If you consider yourself a super-fan of Friends, you’ll be kicking yourself for not knowing the behind the scenes on an incestuous storyline that nobody wanted to happen.
While the show saw a hell of a lot of storylines during its decade run, there’s only one that probably made the cast feel icky.
From the Ross and Rachel ‘we were on a break’ debate, to Chandler’s awful Janice rebound, there were a lot of things that gave the characters depth, but this wasn’t one of them.
The hit US sitcom, which ran from 1994 to 2004, is largely transferable to today’s humour, and with the help of Jennifer Aniston, the late Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, it was a show like no other.
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But one plot line had the entire cast feeling uncomfortable, which writer Adam Chase said ‘felt very incestuous to them’.
Now, ahead of the 30th anniversary of the pilot episode, Chase unpacked all of the jaw-dropping moments from the show, which included the biggest surprise to come out of season 9 and 10 which wasn’t the ‘did she get off the plane’ question.
It all began when the writers decided to pair Rachel (Jennifer) and Joey (Matt) together and create a romantic story for them.
He told The Guardian: “The cast was very much against it. It felt very incestuous to them.”
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While short lived, the romance line came as a shock to fans too, who couldn’t imagine the two characters as anything other than friends.
Okay, so maybe the show has a history of pairing off the buddies together, from Rachel and Ross to Monica and Chandler, but those plots made sense.
Well, maybe not Monica and Chandler at first, but it was the right choice for sure.
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Rachel and Joey were as mismatched as Ross and Elizabeth (his student), which bordered on creepy.
It would be like if Ross and Phoebe, got together instead of her finding love in Mike Hannigan (Paul Rudd).
Joey and Rachel just didn’t pair well, though his crush on her was cute for a while and their roommate chemistry was fantastic.
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Thankfully, they also realised that there was no sexual connection, and it fizzled out from there.
But there was also another couple who could have met a fate worse than that.
Writer Andrew Reich dived into the fact that Monica (Courteney) and Chandler (Matthew) were not planned to be endgame.
It was all down to the fact that the audience loved seeing their fling while at Ross’s wedding in London at the end of season four.
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Andrew said: “It shook us. We all just kind of looked at each other like, 'Wow, this is much bigger than we thought'.”
However, little did anyone know that there was a plan for Chandler to cheat while the gang were in Las Vegas, with Lisa Cash, the actress who was supposed to be a hotel worker he cheats with opening up to TMZ.
She said: “The scene was – Chandler and Monica were arguing in Las Vegas about Monica having lunch with [her ex-boyfriend] Richard.
“In our script, Chandler goes up to his hotel room and orders room service and I bring it up as a hotel worker. We end up talking and laughing and connecting.
“The day before filming, I was told that he went to the writers and said the fans will never forgive Chandler for cheating on Monica.”
Thankfully, that never happened.
Topics: Friends, Courteney Cox, Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, TV And Film
Britt Jones