Season finales (Past and Present)

What can we assume about this current season finale based on looking at those in years past, and their resolution in the season opener?

Season 1: Rachel learns Ross likes her, so she goes to the airport to greet him. Ross is there with Julie. Outcome: We spend two months where Ross is the one who doesn't know Rachel likes him before he finds out. They don't actually hook up until the episode after the Super Bowl.

Season 2: No cliffhanger so to speak. Monica and Richard decide to break up because he doesn't really want to have a second family. Outcome: Monica pines for Richard for a good part of the next season, including TOW Where No One's Ready, but in essence, except for a few guest spots with Selleck later on, the storyline ends.

Season 3: Ross and Rachel have been broken up for a few months. She starts hitting on him as the group is at the beach house. Ends with Ross looking at two doors and saying, "Hi." We're left to ponder if he chose Rachel or his new girlfriend. Outcome: Lame-o! Rachel and the girlfriend are both in the same room. Ross and Rachel hook up again for the one episode, but it ends when he refuses to accept responsibility for the break up.

Season 4: Ross says, "I Ross take thee Rachel" as he's ready to wed Emily. Chandler and Monica sleep together. Outcome: Chandler and Monica do become an item. Ross and Emily actually do get married. Then she runs away.

Season 5: Chandler and Monica go to get married in Vegas. As they do, a drunken Ross and Rachel leave the chapel. They've just been married. Outcome: Chandler and Monica decide not to get married. Rachel wants a divorce.

Season 6: No real cliffhanger, again. Chandler proposes to Monica and the episode ends with them dancing to, I think, "Wonderful Tonight." Outcome: Sets stage for next season's wedding related episodes.

Season 7: If you've seen it, you know what happened. If you haven't yet seen it, you still probably know what happened. But I see a trend of cliffhanger resolutions that are somewhat underwhelming after the overwhelming jaw-dropping stunners of the previous spring. I just watched the tape again yesterday, and I'm still not necessarily convinced that what we're supposed to believe is the ending, is what actually is the case. It's almost like a puzzle. Because we hear certain dialogue and the camera pans to get someone's reaction, we've been trained as TV viewers to reach the conclusion we've reached. I just don't see skilled writers and producers pulling this out of the air like they did. If that is the case, then the writing really has deteriorated.

Not to nitpick, but can I add a word? Ross refuses to accept *all* the responsibility for the break up. Rachel refused to accept any of it.

That's all. Thank you. :)

Laurie

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I just chose this to highlight what I think will happen next season: no one knows. *Including* the writers and producers. I think this is just to give themselves an "out' in case one of the female cast decides to get pregnant.

As can be seen above, you can take a setup and go anywhere with it - including the admittedly lame solution of having both of them in the same room. Equally lame would be a false positive on the pregnancy test - but it's certainly possible.

A writer could take the ending of this season and go wherever they wanted to with it. Heck, it might even be that Mrs. Geller is pregnant - she didn't want to take the test at her house, so she used her daughter's. Rachel's look at the end could be because she knows that it's Mrs. Geller - walked in on her or something - but is asked not to tell anyone so as not to steal her daughter's thunder. Exceedingly unlikely - but a good writer could write a humorous episode around this.

The point is that it could be *anything*. I hope it's not something exceedingly anti-climactic, but as you've pointed out, Friends has done this many times in the past.

We'll have to wait a few months to find out. :)

-Richard

.....And can somebody please explain to me how a group of professional sitcom writers can have ross say, "i take thee rachel," and then DROP it in the next episodoe?? It is absolutely ridiculous.

David, I'm just curious as to what you believe is actually happening. I personally have no idea, and would be interested to read your "trend" idea. So what do you think the result will be?

"> David, I'm just curious as to what you believe is actually happening. I

idea. So

Truthfully, I have no clue as to what the resolution could be. That it really was Monica's, and she didn't want Chandler to know yet? For the hope of logic, I just hope it isn't what we're expected to believe, only because it doesn't make sense.

"David Ballarotto" wrote in message news:[email]...

I changed my mind. I've thought about it. We've been focusing on the wrong things. Red herrings. We've all been focusing on what we have been asked to focus on, but maybe the most obvious answer to this is in the first scene of the show right after the opening title. Monica is there at the beginning make a list of things that could go wrong at her wedding. Someone pointed out that in the season opener, when Rachel was seen kissing Ross on what was supposed to be Monica's big night, Monica told Rachel that on her (Mon's) wedding day, Rachel would probably announce she's pregnant. So think about it. Monica is sitting there listing things that could go wrong on her wedding day. She's focusing on what she doesn't want to have happen. Maybe Monica has dreamed everything in the episode. All of this is her idea of what could possibly go wrong at her wedding. Chandler running away, her friends not telling her about it. Everyone thinking she's pregnant. Rachel turning out being the one who's supposed to be pregnant. Joey's not being there until the very end to perform the ceremony. Everything Monica fears could happen to ruin her wedding day. The real Chandler/Monica wedding comes in the season opener. That's my new prediction and I'm sticking to it, for now.

hehe Sound like something from one of those day time spoap,s wher tehy always has thes long dreams in episoees every now and then.. maybe teh Friends writers do a Dallas on us, so they say everything that has happened since season 2 is just a big dream by Moinica, and in the season opener of next season she wakes up, realize RnR never broke up and �she has never been dating Chandler. The only thing true to her dream was th<t Rachel was pregant, but now however nobody doubt who the father is. In case anyoen didn't get it. Thsi post wasn't serious. If that scenario actually woudl happen, I will stop watching Friends. :)

David Ballarotto skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:[email]...

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How LAME can you get?! This is an example of a poorly-written storyline on Friends explaning the "so-called break-up" of Ross and Rachel. Those stupid writers just can't come up with a lot of good ideas on how to keep R&R together, even if it means that Ross Geller IS IN FACT the father of Rachel's unborn child.

We'll just have to wait until the season 8 opener to find out for sure.

Amagansett Waves of Grain

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