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Worst of Friends: Your Least Favorite Moments


Madness

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Maybe I'm more like Phoebe than I thought, because I also ended up removing the battery from a beeping alarm in the middlel of the night, then wrapping it in a towel and throwing it away outside in a public waste can by a bus stop! I did wonder what the morning bus riders would think.

The explanation: "Two possibilities exist if your smoke detector has no battery and is chirping. Many battery-only smoke detectors store energy in case the battery goes completely dead before someone replaces it and in case someone removes the battery to prevent the smoke detector from going off or to prevent it from chirping as it starts to die. This is a safety precaution."

  • Love 1

That was the other thing, a fireman just happen to be walking by the building's garbage while it was going out or even lived in the same building as Phoebe. Nothing was making sense and like I said, he didn't at one point just reset it to shut it off? I doubt he was thinking that the fire alarm making an even higher pitched sound after Phoebe smashed it was soothing or enjoyable. He would have gone: "Shut up already!" and then hit the reset button. Plus, when Phoebe was told about the button and it was so obviously present she didn't hit it earlier. Plus, if it was that loud going off as Phoebe found out when she heard it outside her door, her neighbors wouldn't have knocked on the door going: "We'll shut it off ourselves." 

10 hours ago, aquarian1 said:

Yeah, but it doesn't last that long.  I had that happen, but only sort of, because when it kept beeping after being unplugged and after having the battery removed, I just pressed the test button and it beeped loudly twice, and weakly once and then was done.

Oh I know, but this was some super fire alarm that could keep an residual charge for hours before finally shutting off. Of course, the way Phoebe smashed it, like to know what magical wires were still connected to have the alarm even work. 

I am always bothered by the episode when Joey is dating Cathy (Paget Brewster) and realizes it's her birthday.  

It's bad enough that Joey has lavished more concern and consideration on sandwiches than he shows Cathy on her birthday, but his friends unquestioningly accept his self-centered, callous behavior without reproach.   They treat him like a delicate, perhaps slow little boy who must not be corrected or criticized.   If Joey were my friend and I saw him treat a woman like that, I would read him the riot act.  I could not be friends with someone who could be so thoughtless and selfish.  (I realize this is comedy, but grrrr.)

To make matters worse, the writers then have Cathy go off happily to have sex with Joey even though she knows he did nada for her birthday.   She knows Chandler bought her the Velveteen Rabbit.   She knows Joey is a dullard who thinks Velveteen is cheese.    She knows Joey lied about getting her the gift.    Yet off she goes to Joey's bed to redeem her coupon for some "Joey-lovin'"   Apparently the only person who respects Cathy less than Joey is Cathy herself!

Makes me crazy every time.

  • Love 11

They did say he had only been going out with her for a few weeks. He should have bought her some flowers. Chandler really had no right buying an expensive gift for his friend's girlfriend. I thought it was sweet when I first saw it but now I think it was not right for Chandler to do . I had roommates for years and never bought a gift for their boyfriend/girlfriend. 

  • Love 11
9 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

They did say he had only been going out with her for a few weeks. He should have bought her some flowers. Chandler really had no right buying an expensive gift for his friend's girlfriend. I thought it was sweet when I first saw it but now I think it was not right for Chandler to do . I had roommates for years and never bought a gift for their boyfriend/girlfriend. 

You're right.  Chandler was way out of line.   

  • Love 3

In defense of the hand twin thing, which admittedly is pretty lame, Joey's proposed theme song is golden IMO.  Hearing him sing it cracks me up every time.

Not really a least favorite moment but more of a pet peeve:. When the entire gang goes to the hospital while Carol is in labor.  I could see maybe Monica being there but even then, I wouldn't think it weird if she hadn't shown up until after Ben was born.  On the whole though, talk about intrusive.  Carol's not close to Phoebe or Joey and she certainly doesn't know Rachel at this point and yet here's the whole clan, just hanging out waiting for her to push a person out of herself.  Then, moments after she does, all six of them are there hovering.  If I was Carol I would have started cutting people.  Even with Phoebe and Rachel, I mean, labor takes hours and how often do five non-relatives hang out at the hospital during the entire thing?  (Obviously Ross would be there for Rachel).  No.  You go to work or you go on with life, you get your updates, then you go visit after Mom and Dad have had a chance to rest.  This happens a lot on sitcoms though.  I loved when the Office showed how absurd and intrusive it was.

