It only took one false start due to a pandemic, and a reported $2.5 million each, but HBO Max finally got Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer reunited to reflect on the legacy of what will remain their most iconic work. If your first reaction to checking out Friends: The Reunion was clicking play and saying "Holy shit, what do you mean this is an hour and 44 minutes?" I do not blame you — because I did the same thing. However, despite having a runtime equalling almost five episodes of the actual show, the biggest surprise of the special is just how entertaining and engaging those 104 minutes end up being.
Wait, no, that's not the biggest shock. The biggest shock comes about two-thirds of the way through the special, which is composed of multiple segments, filmed across the span of a day and edited together to keep things dynamic and moving. Overall, the least enjoyable/exciting is the most traditional — a live panel discussion hosted by James Corden in front of a non-studio audience, sitting outside on the Warner Bros. Ranch backlot in front of the iconic fountain. But it's Corden who asks the bombshell question about whether there were any offscreen romances amongst the cast. And Schwimmer and Aniston have an answer.
Rather than confess to a torrid affair, though, the pair admit that when they were making Season 1, they each had crushes on each other, but that nothing happened and they channeled those feelings into the characters and their relationship. The Reunion doesn't exactly present any evidence to verify how true that is (and LeBlanc even jokingly calls bullshit after their confession), beyond behind-the-scenes footage of Aniston and Schwimmer on set clearly flirting and cuddling with each other, followed by a tribute to Ross and Rachel's first kiss in Season 2, Episode 7, "The One Where Ross Finds Out" — which Aniston says was their first kiss in real life.
Perhaps what makes this revelation so seismic isn't the truth of it (because you can feel how true it is, can't you?) but the fact that they actually said it out loud. So many love stories on TV are built on the idea of an unspoken connection (which can be so easy to complicate) and Ross and Rachel's journey as a couple were certainly no exception.
There are other classic Will They/Won't They's from this era of television, but it's hard to beat Ross and Rachel when it comes to the way their relationship defined not just the show, but the decade. The 1980s might have said to be similarly defined by Sam and Diane of Cheers, except Sam and Diane first hooked up in the Season 1 finale and Shelley Long left the show in Season 5. Meanwhile, Ross and Rachel stretched across the entire 10-season run of Friends; even when they weren't together the frisson of that tension lingered. (If the series finale hadn't involved them reuniting, one can only imagine the rioting in the streets that might have occurred.)
It can be hard to separate characters from the actors who play them, especially when romance is involved — but in the case of Aniston and Schwimmer it turns out there was good reason to sense that there was something more going on. When The Reunion shifts from talk of crushes to not just playing a clip of Ross and Rachel's first kiss, but having the modern-day Aniston and Schwimmer perform the dialogue once more, a whole new context blooms before our eyes, as we come to understand it as far more than just an embrace for the cameras. It's a real, actual first kiss between two people who really care about each other, whose affection may not ever become more than this one moment... but it's one hell of a moment.
No wonder it blew my mind when the episode first aired in 1995. For myself, the Ross and Rachel romance was a primary driver of my interest in the show, back in the paleolithic days when new episodes would air Thursdays at 8 p.m. on NBC. But while I grew up in the era of watching Friends live, my fandom of the show is in no way superior to those who discovered the show in syndication, during its time on Netflix, or now as it streams on HBO Max.
The only difference is the waiting from week to week to find out whether or not this would be the episode where Ross and Rachel got their shit together, once and for all; perhaps that delayed gratification made it all the sweeter when they did make some forward progress toward happiness, but frankly it's also a factor in why I stopped watching the show regularly during its later seasons, when the writers turned the show's romantic focus onto Monica and Chandler's own blooming love, which failed to grab me in the same way. (To this day, the words "We were on a break" haunt me.)
Despite that, Friends still remains a source of comfort for me, just like both the famous and non-famous people who make appearances in this special, and The Reunion surfaced every fond feeling I've ever had towards the show, thanks to its masterful blend of formats. The producers know that only super-fans ever find panel discussions all that fun to watch, especially if they're not physically there themselves. So the Corden-hosted panel is intercut with much more intimate material featuring the cast's actual original reunion earlier that day on the soundstages where they filmed the show, the sets restored to show night readiness. Wandering the sets and finding the details they missed and had forgotten about, it's not hard to understand how the cast was so inspired to dig deep into their memories of days gone by between and behind those fake walls.
There are darker moments in the show's history that go undiscussed — while there's an extended look back at the time LeBlanc dislocated his shoulder while shooting "The One Where No One's Ready," there is zero mention of anyone's issues with drugs, the headline-making contract disputes, or even the ill-fated spinoff Joey. (Poor, poor Joey.)
But look, it's been a long hard however-long-it's-been, and this wasn't the venue for any of that. What The Reunion succeeds at is making the case for the indelible legacy of the series, including the impact it's had on everyone from the average international fan to globally famous figures like David Beckham, Lady Gaga, and Malala. (Seriously, Malala. This special isn't fucking around.) Putting Ross and Rachel front and center in that mix feels as natural as the chemistry that still hums when these six people come together on screen — even for one night only.
Friends: The Reunion is streaming now on HBO Max, along with every episode of Friends.