Maybe Joey Was Rachel’s ‘Lobster’ On ‘Friends’ After All
Friends may have been off screen for 13 years, but no one can forget the Ross and Rachel love story that wound through all ten seasons.
It’s been 13 years since Friends was on the air, but the show and the characters are kept very much alive through reruns, fans’ memories, and the excellent use of Friends quotes at opportune moments.
Now, a Twitter user with the handle @kaneandgriffin has finally got a whole lot of Friends baggage off her chest, according to Metro. In a thread aptly named “In Defense of Rachel and Joey: A Thread,” which spanned 100 Twitter posts (was this a coincidence or meticulously planned?), the fan gave her opinion on the Ross and Rachel love story that was intertwined in the full ten seasons of the show and compared it to the short-lived Rachel and Joey storyline.
Fans of the hit NBC show will remember that the budding romance between Rachel and Joey was short-lived and widely disliked by fans at the time of the show’s original run. But now, with more attention being placed on authentic relationships and with the benefit of a lot of hindsight, people are starting to wonder if maybe there was a bit more to the failed relationship between Rachel and Joey after all.
And maybe, just maybe, Rachel should never have gotten off that plane in the season finale.
The epic Twitter thread tackles multiple aspects of Rachel’s on-again, off-again romance with Ross, and her short-lived and ultimately unconsummated romance with Joey.
Firstly, the Twitter user laid her cards on the table, admitting that she is not a fan of the character of Ross Geller or, as she put it, she is “absolutely ride-or-die anti-Ross Geller,” calling him “one of television’s all-time worst human men.”
Then, she went on to say that while Ross and Rachel’s relationship was often referred to as a friendship-turned-romance, the two characters were never friends. Ross developed a crush on Rachel from the first moment that he met her in high school and had harbored feelings for her since then. On the other hand, Joey and Rachel did have a genuine friendship – a solid, monogamous one that lasted for a good eight years until Joey developed feelings for Rachel; feelings that he admitted “scared” him and feelings to which Rachel was initially completely oblivious.
You'll never see Friends the same way again…
https://t.co/PT3Gj3ciaO— JOE (@JOE_co_uk) August 9, 2017
Worse, Twitter user @kaneandgriffin reminded Friends fans that Ross had often acted in a proprietary way towards Rachel and had not been supportive of her career. He was jealous of her male friends (Mark, anyone?) and sabotaged her career on several occasions; even hiding a message that a man had left for her many years after they had broken up.
Joey, on the other hand, is often heard telling Ross that he doesn’t “own” Rachel, according to the Independent. Most importantly, however, Joey is a safe place for Rachel and for her baby daughter, Emma. Joey gives them both a place to stay when they don’t have anywhere to go, and he even first falls in love with Rachel when she was pregnant.
WHY JOEY AND RACHEL SHOULDVE ENDED UP TOGETHER: A THREAD pic.twitter.com/voVdMxIQMq
— flower (@gonegirlbutirl) August 7, 2017
In the end, Rachel made the ultimate sacrifice to be with Ross – she got off the plane en route to her amazing new fashion job in Paris, while Ross made no effort to change at all. He was still sitting in his apartment, as always, when Rachel burst through the door.
Maybe there was more to the Rachel and Joey storyline after all. And maybe if Friends was filmed today, the possibilities of their romance would have been explored more fully and embraced by fans.
The characters of Rachel, Ross, and Joey were played by Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc respectively, with Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Courteney Cox (Monica), and Matthew Perry (Chandler) rounding out the cast.
The epic Twitter thread begins here.
[Featured Image by Kevork Djansezian/AP Images]
