Welcome to the real world. It sucks. You’re gonna love it!”

The thing about Friends was that the lack of serious drama and the jovial camaraderie that was evident within the group since the pilot (or, second episode, to get Rachel acclimated with the group) were two key ingredients to its success. Rachel and Monica struggled for money (“struggled”), but there was never an episode about them going broke trying to make rent (the closest they come to discussing money in a serious context is in season 2’s “The One with Five Steaks and an Eggplant.”) Ross’ romantic failures were the butt of jokes more often than they were a serious cause for concern.

The aforementioned three, in conjunction with Chandler, Joey and Phoebe, created a family dynamic that viewers are eager to try and recreate with their own friends – while rewatching copious amounts of Friends reruns.

The show was about six people in their 20s, then in their 30s trying to handle adulthood in New York City. Story lines evolved from how to combat dating and breaking up, to finding The One and settling down. Their careers were always second to their friendships – how they had all that free time to hang out in Central Perk and still get paid enough to live comfortably, we’re not so sure.

It is hard to define any Friends character with a single word. Over time, as the writers grew into their own on the show and the actors were able to be embodied to their characters, the personality traits of everyone morphed, but looking at the series premiere and finale, it’s evident that these people are not one-dimensional. Joey isn’t the brightest, but he’s incredibly loyal to his friends, but he’s also a womanizer (the only one on the show to not settle down). Phoebe starts out kind of bohemian and brainless, but turns into an eclectic woman with an even head on her shoulders.

There’s Rachel Green, the woman who was always a little spoiled, who ran out on her wedding and ran into old school friend, Monica Geller and her four other friends. After that, the rest was history. Rachel became a self-sufficient, independent woman who built a career in fashion from nothing. Monica is a chef who likes to do things her way with her insanely competitive nature.

In a way, New York City, more specifically, the fiction Central Perk coffee shop, was a seventh main character. Sure, it’s a little unrealistic to assume a group of six adults could hang out in a coffee shop all day and that they’d be at an actual job when it’s convenient for the story, but, that’s the world they, and subsequently the viewers, lived in. And it is always nice to visit as a break from our own realities.

	Rachel Green The shopoholic of the group, Rachel always had the best wardrobe. She eventually works her way up the totem pole at Ralph Lauren and has a daughter with Ross in later seasons.		Ross Geller A paleontologist and married three times, Ross’s demeanor often bordered on Eeyore-like optimism (which is to say, not very much.) He tries to be serious, but most of the time the others in the group won’t have it.
	Chandler Bing Chandler is always good for a one-liner or pointed look that asks “could I be any more sarcastic?” His first job is working in… something. Transponster, maybe? He eventually goes to work in the advertising industry.		Phoebe Buffay Her mother committed suicide when she was a teenager, she sings “Smelly Cat,” makes enough money to live in NYC as a “full-time” masseuse. Her twin, Ursula, occasionally makes appearances to rile her up.
	Monica Geller Monica is the Type-A, sorta-neurotic friend. A chef with a spotless kitchen – and bedroom and living room and bathroom – making messes, literally or figuratively, are often the way to get under her skin.		Joey Tribbiani An aspiring actor, this Italian comes from a huge family with an even bigger stomach. His go-to pick-up line never really works, but he never fails to charm the viewers. He eventually land a recurring role on Days of Our Lives and forever remains the lovable character with an insatiable appetite.

Trying to choose one character over the others is tough. But for now, we’re going to say Rachel Green is the best character. She undergoes perhaps the most character growth through the series, has decent enough dialogue, and probably the best (least-ridiculous) wardrobe.

She stumbles into Central Perk in the pilot, donning a gaudy wedding dress and veil, at 25 without any sense of direction in life, but it turns out that was the best decision she ever made. In the first few episodes, we see her old friends (Monica, Ross) and new (Phoebe, Chandler, Joey) rally around her (literally) as she cuts up her credit cards, symbolically cutting herself off from her father’s bank account and old life. She gets a job at the coffee shop, and it turns out: she is terrible at a barista. Soon enough, she gets a job in the fashion world, eventually jumping around from Bloomingdale’s to Ralph Lauren.

As much as we love Rachel, we also love Chandler. He is so sarcastic and probably is the best character to embody most of our sarcastic personalities. His quippy one-liners and pointed facial expressions never fail to make us chuckle. He also is probably one of the most gif-able characters to come across our televisions in the past decade.

You can’t hate any singular Friends character. It’s hard to hate them, they’re the group of people who are just there. Beyond the Ross and Rachel split up that incites the classic line “we were on a break!” and the subsequent time period where Rachel ignored Ross’ presence, there’s no major blow ups that caused rifts in the group.

All of the friends have kissed each other – though two, between Rachel and Monica and Chandler and Ross are off-screen.

Over the years, when people discuss what kind of Friends character they are, they usually say one person, then pause, and reconsider, citing another trait from a different character. Let’s be real, aren’t all the Friends our spirit animals? Here are a few gifs that make us here at Hypable think, “yes, I very much identify with that.” Most of them are from Chandler.

