5 things to know about Friends reunion

Friends Reunion is no longer just a rumor, an urban legend that embodied all our 90s-2000s nostalgia. HBO Max has just shared the teaser for the event, a special episode titled The One Where They Get Back Together that will reunite the six main protagonists of the series for the first time 17 years after their farewell to the public. 

The first episode aired on September 2, 1994 (in Italy in 1997), while the last one dates back to May 6, 2004 and, with 52.5 million viewers, has the record for the most watched episode of the decade. In between, there are hundreds of scenes that have become iconic: Monica with a turkey stuck on her head to declare her love to Chandler; Phoebe singing Smelly Cat; Rachel with her perfect outfits or Joey pretending to speak French or wearing a pile of clothes lying on top of each other. Over the years, thanks to the many streaming platforms and Instagram's nostalgia effect, the show has become an intergenerational cult hit, so much so that the entire OG cast is back together for perhaps the last time. The new project is surrounded by so much hype and mystery, but, if you're curious about what we'll see in the new episode, here are 5 things to know about Friends Reunion.

It will not be a sequel

The special episode of Friends will not be a sequel, but it will be a real-life unscripted celebration. Simply put, we shouldn't expect to see new adventures of revisiting Rachel Green, Monica Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Ross Geller. Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer won't be reuniting on the sitcom's original set to play their iconic characters, but will just be actors sharing memories and unseen backstage moments from their years on the show. Lisa Kudrow also explained this during an interview with The Sunday Times:

No audience has seen us together since the show was over. We will reminisce, talk about what was going on behind the scenes. It’s not us playing our characters. It’s not an episode. It’s not scripted. It’s six of us coming together for the first time in I don’t know how long.

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Reunion will be full of guest stars

Hbo Max has unveiled the long list of guest stars who will be joining the event along with the OG cast. There will be actors who have already appeared in the past in the show, such as Reese Witherspoon who played Rachel's sister or Tom Selleck who was an ex-boyfriend of Monica, but, above all, many new entries. The names? Lady Gaga, David Beckham, Justin Bieber, BTS, James Corden, Cindy Crawford, Cara Delevingne, Elliott Gould, Kit Harington, Larry Hankin, Mindy Kaling, Thomas Lennon, Christina Pickles, James Michael Tyler, Maggie Wheeler. The most unexpected cameo is that of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist and blogger who is also the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The cast's retribution

This has been talked about for a long time, but now the Reunion is happening. It seems that, in addition to the delays caused by the pandemic, one of the elements that made it difficult to get the cast of Friends back together was the money for Jennifer Aniston and the other actors who in the last seasons of the series earned up to $1 million per episode. The problem has been resolved and, according to Variety, each of the stars will receive about $2.5 million.

The release date

We've been waiting a long time for this and, finally, now the big day of the Friends reunion is coming. On May 27 Chandler, Monica, Joey, Ross, Phoebe and Rachel will be back together and will make us take a step back in time, to when the Central Perk with its velvet sofa and Gunther bringing coffee seemed the coolest place in the world. For the States the show will be broadcast by Hbo Max, while it is not yet known if and which platform will be awarded the rights to the special event. At the moment, Italian fans can watch all 236 episodes of the OG series on Netflix, but it seems unlikely that the American giant will decide to air the new episode as well.

The first images from the set

The show on May 27 will also be an opportunity to look at some historic locations of Friends as the apartment of Monica and Rachel. The special episode will, in fact, be aired on Stage 24 at Warner Bros studios in Burbank, in the same set that hosted all ten seasons of the sitcom. The designer of the original production of the series, Greg Grande, shared on Instagram some photos where you can see that he is recreating for the reunion the same atmosphere of the late 2000s, including even the turquoise cabinets in Monica's kitchen!