Friends: 25 Greatest Episodes

12. The Last One Parts 1 & 2 (S10E17/18)

Friends The Last One
NBC

The Episode

The final ever episode (in two parts). Erica goes into labour with Monica and Chandler's children. Ross and Rachel sleep together, but she leaves for Paris anyway. Ross and Phoebe make a desperate bid to stop her. Joey buys a baby chick and duck for Monica and Chandler's new home.

Why It's Great

Starting a TV show is hard. Ending one of the most beloved series of all time in a satisfactory manner? Almost impossible, yet Friends pulled it off here.

Somehow, the episode has everything you could've wanted. There's Ross and Rachel reuniting, only for her to leave anyway - followed by his dramatic chase across New York, only to end up at the wrong airport. It's thrilling, it's funny, it's sad.

There's a similar feeling in the other storylines too. Monica and Chandler finally welcome their children into the world is a beautiful, touching moment, but a real sense of melancholy sets in when they have to destroy the foosball table to save the chick and the duck.

It all culminates in a crescendo of emotion. The plane doesn't have a phalange. SHE GOT OFF THE PLANE! Has it always been purple? And then, of course, they go for coffee, and everybody (us, not them) cries.

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Contributor
Contributor

NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.