Asking to specifically name the best episode out of the 200 Friends episodes that aired over the years and cruel and, depending who you talk to, impossible. But if we had to pick, we’d go with the season 4 finale, “The One With Ross’ Wedding.” Everyone, sans Phoebe who’s in her third trimester, pregnant with her brothers triplets, gathers in London to watch Ross marry Emily. But nearly everything in the episode and plot is insignificant leading up to Ross’s infamous line: “I Ross, take thee, Rachel.” Every jaw dropped open. The audience gasped, Ross’s eyes grew huge, Rachel looks petrified, and it was one of the biggest moments of the show.

“Do you think he knew I was here?”

Ross and Emily’s wedding proved to be a turning point in the show, because not only did Ross accidentally say Rachel’s name in his vows, but hours before that, at the rehearsal dinner, Monica and Chandler sleep together, starting their new trajectory as the couple on the show.

Season 5 began with “The One After Ross Says ‘Rachel'” as a continuation from the cliffhanger season 4 left viewers. We see that Emily does continue with the wedding but is furious with her new husband and eventually disappears into the night, leaving Ross to deal with the repercussions at the reception.

Meanwhile, Monica and Chandler try to brush off their night together as a one-time indiscretion, but they cannot deny their attraction. They agree to sleep together until they fly back to New York, even going so far to sleep with each other one last time on the plane. Alas, they cannot resist their attraction to each other, even when they get back to America. They’re romantically entangled from this point forward. Coupling these two up was a big decision for the show. Fans could have instantly rejected the idea of two of the leads together, and if that was the case, producers and writers would have just closed that chapter in season 5. The reaction, however, was outstanding (just listening to the quick gasp at the reveal that Monica was in bed with Chandler) and they decided to continue with the relationship.

This episode was a turning point in the series, actually, in that it was the half-way mark. No longer were these stories about young adults in their 20s, Friends now dealt with everything that comes with being a young 30-something.

Page 2: Joey and Chandler win a bet, Rachel gets off the plane.

The funniest moment is actually an entire plot of the season 4 episode, “The One with the Embryos.” In a monetary bet gone haywire, Monica and Rachel play against Joey and Chandler in a trivia game about each other lives. Ross, as game master, devised the questions and split them into categories such as “it’s all relative” and “ancient history.” With questions like “every week TV Guide comes to Chandler and Joey’s apartment. What name appears on the address label?” and “in what part of her body did Monica get a pencil stuck at age 14?” it comes down to a tie. With a lightening round at the ready to determine the winner, ultra-competitive Monica wants to up the ante. If she wins, Chandler and Joey have to give up the rooster that’s been keeping them up every night, if Joey and Chandler win, they get Monica and Rachel’s apartment.

The rapid pace at which they play the game proves how well they know each other while also giving viewers a peek behind the ‘curtain’ of the characters. It shows that their lives presumably continue off-screen, that they talk about the way Chandler’s TV Guide is addressed to him, and they know what movie Rachel likes to say is her favorite, versus what it actually is. We get a peek into their grand apartments once a week for thirty minutes, but they lived together 24/7.

Everyone has lived in Monica’s apartment at some point in their lives.

In the end, Rachel and Monica lose the game, and subsequently, must move into the boy’s apartment across the hall. The living situation stays that way throughout the rest of season 4 (this episode was season 4, episode 12) until Rachel and Monica kiss (off-screen) to convince Joey and Chandler to switch back with them.

Side note: if you really think you know this game, BuzzFeed actually made it so you can go play it after you’re done reading this.

Is it cliche to consider the series finale’s final scenes to be the most emotional moments of the show? For a programming with very little fluctuation in it’s ups and downs, there weren’t a lot of tear-jerking moments. But one that is definitely on that short list? Ross yelling into the phone and Rachel appearing behind him, saying “I got off the plane,” and inferring that they’re meant to be together.

But before we dive into that scene, let’s backtrack and explain the way the show ended. “The Last One” was an hour-long special finale that aired on May 6, 2004. In the first part, Monica and Chandler’s twins, Erica and Jack, are born and the family prepares to move to the suburbs of New York City. Rachel prepares to move with her and Ross’ daughter, Emma, to Paris for an amazing new job opportunity, but before she does, she and Ross spend their final night together. Ross ruefully lets her leave the next morning without telling her how much he loves her, and Phoebe rushes him to the airport to catch her, but it’s too late.

The comedic relief in this episode comes mostly from Joey. While all of this is happening, Joey has gotten a new duck and chicken to give to Chandler and Monica as a house-warming present. He realizes though, that the foosball table isn’t the source of the noise, but that the animals have gotten trapped within it. Monica comes in with a sledgehammer and frees them, and in the end, Chandler insists Joey is to the be the one to keep them.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way.

