Friends Thru The Lens of a Ross Apologist with Imogen West-Knights

0:06Hello and welcome to Friends Through a Lens, the podcast mini-series where I talk to my friends about the show Friends through the lens of their choosing. My name is Karen O'Donoghue and knock knock, who's there? It's Ross's lunch. And joining me is the holiday army below herself. It's Imogen West-Knight. Hello. Nice to be here. You love saying friends through a lens. That is the whole reason this miniseries exists. Is that I started saying it to myself while walking around my flash. It's great. It really keeps giving. I'm going to say it again. Friends through a lens. Because I just think that we have talked so much about this show as a culture.

0:46Because it's like, obviously, it finished 15 years ago. Then it went on Comedy Central. Now everyone alive has seen 1 ,000 hours of it. And all anyone can talk about is how gorgeous Jennifer Aniston's hair was. It was. How problematic it is. And how much, drumroll please, everyone hates Ross. Everyone hates Ross. So the reason I'm here is that you and I were talking about this and we both thought the phrase Ross apologist was of its own merits such a funny thing to say that I should come on and try and defend Ross. Friends through the lens of a Ross apologist. And I have always had a soft spot for Ross.

1:26And the thing about Ross, I looked this up. You sort of know he's the most hated friend, but I looked it up and he really is the most hated friend. They would do polls, you know, back in the noughties and stuff of how people felt about all the friends or get people to rank them. And 70... It's so funny, the most hated friend. The most hated friend. The friend who is bad. Quantifiable by data. 75 % of people in certain polls would put Ross. And who would follow Ross? I think, generally, yeah, people didn't like Monica either. The Gellers, they really were not an adored pairing. Unfairly, I think, as I will go on in great detail to argue.

2:05but I think Phoebe also comes quite low for some people. Phoebe's my worst friend, I think. Really? She's my best friend. Really? Yeah. I just think, get it together, you know? What are you on about? She's been through a lot. Yeah, but that was ages ago. You know, grow up. Grow up. But I don't, like, I really never quite understood what it was about Ross that rubbed everybody up so wrong. Right, because I guess, I mean, if friends has a moral, it is and it does it's a morality tale um do you know what there's this um phrase that comes up in book talk and people talk about books online which is the um the found family trope right and this is very friends is very much exists within the found family trope kind of idea and the whole thing about found family is that it takes a lot of different kinds of people to make something work which is why like everyone loves oceans 11 because they're very flawed weird men but they all have something that they're bringing and that's nice.

3:03That's true. And we all agree that's nice. And we all love to look inside casinos. It's so good. We all have a private belief that we would be good in a casino. And none of us are. I've been inside a casino I think twice in my life. I've not done any of the betting and I felt as I stood there I was like I'm going to take the house. Right. I could be the one. Like this will be the moment where my secret gift is revealed. Yeah, even though I don't know the rules of any card games. I'm a card shark somehow. and yeah it's very strange but um the uh and the whole thing with the friends is that they all have good things and bad things yes but we have decided that ross has the worst things of all ross has the worst things this has been decided apparently by culture but i um so we agreed that i was going to do this because i do have a soft spot for ross but then you know my knowledge of friends these days is the same as everyone's knowledge of friends which is that i watched a thousand hours of it 15 years ago and I sort of have it like stains on the fabric of myself where it's like I will never clean friends they will never wash out they will never wash out it's just there but then I went back and did my due diligence and you know watched all of Ross's greatest moments and thought you know can I back this up and the evidence is quite damning but initially I was thinking like well do I like Ross because David Schwimmer's an amazing actor and that you need Ross to sort of flesh out, as you say, the kind of like the dramatis personae.

4:32But I don't actually think that. I feel like I can, almost like a kind of legal, like a barrister. I'm here as Ross's defence. And I have a case, I think, to put for all of his flaws. Okay. I too love Ross, by the way. But we're just going to pretend like we're in a fake court, in debate club in secondary school where we're being made to argue against these things. So I will be taking the position as prosecutor in this case. I will list the things with which Ross is despised for and you will refute them. And I will refute them. Imagine that we're both wearing those like fuck ass little wigs.

5:16Would you like me to cite all of his faults now or would you like to go through them one by one and pick them up i think let's go let's go one by one let's go one by one okay i will begin i'll try and be chronological about this but i will dart around i think his first biggest sin is once he finally enters into this relationship with rachel that he has been pining for for his entire life he um is so jealous and needy with her she gets a job in fashion she's wanted a job in fashion her whole life the story of friends in a way is following rachel green go from the sort of like spoiled long island princess into being this like competent capable woman who goes from waitress to um sort of bloomingdale's dresser to junior executive you know it's very a very satisfying arc to follow and we want it so badly for her and then when we see ross get in the way of it yes it is very it feels like like personally offensive in a way that nothing else does and then this all culminates in him uh being incredibly jealous of mark who is her friend who got her the job who she met kind of randomly in monica's uh diner that she's working in uh and then it kind of spins out of control to the point where he sends singing telegrams to her office they have a huge fight and then he ends up getting with the copy girl the copy girl so this is this is obviously ross's major crime this is the biggest accusation this is the charge that would land him the most years in um character prison so it is worth unpicking um at length i think because it touches on a lot of the things that plague ross throughout the entire series so let's because the jealousy yes the jealousy is bad and it's not doesn't come up for the first time with Mark it comes up for the first time with Paolo but if you remember Paolo oh my god do we recall Paolo so it like insanely Italian Paolo who kind of appears out of nowhere in the hall of the apartment block and then she has a kind of flirtation with him and Ross is very weird about that it's really before the show has truly found its place yeah where it's like what if a guy has accent yeah yeah exactly so it rears its head then it rears its head again and again in his relationships is that he has this very fiercely jealous streak bad i actually think jealousy is one of the least it's the most unattractive thing to me in a person i just it's gross so i i had a hard time looking back on the evidence of ross and i was like this is very unattractive but everybody has the right to counsel and i'm going to defend him anyway and i'm going to do so by pointing to carol yes what happened with carol you have to understand his psychological damage that he took from his relationship with carol in order to understand a lot about ross throughout the series there's two foundational traumas for ross we will no doubt get to the second one but The first one is the Carol relationship ending.

8:26First woman he ever sleeps with. The first time that this incredibly loserish, nerdy little dude gets the girl. Yeah. He loses her totally out of the blue while she is pregnant with his child to someone else. It's a woman. It was a different time. They decided to be very homophobic about it on the show. But the crucial thing is he loses her. And he didn't see it coming. that drives him through most of his sort of 20s and 30s I think and he gets Rachel particularly if we could pause on Carol for a minute who do you think they were when they met because the Carol that we get to know through the show there's something quite like waspy yet earthy about her like you can even though we see so little of her you can totally understand why you would be head overhealed in love with her because there's something very strong but feminine about her you know what I mean yeah who do you think she was when they met I I'm sure there is a canon version of where they met I can't remember what it is no you can use your imagination I'll use my imagination I think she it's that it's that she was glamorous so I think he has always gone after women who seem like he couldn't get them and then he got one and he's had quite a few that are like a big trope for Ross is that him massively punching.