  • Love 7

Worst Rachel moments are ones where she sabotages Ross when he is happy..then pulls away.

1. She breaks up Ross and Julie,then almost immediately dumps him.(Yes the list was a jerk move,but talk it out)(She knew he was interested in her from the beginning..but acts like she never knew...she friggen said she knew!)

2. She flirts with him at the beach, convinces his date to shave her head,then when he chooses her..puts on brakes and writes that absurd letter.

3. Probably the worst one..crashes his wedding!! Then when his marriage falls apart..tells Monica "I don't want to start up all that Ross stuff again"

Okay, so she chased down the pizza girl to give her Ross' number..but that doesn't really count as she was a one episode character..not someone that he had real feelings for,

Rachel is selfish..and is one of those people who thinks.."I don't want him..but I don't want anyone else to have him either"

Also, as a side note.. Jennifer Aniston's acting in the first few seasons was painful to watch;

High pitched voice "Daddy..I'm a shoe!"

Telling Mark "I told him I want a break..I don't want a break" (awkward delivery..like from a child)

She improved, and became pretty funny..but the beginning was ROUGH!

  • Love 9

I agree and I am a Rachel and Ross fan. Ross at times tried to move on but Rachel would always do something to try to break up his relationship. When the woman (Rena Sofer) from the baby store tried to ask Ross out, Rachel made endless snotty comments. Of course she did the same thing when she liked Joey; she made comments about Charlie right in front of her. Then when Joey responded to Rachel she did the stupid slapping his hand away thing.  I think they wanted to show Rachel had a very spoiled upbringing, and her father treated her like a princess. She always felt no one was good enough for her. i do think her character evolved a bit by the end and she became more understanding in general. 

One of my least favorite storyline's about Rachel involve her relationship with Tag. She hired him purely on his looks, acted like he belonged to her only from day one, was really mean to anyone who even talked about him and put her job on the line to have sex with him. 

  • Love 6

I knew it was going to happen, but I hated that Ross and Rachel ended up together in the finale.  (Although, at least it happened at the end and we didn't have to watch them together any more.)  They brought  out the worst in each other, in so many ways, most of which have already been mentioned here.  I felt like neither one of them could ever be themselves in that relationship.  Ross somehow managed to both have her on a pedestal and look down on her at the same time.  Yeah, he apologized for the list, but those things were how he really felt.  She was his teenage crush, who he finally got a shot with, but I don't feel like we ever saw him appreciate her beyond that.  And their jealousy over the years was obnoxious.  The Mark thing was the worst.  Ross was a controlling ass.  And I don't even think it was solely Mark.  I had the impression that he didn't like her becoming more than "just a waitress," because her being less successful than him as adults was some equalizer for him, as in a reversal of their teen roles, where she was the pretty, popular girl and he was her best friend's nerdy older brother.  Rachel never gave him even a hint of a reason to think that she was remotely interested in the guy, and he just kept hammering away at it, complete with embarrassing the hell out of her in her first days at her new job.  And then he's the one who screws the first girl he gets a shot at while they're on a break.  (Superficial side note: I did not get why all three guys were drooling over the copy girl. I mean, she was cute, but Chandler needing to invent things to copy to go stare at her was a bit much.) 

Beyond that, though, as others have mentioned, there were the jealousy issues for Rachel with Emily, Phoebe's friend, and the woman from the baby store.  And for Ross, along with the Mark crap, there was his over the top reaction to Rachel/Joey after Barbados (after he had about two seconds of conflict before making out with the girl who just dumped Joey five minutes ago), and his various post-baby jealousies (the mistaken proposal, the guy from the bar, Gavin).  Oh, and his anger at Joey for falling for Rachel in the first place.  So much of Ross/Rachel seems to revolve around one or both of them being angry.  

