Skip to main content

Friends: 1 Richard Detail Makes Monica & Chandler's Relationship Weirder

Monica and Chandler are one of the most beloved couples in Friends, but one detail related to Monica’s ex-boyfriend, Richard, makes her relationship with Chandler weird. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends debuted on NBC in 1994 and came to an end in 2004 after 10 successful seasons and lots of unforgettable moments and jokes. Friends became one of the greatest TV shows of all time, and its main characters went on to become part of pop culture.

Set in New York City, Friends follows the lives of a group of six young adults who did their best every day to juggle their social, personal, and professional lives while also dealing with everything adulthood threw at them. Over the course of 10 seasons, the audience saw Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, Joey, Rachel, and Ross go through all types of obstacles as well as a lot of heartbreak, as it took them all a while to find their “lobsters”. Perhaps the one who went through one of the toughest emotional rollercoasters in her personal life was Monica (Courteney Cox), who had two serious relationships in Friends: first with Richard Burke (Tom Selleck) and later with Chandler (Matthew Perry), whom she eventually married.

Related: Friends: How Each Friend Found Out About Chandler And Monica

Monica’s relationship with Richard began in Friends season 2 and it was controversial for those closest to them as Richard is 21 years older than her. Still, their relationship was a serious and committed one, but unfortunately, it couldn’t last for long as they had different plans for their future, mostly as a result of their age difference. Monica had a hard time getting over their breakup, and in season 3, they decided to be “friends with benefits”, but that didn’t last long. In that same episode, while Monica and Richard are making out, a song plays in the background, and that same song was used in two other Monica-related moments, but now with Chandler in the mix, which ends up making Monica and Chandler's relationship weird.

The song playing while Monica and Richard make out in Friends season 3 episode “The One Where Monica and Richard Are Friends” was later used in two Monica/Chandler scenes: first when they are making out in Monica’s apartment in season 5, and the following season when it’s revealed that Chandler is going to propose to her. Given the importance of Richard in Monica’s arc, how much she struggled to get over their relationship, and how he almost stopped Chandler from proposing to her, it feels odd that Friends reused a song that played during Monica and Richard’s final encounters in two scenes with Chandler, especially one as important as the reveal of his plans to propose to her. A detail as simple as this could imply that Monica never fully got over Richard, though that ultimately didn’t stop her from finally forming her own family and having the happy marriage she dreamed of.

However, this could also be seen through a less weird lens, with the song instead simply accompanying some key moments in Monica’s love life, such as her final moments with Richard (before she finally realized their relationship could never work as she would like it to), the beginnings of her relationship with Chandler, and the big step Chandler took when he decided to propose, as he was the one character in Friends who was scared of commitment. This song being reused in those specific scenes related to Monica doesn’t really seem like a coincidence, but in the end, it's the audience who will give it a meaning depending on their perspective of Monica’s relationships.

Next: Friends: Monica & Richard Being Together Would've Been A Better Ending



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Who Is Billy? Black Christmas 1974's Ending Explained

Bob Clark's 1974 horror film Black Christmas is one of the most influential slasher movies of all time, and it has an unforgettably chilling ending. In Black Christmas Billy is considered the villain as he picks off victims one by one, and after almost 50 years, his identity is still debated. The story takes place in a sorority house, where the residents are throwing a Christmas party before they depart. Little do they know, however, that a perverted killer has made his way into the house, and is preparing to pick them off one by one. The Billy Black Christmas character remains in the shadows for most of the movie, that is, until the chilling ending.

Every Actress Who Played Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, Ranked

Author  Agatha Christie 's Miss Marple is one of the most iconic and celebrated literary sleuths of all time. The amateur investigator was first introduced in the 1930 novel Murder at the Vicarage , appearing in 11 subsequent novels up until 1976. The character has been portrayed on the stage, on radio, and for our purposes, on the big and small screen several times since the character's screen debut in 1961. Over the past 60 years, Miss Marple has been portrayed by several actresses, many of whom hail from different parts of the world. To see who did Miss Marple the most justice on screen, scroll below. Updated July 21st, 2022 by George Chrysostomou:  Agatha Christie's works are still influencing the industry today and Miss Marple is among her most famous creations. With the Knives Out sequel, Glass Onion , taking the audience back to the genre, it's well worth checking out these classic portrayals of one of the best detectives out there featuring some fantastic Mis...

Demonologist: How to Find Every Finger Location (& What They’re For)

Players need to find the location of five Fingers in Demonologist 's abandoned house to exorcise a ghost haunting the place, finishing every objective on the map to defeat this supernatural enemy. Given the chaotic nature of this horror game, it can be hard for players to look for these small fingers on such a large map. There are also some tasks that need to be completed before players are even able to start looking for these items in the first place.