Giving the Fans What They Want
Final episodes are difficult to pull off because every person who watches a TV show wants something different for the characters on the screen. After living with a sitcom for 10 years, audiences have often adopted the characters like family. Ruining the last time people get to live with Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey would be a television crime!
Creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane wrote their finale to focus on the obvious (Ross and Rachel’s will-they-won’t-they relationship) while fittingly incorporating the other characters. Chandler and Monica finally get the child they’ve dreamed of (and are treated to twins!) while Joey and Phoebe hang out on the outskirts of the group, destined to travel the world solo and let their emotions guide them unhinged from society’s expectations. The episode’s plot fits together like a perfect jigsaw puzzle that everyone at home could solve.
Some TV creators like to live on the edge and shoot for an ending that challenges the expectations of the audience for the sake of ingenuity, but sitcoms differ from dramas in that they are thoroughly rewatchable and endlessly immersive. Some might say sitcoms belong to fans more than dramas do. Trying to do too much within the format feels more disrespectful in the comedy world. Kauffman and Crane appreciated the people who made Friends what it was with a fan-service finale that didn’t miss a beat.
The Iconic Final Scene
Friends’ final scene elevates the episode into the TV Hall of Fame more than anything that happens in the first 40 minutes. Putting the entire ensemble cast in one place and using Monica’s apartment, which was always the comedic hub of the series, to say farewell never fails to produce a tear, even on the 20th rewatch.
Setting is just as much a character as any person, and the friends bidding adieu to the loft symbolizes the story’s undeniable end. No matter what happens to these six people now, the reality that it won’t occur in this place means we may not deserve to be privy to it. Monica’s apartment is an isolated engagement between the people on both sides of the screen. Life will go on for them, but closing the chapter on this location demonstrates a boundless beginning.
The late Matthew Perry getting to speak the final line now represents an eerie television justice. Chandler asking “where” when the group doesn’t know where to hang out is an exquisite last retort that summed up the show’s light-hearted spirit and quest to make people laugh, even when crying or mourning. Perry’s character understanding of irony and line-delivery (the characters obviously knew they were going to the other famous hang-out, the Central Perk coffee shop) heightened the humor of the show into an upper echelon that many detractors choose to ignore.
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