I actually preferred Joey/Rachel, because I felt like they both appreciated each other for who they were, and, as much as Rachel talked about Ross being her best friend, I feel like Joey really was.  (Bonus, they didn't lash out at each other.)  Their friendship was probably my favorite relationship on the show, and it matured both of their characters, to some degree.  

As much as I came to dislike Ross (he's definitely my least favorite overall), in the whole Carol's pregnancy thing, I loathed how Carol and Susan treated him.  That scene in the OB's office for the sonogram was awful.  They acted like he had just been a sperm donor who was now trying to muscle in on their baby.  It was like he was unreasonable to expect to have some say in his child's name.  I hate that episode when it comes up in the rotation on TBS.  

  • Love 12

I know we all agree that the Joey speak French episode is one of the very worst if not the very worst. What makes it even stupider is the ending. So Joey goes to the audition, clearly can't speak French and the director says You can't have the part. Then Phoebe comes in, says she is Joey's big sister, then first says he is speaking a rare dialect, but changes that to "He is my retarded brother." So, originally the director thinks Joey lied about speaking French and he would probably never hire him for anything, but he would mostly forget about him. People try out for parts everyday and if they don't get them, everyone moves on. Once Phoebe insists Joey is "retarded" though, this director is going to remember this and possibly even talk to others about it. How would this help Joey's career for a influential director to think he is disabled? Not to mention that Joey played a main role on a soap opera for years, appeared in many plays, many commercials and was briefly the lead in Mac and Cheese. How would any of this match up for someone who was intellectually disabled? i would assume Joey got the audition because the director was familiar with some of his work. 

  • Love 2

New to this thread so apologies if I'm repeating things that have been said, but these were some of my least favourite moments:

  • The episode where Phoebe thought her mother was a cat. It wasn't in the same vein as typical quirky Phoebe stuff, it was just stupid. I didn't like how everyone ganged up on Ross at the end and made him apologise to Phoebe and the cat when he was the only one who'd been honest instead of laughing at her behind her back.
  • Hand twins. Need I say more?
  • When Monica was Phoebe's maid of honour. I generally don't dislike Monica but she was a bitch in that episode. She wouldn't listen to Phoebe and prioritised the things she wanted - it wasn't her wedding! And her being a shrew at the rehearsal was unbearable. I particularly hated that Phoebe ended up begging her to be made of honour again after she'd told her off at the rehearsal dinner. It would have been much better if Phoebe had managed to arrange everything herself, and Monica had learned that her friends don't have to tolerate her shit.
  • Any point where Susan was rude to Ross for no reason. I didn't like how she was always mocking him when he'd been in love with Carole for years and it wasn't his fault their marriage hadn't worked. I also didn't like how she tried to exclude him from planning things for Ben in season 1. I hate Ross but this really bugged me - if Carol had been marrying another man, it never would have been funny that they wanted Ben to have his last name instead of Ross's. 
  • The storylines towards the end where they made Joey far too stupid. It was funny when it wasn't so extreme, but at some points in season 10 he made Forrest Gump look like a member of mensa. The One Where Joey Speaks French did make me laugh in places but c'mon. Nobody's that dumb that they can't repeat a sentence.
  • More than anything I hate that Rachel turned down her dream job in Paris for Ross Gellar. Why any rational person would do that is beyond me.
  • Love 11

I really hate the episode (on recently which is why I thought of it) where Phoebe donates the wedding money to a children's charity, then wants it back, then donates it again, lather, rinse, repeat.  She and Mike are both so awful in that episode, I was hoping the charity guy would kill them and keep the money.

  • Love 8

While watching Friends last night I remembered a moment that skeeves me out every time:

Julia Roberts standing barefoot in a men's public bathroom, right next to the toilet, then actually sitting down on the toilet seat/ring.   She had her clothes on but ... come on.    In the typical men's room, that floor and toilet seat would be glistening with urine.    There's another anomaly in the same scene, after Julia takes Chandler's clothes, where Julia appears to be checking her hair in the mirror, except there's no mirror -- she's looking at the bathroom stall.

