Tomorrow is my second midterm of the school week, and my third midterm of the last seven days, so naturally now is the optimum time to spend time typing out my thoughts just for the fun of it. In lieu of the stress coming at me from all angles, I thought I might write about something perhaps more light-hearted than some of my other 'recent' posts.
Now, because I'm a white female in my twenties with access to Netflix, I've seen every episode of FRIENDS approximately 16.5 times. And, because I'm heavily invested in the fictional lives of made up characters, I've spent a lot of time thinking about who the best FRIEND is.
Like just about every other girl on the planet, I went through a phase where I was convinced that Rachel was the best FRIEND, and I think everyone on the planet still agrees that Ross is the worst. So credit to the writers of this show for making a series long relationship out of the best and worst characters-- because I seriously don't think I could have handled Ross for 10 full seasons without his connection to Rachel.
At this point in my life, I still just want to be Jennifer Aniston having misadventures in New York (duh), but I'm less convinced that Rachel is the best. Like all of us, I find Chandler hilarious, and I see my own neurotic tendencies in Monica, and I want to be best friends with Pheobe, and eat sandwiches with Joey... but I still just don't like Ross-- and I don't think I'm alone in that.
If we look at Ross throughout the series, he's just a real hot mess spiraling out of control. He gets divorced, he can't get over his ex-wife, he buys an illegal pet monkey, he mopes around because he's constantly getting divorced or something, and in general is just a real burden on the friend group. I think the writers of this show even realize that no one likes Ross, because when they introduce Russ, even Ross pokes fun at the monotonous downer of the group.
I seriously just don't like the guy, however, there's one episode that actually makes me think that he is the best FRIEND, even though we've already established that he's the worst. In "The One with the Embryos", Ross proves that he's actually everyone's best friend. In this episode, Ross creates a trivia game after Chandler and Joey are able to guess every item in Rachel's shopping bag. The girls are convinced that they know the guys better and vise versa, so they start betting money based on their knowledge of eachother. In the end, Rachel and Monica lose the nice apartment-- but the real key in this episode is that Ross is able to compile an entire trivia game about his friends with no help. So, while Ross is seriously annoying, he might actually be everyone's best friend, which is a ridiculously redeeming quality.
It's also important to mention that while all of this is going down, Pheobe is literally getting the fertilized eggs of her long lost brother's wife implanted in her uterus, which is the most selfless act of all time. My point is, at the end of the day, I seriously don't think I can pick a favorite character, or even really say that Ross is the worst. Perhaps we can all just agree that Mr. Heckles is the worst, or Ugly Naked Guy, or even that one therapist that Pheobe dates. Seriously, that guy is the worst.
Here's a glorious gif of what might be my favorite scene in the series with the two characters that are obviously the best.
Season 4 Episode 12 "The One with the Embryos"
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