9:50Yes, always. I mean, I think to watch friends, you would think that every female paleontologist in the world was a smoking hottie. A famously erotic job. Exactly. So yes, I think, I think the Carol thing is really, really key. It like fucked him up bad and he never got to grips with it. And he got married at like, cause he's a little bit older than Monica. So I think at the beginning of the series, she's 25 he could be 27 yeah so that means and if she's heavily pregnant with their kid let's say they've been married two years he got married at like 25 which is kind of crazy yeah and another not that crazy if you've been together since college i guess that's true that's true but it is a big part of his character that he's like he's a lover boy and he wants the he wants the end game He wants to be settled down with the girl and the kid and all of this stuff.

10:46And it just gets taken away from him in a very dramatic, sudden way. So then when he gets Rachel, who he was in some ways, you know, even more like invested in having. Yeah. The idea that she might be taken away by someone. He's a high alert. His nervous system is fried by the whole carol of it all. Yeah. that said it is repellent the things that he did in order to keep mark from rachel like it's gross the barbershop quartet is like the most embarrassing thing so funny really funny so funny because the thing is like david trummer is such a fucking amazing performer like i one of my biggest like things like my critique is that like david trummer was born in the wrong time he should be a silent film god like he should be buster keaton physical comedy in the series is ross yeah and it's like it's his kind of limbs he's so gangly and he just knows what to do with his body to make things look as funny as they can and it's like that big brown eyes and like the long face yeah looks like buster keaton yes yes you're so right i mean i yeah i find him like magnetic as a performer have you seen a band of brothers yes right a totally different character yeah when he's like the um the boot camp guy yeah oh that's a great show i mean he yeah he like all of them was haunted by the success of friends and i don't think we saw enough of david schwimmer i think we saw the least of david schwimmer in a way so the jealousy thing i think is ugly it's an ugly part of his character but i think it is explainable by the very very first thing we learn about him when he comes into the cafe and he's like hi and it's because i'm glad they dropped that as like the catchphrase for Ross.

12:29But throughout the series it kind of goes back to, it's sort of rarely used but so great when it comes in a sort of low voice. Like his post-Emily mental breakdown sabbatical thing, we'll get to it later, but it's so funny. It's really good. That's my favourite era of Ross where it's like. Him eating candy floss while he's like sedated. Sedated from his rage. it's just even thinking about it makes me laugh just him sitting you didn't get any flaws where did he get it it's not explained where's he in where did he get it

13:13oh so good but then the thing is the insult to injury of it all is that like you obsess over your gorgeous girlfriend who's excited about her new job and excited about her life yeah you obsess over her you kind of using mark as a way to surmise like a very childish thing which is like what if mommy doesn't look at me anymore kind of thing it's very infantile really of like because actually his insecurities they are partly to do with mark but they're partly to do with like she's fascinated with something that he thinks is dumb yeah which is another big fault of his is that his worldview is very small yes yes it's weird with ross because on the one hand he's kind of the most mature friend in that he's got a lot of the trappings of adulthood like he lives alone he's been married he's got a kid but he is also the most the least developed in some ways in terms of his like adulthood mentally yes emotional maturity it's fascinating isn't it i think we're going to do an episode that's all about just the families um called it's all relative good friends with a lens through familial relations um but there's There's something I think quite fascinating about like the Geller home, which I think we all feel like we know very well, right?

14:27Just because we see Jack and Judy so much and they're just like, I feel like they're my parents' friends. I feel like I've seen them in my own kitchen. And like the sort of framing of that whole family is that like Judy had Ross quite late. He was their miracle baby. Miracle baby. They thought she was barren. And the whole, they just like adore him. He's the miracle boy and like that, that, that continues throughout their lives. And like, it's played really well with him and Monica's dynamic. And the whole, I love the trope as well, that like Ross does a very good speech and everyone's obsessed with Ross making speeches.

15:03Cause he can like summon gravitas. I think there's something really interesting about like a boy who is a total freak and complete nerd, but also his parents are obsessed with him. So he, I think that's why he's always punching because he has like an internal, sense of like i'm actually incredible yeah but then that that knocks up against the fact that he also suspects he's not and that he is gonna lose these people that he cares about it's a kind of like weird tension within within him that i think is very like fruitful for the character and very common amongst people who choose academia wow i'm so sorry now we said i just lost a third A third of my listenership, a third of whom are working on their PhDs right now.

15:49It would be unwise. I demure. I will not say any more, whether I disagree or agree. I'm not saying everyone. I'm just saying I have met some people who they were praised a lot as very young people for their sparkiness, their wit, their intelligence, their book smartishness or whatever. but um that praise became addictive and became part of them it's through kind of screwed with their mind and then often when they sort of meet the real world and there's no structure for awards and praise and gold stars and high marks it freaks them out because there's no like hierarchical authority for which they can both dump on others and other people can give them rewards yeah that they were like you know what i'm gonna go back to school forever it is it's a very common it is a very common thing um and it's a fake i think it could have happened to me it didn't happen to me and i'm glad that it didn't but i was definitely one of those like i love school kids really yeah and then i left university and and i did find it hard i was like but why is why is no one telling me that i did well and putting a numerical value on that like where am I supposed to go?

17:10And I think had I been able, had I had just like money to spend on a master's, it all could have gone so badly wrong. I might yet be like an expert in Henry James's apostrophes or something. Like bullshit.

17:25And instead I'm here talking about Ross and Friends, which is so much better. He works in a museum, right? That he like gets to talk at people all day about how things are supposed to be. I mean I didn't actually rewatch it for this episode but like one of my favourite Rossisms is when we when Joey starts working at the museum and he finds that Ross can't be his friend inside the museum because there's a hierarchical system which means that Joey is lame at the museum yeah Joey is lame at the museum I'm Rhonda and these aren't real I said there were two foundational traumas for ross but actually i think there are three and one of them is being a fucking loser at high school that i think because he's now top dog at the museum like he found a place yeah which is being a smart ass in an academic context where he was no longer a loser and the things that made him lame then now make him cool i don't want to cast any aspersions on academics in the real world about that but it feels correct it feels that that's what happened with him.

18:37What do you think, now that we're on sort of the major grievance against Rachel, and we haven't actually gotten to the cheating part yet. Yeah. Which is like, it is such good drama the way that's paced that you think that like Mark is going to be this thing that they're getting in the way of Ross and Rachel and actually the thing that gets away is the copy girl. The copy girl. A girl who like is not really, I think she's seeded a little bit of like Chandler and Joey are obsessed with the copy girl because she's sexy. Yeah. who kind of almost propositions them for a threesome, which they kind of are up for.

