[ad_1]
Summary
- Joey cleverly exposes the Central Perk plot hole in Friends season 6 by drawing attention to the group’s unrealistic leisure habits during workdays.
- Friends’ consistent portrayal of characters lounging at a coffee shop in the middle of the day when they should be at work is a glaring plot hole in the sitcom.
- The Central Perk plot hole in Friends was necessary, as the premise required a central hangout spot for the core friend group to interact on a regular basis.
In season 6 of Friends, Joey drew attention to the most glaring plot hole in the whole series with one brilliant, scene-ending line. In the 30 years since Friends first premiered in 1994, the beloved sitcom’s legacy has managed to maintain longevity by continuing to entertain new and longtime viewers to this day. It is still the standard for sitcoms in many ways, due to the main Friends cast’s inimitable chemistry and impeccable comedic timing and delivery. Despite its reputation as one of the best sitcoms of all time, Friends was ridden with plot holes throughout its 10-season run.
The plot holes in Friends ranged from character inconsistencies, like Rachel never wearing glasses and Ross supposedly not liking ice cream, to continuity errors like Rachel and Chandler having multiple first-time meetings. However, one plot hole could be detected in almost every episode of Friends. This near-everpresent plot hole was so glaring that the show even cleverly acknowledged it when Joey made a very valid point about the gang’s collective leisure habits in one season 6 episode.
Joey’s 8 Funniest Running Gags On Friends, Ranked
Joey’s love of food, protectiveness of his penguin Hugsy, and his iconic catchphrase “How you doin’?” are all among Friends funniest running gags.
Joey Mentioned The Central Perk Plot Hole In Friends Season 6
Joey Pointed Out How The Group Is Always At the Coffee House In The Middle Of The Workday
In season 6, episode 8, “The One with Ross’s Teeth,” the friends are sitting in their usual spot at Central Perk when Rachel mentions in conversation that her boss doesn’t like her very much. Monica and Chandler agree that they don’t think their bosses like them either, to which Ross speculates that it might just be “a universal thing.” Joey then makes the valid point that “maybe…it’s because you’re all hanging around here at 11:30 on a Wednesday!“ A moment of realization falls over the group as they all get up to head to work, promptly ending the scene.
It is simply implausible that a group of six 20-to-30-somethings would be able to comfortably lounge at a coffee shop in the middle of the day on a regular basis.
Joey’s point would still stand even if this was a one-time thing, but the comedy of acknowledging it comes from the fact that hanging out at Central Perk on a workday was a frequent occurrence on Friends. It was unrealistic enough that their group of friends always sat on the same couch at Central Perk (although this was proven to not actually be a plot hole in Friends), but it was simply implausible that a group of six 20-to-30-something-year-old would be able to comfortably lounge at a coffee shop in the middle of the day on a regular basis.
Rather than attempt to reconcile this plot hole,
Friends
merely winks at it with this observation from Joey.
Although their occupations and job statuses change over the course of the show, there is never an instance where they’re all unemployed. At any given point, more than half of the group have day jobs, some of which would take place during regular office hours. This scene even clarifies Rachel’s job in this season of Friends to set up the borderline meta joke, drawing even more attention to how bizarre it is that none of them are at work right now. Rather than attempt to reconcile this plot hole, Friends merely winks at it with this observation from Joey.
Joey’s 10 Best Reactions On Friends
Joey’s dramatic reactions are often regarded as some of the most hilarious moments on Friends. These are a few of his most memorable.
Why The Central Perk Plot Hole Was Necessary For Friends
The Friend Group Needed To Frequent A Central Hangout Spot For The Sitcom To Work
As the title suggests, Friends is about the core friend group and their relationships with each other. For the premise to work, the show needed a central meeting location for them to frequent so they could catch up on the events of each other’s lives, even if that meant they could somehow afford to hang out daily when they would realistically be at work. Of course, they also hung out at Monica’s a lot, and Central Perk was on the ground floor of their building, so the element of convenience made a little more sense for those who lived there.
Friends
had to sacrifice a degree of believability to put the gang in the same room in almost every episode.
Still, even in the ’90s, it was unrealistic for a group of adults to spend that much time together in the first place, let alone on workdays at a secondary location. Had the show focused more on the individual characters’ day-to-day lives, it might’ve been more realistic, but it would’ve been a different show that might not have been as successful. Ultimately, Friends had to sacrifice a degree of believability to put the gang in the same room in almost every episode. Besides, the theme song did establish from the get-go that their “job’s a joke.”
Friends Was Self-Aware About Many Of Its Plot Holes
Friends Wasn’t Afraid To Poke Fun At The Many Mysteries That Riddled The Show
This baffling Central Perk detail wasn’t the only mysterious plot hole Friends poked fun at throughout its run. In season 3, episode 21, “The One With A Chick And A Duck,” Chandler and Joey acquire the titular chick and duck and keep them as pets for three seasons. However, after season 6, episode 20, “The One With Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E.,” the chick and the duck are never seen again. The only other mention of either bird is in season 7, episode 2, “The One with Rachel’s Book,” when the duck gets sick after eating Rachel’s hand cream.
It wasn’t until the Friends series finale that the chick and the duck’s disappearance is finally explained when it is revealed that they died (although Joey believes the common lie parents tell their kids: that the dead family pets went to live on a farm). The show finally addressing the birds’ deaths in the final episode felt more like a nod to this plot hole that went unacknowledged for four seasons than a genuine attempt to fill the plot hole at the last minute.
Other Friends Plot Holes We Choose To Ignore (& Why We Love Them Anyway)
A Lot Of Friends’ Plot Holes Don’t Matter In The Long Run
While there are many plot holes throughout Friends that are difficult for an avid fan not to notice, most of them are minor enough that they don’t actually interfere with the plot of any given episode. Certain inconsistencies, like Monica’s apartment number changing from “5” to “20,” are so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things that they’re easy to ignore.
There are also more widespread plot holes, like nearly all the main Friends characters’ ages (both independently and in relation to each other) and birthdays changing from season to season, that the show never attempted to correct. Some of these changes to their ages and birthdays were just unnecessary continuity errors on the writers’ part, while others were done for the purpose of a storyline, like Rachel and Monica’s thirtieth birthday episodes. Even if these timelines didn’t track with how old they would’ve been in general and compared to the others, it was a sacrifice that viewers can overlook.
Other plot holes are forgivable because they allowed for some unforgettable moments. For instance, had Friends never retconned Rachel and Chandler already meeting at Thanksgiving and even sharing a drunken kiss at Ross and Chandler’s college party, the iconic ’80s flashback episodes wouldn’t have existed. A lot of the plot holes that Friends created were for the sake of delivering priceless jokes and bits, making the canonical contradictions worth it in the end.
Friends
Friends is the popular sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, released back in 1994 and ran for ten seasons. The show follows a group of six twentysomethings through their lives in New York City and their time spent between their two apartments and their local coffee shop. The show features the group navigating tricky relationships with one another and comical misadventures.
- Release Date
- September 22, 1994
- Seasons
- 10
- Writers
- David Crane , Marta Kauffman
- Where To Watch
- Max
[ad_2]
Source link