there is in fact a reserved sign on the coffee table in front of the sofa in many episodes. I would nominate Chandler for the time he impersonated an ex boyfriend over the phone to a woman who called the wrong number; set up a date as the ex and then hung out at the bar to swoop in and have rebound sex with her when she was stood up.
Personally, I’m inclined to excuse, or at least be more lenient in judging, a lot of Ross’ behavior…as I’m not entirely convinced those are the actions of someone entirely in their right mind.
I’m personally leaning towards a personality disorder, but maybe it’s just a bad combination of personal neuroses and quirks. But in any case, I don’t think it’s out of line to suggest that some professional counseling might be of help, perhaps combined with medication. Or minimally invasive surgery.
Ross was an insufferable jerk in so many ways, but not for sleeping with the copyshop girl. That was Rachel’s mistake - you don’t get to break up with someone and then complain when they sleep with someone else.
Yeah, Ross was the biggest jerk, I’d say. I never quite forgave him for breaking Emily’s heart. His pretending to have a (bad) British accent to keep his new teaching gig was also fundamentally dishonest.
“We were on a break!” I wrote this in all caps, but apparently the board won’t let me do that.
WE WERE ON A BREAK!
Works for me, I hope.
Ross was in the right, and Rachel damn well knows it. He would have to keep yelling WE WERE ON A BREAK if she didn’t keep bringing it up afterwards. She’s the most assholeish behaving one (at least in that instance), not Ross.
I remember that years later Mark popped back up and admitted that he forced Rachel to work late all the time so she and Ross might break up and he’d have a chance with her.
One I forgot was the way Chandler blocks all contact from his dad. I can understand kid-Chandler being embarrased, but his dad never mistreated him and genuinely cared for him and adult Chandler should have got over it way way earlier.
It’s cringy how homophobic/transphobic the show is now, in retrospect.
Actually, I don’t think the treatment of Carole and Susan (Ross’s ex and her partner) is loathsome. Sure, there are some “haha, Ross got dumped, and now his wife is a lesbian, and that’s funny, because lesbians are funny” jokes, but when it comes right down to it, it’s clear that Carole and Susan are both decent people who care for each other and love the son they are raising. There’s never suggestion that Carole would turn straight again if the right guy came along, or anything of that sort, nor is their love treated is an object for male voyeurism, as is often the case. So I’ll give them at least partial credit for that. (Although there are some general gay-panic jokes of the kind that were pretty much inescapable at the time.)
But transphobic, oh yeah, very much so.
The two other things to remember about Carol and Susan were…
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Susan was an absolutely horrible human being like 50% of the time. Lesbian or not, when you act the way she did, it’s not a surprise to find out you’re disliked… especially by your wife’s ex-husband.
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One time she admitted to Ross (paraphrasing)… “There’s Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, but there’s no Mother’s Lesbian Wife Day, and that is a tough thing to deal with.”
I mean damn, that explains why she’s angry all the time and why we really should be more understanding of other people because they’re probably going through their own shit.
May I say it, Matthew Perry is an amazing actor and so is Courtney Cox. When you see the show, you realise that clingy, needy Chandler can be quite assertive when merited and crazy Monica be reasonable in the same manner (over the whole using Chandler’s money for the wedding thing). That’s what’s made it great; they were quirky but real people.
David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston were not at that level, their characters just came across as assholish.
Well, you have to remember that Rachel was the girl Ross had the great unrequited high school love for, and that coloured his feelings for her. Not that he wasn’t a dick, but it’s a partial explanation but not really an excuse. And Rachel was raised as a spoiled princess.
I think once Monica and Chandler paired up, they sort of niced up. Monica lost some of the competitiveness with Ross and maybe they cranked up the obsessive neatness a bit so she’d have a quirk.