To not like Rachel from Friends anymore? (Light hearted)

[WickedWitchOfTheEast87]

Inspired by the Carrie Bradshaw thread from a little while ago. I've recently been watching my Friends dvd boxset and I really don't like Rachel anymore. She's petty, jealous and vindictive especially to Ross. She sabotaged his relationships and seems to go out of her way to get one over on him or humiliate him in some way. Anyone else agree or am I about to get a tsunami of hatred from Rachel fans 🤣🤣

I loved it at the time but what snazes me is that the pupils I teach (secondary) love it now

amazes not snazes!

Yea teens love it!

I saw a girl of about 8 with a Friends top on today.
It seemed odd to me.

My 9yo dd watches the odd friends episode. I know them by heart so if one comes on and its heavily sex based, I'd skip it, but there arent many of them.

I'm having a pretty stressful time at the moment and I'm watching the Friends box set, it's comforting. My least favourite character is Ross, for all the reasons stated above, although I've just watched him give Carol away at her wedding which was a really nice thing to do considering how they treated him.

I think the writer's got revenge on Lisa Kudrow for negotiating on behalf of the cast for better pay.

I really like Chandler and Rachel, both flawed but they had good character development.

I really liked Phoebe, I don't get the hate. Also love Joey.

Chandler is a bit irritating, he's like a child at times.

I never understood why they were in London anyway, I'm sure Emily actually lived in Shropshire, I remember a reference to it! I guess Shropshire isn't as interesting to American audiences as London

I think Rachel is my favourite character. Aside from the season after Ross says her name at the altar, the rest of the seasons she is funny, interesting, flawed. She has growth over the whole show.

@WickedWitchOfTheEast87

I get that Phoebe and Ross clashed a lot but they did have a good friendship and they did support each other. Remember when Ross moved into ugly naked guy's apartment and one of the neighbours stopped by and asked him for money for the caretaker of the building who was retiring and Ross had lived there for 25 minutes! The neighbour was pissed off at being told no and trashed Ross to the whole building and nicknamed him freebie and Phoebe defended Ross and told them once she got to know him that he was lovely and very generous. That neighbour was a cheeky fucker to ask Ross for a cheque when he didn't even know the guy ffs I wouldn't hand over a cheque for someone I had never met never mind literally moving in half an hour ago!

Am being pedantic but I don’t think named him ‘freebie’, I thought they were calling him ‘3B’ as he lived in apartment 3B and nobody in the building knew him so they called him 3B. Isn’t there a line ‘go back to 3B, 3B’? Maybe I’ve gotten it all wrong though, cos ‘freebie’ makes sense too!

Rachel was the nicest but such a boring character. I think she was the only one who could have left and it wouldn't have had too much impact on the show as a whole.

I find it weird when people apply their real life values to fictional comedy characters. Of course most of them are terrible people - if they were all shining beacons of virtue then it would be a pretty dull show. Ross, Monica and Phoebe are (mostly) awful but by FAR the funniest.

Somebody made a good point about how much sex and sexual references there were in Friends. I know parents who let their quite young children watch it as “it’s only Friends, it’s harmless”. But whenever I catch an old episode I’m always surprised at how much has to be edited out of the pre-watershed episodes.

I think the writer's got revenge on Lisa Kudrow for negotiating on behalf of the cast for better pay

I don’t think she was negotiating with the writers!

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

My 9yo dd watches the odd friends episode. I know them by heart so if one comes on and its heavily sex based, I'd skip it, but there arent many of them.

Fair enough. I just didn’t think it would interest that age group.

@sammylady37 I always thought they were calling him freebie as in freeloader but I could be wrong as 3B makes more sense! Feeling a bit foolish now 🤣

[quote WickedWitchOfTheEast87]@sammylady37 I always thought they were calling him freebie as in freeloader but I could be wrong as 3B makes more sense! Feeling a bit foolish now 🤣[/quote]
I can see how ‘freebie’ fits in too so you could be right. Either way, I agree with you that Phoebe stuck up for Ross that time, so she’s not all bad.