19:09Does that happen? No, it doesn't happen, but they discuss Chandra and Chandler. Chandler? I don't know how to say it. I've never known how to say his name in my accent. What's your instinct? Chandler, which sounds so weird. Who? Chandler. Chandler. So I'm going to say Chandler, even though that also sounds wrong. I would like you to be comfortable. I don't know how to be comfortable saying his name. That's the problem. So I'll probably just scone it all the way through. okay chandler and joey discuss whether they would be up for having a threesome with the copy girl she's loose she's loose she's 90s loose which means she's got short hair and a belly ring yeah exactly and i remember seeing this episode in my teens and being quite sort of like the way i imagine that men who watch baywatch must have sat there on their sofas like deathly still quite like this is very harassing but i don't know what to do with it i'm so glad you say this i feel like i have so many of my early erotic thoughts happened to friends yeah because it plays it quite close with innuendo and sex stuff in general yeah and a lot of it was over my head like i remember the fight that rachel and monica have over condoms and who gets to use the last condom yeah i remember feeling so confused by that as a really as like an eight year old i was like i don't understand i don't know what a condom is basically but like rachel and ross like making out at the planetarium and like rolling all over each other with that Chris Isaac music playing.

20:30Which is the sexiest song ever written. Right? By the way. It's so sexy. I remember Gavin telling me on his first date that that was one of the first songs that ever caused him emotional pain. Wow. I was like, why? He was like, because I remember watching the video and thinking how unfair it was that I would never get to do that. No. Do you remember those feelings that you would get when you were so small and you would watch something kind of erotic that you couldn't process? but I don't know what this feeling is but my god it's really hurting and I don't and I can't tell anyone about it I know enough about myself to know I can't tell anyone yeah yeah I felt that way about Ross and Rachel's first day at the planetarium and then them waking up in the display and all the kids could see yes with all the cavemen right yeah that was a big one for me and also Chandler getting stuck in the bathroom by Julia Roberts oh yeah with the underworld I remember feeling very unusual about that yeah and getting that one where he gets locked to Rachel's boss's coffee cabinet as well.

21:27It's all like... I also, but I really fancied Chandler. Yes. At the time. As did I. And still do, I think. When I watch it back, I'm like, yeah, you're attractive. It's very funny with Chandler because I, I remember thinking all through my childhood like he was the coolest person a person could possibly know and that they were all too mean to him. Yeah. And now I watch it, I'm like, this would be a nightmare to hang around with. Yeah. Absolutely nightmare. It's like, you have not processed wild emotion in your whole life. Yeah, yeah. And that would be very difficult. Imagine you just trying to tell your friends a story about what happened to you at work and someone just keeps cutting in.

22:00Like quipping. Just quipping all the time. Like we've all had somebody in our life like that. Yeah, no, it's true, it's true. But at the time I was like, wow, he's funny. I want to be funny too. I wish I could be so funny. Gosh. Who do you think is, what friend do you think you are actually in your deep heart's core? Such a good question. I do think Phoebe, actually. You think you're Phoebe? I think over the years, definitely. I think like the, I think a lot through this podcast as well, sort of like being insistently sunny about things has become like a practice. Interesting. So do you feel like you've developed from one friend to another?

22:39Were you another friend before? I was another friend. I was definitely a Chandler before. I was obsessed with being cynical and sarcastic and smarter than other people. Yes. and had enough of an inkling for one-liners that I could sort of get away with it. And I often remember getting accused in school of being mean. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of just like, just being too mean. Yeah. Zingers. Yeah, just like zingers. You zinged too close to the sun. I often found myself in situations where I zinged too close to the sun and then I would feel so bad about it. I'm so guilty. And then I think, you know, in the last sort of 10 years, it has been literally with this podcast I think I just a big part of doing it in the first place was that I was sick of my own self kind of thing I swear I just liked it how it felt when I was positive about things and now I have slowly just become someone who's kind of positive about things well that's beautiful what about you?

23:34I think I was a Chandler again quite like consciously I was like well I'm not the pretty girl so I'm going to be the funny girl and now I look okay now but believe me you look great as a teenager thank you no like really no one fancied me and I knew that and accepted it and used to like genuinely sit down in my house and be like what will it be like when I am a spinster and everyone else I know is married like how will my life really making arrangements in my head for what this is going to be like but I was like I can be funny I'll be Chandler but I think in truth I think I'm Ross and now we get to the heart of things I think I'm Ross the heart of the Ross apologist just as herself a Ross.

24:16Is myself a Ross. I too am like an insufferable Noah Tull who has a relatively disastrous romantic life, but I'm a lover girl, you know? That is who I am. And Ross is funny sometimes. Yeah. There's parts of Ross that are really great. Maybe we should name them. He believes in romance. He is a romantic guy. Oh my God, he really does. and it fails him again and again and again and he gets back up like remember you know when he falls in love with emily yeah and he has um he has this huge night plan because even though they've only been together for two weeks he's like got this farewell my big new york night plan and then rachel wants to get with joshua so she plans like a fake going away party for emily which is funny because emily hates her more than anyone um or she will um and like he's ross is just so concerned that like I've planned a night that is special for the girl I love and I think is amazing.

25:14He is actually, it's so interesting because I was thinking about all the romantic leads that they, romance stories that each of the friends have had that aren't with another one of the major friends, right? So like Richard, obviously. Yeah. Chandler and Kathy, which is like a big long build up and then just goes away. And Jamis, but that's more of like a comedy character than a real thing we're invested in. Joey doesn't really have that many. no they're all quite sort of transient there was uh who's the elmcpherson character oh yes janine janine janine there's her but in like i feel like ross has a lot of girlfriends who were made to care about yeah julie charlie mona mona mona got a real sharp end of the stick um who else is it Yeah, there's a student, there's Elizabeth.

26:03Is that her name, the student? Elizabeth, yeah. Yeah, he has a lot of girlfriends. And it's because he really likes being in a relationship. He really wants them all to work. And they don't. Yeah, like when he gets the train to Poughkeepsie. Yeah. I really relate to that as well. I've never kept it casual in my entire life. No, it's not an instinct that comes naturally to me either. I think it's like, oh, I like you. So when we have kids, will they get your hair in my eyes? Or, you know, we've met twice. Like that is kind of my, and I put a lid on it, but Ross doesn't. Ross just throws himself in every time.

26:45And you know what? That's really admirable, actually. Because he's been hurt so much. And he never, ever gives up on love. Like there's this episode where Phoebe finds out that Mike, the Paul Rudd, her sort of end game guy, doesn't want to get married. and she comes around this really great, like one of my favorite Ross moments, just like for pure comedy. She comes around to his flat and is like, what do you think about marriage? And he's like, so now you're coming to my house to make divorce jokes? Like, and she's like, no, I really want to know because Mike doesn't want to get married. And, you know, I need you to tell me that marriage is horrible.

27:21And he's like, oh yeah, it's really bad. And she's like, that's not how you feel, is it? And he said, no, I think it's beautiful. I think it's like you know the purest expression of like commitment to another person and and this is a man who's had three failed marriages and it hasn't killed his spirit wow you're really talking me around I well I'm not I'm not his embarrassment I'm very expensive but this is really is an often missed trait about this character is that he really does believe in love he loves too much more so than any of the other friends more so than any of the other friends he held a candle for a woman for like 20 years oh my god can we talk about the prom video that is the most genius bit of writing ever we still haven't spoken about the copy girl cheating but yes well we will come back to that but let's do it let's do the prom video while we're here His face when he sees that that guy has turned up to take Rachel to the prom after all.

