« Is No News Good News? | Home | Free Hugs! New York is wary »
May 7, 2004
Recap of Shows We Don't Watch: Friends
So maybe you heard that last night was the finale of Friends, a show I have not watched an entire episode of since 1995. Oh sure, I've lingered on TBS for up to 10 minutes at a time if I happened to catch a syndicated episode featuring Paul Rudd (by the way, is it right that a show can be producing new episodes and be in syndication at the same time? No, I don't think it is) but I give you clear warning that I have not watched this show, or kept up on plot developments, in nearly 10 years.
Therefore, I bring you a Recap of the Final Episode of Friends as Viewed With No Sound in an East Village Bar.
The opening scenes involved a woman who looked sort of like a bedraggled Reese Witherspoon giving birth. I would think that this kind of event would be at the climax of a series finale, but whatever. She ends up having two babies, and then Matthew Perry and Courtney Cox (at this point I am far more familiar with the actors on the show and the coverage of their lives in magazines than I am with the characters they play) take the babies away. I understand from my viewing/drinking companions that they are going to adopt the babies. So.
We order another round of Rheingolds.
Then the entire cast stands around in that apartment with the little atrium window area, and Jennifer Anniston hugs people and leaves.
Then things got very difficult to follow. There was a rockabilly band playing the back room (of the bar, not on the Friends set) and the bar was filling up, and I might have lost focus for a few minutes. Anyway, Lisa Kudrow is driving an old-style cab with David Schwimmer in it, then they get to an airport, but then they're back in the cab again later. Maybe it was like that Seinfeld where Jerry's flight got rerouted and Kramer and George have to drive from La Guardia to JFK? I don't know.
So then they get to the airport that has Jennifer Anniston in it, and there is a race through the hallways, and they find Jennifer. David Schwimmer holds her hands and speaks passionately, then she gets on the plane. Pretty much like the Season 5 finale of Dawson's Creek (is everyone stealing story ideas from that show this year?)
Meanwhile, Matthew Perry and Joey (I know that character, because of the upcoming spinoff) stand around for seriously 15 minutes and talk about a foosball table in front of them. What a fantastic show this is.
The bartender pours us a round of free shots. What the hell.
Pretty much nothing that can be easily deciphered from a bar television with the sound off happens for the rest of the show. Jennifer Anniston reappears in the old apartment, where everybody in the cast plus the two babies are, and they all hug. There are a lot of long, lingering, nostalgic shots of the oven and refrigerator, everybody leaves the apartment, then that's it. The American sitcom is dead.