  • Love 1

The fire dectector situation..... My dectectors are hooked up to the electricity in the house.... The only way a battery comes into play is when the house has lost power.... The battery is a warning system that lets you know 1 or both is draining. The battery will chirp when it's losing power, however there is a fail safe so that if both loses power it will be detonated for days. Removing the battEry only exacerbates the situation. Losing both will only make it mad.

Rachel's tattoo bugs me.  I understand that it was at a time when tattooing was just starting to take off with the masses so maybe they were counting on people not knowing but still.  I know that it's one of those "just look past the complete inaccuracy of it and see how cute it was and how Ross liked it at the end" but anyone who has ever had a tattoo knows that last thing you are going to do is let your pants rub on a brand-new tat.

Also her plaid pants make me sad.  I used to have the cutest pairs but I must have had a bad patch of polyester because mine shrunk and I had to donate them.  I wish I had saved them because I could fit into them again, because you know sometimes it takes 18 years for the baby weight to come off.  I would absolutely still wear them if I had them.

(amusingly enough Rachel's tattoo aired February 15 1996 which is about a month after I got my first tat.  Somehow I feel like Rachel did not keep up with me on the tattooing after that point)

  • Love 5

Ha!  I just found this thread and now I can finally unload something that has bothered me since the first time I saw it!  Which is the whole condom in the bathroom episode while Ross and Richard stood there chatting awkwardly - and then did it again later in the episode!  At the beginning Monica asks him why they always have to stay at his place and not hers; after the first awkward Ross encounter he should have said, "Because I'm an adult and don't live in a frat house, and don't want to hang with your brother in our underwear while you're out trying to score a condom."  Now I can see it's gross all around, but at the time I was in my 20s too and saw the other three as overgrown college students who do shit like that, but Richard was supposed to be this sophisticated older man - he should have just said that he was never doing that again when he had his own, private, very nice apartment!  And I have always hated his character since.  

I hate the outfit Monica wears at the Thanksgiving dinner where she gets the eye patch and invites Richard's son for dinner - the brown pants and see-through shirt.  Worst outfit and general overall look ever.  The eyepatch and her hairdo don't help, but man that outfit's the worst.

I hated when Emily told Ross that she would move to NY if he stopped seeing Rachel and he was all, "What do I do?  How is there an answer to this?" and nobody at all could give him one.  The answer, moron, is to tell Emily that as she is Monica's roommate he can't realistically promise to never see her again, but that it will only be in group/family settings and never alone, and Emily will be there too.  Instead they all act like it's an impossible situation, and suddenly R&R are off to the movies and all sorts of solo adventures that I don't think they even had when they were dating.

Reading the posts here reminded me that I also hated Phoebe's vulgarian behavior to Mike's parents, her marrying Mike instead of David, and Susan's treatment of Ross in the early seasons.  Also - the wedding dress Monica tried on in the boutique was different from the one she fought the girl for in the store, which was different from the one hanging in the living room when she was trying to decide what to do, which was different from the one she tried on and showed to Chandler at the end.  I don't hate that but thought I'd point it out for those of you who are bugged by there being 2 different dresses in that ep ")

  • Love 8
On 3/2/2017 at 11:00 PM, princelina said:

I hated when Emily told Ross that she would move to NY if he stopped seeing Rachel and he was all, "What do I do?  How is there an answer to this?" and nobody at all could give him one.  The answer, moron, is to tell Emily that as she is Monica's roommate he can't realistically promise to never see her again, but that it will only be in group/family settings and never alone, and Emily will be there too.  Instead they all act like it's an impossible situation, and suddenly R&R are off to the movies and all sorts of solo adventures that I don't think they even had when they were dating.

This was definitely one of the worst Friends' storyline. Emily should have never gone through with the wedding since the subsequent episodes made me really dislike her and it's odd since we're supposed to have sympathy for her since Ross said Rachel's name.