28:25Yeah. And his little corsage. It just, it is heartbreaking. And that he never told her. It's like, oh, just as writers, the idea that like you have done this big relationship, you've written it into a corner, you know it's going to be the thing of the season that they will break up and get back together and whatever. It's like, but he's done something unforgivable, which is that he hounded this woman about her cheating on him and then the the second that they are quote unquote on a break which I'm sure we'll get back to um he sleeps with somebody else how could we possibly redeem him like I would love to know how many ideas that went around before they got to this one which is that they're watching a home video from 20 years ago Rachel's been stood up he goes upstairs and puts on his dad's tux comes down the stairs takes the flowers out of the face in the hallway and then watches her sail out the door the jock turns up and takes her anyway i love jack and judy in that as well they're so parents with camcorders yeah early camcorders early camcorders that is it is really like crushing his face at that moment yeah is so is very difficult to recall elliot ghoul being like rachel it's your knight in shining armor oh oh it's so real i don't know how they fucking did it with those camcorder like flashbacks or whatever i know they everyone feels horrible about them now because of the fat jokes about monica that still are disgusting um but like it's so well observed just the the angles that parents choose to get with their first camcorder and it's 1981 or whatever yeah yeah he's a lover boy he's well let's do let's do the cheating not cheating thing let's just okay get that out the way nice and quick i am firmly it was unwise but it was not outside of the boundaries of what would be normal when someone says we are on a break that same night unwise unwise but not illegal not actually convictionable and that's what we're here to discuss when someone says i think we should take a break that is coward speak for i want to break up but i don't know how to stick the landing i believe that strongly who's had a marriage fail already yeah knows that knows also i mean i know i'm supposed to be the defense here but i don't know which one you're the prosecutor i'm the prosecutor i don't watch many legal shows i think that's obvious but um i think something that is often left out of the evidence files here is that Ross rings Rachel up when he's in the club with the lads yes and Mark is already there now Rachel behaves nobly and does nothing but I can totally understand in the context of like I have been worried about this guy forever he has been on my girlfriend's mind and in her mouth forever like he's like she's talking about Mark all the time yeah and now he's in her flat and we've just declared ourselves on a break or she's declared us on a break yeah she's fucking Mark I'm heartbroken and also this girl is hot and slutty and she kisses me.

31:33And he's been drinking. And he's been drinking. Inhibitions are lowered. Inhibitions are lowered. Also, this is something that is going to come up again, but it really stuck out to me that Chandler, I'm going to come up with a third way of saying it, Chandler. Chandler. Him, the artist formerly known as Chandler Bink and Joey are often the people behind some of his worst choices. he takes it to the group chat and you are only as strong as the advice your group chat gives you and they consistently give him pretty shitty advice so he after this whole thing with the copy girl the next morning he goes to them and he says i need to tell rachel and they say no you don't and there's another one where oh what is the oh the list when he makes the list about julie that's jandra's idea that was next on my list of sins yes that's jandra's idea yeah so often if you go back to the files you can find they should be they're the co-defendants they aided and abetted many of ross's crimes they really did wow no i mean one should take responsibility for their own actions of course but he was led astray that's true many times all because chandler had a new laptop right exactly just wanted to try just blinded by an excel spreadsheet that's all it was so it gets back to rachel through gunther and so they are on a break they're on a break they are on a break they're on a break which means they are not together during the time they are on a break is it a nice thing that he did is do you not believe though that when rachel said we need to take a break a break from us that she means that we need to pause this conversation for a few days no and i don't think that and i refer you to the record because that is how Ross originally interprets what she says.

33:26She goes, we need a break. And he goes, okay, let's go get an ice cream or like let's whatever. And she's like, no, a break from us. She does clarify a break from us. She clarifies it. She clarifies it. I'm not saying that I think what he did was good, but I do think it is within, it's allowable. Which brings us to another sin of his, which is the Beach House episodes. The beach house, yes. Poor Bonnie. Poor Bonnie, poor sexy, bald Bonnie. Sexy, bald Bonnie, whose only crime was having quite a lot of sex, it seems. They just like talking about sex life. And being a bit hotter than Rachel. Being a bit hotter than Rachel, liking to go swimming.

34:08You know? Is this the charge? Liking a delicious swim? Poor Bonnie. Okay, so that, what's the charge there? State the charge. He gets off with Rachel, immediately breaks up with Bonnie, which is good. Yes, admirable. And then Rachel writes a very, very long 18 pages, front and back. Front and back. And it's so funny. Where it's like he goes downstairs and tries to read it, falls asleep. You fell asleep? You fell asleep? Her delivery. One of the best line deliveries in the entire series. You fell asleep? You fell asleep?

34:50and i think what it comes down to the next morning is that she goes to him and she goes so does it does it so what he should obviously have done in that moment is said i'm sorry i fell asleep due to it being 5 30 in the morning and i've just broken up with my girlfriend yeah i need i i i need some rest and then i will read your letter thank you very much for writing it i you're so special but but why did she make him read the letter at 5 30 in the morning 32 pages there's an interesting through line having having uh been watching a lot of friends recently interesting through line with rachel 36 pages that shows i can't do maths yeah embarrassing but there's this thing with rachel that pops up every now and then which is that she wants to write and she's very bad at it i had not clocked that there's a whole thing remember with Chandler's um mom who's a romance novelist where she tries to write a romance novel she kind of has these little attempts sometimes and they never go well so I get the sense that like reading Rachel Green's letter is like the worst substack ever it's like very self-conscious I don't think anything takes 36 pages to say to be honest if it's basically if it can be boiled down to does it what then you don't need 36 pages and then it is slowly revealed that what that means is that you know does it make sense for him essentially to take all responsibility for what happened during their breakup yes and that she cannot enter the relationship unless he takes responsibility for that which i think is fair from her what do you think was it now i can't remember is it that she has that he has to take responsibility for everything that happened in the breakup or is it that went wrong in the course of their relationship oh unclear i can't remember because I would say that no one is fully responsible for the things that go wrong in a relationship that is a slightly different question your honor but I can't remember which is which I think it's I think what it comes back to is that like will you admit that you cheated and your cheating resulted in our breakup yeah and he tries to swallow this for as long as he can and then they're in bed together and she says like um you know my mom but my mom said that once a cheater always a cheater but I knew that you just had to process and find time to like accept your responsibility and now you have yeah and then he says we were on a break and then they're over again so this is the inability to man up and take responsibility yeah it but I think the the greater the sort of umbrella charge here is the inability to cede any points on which he thinks he is right and this gets him into trouble in all kinds of places in his life yes with phoebe like he's not very nice to phoebe or quite often because that's also on my list here is being mean to phoebe he's like i think that lizards run the universe and he can't just be like that's wrong but i accept that that's your view he has to like prove that it's so interesting with phoebe because it comes up again and again that like i think first it's not that she thinks her dead mother is in the cat is in the cat and it's like one of the most like intense like tony collette dramatic line readings from lisa kudrow where she goes ross how many parents have you lost yeah and it's like you can really feel both actors like really feeling that line yeah him feeling it and her feeling it and then she goes well you don't know how it feels like when one comes back and like it kind of cuts the tension but for that moment like you're in a really good movie she's amazing as well i guess that's why they have this again and again with them where she has a mental conviction about something and he refutes it yeah they're really good against each other because the characters don't like each other no they don't have like anything in common really those two characters but yeah the the inability to be wrong even when it would be prudent and socially cohesive to just not fight the argument and you know what could be more I guess those I don't know what would you do if you really if you really thought I did not fuck up and I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with this woman I don't want to begin on the premise of I'm the baddie if you really think you didn't you did you you didn't act in the way that she's characterizing you to have acted that's tough that's not oh Phoebe doesn't believe in evolution that's like stupid and annoying that's like this is foundational to him he wants to be with her forever god yeah your dad you're really right i it's it's such an interesting question because like if it were you and you really believe that you acted legally although unwisely yes and then you had to shoulder the law if not the spirit of the law and then in order to like get back the girl of your dreams the partner of your dreams you have to just simply accept responsibility and also accept however long this remains a topic of conversation for and that it will be written into the lore of your relationship and maybe even something you tell your kids one day i could you do it no i don't know that i could do it because does beginning your relationship again from a place of deceit simply sow more opportunities for deceit exactly exactly and he does want to be honest yeah he always has the instinct to be honest and it is often curbed by for instance joey and chandler but he he wants to tell the truth even if that truth gets him into trouble a lot of the time yes except the time he pretends to be british at the museum i don't know what i can't remember what was happening there was that part of his grander breakdown narrative can't quite recall i can't remember where it came in the he's a tour god no joey's doing he's doing like locum teaching at NYU so it's before he's like oh yes in the in the school and he's there being like the Metazoic era at a very you know doing a real like Dick Van Dyke accent but I can't remember why he was just nervous just nervous who who amongst us I get it you know I've been pretending to be British my whole time do you feel like we've tied up Ross and Rachel in terms of the you were in a break thing.

