What I learned watching 10 seasons of 'Friends' in 1 month

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When Friends became available on Netflix on Jan. 1, I decided to start binge-watching it. I had never seen the series in its entirety in order, so I figured it would be fun. Somehow — because I’m either a champion binger or way too into television — I managed to finish the show’s final episode on Jan. 31.

This concentrated dose of Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Ross, Joey and Chandler made me realize some things about the show I’d never noticed before. It was more than just a joke I missed (or didn’t get when I watched the show when I was 10); I now look at Friends in a very different way.

Here’s everything I came away with after watching 236 episodes of Friends in the space of 31 days.

ROSS IS ACTUALLY A HUGE JERK

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If there’s one big takeaway from this binge, it’s that Ross is actually the worst. He’s the kind of man that would call himself a “nice guy” on OK Cupid today (you know, the kind of guy who thinks he deserves women just because he’s so “nice”). Rachel shouldn’t have broken up with him because he slept with someone else; she should have dumped him because he has no respect for her.

All of their troubles as a couple start when she gets a new job and shows some independence, and then strikes up a friendship with a man he doesn’t know (that is, a man he can’t assert his dominance over). He has no respect for her privacy (he shows up at her office unannounced to make sure she’s not cheating), for her life goals (he calls her new career “just a job”) or their relationship (regardless of whether or not they were “on a break,” he does jump into bed with a new woman mere hours after he and Rachel had a big fight).

And then after the breakup, when he couldn’t get Rachel to take him back, he stopped apologizing and changed the narrative so that he was in the right by saying his infidelity was okay, because they were “on a break.”

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Ross and Rachel’s struggles were the show’s way of keeping the two apart until the show’s very last episode (where we are meant to believe all their issues will magically be resolved), but inevitably they just turned Ross into a bad guy.

ROSS AND RACHEL FALL IN AND OUT OF LOVE WAY TOO FAST

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Remember when Rachel went to London to crash Ross’s wedding and tell him she loved him? It’s an iconic event in the show (followed by the even more iconic “I take thee Rachel” — seriously Ross is just the worst), but it has almost no lead up. While Rachel may have had some issues with Ross’s engagement to Emily (she did go a little crazy and asked Joshua to marry her), there was little she did that indicated she had real feelings for Ross.

In the next season, when Ross falls back in love with Rachel after they drunkenly get married in Vegas (I feel like in real life these guys would need some serious therapy), it feels rushed and unauthentic on the other end.

THEY MADE JOKES ABOUT GENDER NORMS…A LOT

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The show’s jokes about people with turkeys stuck on their head are still funny today, but the tirade of gay jokes? I’ll pass. The show never feels more dated than when it constantly requires Joey and Chandler to reaffirm their masculinity after every time they hug.

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During my binge it felt as though there was a hardly an episode without a joke about men being manly and ladies being silly (the season six episode where Joey’s new female roommate gets him to do “girly things” is a real low). And that’s not even counting the number of times the idea of being gay was a joke all on its own (see an excellent compilation of the show’s homophobic jokeshere). Goodness.

THE THEME SONG DOESN’T GET OLD

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I enjoyed singing along to I’ll Be There for You all 236 times. Once or twice I may have tried (and failed) to harmonize.

PHOEBE WAS CHEATED OUT OF A GOOD ENDING

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Did anyone ever expect Phoebe’s journey to end with a marriage to a nice guy? As much as I do like Paul Rudd’s Mike Hannigan (he brought a refreshing energy to the show’s declining final seasons) and as much as the show tried to argue that Phoebe really wanted a traditional picket-fence lifestyle, I just don’t buy it. And in the show’s final episode, while Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler and Joey all get their moment in the sun (“I got off the plane,” the birth of the twins and the destruction of the foosball table, respectively), Phoebe is stuck bringing Ross and Rachel together and telling Mike she wants to have kids. What a waste.

THE LAST EPISODE IS STILL PERFECT

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Even though Ross had to make one last “on a break” joke. Even though I thought it was a disservice to Phoebe. Even though I had just blasted through 236 episodes of television faster than man had previously thought possible, I still cried buckets when Rachel walked into Ross’s apartment and said “I got off the plane.” And then I cried a few more buckets when they leftMonica’s apartment for the last time.

Friends is not quite as perfect as I remember it being. All the things that stuck out to me have probably been noticed by other viewers before, but I had always thought of Central Perk as a perfectly happy place to hang out. And it still is, even if the sheen has worn off a little bit.