“Friends” is a cult-like series. I deliberately don’t say it was, because generations grew up on it because of the reruns, and even though we knew their lives couldn’t be our reality, we felt like we, the viewers, were one of them. Fortunately, the creators knew the void it had left in the fans with its end, so they made “Friends: The Reunion”, based on the series. It’s a chance to reunite with our favorites, even if it’s only for an hour and a half.
I so badly wanted to believe that they really were such best of friends, and that Rachel and Ross were attracted to each other in real life, too. Turns out, I wasn’t wrong: Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer really were in love, and they had, indeed, been very close to each other all these 10 years of togetherness. I felt even more in touch with the Friends phenomenon when A-list stars recounted their own experiences with the series, including this “little-known vocalist” dropping in for the Smelly Cat.
I think the fans of this serial got what they wanted for an hour and a half: tears (mostly), tearful laughs (obviously), big crushes, but even old favorites (like Janice and Günther) made an appearance on screen.
I knew that Rachel had written an 18 double-pages letter to Ross, I knew to what name was coming Chandler’s newspaper, what Ross was dressed as, what Monica was most afraid of, that Joey does not share food or that Ross and Rachel were on a break… It was an all-round experience, like the show itself. A nice end to an era. And yes, at some point it was even nice to see the characters getting older. They too…