In the second half of the finale, Phoebe calls Rachel as she’s on the plane and demand she de-plane. In an effort not to spoil Ross’s big moment, in true Pheobe fashion, she lies, because there is something wrong with the “left phalange” of the plane. Of course, no such part exists, but Rachel’s seat-mate, played by Jim Rash, over-hears, panics, and begins shouting. This causes mass chaos and in a fictional world, every one gets off the plane.

Ross gets home, thinking Rachel is on her way to Paris at that moment, to hear a string of voicemails from Rachel saying she wants to get off the plane and come home. Ross is yelling into the voicemail “let her get off the plane!” And then, off-screen we hear, “I got off the plane.” Rachel and Ross stand there, staring at each other, Ross says “you got off the plane,” they embrace and Rachel says “you and me – this is it.” Of course, Ross makes the joke, “unless we’re on a break.” But, in our minds, they will never be on a break again.

Let’s see, where to begin. There’s “Pivot!,” the Hanukkah Armadillo, “he’s her lobster!”, emphasizing the word be in sentences, “we were on a break!”, and perhaps most importantly, “how you doin’?”: all terms and phrases that Friends introduced into our lexicons over the years.

The revolving door of guest stars: In the ‘90s, Friends saw numerous guest stars, playing big and small roles. Brad Pitt appeared in season 8’s “The One with the Rumor” (he was Jennifer Aniston’s husband at this point), Tom Selleck and his mustache appeared in ten episodes throughout the series, Paul Rudd appeared at the end of the series as Mike, the man who would eventually marry Phoebe, Anna Faris played Erica for five episodes, the woman from whom Monica and Chandler adopt their twins from, and even Gary Oldman appears in two episodes. For a full list of recurring guests stars, special cameo appearances and everything in-between, this Wikipedia list seems fairly thorough.

The Magna Doodle on the back of Joey and Chandler’s door featured a new image every episode.

Debunking the Friends reunion rumor: Sorry guys, but do not hold your breath on this one. In the ten years since Friends ended, the rumors surrounding the idea of a reunion episode or movie have been falsely reported again and again. The creators of the show and various cast members have spoken out against the idea of one.

In fact, here is an excerpt from an interview the L.A. Times did with Matt LeBlanc a few days ago about his Emmy nomination for Episodes. Of course, Friends came up.

So, how tired are you of being asked about a “Friends” reunion?

I’m not tired of getting asked that question at all. “Friends” was probably the greatest 10 years of my life. I’d be hard-pressed to find something that matches that in terms of success and just sheer fun. So anything that harks back to that has a soft spot in my heart.

As far as a reunion project, that’s just not in the cards. I think that show was about a finite period in your life — after college and before you start your family where your friends are your family — and that’s what that show was about.

Even Hypable had to debunk this rumor when a photoshopped image of the infamous couch started making the rounds on Tumblr last year. In fact, we had to do a rumor control post not once, but twice in the past two years.

Where are they now? After playing Rachel Green, Jennifer Aniston has gone on to become a movie star, starring most recently in the hilarious We’re the Millers and can be seen in the upcoming Horrible Bosses 2. Courteney Cox jumped around various television shows before landing on Cougar Town in 2009 on ABC that has since moved to TBS.

Lisa Kudrow is the lead on the unique show, Web Therapy, which debuted online as short-form episodes but has since moved to Showtime with longer, 15-minute episodes and commands guests stars such as Meryl Streep, Alan Cumming and former Friends co-stars, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Courteney Cox. It was also recently announced Kudrow’s canceled show The Comeback will be making a comeback (sorry) on HBO this year, after being canceled after one season in 2005.

After two seasons of the Friends spin-off, Joey, Matt LeBlanc stars in the Showtime comedy, Episodes, created by Friends co-creator, David Crane. Now in its fourth season, it was just nominated for three Emmys. David Schwimmer has spent the past few years doing guest spots on television and voicing the giraffe Melman in the successful Madagascar movie franchise. And finally, Matthew Perry starred in the Aaron Sorkin show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the short-lived shows Mr. Sunshine and Go On and can be seen in the upcoming remake of The Odd Couple with Thomas Lennon.

You can find Friends on cable stations like Nick @ Nite and TBS pretty much any time of day, but if you are looking for it online, you might not be so lucky. It is unavailable to legally stream on major online platforms like Netflix, Hulu (even HuluPlus) and Amazon Instant Prime, but you can buy individual episodes, or full seasons, on Amazon, Google Play and iTunes to stream. TBS online does also offer a few episodes at a time to watch for free, but you need to provide your television service provider and your login and password to gain access.

As we’ve been mentioning, Friends had a lasting cultural impact that goes well-beyond the ten years it was on the air. Maybe it was the ‘timeless’ quality of the show and the way they rarely relied on technology to talk to each other. The story lines about friendship and dating and growing up were applicable before cell phones, and they will be just as applicable years into the future when we all drive around on hover boards.

All that being said, we want to know what your favorite quote was from the show. We know there are so many to choose from, so we listed some of our favorites. Have a different one in mind? Let us know in the comments!

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