other friends outside of “The One With The Ride Along,” where Joey saves a sandwich from a bullet.

With Mike, Phoebe had a purpose and a stake to lose or gain in her character. Not to mention that adding Mike to the mix of the group was always a fun time considering that Rudd is a natural at making basically anything hilarious. There’s a real sense of energy through Phoebe’s scenes in that season which could be attributed to her long-awaited focus.

Where season nine was Phoebe’s, season eight was Joey’s (and season seven and five were both Chandler and Monica’s, while season six was just Rachel’s. Before that, each season was either Ross or Rachel’s shining times or a mixture of everyone’s) and that’s where the Friends writers probably realized that Phoebe needed some time to herself — because Joey surely wasn’t bringing anything great with his love for Rachel.

It’s fantastic that a popular series could still be learning about what does and doesn’t work in its twilight years. The final piece in wish fulfillment of having the best wacky friend who, eventually, becomes somewhat of a real person is astonishing to say the least. Obviously, now in hindsight, we get to see how well Friends ended in its tenth season with everyone in focus (except for Joey, really, as his spin-off show was the basis of that, sadly), but there was a time when the end wasn’t in sight and Phoebe’s season could have been one of many. Thankfully it happened right on time.