'Friends: The Reunion': The One 17 Years Later

I don't know who came up with it first, but the trend of reunion shows that play off the audience's nostalgia was a stroke of genius. And of all the reunions, fans have clamored for a Friends reunion far more than anything else.

Thursday's release of the Friends Reunion on HBO Max, hosted by James Corden (what a lame, safe choice), was a joyful walk down memory lane, and though it was not perfect by any means, it was delightfully fulfilling and satisfying to watch the six friends humor their fans by getting back together one more time.

Now, some of the other people invited to this show, which turned into a variety special, were not welcome. More on the annoying stuff later. But we did get to learn new things and hear some new dirt on the six friends! More on the good stuff later, too.

Right away, though, this reunion had a different feel to it. Instead of a light-hearted, celebratory gathering as the six trickled into the studio and onto the set once again, it felt as if they were already burdening a huge weight of emotions on their shoulders. They all came prepared to cry over and over. That's just the kind of show Friends was, though. Beneath the shallow one-liners and jokey jokes, these actors had a chemistry and a bond that not even 17 years of distance from each other could break. Even as mere fans, my wife and I felt like we were getting back together with the ol' band; listening to the opening song with shots of them nowadays was fun. The familiarity has a charm at this point.

Well, sort of. Sure, I would recognize any of the six if I just saw them walking down a sidewalk, but man, do they all look so different! Matt LeBlanc looked so old, like he is training to star in the next Santa Clause movie. LeBlanc sounded old, too. He talked like a grandpa telling his grandchildren stories about their parents.

All six of them looked fake in at least one awkward way. Matthew Perry's teeth looked as fake as Ross' glow-in-the-dark teeth in the episode when he gets spray tanned. The Botox job for both Courtney Cox and Jennifer Aniston is not flattering (Cox looks better now than she did a decade ago, though). I'm nitpicking, of course, but hey, my wife and I literally just finished watching the entire series, so we saw their faces on DVDs most nights for a couple of months. It was a bit shocking for me to see them so much older.

They looked like their old selves again when they began re-enacting "The One With The Embryos," the episode with the trivia contest that is probably unanimously agreed upon by everyone who's ever watched the show as the best episode of the show (I might be the only who doesn't think that). The cast re-enacted that episode with the same categories, the same "someone call it this time" joke. Schwimmer again was asking the questions, and this time the questions were about landmark stories and events in the show's history. They had to guess whose voice played on the machine (Tom Selleck) or over the speaker (Mr. Heckles!). These gags had just enough of a twist that rehashing the same content from the show somehow worked.

Between the trivia game and several comments throughout the reunion show, it was interesting to find out what the six friends remembered from their own show and what they didn't. They knew the gist of some lines or iconic moments, but at other times, some of the friends seemed like they couldn't remember anything at all. Sure, it's been many years, and they probably still have bits and pieces of 236 episodes rattling somewhere in their minds. But Kudrow didn't remember any of it. A couple of others said they didn't remember much at all. It's just crazy to think that they probably would lose a quoting contest with fans who have every line memorized.

What I learned

I'm not sure how much of what was revealed during the reunion is news or not, but I learned some things that blew my mind.

1) First, the juicy behind-the-scenes heat was real! Everyone knows Schwimmer and Aniston were something of an item, but I never knew their relationship was so intense! Audiences probably could watch the episode when they first kiss and just know their heat was real when the cameras were off. I also know how hard it was for Aniston and Schwimmer to move on after those episodes when they were on a break because they had such an emotional connection off-screen. Still, it was refreshing to hear them talk so frankly about it, even if it is ancient history. Of course, now I wonder if this cheapens their acting skills during those times because they weren't just pretending to be into each other; they actually were.

