When Jennifer Aniston made her Instagram debut in 2019, her first post sent Friends fans around the world wild.
She shared a snap of her sitting at a table with Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer - the first time the cast had been together in 15 years.
The reunion fans had been patiently waiting for since Chandler, Joey, Ross, Rachel and Phoebe put their keys down on Monica's kitchen counter and said goodbye to the famous purple flat was finally confirmed a few months later.
The possibilities were endless. We had high hopes.
Show creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman shut down revival rumours several times, saying that the pitch line for the series, “it’s about that time in your life where your friends are your family” - so in their view, the show came to its natural end when the characters moved away and journeyed into getting married and having children.
But that means we haven’t heard from Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler or Ross in over 15 years.
Of course, there was the two-season eponymous spin-off series Joey which we can all collectively pretend didn’t happen thanks to its distortion of Joey Tribbiani’s loveable absent-mindedness into a one-dimensional character that came off as tired.
The series finale of Friends saw Monica and Chandler moving to the suburbs with their twin babies and Ross and Rachel together at last. They finally agreed to disagree about the break thing.
Phoebe and Mike were married but did they go on to have children? What happened to Joey – is he an Oscar-award winning actor or was his scope limited to daytime drama movies with recycled storylines that we see on Channel 5 in the afternoons?
In the year 2020, was Emma still enjoying her nap? Would the gang have been shocked to learn that we all spent 2020 trying to escape coronavirus as opposed to the ant people like Phoebe predicted?
Friends left us many seeds for a revival episode that would have seen the actors reprise their roles, even if just for one scene.
But this didn’t happen. Instead, we got lots of tears, behind the scenes reflection and trivia.
The trivia quiz recreated the infamous one from the episode The One with the Embryos and it offered fun and surprise guest appearances, including from Tom Selleck who played Monica’s ex-boyfriend Richard.
Although the nostalgia was entertaining and revelations about Ross and Rachel being each other’s “lobsters” in real life were great, the 15-year reunion didn’t answer any questions or fill in any blanks.
Like Rachel just before she kissed Ross in season two’s The One Where Ross Finds Out, we needed some closure.
Whether watched during its original broadcast or later through TV syndications or on streaming platforms, fans of Friends hold the series in the highest regard and it would have made sense to offer viewers a little bit more than a “Smelly Cat” rendition featuring Lady Gaga and gags about the giant laptops they used as props.
The cast did offer their opinions on where they thought their characters are now and this will have to suffice for those of us who have always wondered about what happened after the gang left their keys behind in Monica’s apartment and went off for one last cup of coffee.
Maybe in 15 more years, the offspring of the group will reunite for a spin-off series called Our Parents Were Friends and we’ll get to see them conquer the world as adults – perhaps with guest appearances from their parents.
