I’ve been thinking about sitcoms lately.
I’ve never been a big sitcom watcher, but one I did watch religiously was F·r·i·e·n·d·s, right up until the final episode. The writing on that show was so excellent, and unlike a lot of long-running TV shows, it seemed to get better as the show went on.
One of my favorite (and I thought the funniest) episodes was in Season 5, Episode 14, when the gang found out about Monica and Chandler’s secret romance. They first tried to keep it under wraps, but Joey figured things out. Then, slowly but surely, even though Joey was sworn to secrecy, it leaked out to Rachel and Phoebe, who decided they are going to have a little fun with Monica and Chandler. Joey becomes a pawn between these two opposing sets of friends.
Phoebe tries to “break” Chandler by coming on to him. But Monica and Chandler realize their cover is blown and they figure out what Phoebe is up to. Rather than simply come clean with everyone, they decided to mess with their friends’ heads by encouraging Phoebe’s advances. Or, as Chandler put it, “The messers are about to become the messees!”
A hilarious exchange takes place after Rachel and Phoebe realize that Monica and Chandler are playing them along.
Rachel turns to interrogate Joey: “Joey, do they know we know??”
He first tries to lie his way out of this. “No…” but after she pushes him, he finally admits, “They know you know.”
Rachel turns to Phoebe, “Oh, I knew it!! I cannot believe those two!”
An indignant Phoebe says, “They thought that they could mess with us?! They’re trying to mess with US?! But hey, they don’t know that we know they know we know…” She points to Joey and says, “Joey, you can’t say anything!”
A confused Joey replies, “I couldn’t if I wanted to!”
In the show, Joey’s character was written as a guy who was not the brightest bulb in the box, yet he also was completely incapable of deceiving his friends. This genuine, lovable quality endeared him to his fans.
Much later in the show’s history, in Season 9, Ross and Rachel’s daughter Emma has been born. They’ve decided to try to live together and share parenting responsibilities, even though officially they aren’t a “couple”—at least Rachel doesn’t see it that way. She sees their arrangement in strictly practical terms.
Rachel and Phoebe decide on a girls’ night out, and Mike comes by to keep Ross and the baby company. While the girls are in a bar, Rachel meets a guy she’s attracted to and ends up giving him her phone number.
If you watched the show, you remember where this is headed. The guy calls and leaves a message on Ross and Rachel’s answering machine. Ross intercepts the message and decides to delete it, so Rachel never hears it. He sees the fact that she was out on the town, flirting with other guys (and giving out her phone number) as a huge betrayal of him, especially while he was at home caring for their child.
Later in the season, Episode 13, Ross’ jealousy gets the better of him as he sees Rachel slowly pulling away. During a fight, Ross admits to Rachel that he deleted the message. A huge blowup takes place between them—she demands, “Who do you think you are, to decide which messages I should or should not get?!” Ross’ admission is such a bombshell for Rachel that she moves out—at the end of the episode, we see Rachel and Emma at Joey’s door, asking to move in temporarily with him.
As dramatic as this scene was, it’s still a sitcom. They eventually repair their relationship and remain friends. In fact, all these potential betrayals—friends ganging up two on three, keeping secrets, playing practical jokes that get out of hand, intending to deceive, being caught in lies, flirting while your partner is at home, yet everyone is always quick to forgive and forget—stretch credulity. Real life isn’t like that.
I think it’s one reason why this show became so hugely popular, outside of the fact that it was fantastically funny and the cast was so talented. There was a subset of us who bought into the fantasy that no matter what our dysfunctions were, no matter what our upbringing was, somewhere out there was a group of people or a surrogate family who would love us no matter what. Who would forgive anything and everything, remaining loyal through all the hiccups and traumas that life would throw at us. We’d all grow old together and get that happy ending.
Real life takes a lot more work. Dealing with betrayed confidences, jealous partners, broken trust, meddling in-laws, infidelities, money problems, blended families—it’s all incredibly difficult and the truth is that not all friendships or partnerships survive.
And that’s not even the hardest stuff. Add in drugs, alcohol, child abuse, a special-needs child, domestic violence, or worse…and that elusive happy ending seems even further off.
Yet maybe that’s exactly why we held on to those characters for so long. They reminded us of something we ache for: relationships resilient enough to weather the worst in us. But a sitcom is a fantasy; real relationships crack, strain, or even collapse under the weight of real human problems. When things fall apart, there isn’t always a friend group rushing in with bottomless forgiveness and perfect timing.
What I eventually learned—and what took me far too long to understand—is that sometimes the person who helps you the most isn’t a friend or a family member. It’s a professional trained to meet you where you’re at and help you see what you’ve been blind to. In my case, that person was a therapist who stepped in after a relationship had nearly broken me. She didn’t fix everything, but she gave me the tools to start repairing what I’d been carrying for years. That, more than any scripted ending, is where my healing began.
Read more about my story in my recently released book, Art and Artifice: A Memoir—A Story of Love, Deception, and Healing on the Texas Gulf Coast.
