This time around, you get a smooth gang bang of the titular friends greeting each other on the old (rebuilt) set, intercut with table reads of classic scenes, James Corden presiding over an “Inside The Actors Studio”-style roundtable in front of a live, masked audience. It’s a breezy hour-plus, because “Friends” was always engineered for maximum breeziness.
So if this reunion wasn’t an actual episode of the show, what exactly was it? The cast of "Friends" reunited on HBO Max. When you’re that famous, you inevitably end up smelling godly. They also tell each other they smell good. If you’re to believe the opening titles, this reunion represented only the second time since the show went off the air that Schwimmer, LeBlanc, Aniston, Kurdow, Perry and Cox have all been in the same room together.ĭo the cast members all cry when they see each other for the first second time?ĭo you see actual, liquid tears falling down their cheeks when they do so? For “Friends,” all they did was get the cast together again. It wasn’t like the “Parks & Recreation” quarantine reunion, where everyone was in character for a new - and shockingly clever - episode of that show shot entirely on Zoom.
I know, right? Instead, the “Friends” reunion special really is just that. They didn’t actually film a new episode for this. So it was like a really long, boring episode of the show itself? This was an occasion that demanded a light hand in the editing room, and brother was it ever light. HBO isn’t gonna dole out $15 million to David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, Courteney Cox and Matt LeBlanc just for a piddly s-t 22 minutes' worth of content. The cast of the show "Friends" reunited for a special on HBO Max. Now you might say, “Holy hell, how is it that long?” I’m glad you asked, because I have answers to that, plus a few other things. It’s also why I, no stranger to taking pop culture bullets for this website, agreed to watch that reunion special in full. The entertainment options since “Friends” went off the air have become so diffuse - especially in terms of comedy, where virtually all slapstick has been commandeered by real people doing hilarious s-t of their own-that there will never be another series that occupies the “Friends”/“Seinfeld”/“Cheers” territory where tens of millions of Americans not only watch a network sitcom in its designated time slot, but plan their whole goddamn NIGHT around it. So I have no real right to sneer at people who are horny to go live inside one of the last dominant sitcoms. Did I myself watch “Friends” religiously during its first season? Oh, you know I did that, too. Did I look down on these people? Oh, you know I did. The pandemic was ending and somewhere out there a number of people existed whose first priority, when freed from the shackles of quarantine, was to walk around a goddamn replica of the Central Perk set, which itself was never a real coffee shop. People on 23rd Street were in line for this s-t, too. I was in Manhattan two weeks ago when I walked by The Friends Experience, a museum of all things “Friends,” if you think such a place can genuinely earn the title of “museum.” I didn’t know this museum existed, let alone that it had multiple locations across the United States. A recreation of one of the sets from "Friends." Terence Patrick
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