The Friends Reunion – Review

Much like death and taxes, the former NBC comedy series Friends has become a constant in modern life. For Gen X and elder Millennials, it’s a series that evokes the nostalgia of their youth; for younger Millennials and Gen Z, it’s that show they binged on Netflix and may have followed over to HBO Max last year. But for much of the world’s population under 60, it’s a nearly universal touchstone – a show you can quote, characters you can name, actors you can talk about and know that pretty much everyone has that same base of knowledge. So, when it was announced that the six core cast members – that would be Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer – would be reuniting for one final retrospective on the series (something the sextet stressed in the special – this is not something they plan on doing again, ever – and why should they, as they have more money than they can spend and all seem to have placed as much distance as possible between themselves and the series that will be the first line in their obituaries), it quickly became Must See TV. It’s a shame that the actual special turned out to be “The One Where Almost Everyone Left Disappointed.”

There was one element of the reunion special that worked incredibly well: When the six actors were allowed to sit on the recreated set and reminisce about their meteoric rise to the top and the countless hours they spent working together over the course of ten seasons. Listening to LeBlanc talk about how Cox would write her lines on the dining table to help remember them, or how the cast would often stash scripts in the kitchen sink in case they needed a line during a scene offered fans a look behind the curtain. Hearing Perry talk about how he would be terrified of not getting a laugh on lines he knew were meant to be funny was incredibly poignant – it wasn’t hard to connect the dots between that anxiety and his known substance abuse issues during his time on the series. And the fun remix of the classic trivia game from “The One with the Embryos” was both fun and funny to watch, as it allowed their bond to shine through. Sure, the table read of classic Friends moments didn’t quite hit the same (although it was truly impressive to see how easily Kudrow and Schwimmer were able to slip back into their characters’ skins after all this time), but watching the cast genuinely enjoy each other’s performances was worth it.

And if the entire special was simply that – the cast reminiscing together coupled with some talking heads from the producing team and perhaps the actors themselves talking about the creation of the series – it would have been a solid hour and 45 minutes. But then there was the rest of it. And none of it worked. Bringing in James Corden to host a quasi-talk show interview with the cast, sprinkled with much too short appearances from certain key guest stars (why bring them back if you’re only going to have them say hello, show a clip, and then whisk them away?), a strange runway show that added absolutely nothing to the proceedings, and a variety of talking head segments from people with no actual connection to the series at all, felt over produced and underwhelming. If this was meant to be a chance to celebrate these actors, characters, and creatives, we wanted to spend our time with them. This wasn’t HBO Max’s first reunion rodeo either – earlier this year they aired the much more cohesive Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion, which was centered wholly around the cast spending time together on their recreated set, talking about their time on the series, and healing old wounds. It worked marvelously and never lost sight of what it was: a nostalgia bomb. The Friends reunion attempted to be everything to everyone and ended up not really giving us much of anything at all, which is such a disappointment.

When you are dealing with one of the most popular series to ever air on television – and one that still matters to so many – less is more. Your audience knows the show, the episodes, and simply wants to spend time with their friends one last time. While many critics pointed out that the special didn’t touch on several of the key complaints about the series (the lack of diversity, the gay panic/homophobia that graced episodes later in the series) I’m willing to give the special a pass on that (some comments made by co-creator and producer Kevin Bright regarding how he views the lack of diversity are a bit more disappointing), but I really wish we’d gotten to spend as much time with the cast and creatives as possible and really take the time to look back on the series and what it meant – both to TV and to those involved. No one who worked on the show has ever managed to achieve that type of success in the 17 years since the show went off the air (something else that might have been interesting to delve into – why did Friends become the juggernaut that it did?), and getting a better understanding of how the key players felt about the place the show will forever hold in their lives would have been interesting. But this special was more concerned with creating as much noise as possible and very little nuance. Which is a shame. I would have loved our last interaction with these six costars, together in one room, to have been more focused on introspection.

The Friends Reunion special is currently streaming on HBO Max.