The Last One (Friends episode)

"The Last One" is the final episode of the television situation comedy "Friends". It is the seventeenth and eighteenth episode of season ten; Part One and Part Two ran as one episode. 52.5 million viewers saw the finale when it was originally broadcast. [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9904E1D8173CF93BA35756C0A9629C8B63 'Friends' Finale's Audience Is the Fourth Biggest Ever, New York Times, May 8, 2004] ]

First aired: May 6, 2004.

Plot

Part 1

Phoebe and Joey pack Monica and Chandler's belongings as the couple accompany Erica, who went into labor at the end of the previous episode, to the hospital. Meanwhile, Rachel leaves Ross's bedroom after their apparent reunion in the previous episode. Erica gives birth to twins, to the surprise of Monica and Chandler, who were expecting only one child. At his apartment, Joey shows Phoebe his house-warming gift for Monica and Chandler: A chick and duck to replace the ones that died. Ross arrives and confesses to the pair that he slept with Rachel. Rachel emerges from her bedroom and, to his disappointment, tells Ross that the sex was "the perfect way to say goodbye".

Later in Central Perk, Phoebe convinces Ross to tell Rachel how he feels about her before she leaves for her new job in Paris. As he is about to tell her, Gunther (James Michael Tyler) steps in front of him and confesses "his" love for Rachel. Back at Monica and Chandler's apartment, Ross decides not to tell Rachel, for fear of rejection. She prepares to leave to catch her flight, but waits long enough for Monica and Chandler to return with the twins, named Erica (after their biological mother) and Jack (after Monica's father). After Rachel leaves, Ross has a change of heart, and he and Phoebe follow Rachel to the airport in her taxi. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0583433/ IMDB article] ]

Part 2

Joey returns to his apartment to fetch the chick and the duck he was hiding, but finds they have become trapped in the foosball table. He and Chandler decide to break it open when they cannot find any other way of getting the birds out. Phoebe's reckless driving gets Ross and her to the airport and after buying a ticket to get past security they search the information boards for Rachel's flight number. Ross checks the number with Monica but discovers they are at JFK Airport, while Rachel was flying out of nearby Newark Airport. Phoebe phones Rachel, who has already boarded her flight, to stall her for time. When a passenger overhears Phoebe saying there is a problem with the plane, he gets off the plane, prompting everyone else to leave. Chandler and Joey have difficulty breaking open the table, so Monica does it for them. When they retrieve the birds, Chandler suggests Joey keep them.

Phoebe and Ross arrive at the airport as Rachel boards the plane again. Ross tells her he loves her but she is unable to deal with his confession and gets on the plane anyway. Ross returns home, rejected, and finds a message from Rachel on the phone. She explains her actions and decides to get off the plane, but the message cuts off. Ross turns around to see Rachel standing in the doorway and they embrace. The following morning, the friends gather in Monica and Chandler's empty apartment. With some time remaining before Monica and Chandler leave for the new house, they decide to go to Central Perk for one last cup of coffee.

Continuity

Although there is no new plans to resurrect the show Matt LeBlanc was given his own spin off series as Joey Trivianni, in the show Joey.

Misc Information

* Joey took the chick and the duck off Chandler and Monica's hands, but in his spin-off series, "Joey", he had neither the chick nor the duck with him when he arrived in L.A.
*When Phoebe mentions that everyone lived in Monica's apartment at some point in time, it turns out to be very true. Monica has lived there the whole series (apart from briefly in season 4, where she and Rachel lost the apartment in a bet with Joey and Chandler), Rachel lived there from Seasons 1-6, Chandler lived there briefly in season 4 and then Seasons 6-10, Joey lived there briefly in Season 4 along with Chandler (at that time they had both won a bet against Monica and Rachel, and gave up the apartment when Monica and Rachel agreed to make out for a minute) Phoebe lived there briefly in Season 6 and also before the series began, and in this episode it is revealed Ross lived there one summer during college when he tried to make it as a dancer. Ross follows by saying, "Do you realize we almost made it 10 years without that coming up?"
* Phoebe mentions Ross never having chased someone in the airport, to which he replied "Not since my cop show got canceled," when in fact he chased Emily (his second wife) at the airport to tell her that he loved her in a similar fashion to this scene.
* All the cast of Friends cried after the end of filming, and Jennifer Aniston can even be seen trying to hide her tears from the camera in the final scene by turning her head away or hiding her face in David Schwimmer's arms.
*After this episode, Joey is the only one of the "Friends" who didn't end up in a relationship.

Production

* The episode was the only episode of Season 10 to be shot in 2004. Only 18 episodes were shot with the final episode filmed in January 2004.
* Courtney Cox Arquette was 4½ months pregnant when this episode was shot; the actress wore loose clothing, jackets, and held props against her body throughout filming to cover up her growing belly. You can clearly note it in some scenes, like the one where she is leaving to go to the bathroom in the hospital, and is stopped by Chandler.

Cultural references

* The music playing as the camera pans across the empty apartment is "Embryonic Journey" by Jefferson Airplane.
* The song "Yellow Ledbetter" by the rock band Pearl Jam is featured, making it the first Pearl Jam song to be licensed for a television show.
* In an episode of Family Guy entitled Petergeist, Stewie references this episode along with Joey when he's talking to the television possessed by Native American poltergeists saying, "Oh you didn't see it? Ross and Rachel got back together. It wasn't that great, and Joey got his own spin off but eeehhh... it's not going so well".

Footnotes