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Friends, the one where we get annoyed

204 replies

SatansReject · 08/11/2019 08:19

Light hearted!

I like Friends but I often have moments of getting annoyed by it.

Rachel and Monica would never have been best friends at high school. One was a popular cheerleader type and the other was an overweight, immature nerd ... you’re telling me that in an American high school these two girls would have been besties?

Joey is loved by everyone, yet he’s a sexist player that disregards and disrespects women and he’s thick as pig shit with no job - but he’s so lovable 🤔

Ross is the bad guy in the whole Carol and Susan thing yet his wife cheated on him, Susan insisted that the baby was as much hers as it was his (??!!) and he’s expected to just accept it? I hate Susan!!

What annoys you about Friends?

(Before anyone starts, no I don’t make a habit of calling people fat nerds but the program specifically plays on this which is why I said it)

OP posts:
QueenOfTheAndals · 08/11/2019 08:59

Ross was awful and Rachel should've stayed on the plane but Friends is still my go-to comfort tv. It's hilarious how, now it's been released on Netflix, there's lots of post-millennials on social media or Buzzfeed moaning about how "problematic" it is!

BobbyNewport · 08/11/2019 08:59

I hate how Emily is made out to be the bad guy because she doesn't want Ross hanging out with Rachel.

Rachel flew to London to tell Ross she loved him, Ross said her name instead Emily's at the wedding then was about to go on honeymoon with Rachel.

I think Emily was perfectly justified, tbh yet they all made out she was a controlling cow.

OneTwoThreeDoeRayMe · 08/11/2019 08:59

Agree that Ross absolutely had Mark's card, err, marked.

Susan really annoyed me too - the one where she describes breast milk as tasting like cantaloupe juice to be deliberately goady to Ross was so cringey. You were the OW, FFS, why are you goading him?!

OneTwoThreeDoeRayMe · 08/11/2019 09:00

I love Chandler, too - he reminds me of DS's best friend! Grin

Could take him or leave him back in the 90s, but love him now.

PrincessHoneysuckle · 08/11/2019 09:01

I hate Susan too.
When they make Phoebe really bitchy for quite a few episodes later on,it really spoils her character.

WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 08/11/2019 09:07

Yes, Mark fancied her, that much was obvious, she never gave any indication that she fancied him though, they were just friends. Ross was jealous and controlling though (what the hell was the sending a barber shop Quartet to her work and turning up with a picnic basket all about lol?;)
She'd done nothing to warrant all that.
Plus don't blame her for hiding the fact that Mark was over for Chinese food given how weird Ross got whenever his name was mentioned lol

LaurieMarlow · 08/11/2019 09:11

I love Chandler, always did and always will. He reminds me of every guy I knew in the 90s, because they all copied his speech patterns Grin

The things that bother me most now are a) the casual use of porn and b) joey’s treatment of women (or perhaps more how he gets away with it via his charming nature). It was a different era though and it’s interesting how attitudes have changed for the better.

It had such a huge cultural influence on my generation, it’s extraordinary really.

DontLettuceBrexitLettuceRomain · 08/11/2019 09:11

No, she wasn't thin like all the others but she was never some huge gargantuan monster. A bit overweight, yes, not the end of the world.

Yes! The episode where they pull out her swimsuit and joke about it covering cars/states?! It's just looks like a big one piece no a specially made home ec sized piece of clothing!

LaurieMarlow · 08/11/2019 09:11

I think Rachel would have been far better off with Mark.

HauntedPinecone · 08/11/2019 09:12

I hate how Emily is made out to be the bad guy because she doesn't want Ross hanging out with Rachel

Agree! Although I absolutely hated the whole Ross and Emily storyline. I have to skip those episodes!

HauntedPinecone · 08/11/2019 09:14

Yes! The episode where they pull out her swimsuit and joke about it covering cars/states?! It's just looks like a big one piece no a specially made home ec sized piece of clothing

Yup, and the episode with her parents saying that she knew it was her that had broken the porch swing. FFS she wasn't that bloody big!

Geschwister4 · 08/11/2019 09:14

I agree with @Pinkiii too. Rachel invited Mark over the night her and Ross broke up. AND tried to hide it from Ross when he called. If she really didn’t have anything to hide why hide it? She was a massive twat in that scenario.

I agree. I also generally think Ross is a twat but I do agree with him on one thing- they were on a break!

Lucifer666 · 08/11/2019 09:20

I agree OP its only now I watch Friends as an adult I don't like it as much. Rachel is the character I can't stand out of the friends she's so selfish and spoilt. Can't stand Carol and Susan either they were horrible bitches the way they treated Ross especially Susan saying "its my baby too" erm no she had zero rights at that point she hadn't been with Carol long she should have kept her mouth shut and let Ross and Carol make decisions. The writing wasn't very good to be honest

SquareAsABlock · 08/11/2019 09:23

they were on a break!

I dont think that's an excuse for him to sleep with someone else that night. It was his awful controlling behaviour that made Rachel snap. She didnt want to lose him, just make him realise how far his behaviour had pushed her. It just adds to his horrible behaviour that the instance she says enough, he doesnt go home and think about what got them to this stage, he goes out and shags someone who does stroke his massive ego. She only talked to Mark thinking they were friends, she was naive not to realise he did actually fancy her, and the second it dawned on her that Ross was actually right about that is the moment he rings her and sets off his ridiculous paranoia again.