@sammylady37 I love Phoebe she was brilliant one of my favourite scenes of hers is the episode where Monica and Rachel are fighting over Jean-Claude Van Damme and Phoebe just grabs them by their ears and to stop the fight and then says "if this was prison you guys would be my bitches!" 🤣

My favourite Phoebe moment was when they went to the cheap wedding dress store and that bride Megan tried to take Monica's dress so she blows her whistle and when Phoebe and Rachel get to her Monica has Megan on the floor holding her arms behind her back with the dress in her other hand and Phoebe just takes the dress and legs it no questions asked that's what you call a loyal friend! 🤣🤣🤣

I love Friends and always have, but this clip from Kimmy Schmidt sums it up for me. It's very funny.

www.dailymotion.com/video/x2qnh86

I was about 13-14 when it came out. I remember the week long wait for the next precious episode! 😂 Since then, I have binge watched it on Netflix! I'm currently watching all over again, as my obsession has been truly reignited! But honestly though, I think I appreciate it waaay more now than I ever did throughout its original run. The comfort of nostalgia maybe?

Anyways, with regards to the characters...

Rachel: Really like her despite her flaws. As a teen I used to wonder why she was so admired for her personality/ looks, but now I totally get it! There's something magnetic about her!

Monica: The heart and soul of the show IMHO. Nothing would ever have occurred without her as the base! And I also find it quite believable that she would become more neurotic with age! I know that my flaws/qualities have become more pronounced with age - as have many others I know!

Chandler: The 'one I wish I was married to right now!' 😂 As a teen/20 something I liked Joey of course - but now I truly appreciate Chandler, and what a total catch he actually is!

Joey: Super adorable puppy like guy, who is much more of a substantial human being than portrayed when you read between the lines!

Ross: The only one who currently has the ability to p*ss me off! I like him, but sometimes the things he did to Rachel, (and others!)

Phoebe: Complicated ditz, who for some reason, got away with a lot of questionable behaviour! Again, I love her! As I do ALL of the characters; and it's fair to say that Lisa Kudrow did her huge justice, BUT - I honestly feel that if we had to 'lose' a character, hers is the only one that would have had no massive consequence on the show! Why? Because the only other 'outsider' to the original group is Joey - but the adorable flat share/bromance between him and Chandler was a huge source of interest/comedy in terms of the show!

Meant to add, where as Phoebe was always more of a fleeting character.

But weren’t we all a bit dickish in our 20s? I was watching Friends as a 20-something while living in a dingy flat with two other women and three lads and a friend said ‘you guys are just like Friends … apart from they are all really good looking’ 😆. But while we were pretty supportive of each other we could be prey to jealousy, one-up-man-ship, laziness, immaturity. I definitely remember the boys falling out over a beautiful acquaintance like the Dutch girl in the Geller Cup episode. I’m a bit ashamed over some of the stuff I did/said then and I had so much growing up to do at work too, am totally in awe of the responsible 20-somethings at my office, I was a hungover mess!!

@Sulusu

My advice is don't watch Scrubs again. It hasn't held up well over time. Dr Cox is still an amazing character but JD is just awful! Misogynistic, whiney, fat shaming and just horrible. Friends has aged better IMO despite its problems.

Oh God. I was rewatching Scrubs too recently and I was shocked by the misogyny. How did I not notice it years ago??

I think basically, for all of Friends' un-pc faults, it's just TV gold! It may sound so dramatic, but it got me through a really dark time of my life years ago, when I had nothing else to look forward to than half an hour with the beloved 'friends'! It absolutely made me feel better about everything. And as silly a show as it is/was, there's a 'friend' that everyone can either identify with personally, or can recognise is someone else they know in real life!

I recently took a dislike of Jennifer A but I love her in Friends.

And her character was very entertaining. Good old comedy.