When details of the Friends reunion special came out a couple of weeks ago, they seemed to promise a car crash. In addition to interviews with the central cast of the world’s most popular television programme, the long-awaited return of Friends would also treat us to a large number of celebrity guest appearances. And they were an eclectic bunch. There were stars who had parts in the show, like Reese Witherspoon and Tom Selleck, but also, inexplicably Lady Gaga, Cara Delevingne, David Beckham and, perhaps most forebodingly of all, Malala Yousafzai.
All conceivable reasons for having these people together in an episode of Friends were chilling. I had visions of Becks teaching the now 50-year-old male Friends to play “soccer” while Phoebe gets in hot water with BTS for ripping off one of their songs. Justin Bieber turning to the camera and saying “how you doing?”, for some reason, to 30 seconds of rapturous studio audience screams. Celebrated human rights advocate Yousafzai with a raw turkey carcass on her head. And let’s not forget that this special took so long to bring about because various cast members had refused to participate in any kind of Friends reunion in the 17 years since the show ended. Surely, it was going to be bad.
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