TLDR. Yes they were on a break. No good person would use that as an excuse for sleeping with a stranger the same night as breaking up with the supposed love of their life.

Monkeynuts18 · 08/11/2019 09:37

I love these threads!

Ross attracts implausibly good-looking women and treats them unbelievably badly.

He cheats on Julie and Bonnie with Rachel. He cheats on Rachel with Chloe, the zerox girl. He dates one of his students. He pursues his best friend’s girlfriend (Charlie).

He treats Mona absolutely abysmally.

Emily was not the bad guy - she was 100% an innocent victim - yet was portrayed as neurotic and controlling.

Monkeynuts18 · 08/11/2019 09:41

Sorry, continued rant about Ross.

Rachel’s career is FINALLY going well (his has been going well for a long time) and instead of being supportive he gives her grief about not seeing enough of her.

I hate him!

Petrichor11 · 08/11/2019 09:41

I was obsessed with Friends as a teen, was a huge Mondler shipper. It was my first experience of online fandom

I’m rewatching season 1 at the moment and they’re all generally more likeable and less caricatured characters. Joey can cook, Monica is neurotic but not shrill, I have some sympathy for Ross with the whole Susan thing, Phoebe is kooky and interesting but sweet.

By the end Ross was unbearable, Phoebe was mean, Monica was shrill and could also be really mean especially to chandler, Joey was so dumb you wonder how he managed to get dressed in the morning.

Ariadnepersephonecloud · 08/11/2019 09:43

Ugh Friends. I'm another the one we're I liked it as a teenager but now I realise it sucks Confused

Petrichor11 · 08/11/2019 09:43

I’m unreasonably annoyed by the entire monkey plot though

GinNotGym19 · 08/11/2019 09:49

Emily was meant to stay in friends but she quit so that’s probably why they wrote it the way she did with her refusing to come if he still saw Rachel.
Monica was in a rent controlled apartment that still had her dead grandma down as the tenant. Can’t explain the others!
I’m on ross’s side they WAS on a break!
I love friends though so can’t get annoyed about anything!
It is 30 odd years old things were a lot different then and people wasn’t politically correct then and a lot of things we find offensive now wasn’t back then. I can see how people would view some of the episodes a bit homophobic or sexist though but that’s probably true for all programs of that age

poppet31 · 08/11/2019 10:04

I hate how Chandler and Monica's adoption home study consisted of one 5 minute meeting with a social worker who then decided they were fit to adopt a baby.

I just hated Phoebe generally and never really understood what Mike saw in her. They just made her too weird.

Screwtheclockchange · 08/11/2019 10:22

"By the end Ross was unbearable, Phoebe was mean, Monica was shrill and could also be really mean especially to chandler, Joey was so dumb you wonder how he managed to get dressed in the morning."

Yup, and they didn't even seem to like each other in the later episodes, which ruined all the "wish fulfilment" reasons for watching.

I think some of the writing choices were weird, even for the time. For example, I remember my brother - who was no more feminist than the average teenage boy - raising an eyebrow at one line about Joey "looking after drunk women" and commenting on the fact that Joey was meant to be the lovable, sweet one yet he was also apparently supposed to be a date rapist. But, to be fair, other elements were ahead of their time. The depiction of Carol and Susan's relationship looks really unflattering now, but I don't remember anything else like it in that kind of show back then.

WotchaTalkinBoutWillis · 08/11/2019 13:33

Ok, I'm lost at what episode Joey was looking after drunk women and like a date rapist?! Confused
Although I agree with who said they just made him too daft by the end, as I love Friends but the one where he spoke French was beyond ridiculous lol

MissCharleyP · 08/11/2019 14:07

With the housing situation; as said, Monica in a rent-controlled apartment belonging to her GM (although I wonder why an 87 year old - referenced in one of the flashbacks - would have rented in what was then quite a hippy/alternative/bohemian part of NY), Ross had a good job, ditto Chandler, Phoebe also lived with her GM, Rachel & Joey rented from Monica & Chandler.

Wotcha I think the episode is where they all turn 30 and someone has to help Monica get dressed and Rachel says “OK, but taking care of a drunk, naked woman seems like a job for Joey”. Odd.

from123toabc · 08/11/2019 14:25

I've started watching it with my DD this year.

One of the things that annoys me the most is in the pilot episode Monica introduces Rachel to Chandler like they had never met- then we get 10 years of flashbacks to how they all went to high school together and new each other quite well.

I don't actually think Joey treated women that bad, he kida gave them what they wanted, to hook up with a cute guy, no-one ever took him seriously and all treated him like he was a stupid child. It's not bad to not want a proper relationship. I also think he was the most loyal friend of them and emotionally looked after everyone while.

Ross is the worst, he treated women terribly. Okay the Susan situation was awful but knowing what we learned about Ross over the following Series no wonder Carol wanted to bin him. I also hate how Ok they all were with Ross dating one of his students. So many levels of wrong....yet they were awful to Monica when she started dating Richard.