The series finale of Friends is one of the most memorable ones in TV history, and it perfectly flipped the finale of the first season. The 1990s saw a variety of sitcoms of which many became widely popular, but few can be compared to the success of Friends, which continues to be regarded by many as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends premiered on NBC in 1994 and came to an end in 2004 after 10 successful seasons, through which fans saw the main characters grow and learn from their many mistakes.
Friends followed a group of six young adults living in New York City and their many struggles to juggle their social, personal, and professional lives, all while dealing with everything that adulthood threw their way. Although the show focused on the lives of Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, Rachel, and Ross, there was a lot more attention to the relationship of the latter two, with the first seasons being all about their will-they-won’t-they situation. As the series progressed, Friends began to share the spotlight equally with the rest of the characters, but the final season went back to paying too much attention to the roller-coaster relationship of Ross and Rachel, and the series finale mirrored that of the first season, which was all about these two.
In the pilot episode of Friends, Rachel ed the group after running away from her wedding, and it was immediately established that Ross had a huge crush on her. Throughout the first season, viewers saw Ross struggling to confess his feelings to Rachel, and there always seemed to be something or someone in the way – if not Rachel’s relationship with her Italian neighbor, Paolo, it was Ross about to become a father as his ex-wife was pregnant, or simply Ross’ insecurities that didn’t let him come clean. The finale of Friends season 1, appropriately titled “The One Where Rachel Finds Out”, saw Rachel rushing to the airport to meet Ross as she finally learned about his feelings for her (through Chandler), but unbeknownst to her, Ross was coming back from China with a new girlfriend: Julie (Lauren Tom).
The The Ross and Rachel relationship was an important part of the core of Friends, and for that, it has been heavily criticized for years. Whether you like the Ross/Rachel pair or not, it’s undeniable that the way Friends flipped the season 1 finale in the show’s final episode was clever and interesting, and it also showed how much the characters matured but without losing their essence – after all, they still rushed to airports and got involved in funny situations along the way.
Friends is full of little details, and now that it has arrived in the world of streaming, fans and new viewers are starting to notice and share them for everyone to see, and in the process, they are maintaining the show’s popularity and success even after over a decade since Friends came to an end and Rachel “got off the plane”.