'Friends' Reunion Is There for You

by Tyler Glover

Photo: HBO Max

The hit NBC comedy “Friends” has always held an incredibly special place in my heart. As someone who never really had many friends in school, “Friends” offered me that chance for a connection. I felt I had something in common with each of them: Rachel’s sense of fashion, Monica’s attention to detail, Phoebe’s quirkiness, Chandler’s sarcasm, Joey’s humor and Ross’ intelligence. Therefore, it was so sad when in 2004, “Friends” took its final bow and we had to say goodbye to all our friends who had been there for us for 10 seasons ... until now.

Last year, HBO Max planned to release “Friends: The Reunion” at the launch of its streaming platform. It was going to be one of the main draws to get people to sign up for at least a 30-day trial period. However, COVID-19 happened and changed everything. The reunion had to be put on the backburner until it was safe for it to be filmed. “Friends: The Reunion” premiered on HBO Max last month on May 27th and we could not have been more excited, but was it worth the wait?

For true diehard fans of “Friends,” this is a reunion special to be happy about. Does everything work in the special? Not really, but everything is done with such pure intentions that is easy to look over that. The moments where the special really shines is when the stars: Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer are interacting with one another and reminiscing about the show. It truly brought tears to my eyes to see their genuine excitement to see each other back on the reconstructed set.

The host of this special is James Corden, and he does ask some questions that we all wanted to know the answer to: like if there were crushes on set and who broke character the most. However, there aren’t enough of these questions to really feel fulfilled by the end of the special. A lot of the questions can be answered in simple: “oh it’s great and it was great” which doesn’t really help us delve into the past of the show. Something that really makes up for that though is that there are lots of guest appearances from recurring guest actors and actresses that keep us on our toes and remind us just how great the show was.

My favorite part of the reunion special is when the actors play a “Friends” trivia game in the style of the game the characters play in the episode: “The One with The Embryos.” This provides the most moments of fun and laughter and I wish this segment would have lasted a lot longer than it did. The other highlight is when the actors get around a table and do table readings of past episodes. It really is wonderful to see how much they still got it.

While it was great to see Lady Gaga show up and sing “Smelly Cat” with Lisa Kudrow, I would have preferred to see Kudrow perform it alone.

The biggest thing that felt like filler for me was a fashion show that shows off some of the fashion choices of “Friends” over the years. It did not add anything to the show and more time could have been spent on other things to make this truly an amazing special.

While “Friends: The Reunion” was not flawless, it was there for its diehard fans. It was definitely worth seeing how our friends have been doin.’