Joey and Phoebe almost hilariously hooked up on ‘Friends’

Like any group of close knit friends, it’s expected that some — if not all — will eventually pair off and live happily ever after, right? That’s the stuff sitcoms are made of, especially Friends. For 10 seasons we watched Ross and Rachel will-they-won’t-they, and watched Monica and Chandler fall madly, deeply in love. It felt like Phoebe and Joey should follow, right?

Wrong. Phoebe fell in love with Mike, and Joey moved off to L.A. The two remained platonic friends for 236 episodes, however, that wasn’t wasn’t always the plan.

In a new interview with People, Matt LeBlanc and Lisa Kudrow discuss that the two of them ALMOST hooked up. ALMOST! They pitched an idea to the writers, but it never happened.  That’s a bummer, because the Joey/Phoebe romance reveal would have been Hilarious, with a capital H.

According to LeBlanc, the idea was to suggest Phoebe and Joey had been “having casual sex the entire time” and Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica — even Gunther! — didn’t realize.

The big reveal would have been along the lines of a flashback/clip-episode, showing their romance had been going on for some time.

“We’d go back and shoot all the historical scenes,” LeBlanc explains.  “Just before a moment that everyone recognizes, there’s Joey and Phoebe coming out of a broom closet together. But [the writers] were like, ‘Nah.’”

Ohmygosh. Think about that for a second. Think about some great Friends moments — like pivot, or the cheesecake on the floor, or Chandler in a box — and now imagine a few seconds before, with Joey and Phoebe clearly in the middle of something.

It would have been right in front of our eyes the whole time, and inserting those moments into past episodes would have been the most hilarious. Sigh, if only. But honestly, Joey and Phoebe were always better off as just friends.

(Images via NBC, NBC/Giphy)