Friends: The Worst Episode From Every Season
The one with the bad TV.
Perhaps now more than ever, Friends is one of the most popular sitcoms ever made, a cultural phenomenon few can claim to match or even explain. It aired just over 200 episodes during its messy but captivating ten-year run, and as TV has taught us time and time again, no show is without its duds.
The winding story of six friends in New York, the sitcom works as a love letter to growing up without direction, failing at love, questioning careers and being, well, friends, and though much of it has aged very well, there are a handful of episodes that're probably best left forgotten.
Whether its an unimaginative clip show, an episode with no real meaning or one with inconsistent stakes and tones, these following 10 episodes are the worst that each season of Friends had to offer, and it's probably safe to say that no one would have cared if they were left on the cutting room floor.
With that in mind, here are the worst episodes from each season of Friends' iconic run.
10. Season One: The One With Fake Monica
The main issue The One With Fake Monica has comes from its inability to say or do anything meaningful, despite its obvious attempts to come across as poignant and touching.
The episode comes in two parts, the first of which follows Monica as she befriends an adventurous criminal who's stolen her credit card, and the second of which finds Ross having to give up his monkey Marcel after he reaches full maturity and starts making a hobby out of humping everything and everyone around him.
With Monica's story, the episode does worryingly little to justify her friendship with Fake Monica, a woman who's presented as adventurous and cool but is really pretty terrible and not the kind of person you'd want in your life. The Marcel debacle is much of the same, basically watching like thirty minutes of cheap sex humour.
There's something fun and emotionally engaging lurking within the premise on this one, but it's lost under weak recurring gags, unbelievable character motivations, and a strange lack of development for all those involved.