It’s a show that has taken many of us through some of our worst stages. The dark nights we drowned in Chandler’s jokes or the crushes we remembered and asked, “How are you?” We gave 10 years of our lives to friends. And over those 10 years, the Central Perk Six became our friends. None of them were stars to us. They were flawed. You were selfish. You fought. You have made up. They were real. They were like you and me So much so that all of us who gave so much time to the 10 Seasons of Friends, took each of these characters into us. We realized that we were little Monica, little Rachel, a little bit Phoebe, a little bit Ross, maybe a little bit Joey, and then a part of Chandler. We were them. They were us.
Friends ran 10 seasons, over 10 years.
But that was 17 years ago.
It’s 2021 and we’ve all grown up. We’ve been through tougher days. No, nobody told us that life will be like this. 2020 wasn’t our year. If you are particularly in India, 2021 is not your year either. When HBO Max announced a 105 minute reunion, all of my fanatics fans around the world thought they had something to look forward to, “In These Dark Times,” you know, how all of our work emails begin in these dark times .
So Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, and Matthew Perry have been back in the same room since that night all those years ago. It’s a blast of nostalgia. There are trips to the café and Monica’s apartment. Even the barcaloungers get a segment in this almost two-hour special. When David walks on the set, it’s special. It’s like meeting a long-lost friend after many years. 17 to be exact. For some of us who have appeared on the series multiple times in the intervening years, it might have been just last night. But seeing these six people after an era is a lot of emotions to deal with. Are they all good? We’ll come back to that in a moment.
The HBO Max Special is a 105 minute reunion. It starts off really well with our six characters reading scenes, saving some of the best for the last, and giving fans a real treat. But halfway to the special, exactly to the fashion show, you start to think that maybe it was a good thing that we left her 17 years ago. Friends was the perfect show. It took care of many of us and ended perfectly. In the years after the curtains fell, people have been shouting out the problematic parts (hello, Monica’s weight and all the superficial appearance) It’s a brave new world we’re canceling our childhood favorites for their comments on the LGBTQIA + community. We have Twitter where celebrities make fun of themselves day in and day out. So if you’re waiting for the special to fix the bugs from 17-27 years ago, unfortunately there aren’t any.
Friends Reunion is just like reuniting friends you haven’t seen in 17 years. The people moved on. They have aged (gracefully, yes). They have their own life. Even though you said to yourself, “Oh, we waited so long for this”, in the middle of the special you think in the back of your mind, “Really, did we wait for THIS so long?” ‘There are a lot of trivia on the show that you might like to hear but realize that the time to worship these friends is over. The ship has sailed, as Ross tells Rachel in the one where they kiss for the first time.
Friends Reunion is a 105-minute special.
Now watch the special with a sense of aloof objectivity. It also stems from the fact that the six actors appear as themselves in the special rather than their characters. It’s a reminder of times gone by and nostalgia is cruel. The special is about the actors talking about their characters. We see a lot of BTS stuff, a lot of gossip going on (see the special to know), but it’s all part of someone else’s life now. These aren’t the “friends” you’ve spent so much time with. We are not them. You are not us.
Maybe you can go back to Season 1, Episode 1 and relive that time and deal with this reunion. Nostalgia is cruel.
You can check out the Friends Reunion Special on Zee5 tomorrow, May 27th at 12:32 p.m. when in India.
((The author tweeted as @ ananya116.)
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