41:12I'm, there's no doubt in my mind really on that one. It is, I think it's, I think, I think he didn't deserve to be raked over the coals for as long as he was. And I understand why he wouldn't accept what he believed to be an untruth. Yeah. And then the next time they get together is over the video, the prom video, which we already mentioned. It's over the prom video, yeah. Then do they break up again? They're always bloody, I mean, the hoops the writers jump through to keep them apart. It's a real feat of choreography, really. And what's interesting is that they are their most charming when they're not together.

41:51Yeah. Like when they get drunk in Vegas and they get married. Hello, Mr. Ross. Mrs. Ross, hello, Mr. Rachel. That's it. Them having a good time in the hotel room getting pissed is the most charming they ever are. It's so true. It's so true. Well, okay, so then that comes around the time when he's having his breakdown. Well, that's the end of his breakdown, or the sort of annulment of it all is at the end of his kind of chaos era. Yes. So let's get into the Emily years. I hate Emily. I'm going to say that right up top. You hate her even though I know that you know that that actress who got hate for years and people were spitting at her on the street.

42:37and even so well I wish her well what's your relationship to Cold Feet? none never seen it never seen it no idea what it is that's her show what? I think the whole thing was that Cold Feet was the sort of British friends and it was sort of almost quasi stunt casting I had no idea yeah I've never seen it I just think I mean the actress I'm sure she's lovely but the character there's something so strangely unconvincing about her she does feel like an American actress it feels like a fake accent and I think it is we were texting about this before and you're so right I think it's that they gave her British dialogue so even when she's using her normal accent the fact that she's choosing all these like words that Americans think that English people use all the time yes yes I was watching the episode where Ross plays rugby with her friends yeah here are my mates what here are my mates I know these lads really well and they called one of them Devon what English man is called Devon that's crazy that's crazy they were mismatched friends for her to have they were those are not her friends it made no sense those are not her friends so yeah she felt very much like a British person written by an American I will say that while we're on Emily I do think her family are one of the most well observed British families ever captured by Americans Joanna Lumley and who is that man Tom Conti he they are so funny I'm obsessed with them they're like they're just Casual hatred of each other is so, like, British.

44:07It's so British. It's so British. And when Ross is like, where's Emily? And Tom Conti's like, she's in hiding. She's in hiding. Me and Dolly have just been voicing on each other that for a week. She's in hiding. You've humiliated her. Wolf of Materials. Hello, Wolf of Materials. I'm going to hang up on you now. You're boring me. on the radio I think every episode of this series will mention Waltham Interiors her friends are on Congress her family are perfect but in terms of Emily's effect on Ross yes sort of perfect for him in the sense of like it's so him and someone like that to have a sort of kind of mousy British girlfriend who's a bit funny on her own turf when she's comfortable but kind of awkward when she oxidises with Americans.

45:09Yeah, yeah. And she always has to clarify when she's joking. No one really gets her in a way that feels quite real, actually. Yeah, that is what it would be like. That is what it would be like. I think, again, lover boy, he proposes after six weeks. They spend the whole of their first date in Vermont on a two-day retreat. He's like, this is it. This is the real deal because he always thinks it's the real deal. Yeah. Oh, he always thinks it's the real deal. It's very Mark from Peep Show. She's the one. She's the one, Jeremy.

45:40But then surely one of the greatest, not to do your job for you, prosecution, but surely one of the great charters is the name of the wedding. Which is bad. Obviously that's bad. My client enters a guilty plea. Also one of the greatest moments of TV of all time. Amazing. Amazing television. He obviously was still in love with Rachel, so that's why he said it. but I don't know whether you can fault someone for still being in love with the woman who's rejected him a whole bunch of times also when you really don't know that woman very well yeah it's very it's only been six weeks have you ever done it have you ever called a new partner by the old partner's name no I have I remember many many boyfriends ago buying a boyfriend a big jumbo pack of you know those chocolate reasons you know dark chocolate yes um buying him a big pack of that at the airport because i was like because you love these and he was like i don't love these and then i had that realization to be like oh the other one the other guy i love these he loved them i have done the name thing i did it three times in a single wedding weekend no yeah it was really really bad it was all it was like it stopped being funny not with the current boyfriend no this is again several boyfriends ago back in the sands of but it was because it was the first time i'd ever seen the ex-boyfriend and the current boyfriend in the same room and i just it was short-circuiting my brain but i did it once and i was like oh jesus i'm really sorry then a second time everyone was quite like you've got to stop doing that and then it happened a third time oh that's really bad it was really bad so all i'm saying is i do understand how the wires can get crossed he'd just seen her she turned up unexpectedly.

47:23Yeah. He said the wrong name. The way that she behaved thereafter, Emily. You think bad? The demands that she was placing on him. Oh, come on, come now, come now. She wanted him to move apartments, to sell all of his furniture, never see her ever again. Well, okay, no, first of all, she said, I would like you to move to London, which I think, you know, when you have a... But Ben. two yeah right so you have two partners who live in different countries it's fair to have a conversation which of these countries shall we live in yeah and then he says but ben and then she goes fair enough but ben i will move to new york however i don't see how i can make this marriage work if you're still going to be best friends with the woman whose name you said at the wedding and who you were going to get on a plane to greece that was also quite bad yes yes yes i think the plane to greece is worse in fact than the name because it compounds the issue but why am I so defensive about this?

