This alternate ‘Friends’ ending sends chills down our spine
After ten seasons, Friends ended perfectly. Rachel got off the plane, and got back together with Ross; Monica and Chandler were off to the suburbs to raise their twins; Joey had a one way ticket to Los Angeles; and Phoebe found love with Mike (hearts forever). It was a perfectly satisfying ending, leaving us knowing that all our friends were going to be OK.
Now let’s get into our alternate-reality machine, and think about the possibility of Friends ending in a COMPLETELY different way. Maybe the title “Friends” means something else entirely. Maybe the whole show took place inside someone’s head: Phoebe’s.
Twitter user @strnks realized that often during Friends, Phoebe is making reference to the fact that she is an “outsider” (due to her different upbringing out on the streets). And she is, so much of the major plotlines involve the other characters interacting with each other, while her plotlines often involve strange interactions with outsiders, or in some cases, another version of herself (Ursula). That’s because the events of the show were taking place in her mind during a “meth-aided-fantasy” as “homeless Phoebe…stares through the window of Central Perk.”
Say WHAT?
According to this theory, all ten seasons were Phoebe simply imagining that she had friends, as she looked longingly inside to Central Perk. Phoebe invented names and personalities for all her “friends” inside, but they’ve never met and think of her as “the crazy lady” outside.
The series then ends with Phoebe walking to the fountain where she sleeps at night, and pulls out six umbrellas to sleep underneath. Read his entire proposal now, because it is fascinating and you will have nightmares:
Thankfully, this is not how Friends ended, and nothing was a a fever dream for Phoebe. But as strnks has pointed out, the pieces were there for the ending of Friends to go to in a radically different direction.
(Image via NBC)
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