Preface

• Here’s a new segment on this site, which will probably be pretty uncommon.
  • It’s called a “Re-Review” where I post new thoughts on something I’ve already done a formal Review on.
  • They’ll happen because either I’ve re-watched something and have more thoughts on it that I didn’t discuss before, or because I’ve seen the film/show in a new light and want to give my updated thoughts on it.
• And yeah, when it comes to Friends: that second one.
• You can click here to check out my original thoughts on Friends, and you can go on over to Netflix or iTunes and check out the entire show if you choose. (Which I recommend.)
  • Re-Reviews will delve into some spoilers, but nothing that will totally ruin the show for you. Stick around, enjoy, let’s go!

Plot

• My main complaint with Friends in my original review is that there was no real, clear, concise plot to it.
  • Most people, if asked, will say, “the plot of Friends? It’s about six twenty-somethings in New York who–” you get the idea.
    • And that’s the problem I had with Boyhood when I saw it too. I’m like, “what’s the plot of Boyhood?” And everyone is like, “it’s a boy growing up over the course of twelve years!” No, not the theme. The plot. The beginning, middle and end.
  • Having that in mind, I went through the show in about a month and a half after it came to Netflix, cuz I wanted to check out all the episodes that I missed.
    • I won’t say how many, but looking back I’m pretty ashamed of how many episodes I truly did miss.
  • Because you need to experience all 236 episodes to understand what this show is about.
    • And to realize what the plot is (which I’ll come back to), we need to establish who the main character is.

Main Character

• So you could watch Friends and if you’re just casually watching it, you might say, “Jennifer Aniston is the main character.”
  • Umm, she’s an actress in the show, but her character Rachel isn’t really the main character.
  • She’s only billed as the first character in the theme song cuz her last name is alphabetically first.
• And to someone like me who watched the show pretty well but not completely thoroughly, you might assume Monica is the main character.
  • Which I did last time I did a review.
• But Monica isn’t the main character at all!
  • The major plotlines happen around her, sure, but she isn’t the most important one in all of those plotlines.
• You could argue Ross is the main character, and you could have fun doing that.
• So who is in each plotline heavily, appears in every episode, is central to the plot, and ultimately has the show centered around them?
• Well let’s examine the facts here.
  • Where does the show begin?
  • Where does the show end?
• Not who does it begin with and who does it end with, no.
• Because in this case, if you ask me now, Apartment 20 is the main character.
  • And yeah, that seems like it’s a huge cop-out answer, but is it really?
• The thing that remains consistent throughout the entire show is the apartment.
  • You could make the argument that Central Perk is the main character, but the apartment was tested time and time again, never failing and always remaining constantly important in the show.
• So back to that plot.

Re-Plot

• When you think about it, Friends actually has one of the most concise and fluent plots in all of television.
  • Is it as clear as, “how did he meet their mother?” Or, “will Heisenberg die?” No.
  • But it’s unbelievably ingenious.
• The writers of Friends created a show that tells the story of one apartment over 10 years.
  • If the show was about Joey or Monica then their stories would have gone to the next play they were in, or to the suburbs with their new families.
• Ultimately, the plot of this show is: things progress..
  • The characters don’t show that because, as awesome each one is, he or she is just involved with whatever thing they have going on that week.
  • The apartment of Friends is the thing that shows unlikely progression, and shows the brilliance that this show really has.
    • Things change without us noticing, a lot of things change, but a lot of things stay the same.
    • Things are slow, things are fast, things are funny, things are sad.
    • But at the end of the day, the two-word synopsis to the unknowingly sly show that was Friends is: things progress.
  • When I watched this show for the first time, I thought, “yeah it’s funny, but I know exactly how it’s gonna end and I bet I can guess what happens to each character at the end of it.”
    • And I was right for almost all of them, but this show differs from How I Met Your Mother because it really is about the journey and not the destination.
      • For HIMYM you could argue towards either, but here it really is about watching progression.
      • This isn’t the show about nothing, this is the show about everything.
    • At some point when you’re closing in on the end of this show (whatever order you may watch it in), you’ll realize the progressive factor that it has, and how much progression has happen, and how this is the story about life.

In Conclusion

• Friends is such an unbelievably deep show that can be looked at in so many different ways, it baffles me.
• I’m really glad that I watched the entire thing on Netflix, because if I hadn’t I would still kinda complain about how, “it’s funny and neat! But there’s no line to tie it all together.”
• But now I see how smart it is, and I see how effortless and full of effort it was.
• Friends completely left me speechless at multiple points because of how funny it was, because of how sad it was, because of how intrepid it got, because of how hilariously weird all the characters were, because of how progressive it turned out to be, because of how sweet it was, because of how random it was, because of how simplistic it was, and ultimately, because of how perfect it was.
• And Friends is…

A 5/5

***

So guys, that’s my first Re-Review! They won’t all be like this, but those are my updated thoughts on the plot of Friends, and I hope you found something in there about the weirdness of life!! But if you guys did like this, let me know in the comments below, and definitely tell me what Re-Review you’d like to see next! And as always, thanks for reading guys.