But when she gets pissy that Ross is in Rachel's apartment and that Rachel is there, I have no more sympathy for her. It's fine for her to not want R/R hanging out solo, but what does she reasonably expect of Rachel when the whole group is hanging out at her and Monica's apartment? That Rachel should leave her own place every time Ross is there? Whatever, girl. 

  • Love 7

More stuff about Monica's wedding: the woman who wants Monica's dress says in the bridal store she is getting married in July and Monica tells her she is getting married in February. Yet this woman books the Swing Kings on Monica's wedding date? Are we supposed to believe she wants the dress so much she is booking and paying for a band on a random day or changing her wedding day? That always bugs me, along with the numerous wedding dress changes and Monica spending her whole wedding reception on Rachel. 

  • Love 3

You know what I really hated?  The period of time where Monica and Rachel were living in Chandler and Joey's apartment and vice versa.  Why do this?  It didn't serve any purpose other than to beat home the point even more that Chandler had a soul-sucking job.  And then, at one point, it just went back to the way it was before like nothing happened (and I honestly can't remember what led them to switching back....I rarely go back and watch the episodes during this period....)

  • Love 1

Pretty much all of Seasons 5 -10, with a few exceptions (the finale, the Brad Pitt episode). Monica and Chandler getting together was completely implausible. A drunk hookup? Ok. Getting married? No. It went from a show about what it's like to be in your mid 20s, worthy of being paired with Seinfeld, to a stupid sitcom that could have been on CBS between the Big Bang Theory and a Kevin James show.

All of the flashback episodes. A weak gimmick that they used way too many times. The only times it was effective was the first two - The One With the Prom Video and The One With the Flashback. Other than that, Monica being fat and Chandler having a Flock of Seagulls haircut was not funny.

But the moment when I knew the show had completely gone off the rails? Two words: MY SANDWICH

Edited by BTBAM310
  • Love 3
8 hours ago, BTBAM310 said:

Pretty much all of Seasons 5 -10, with a few exceptions (the finale, the Brad Pitt episode). Monica and Chandler getting together was completely implausible. A drunk hookup? Ok. Getting married? No

I disagree here. That old adage, "the best friends make the best lovers" applied here. They clearly deeply cared for one another long before they hooked up. And that, to me, shows a great foundation for a romantic relationship. But tomato, tomahto...

  • Love 23

I read the whole thread and I can't believe no one mentioned this one! When Phoebe is pregnant and they throw her a "shower" and tell someone to get her the leather pants she's been wanting. Since when would hippy dippy vegetarian Phoebe want leather pants?? Especially when she throws a fit later about the mink coat that she got as an heirloom. So out of character. 

  • Love 15

I adore this thread. 

Every time I get to theJoey/Rachel romance episodes, I have to flip thevhsnnel. Don't get me wrong, I find the Ross/Rachel relationship troublesome and toxic, but I found them instantly dumbing Rachel down to better match with Joey. Giggling at "homo", that entire time in the Bahamas, she was a different character, and I disliked that tremendously. Plus, that they had Rachel react the same way when she hooked up with Joey that she did when she first did with Ross(except she slapped his hands instead of laughing) was so dumb. They were good friends and good roomies and did bring out positives in each other and Joey's crush was believable, just not Rachel's, and I'm glad they put a half to that. 

One of those positives was that Rachel made Joey actually respect a woman that he was romantically interested in. Joey was sweet, but I'm not forgetting his creepy ad for a 19-year old female roommate and removing the shower curtain. I didn't find that funny and, in general, I didn't find a lot of his treatment of women charming or cute. 

On another subject, there was much too much joking and involvement between Ross and Monica and each other's sex lives. Particularly Monica. Her listening to Ross in the Bahamas, her wanting details about the wedding invitation sex and being the first to want to see the video, even the convo between Rachel and Monica as they fight over the last condom, it's all so...icky. Then the fact that Ross was Monica's first kiss? Plus, there are a lot of other icest-y jokes. I mean, do the writers have siblings? Because I do and we tend to purposely not be that familiar when it comes to that aspect of our lives. 