48:26I don't know. I think I really don't like, I really don't like Emily and I think she was making it reasonable. I think what it is, is that Ross really tried and even when everything looked so bad for him and she was moving him to an apartment like an hour away from his work, he was being like, I can read so much on the commute. I've been given the gift of time. So I was like, wow, you're really like, you're really trying I'm trying to see this as anything other than like a major downgrading in your whole life situation, which is that you cannot hang out with your friends and you have to commute really, really far to your work.

48:59But he's like, no, I get the girl, I get my wife, I'm not getting divorced again. Oh, it's very sad. It begins from a place of reasonableness and gets crazy. I think it does get crazy. I think maybe I've just known too many demanding British women. And I hold short trip with them. time to take them down yes that is yeah i think that the name is the name is bad but i do it's a momentary lapse what do you think was going on in that character's head when he said yes i will take rachel to greece with me on my honeymoon do you think he was like earnestly oh my friend will comfort me in my time of need it was extremely ill-advised because if he thought I am going to make this up with my maybe maybe he did not turn up to the airport and therefore he's like okay this is devastating my marriage is over and then Rachel says well you should go anyway take a minute get some air get some distance from the whole situation which I think is good advice and then she's like I'll come and he's deluding himself that they are friends and not something more it's really well played because both of them have both done they're saying the right things we're friends I will keep you company during this time of need but they both have that glimmer in their eye but maybe we'll fucking grease and maybe everything will be perfect exactly oh and then she turns up her poor little face her horrified face you would be that's a tough one she's in hiding humiliated her

50:41my next charge more of a general one that goes throughout the series. Okay. Bad father. Okay. I actually don't even believe in this one. No, I, but this is a charge that gets levelled against Ross, which I think is unfair and is a result of the writers becoming bored of Ben. Which is so fair. Fair enough. Children are boring on screen. Children, like kids say the darndest things. Like that's not what Friends was ever supposed to be. No. It's not something that did like that well. So fine, leave Ben out. I just assumed he was seeing Ben and we're just not getting those episodes because we're not seeing every moment of...

51:18Yeah, right? He's seeing Ben. He's seeing Ben. I think it's totally fine. And also Ben's with his mums as well. He's not like wandering the streets. You know, he's like, he's perfectly well taken care of. Susan dresses up at Santa every year. Exactly. Which is such a nice image to think about. I don't think there's, I don't think he's a bad father. I refute that charge strongly. He's a great dad to Emma. when they can be bothered to include Emma in the casting. They just cannot be fucked. They just can't be bothered with it. I really respect how badly they can be fucked with kids. Yeah, they're just like, oh, Emma's with my parents.

51:52It's like, great. She can stay there as far as I'm concerned. There's a real limit of child storylines that you can... Yeah, it gets boring. What are the big Ben storylines? The Ben storylines... When he wants to play with the Barbie. When he wants to play with the Barbie. And Ross freaks out. That is bad parenting. But, again, this is from a foundational trauma. This is another foundational trauma, which is that Jack Geller, for all his wonderful qualities, did used to shit on Ross for having girly interests as a child, for dressing up as a woman, for playing with dolls instead of being good at sports.

52:23So I think it's an, that expresses itself most often in Ross's desire to defend his masculinity at all costs, even to the point of the ridiculous, like playing that rugby game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it also has a little spurt of, what do I mean? some pressure gets released on that with ben and the barbie and he's like okay well you can't be a girly girl because look where it ended up putting me with my dad like i'm gonna try and course correct even though that's obviously the whole problem is trying to anyway right this is like one of the most upsetting things about parenting right is that like yeah people try and protect their children from the world and all they're doing is harming the child with themselves yes it's so upsetting like you get this all the time with um people who are parenting like gay or trans kids where they're like oh i'm just so worried about how the world will treat them it's like just just worry about how you're treating them just worry about this energy that you're bringing to this you know but i get it because you know so much about the world you're like i don't want you to go out there all sort of soft and gentle and people to stamp on you right so there's Ben so there's Ben the Barbie there is Ben learning pranks from Rachel oh I forgot about that what's that again Rachel teaches him some annoying pranks and he and Ross oh and Ross hates pranks and Ross hates pranks I hate pranks yeah same I don't that's not an expression of love to me you know when you see those couples on TikTok it's like we prank each other and I'm like seek help that is so bad and horrible that you've created this like hostile environment in your own home where someone might smash an egg on your head while you're sleeping.

54:07Like why do you want that for yourselves? Have you ever played a prank though? As a child? I've played one good prank. What was your one good prank? To make this as succinct as possible, I was on the phone to a friend who we were talking about this guy we both knew and we were sort of being silly about like, it was COVID as well. We were being silly about like whether we'd check him. and then we'll he was like doing a delivery job at the time and he ended up delivering something to her house while we were on the phone now we had by that point we had moved on in the conversation quite a lot and so when she when he dropped off the thing she was like god imagine if he heard what we were talking about earlier and I was like that'd be hilarious if heard that ha ha ha ha and then what i did was i went to his instagram stories and i screen grabbed his instagram stories and then using the instagram create tool i wrote like a thing being like oh my god um it's kind of despicable the way people talk about me on my delivery job and then i was like messaging her and said is this about you and then she oh my god that is good that is good i mean like yeah i don't know i've i've fallen out of pranks i think i mean the only it's not even really a prank it's just a really annoying bit that i thought was funny for a while i used to call up my friends like quite a while after the event and be like hey um have you heard and they'd be like what and i'd be like the queen died and for some reason i thought this was hilarious and people got really annoyed didn't you know it's like august 2024 and i'm calling people up because the green tie so yeah there's the prank one well there's a there's the holiday armadillo which is the the key ben moment maybe of all the ben moments yes i mean you cannot love the holiday armadillo i love the holiday it's such a sweet and strange thing to do and it's such an elaborate costume as well he doesn't really complex yeah i think i think he's a good dad yeah i want him to be my dad not necessarily and he's so excited when he's like i have been for the holidays i'm gonna teach you about hanukkah so sweet oh and then he there there's the emma storyline where he sings i like big butts to the baby oh yeah and then she has her first laugh yeah and then he's like i'm a horrible father i've been singing about like objectifying women to this like infant girl oh yeah that's just funny that's just a bit of fun that's fine bit of fun bit of fun you know I also, a moment to Ross's credit, when he makes the effort to try and include Mike.