2) Monica and Chandler's moment in London was supposed to be just that: a one-time thing. How wild to think their marriage was not in the cards at first, especially considering the handful of moments in early seasons that made it seem like the writers were planting seeds to nurture and grow their relationship. But when the crowd howled the way it did after Monica magically appeared from under the sheets when they were in London, I totally understand why the writers made adjustments to their plans; they basically struck gold and wanted to mine it for all it was worth. I'm glad they did, because their relationship is my favorite storyline of the entire series (if for no other reason than taking the attention off Ross and Rachel).

3) The story of Matt LeBlanc dislocating his shoulder was wild! My wife knew he hurt his arm in real life, which is why they wrote the scene when Joey hurt himself jumping on his bed. But apparently the injury occurred during The One Where No One's Ready when he jumped to keep the chair from Chandler (one of my absolute favorite episodes; like Seinfeld's The Chinese Restaurant, it was shot in real time). His injury forced them to finish shooting the episode weeks later! LeBlanc blamed it on karma. Apparently before each episode, the six friends would huddle by the apartment's secret door that was always closed, but for the first (and only) time, they skipped that ritual before that episode. They definitely brought the jinx on themselves.

4) I was shocked to hear how much Schwimmer hated the monkey. It just throws off my entire calibration because the character loved the monkey so much.

5) Hearing that Matthew Perry felt sick to his stomach if he didn't make the audience laugh makes so much sense, yet I'm still shocked he took his comedy so seriously (see what I did there?).

6) Courtney Cox's favorite episodes were the Thanksgiving episodes. I wish they let more of them talk about their favorites, though.

Best Moments

It was fun to see recurring guest actors such as James Michael Tyler (Gunther) and Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles (Jack and Judy Geller) make appearances. Between appearances and re-enactments, there were plenty of bright spots:

1) Perry and LeBlanc are a little older now, so they didn't do it with quite the same energy, but watching them recline in their chairs in Joey's apartment brought me such nostalgic joy.

2) Reese Witherspoon's commentary about her time on the show was mostly fluff, but it's refreshing to get a take from a celebrity who already made a name for herself still feel tickled to be a part of a show that, at the time, was exponentially growing in popularity. I can't believe more guests were not featured like this! Where's Bruce Willis telling the story about losing a bet with Perry, which led to his appearance on the show?

3) Lisa Kudrow's freak-out moment with the bug on her dress was hysterical. It was such a Phoebe moment, and for a second, I forgot which part of her was Lisa and which part was Phoebe.

4) The famous record-scratching moment came out of nowhere as Maggie Wheeler shrieks "Oh. My. God."

5) THE ENTIRE CAST AGREED THAT THEY WERE ON A BREAK! There! It's settled!

Low points

Look, the creators of the show, the six friends, and the producers at HBO who wanted to make this reunion happen aren't shy about acknowledging how big the show was. But they got carried away when they turned the reunion into a total who's-who spectacle, which completely deterred from the entire point of this special. I mean, seriously, nobody on Earth wanted to see Justin Bieber walk down a modeling runway in the holiday armadillo costume. It felt like "The Masked Singer" invaded the reunion by getting everyone to wonder what surprise celebrity is appearing next. Seriously, we did not need to see Lady Gaga steal the spotlight with her awful rendition of "Smelly Cat."

Then they had to go and interview random fans from countries across the globe to prove the show was popular around the world. I didn't watch this special to hear which actor some random fans halfway across the globe thought they were like the most. I also didn't want or need to hear takes from celebs like Mindy Kaling, David Beckham, or Kit Harington. They had nothing to do with the show! Who cares?

We were constantly reminded throughout the reunion that this was a production. Heck, they probably had some sort of script, and they probably shot multiple takes. At times when they focused on the six friends, we just got poorly shot scenes of them reading lines for old times' sake.

My wife's take

Overall, she really liked the reunion; Friends is one of her favorite shows of all-time. And her favorite episode is the one when they bet the apartment, so seeing a recreation of that episode was nice.

She was beyond annoyed at the number of guest appearances by people who had nothing to do with the show. She was fuming that they not only didn't bring Paul Rudd into the mix, but they didn't even mention him. Instead, they just fed the egos of several celebrities who didn't belong on the reunion.