  • Love 4

And since I'm on a roll and just buzzed by a rerun, the one where Monica and Chandler meet Erica for the first time and there's a mixup regarding their identities and Monica chooses to lie... WTF? This was one of those situations where hilarious hijinks don't fit, imo, and it makes Monica look terrible. That she's willing to pretend to be someone else to get a young girl to give up her baby, no matter her desperation or want, it was really messed up, and no heartwarming speech from Chandler could fix that. 

Edited by VagueDisclaimer
  • Love 3

I think my least favorite story line, for a single episode, was Monica thinking Chandler liked shark "porn."  Well, that might be a tie with Joey trying to learn French. They really went too far with Joey's dumbness the last few seasons.

My least favorite guest star was Sean Penn. The whole thing felt out of sync.

The worst station for watching Friends is MTV.  They speed up the episodes a bit to fit in the commercials; Chandler sounds likes he's on helium.

  • Love 4

I haven't read all the posts but I'd be surprised if Rachel/Ross and Mark isn't mentioned as probably on their worst storylines. Ross is so atrocious in those episodes that I can't rewatch them. He's such an insecure, angry, jealous, possessive POS and it was hard to watch. Like if Rachel couldn't interact with any other man on the planet then she would stay with him. I might have been, might, if they had included an angle about how he his relationship with Carol introduced a more cynical and suspicious part of Ross, but he was a jealous ass over Rachel when they were in high school. Ross was never secure in his relationship with Rachel and it had nothing to do with her, and there was nothing she could do to "make" him feel more secure. 

I recently saw the episode that reinforced how ridiculous Ross was. Monica & Richard are discussing their previous partners and were mature and normal about it, while Ross flies off the handle about Rachel's past relationships. Ugh. Besides personally hating the "so how many people have you slept with", don't ask if you're not prepared to deal with the answer. 

  • Love 9

Well to be fair Monica did not talk about having "wild animal sex" with any of her partners so it was a very generic conversation between her and Richard.And Ross had a crush on Rachel in high school but they never dated and he was already in college when she was a high school senior. So there wasn't jealousy as much as an unrequited crush.

15 hours ago, msani19 said:

I might have been, might, if they had included an angle about how he his relationship with Carol introduced a more cynical and suspicious part of Ross

They actually DID cover this, in an episode where Emily and Susan were hanging out a whole lot in England and Ross was freaking out about it.

Phoebe: Wow, Carol really messed you up!
Ross: Excuse me?
Phoebe: Yeah, she turned you into this-this-this untrusting, crazy, jealous, sycophant. (They all look at her.) All right, so I don’t know what sycophant means, but the rest is right.
Ross: Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I am not a crazy, jealous person.
Rachel: Huh.
Ross: What?
Rachel: She’s totally right! When we were together, you got all freaked out about Mark and there was nothing going on.
Monica: This totally makes sense!
Ross: It does not!
Monica: Oh, sure it does! In high school, you weren’t jealous at all even though all your girlfriends were cheating on you!
Phoebe: All right, all right, so up until ‘92-93 he was very trusting, then ’94 hit, Carol left him and bam! Paranoid city!
Rachel: Absolutely! Absolutely!
Monica: This is so much fun!
Ross: This is not fun!
Monica: Look, all we’re trying to say is, don’t let what happened with Carol ruin what you got with Emily.
Phoebe: Yeah. The ’92 Ross wouldn’t.
Ross: Well, I still think I was right about that whole Mark thing.
Rachel: What—yeah—what, y’know what? I hope Emily is a lesbian.

  • Love 6
(edited)

I just re-watched one of my absolute least favourite episodes of Friends: The One with the Fake Monica. I'm not sure I can even describe why I feel so strongly about this episode. It feels like a different show and the "Fake Monica" character just feels so out of place. Maybe that's part of the point; she is pretending to be someone she's not, but even so, I just don't like it. I do enjoy the tap class scene at the end, though.

Edited to add: Another reason I feel so strongly is that I adore season 1 for the most part, so this bummer of an episode stands out even more for me.

Edited by RainbowBrite
  • Love 1
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