56:44Yeah. And they have their horrible friend date that goes so badly. There's something so recognizable about that, isn't there? Yeah, oh my God. Men do not know how to have one-on-one pints in general. Unless they already know each other. But to have one even make the effort. I know, it's so unusual. It's so unusual. And they both think it's so strange. That is so real. And then he traps him in the, it's one of the best episodes. Yeah. it's so good like you're you're so right like his endless capacity for both love and hope for the future is so endearing like the leather pants where he's like leather pants also it's like the thing about ross is that he the thing with the leather pants reminds me of this and also the fact that he got an earring when he was with emily i think something about ross is that he he's having throughout the series a kind of like premature midlife crisis all of the time he's trying to reinvent himself he's like gets the sports car he gets the earring he gets the whatever we were just talking about there leather pants it's like he's constantly in a kind of crisis of himself and I think that's very real who you know find a 30 year old that is not doing a bit of crisis about who they are and I think that's it's just real to me there's something about him as well he feels like kind of out in the wild a bit because the other friends have like rachel and monica for the bulk of this season are in that flat right in in the grandma flat yeah the boys are across the hall and i don't know phoebe feels in it somehow she feels like because she's self-employed i think yeah she feels like she's always mooching around the others like she's always hanging around with joey when he's unemployed yeah just hanging around the girls apartment there's something about ross that feels sort of separate and away yeah he's got his own place and then when he moves in with the guys he's kind of intolerable because he's so used to living on his own and then there's a bit where he says to the guys because he has the like yeah he's annoying and he has put them on the answering machine and all that um and he says i know i can be annoying i know something so heartbreaking about someone who says they know they can be annoying i know and there's like that the moment that really gets me from that little arc is where they joey and chandler take him to a viewing of like a really shitty apartment because they want him to move out and he realizes he knows yeah that they want him to leave and instead of being like you guys like I just got like my marriage for the part he just goes I see what you're saying I'm going to go downstairs and fill out an application and I'm just like oh my god oh my god it hurts that is so painful so painful the next charge I have leveled at Ross Geller is his rage the rage I'm impressed by how early the rage is seeded.

59:34The rage comes in very early. When is Red Ross? Red Ross is during the rugby episode. That's during the rugby episode. But I feel even before then we've seen him be intolerant and snippy. Yeah. Like he threw out. Yeah. It's interesting because one of the criticisms that's leveled at many sitcoms and in particular this one is the idea that like you have these characters who you love because they're rounded and then they have certain foibles that become you know touchstones for the audience and then the as the series goes on we dial up those foibles to the point where there are caricatures so monica being like very shrill and neurotic or joy being stupid i feel like the way in which that his foibles are dialed up it's like they're dialed up in a sitcom way but the world interacts with them the way that you would with a normal person which is that you would get fired from your job and put in therapy and tranked i the thing with the sandwich I think is so good funny also and again I have to say let us stray who wrote that note Phoebe wrote the note yeah he didn't write that angry note he's so easily let us stray keep your mitts off my grub keep your mitts off my grub and then well look I think I love I love that whole part of Ross's story because he is just a mess he is a proper mess he is getting enraged at his boss over a sandwich and having to be tranquilised at work.

1:01:03Yeah. One of the few times where they cut to sort of like exterior footage. Yes. Which is the pigeons fleeing the park as he screams my sandwich. My sandwich. Yeah. The rage is interesting. He does. Sorry to bring it back up again. When he's eating the candy floss like on account of my rage. On account of my rage.

1:01:29oh i think you know he's he's got anger issues but he gets a handle on them he accepts that he has rage yeah he's not doing great give me some tranquilizers i'll take some time off work that all sounds good he doesn't resist the criticism too much he accepts that he has this issue and that it has gone too far yeah it's so interesting that he of all the character foibles his is the only one that has to have real world consequences yeah the only one who has to needs like therapeutic involvement is the fact that he sometimes gets real mad about it's so funny it's so funny as well that it like this whole thing with him being on sabbat i'm on sabbatical i can't remember how long it goes on for i think probably about half a season yeah and uh it's the sort of arc is then tied up because he goes on a date with janice oh yes and then she breaks up with them with a line that i think i say at least once a week which is ross our time the sun has set on our day in the sun because she's doing his head he's doing her head in and he has this sort of like come to jesus moment because he realizes like i'm doing your head in.

1:02:43I'm too much for you? The worst person on earth? Yeah. It's such a funny thing to have someone's mental illness resolved by having someone more annoying than them. Yeah, be like, oh wow, okay, this has gone too far, like, I'm worse than you now. Ugh. So good. So good. I don't even know why I charged him with rage. I guess. I think, well, it's a reasonable, but then who, you know, we've all got our, we've all got our problems we've all got our problems you know what do you think are your character faults that if you were on a sitcom they would be such a good question what would it be i think actually part of it would be and i really resist it but i used to not i think before i knew any better i'm a i'm a pedant i'm really when someone's using a word wrong something in me is like tell them tell them tell them tell them now tell them now and i used to think that was useful for people and fun yeah and now i very rarely do it how do you think that would look image in season one versus image in season 10 i think i would buy season but season one i'm correcting people on their grammar and laughing at them for mispronouncing words and by the end i have married someone from a completely different country and i have to learn their language and i'm stupid in their language oh that's really good that would definitely be one of my annoying things that they'd have to resolve for me what would yours be mine would be being useless being useless being fucking useless having having no like skills oh or like like just being a bit sort of like like everything is a bit wrong is it like what like fixing stuff like can't can't drive oh can't don't like don't really know left from right very well can't count very well like like like so somebody who has like bedded down in the things that they are good at and i've i've done my 100 thousand hours of poking shit yeah into this microphone but you can't drive but i can't have you tried yeah a lot how much because i failed six times and now i have a license i've never gotten to test that level actually because i do sympathize i was also a horrible driver and i also can't play like any sport like i paid for quite expensive tennis lessons and like i still i don't think i could really can't do it i just said so many things i just seemed to i can't to do is it that you but is the failing that you can't do them or that you cannot make yourself persevere with things that you believe yourself to be bad at in that way it's that yeah yeah that's a thing yeah and then what's the art that's fine okay you oh god so season one is just like being a bit sort of spazzy with my limbs sort of thing just being sort of always dropping and dropping things and inaccurate assumptions and sort of like not no attention to detail um i guess season 10 i'm not sure how that manifests but it's terrible but season 10 in a major car accident that kills three people yeah well so you actually do fuck up really bad and then you have to what reckon with the fact that you were useless yeah you actually were useless it's something where like i i make a sort of a um silly mistake that if I simply owned up to it, it would be fine.

1:05:58But then it ends up being cataclysmically, like it's like, oh, at any point you could put your hand up and saying this has gotten away from me, but you didn't. It would be, this is so dark, you do finally pass your driving test. You're really proud of yourself. And you're driving down a country road late at night to make a train and you hit someone. And you decide in that moment to drive on. And then you go to prison because they catch you. yours is like an american sitcom with 35 episodes a season and mine is like a uk channel 4 90s sitcom with 10 episodes a season and three seasons yeah you can tell i've been watching so much house that's the kind of thing that would happen on house the show ends i just keep driving oh that's very cathartic actually i invite everybody listening to yeah to think about what their um their character arc is yours is horrible mine ends up i'm married to like a hot foreigner and you you're a person what do we have left on the list for ross yeah what else hit him hit him at me dating a student that's bad now i will confess these are the episodes i forgot to re-watch when i was doing my re-watch i re-watched a couple of these because i think it's really funny when he shows up on that spring break tv program because he gets so jealous and goes on spring break with his student girlfriend i think this is more like a kind of like ross's farce like at the point they start to just kind of make him do stupid man it doesn't feel grounded does it no it doesn't feel like something he would actually doesn't feel of ross no it doesn't feel of ross you're right it's not of ross um it's obviously bad you should not be dating a student but it i think the fact that it happens is tied also to this thing of like he's a loser nerd and now suddenly a student wants to have sex with him the teacher like how could he turn it down that makes him cool and young and he's not young and he's not cool so you can see how he fell into the trap of dating the student which makes it sound like i'm excusing men for dating their students which I'm not I just like Ross I feel like he's with her for ages as well yeah it drags on a bit that whole thing oh my god of course I've got just about Mark I got dating a student being mean to Phoebe rejecting lesbianism which I feel we've covered the homophobia I do think falls under the category of like it was a different time it was a different time yes and And let us not forget, actually, while we're on this, he walks Carol down the aisle.

1:08:36So lovely. For all his pain. And to be fair, like these people, whatever their gender. Yeah. His, you know, the mother of his child was trying to give his kid the name of her new partner instead of him. Like that is actually pretty deep. That is pretty deep. I do understand that we actually, when we did our weddings episode with Kate Young, we had a lot of conversation. Oh, really? about um about what you know what susan's rights are to ben which are at that time nothing nothing so you can so see why their dynamic is what it is because like that is his mom like susan's his mom in the same way carol's his mom and ross could take away those rights at any time if he wanted it is true it is true and he never does nor does he threaten to no he doesn't and he walks it down the arm i think that's so sweet it's really nice and it does kind of wrap up the whole his homophobia thing well there's this is about just him being rejected yeah and i think so much of it as well is about how monica and ross come from the most stable um just you know suburban well off like their parents are zany but they're very in love and there is money and it's great and they want to replicate that.

1:09:51Yeah. That's so true. They both do. Yeah. And neither of them quite manage it in the way that they pictured. Yeah. You know? First of all, that Ross has all the divorces. Second of all, that Monica can conceive in the way she thought she could, wanted to, and you know. It's quite, there's something a bit tragic about that. Yeah. But tragic in the way that everyday lives are tragic. Yeah. And we all think that we're going to replicate some fundamental part of our childhood that for various reasons can't happen or doesn't exist anymore. Yeah. Totally. yeah that feels like that's that's a story I know well from life like yeah people think they want one thing and they can't have it and then they have to be like okay well now what yeah yeah you see it all the time where like you know I've got so many friends who grew up in you know very nice middle class homes with sort of tennis lessons etc and a dad who worked and a mom who stayed at home and like economically that is impossible for anyone no yeah but yeah they sort of continue to labor under the illusion of like well if i don't have that then i didn't do it right yeah that doesn't that's not real anymore it's not real anymore yeah the thing about the thing about like all the boomers getting all the houses that only works once yeah then the houses are gone there are not more houses so they've got to kick it and no one wants their parents to die yeah i mean keep living longer and longer exactly god love them and good luck to them and good luck to them I think okay I have one last thing on the list I mean the list there's also the list which is we've talked about already yeah which the most damning thing on that list is just a waitress she's just a waitress also chubby ankles which is hard I have chubby ankles I have chubby ankles I did that really really to heart when I first watched that I was like right everyone's noticed about ankles and that they could be chubby I'm screwed it's fucking over for me and my ankles i think everyone in the uk and ireland has poor ankle definition i well i hope that's true because i have always thought of it as something that i suffer with uniquely and i have to hide from the world anyone who comes from any kind of sort of celtic stock anglo-saxon stock no i'm with you girl look we're doing it i feel like anyone who comes from this kind of white either celtic or anglo-saxon yeah we have live on legs that were built to flee we need to be ready to take to the hills we know with our babies on our backs

1:12:31and we can't keep blaming our poor stucky little legs on that no that's true i mean they're fine I know I don't hate them but the chunky ankle also Jennifer Aniston fat ankles maybe that's why they wrote it because it's so the joke's on us right because the whole thing is it's impossible to even define that or see that on screen wait wait that hadn't even occurred to me they wrote that because that's a stupid insecurity to have yes that we just imbibed for free whoa I know I've been looking down at my fucking feet my whole life thinking chubby ankles they invented it because it's such a comedic silly thing to write about the most beautiful girl in the world who at this point is already like a global megastar and the breakout star of the show the idea that they would say she has chubby ankles and we all internalised oh it's a bit like the Bridget Jones thing of her being like nine stone two fat as a fool or whatever the joke is she's thin what I eat for the next 10 years this one line this weight of a child my god anyway yes the list the list is bad but once again who's added to the list oh the last thing I added to the list which I must have just been a bit cranky last night when he makes Joey write a screenplay and he puts Joey in weird prison for a while yes I think he thinks he's helping by getting Joey to do something that would be fun and easy for Ross writing and is not Joey's forte and he is trying he's basically doing like setting homework he's applying his job to his friends a handsome man enters so good I'm basically out of reasons to hate Ross I love Ross, you love Ross good, case closed do we have anything further to say before we have a bit of dinner?

1:14:35his hair was never that bad either the hair it's not great but it's not it's no worse than lots of hair in the 90s when there are two other men in the show with basically normal hair yeah of a normal consistency and his is otter slick all the time i don't know why they did it i'd love to know but one thing people always accuse him as of having a wet head it's actually not wet it's crunchy yes it's actually if anything too dry and that's all i have to say why at what point did they like obviously in the styling they decided that was going to be the look or whatever or maybe was it a look at the time were people doing that the wet head the wet head i mean gel was a big part of yeah men's upkeep for a while and then i suppose it must be how what was quite a normal hairstyle hit studio lights.

1:15:29It feels reflective. Yeah. Because I guess that was just the hair he walked in with as an actor. And they realised that it was taking on a high sheen. Right? Whereas Matthew Perry's hair at the time, was kind of downy a bit. It feels like it's sort of slightly thin, but like wavy. Yeah. Joey's hair. He had a terrible hair at the beginning. He had a sort of almost a bowl cut. Almost a bowl cut, yeah. and it's very thick and black and just sort of there's nothing in it like a mop head yeah and so Ross started with the wet head and then it became like a trope of the show I guess so I guess so interesting well Ross we love you we love you Ross Imogen West Knights where can we find you you can find me when I want to be found you can find me in the FT Weekend magazine that's the place I often am which is low-key the best on my supplement I agree I love it I think it's great and it's not just because I'm often published it's first of all the FT has the best writing in any supplement of anyone I think they're great they're really good second of all I love how everyone in how to spend it is so crazy wealthy and not apologizing for it no like my favorite line in all of modern journalism particularly a kind of beauty journalism and sort of luxury goods journalism is when a woman who owns two houses says something like, at 27 pounds a pop, this eyeliner...

1:16:58Always a pop! A pop, this eyeliner is eye-wateringly spinny, but worth it, I assure you. It's like, don't pretend to me that 27 pounds a pop is too much for you. It is too much for you. Bring me to the FT where, like, Graydon Carter is telling me about his, like, 55 grand money clip or whatever. there is something really bracing about it it's like okay you guys are rich rich yeah and that's okay we're in your Berlin home which is one of your many homes learning how to spend it yeah it's really funny I don't know this is just an ad for the FT really I love the FT because I don't know I don't know how to spend it so I'm in the other bit where I'm doing we gotta learn how to get it first anyway thank you everyone this has been Friends Through a Lens Friends Through a Lens see you next week

1:17:53You