15 Friends Episodes That Have Aged Poorly

As far as popular sitcoms go, "Friends" is very near the top of the heap. The series about a group of twentysomething buddies living in outrageously decadent Manhattan apartments helped define 1990s television, lasting for an impressive 10 seasons on NBC. It made its central cast overnight stars (who shared a special bond, as evinced by their statements after Matthew Perry's death), and even launched the decade's iconic haircut that every woman asked for at the salon but only a rare chosen few could actually pull off (The Rachel, of course). And we don't even have space to get into its banger of a theme song.

While there are a handful of absolute classic "Friends" episodes, there are also more than a few episodes that ... well, haven't stood the test of time. From homophobic jokes and outdated views of masculinity to inappropriate relationships and workplace sexual harassment played for laughs, these episodes do not represent the best that "Friends" has to offer.

Of the several aspects of "Friends" that didn't age well coming into the 21st century, its casual homophobia is one of the most persistent. Being gay is treated as a punchline, and all of the male characters express a horror at doing anything that could be perceived as gay. 

This is certainly evident in "The One with the Nap Partners," where Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Ross (David Schwimmer) are stricken with revulsion over the fact that they accidentally fell asleep on the couch together and had a bit of a cuddle. Not the end of the world, right? But from the way they react, it's as though they've just reenacted select scenes from "Heated Rivalry" together in their sleep. Just another example of how '90s masculinity is a prison — and it's far from the only situation like this played for laughs that we'll see on "Friends."

In "The One with the Race Car Bed," Monica (Courteney Cox) ends up with a bright red race car bed instead of the sedate, mature mattress she had picked up. But that's just one of the many storylines in this episode. In another, Joey is tapped to teach a soap opera acting class, a position that puts him in a tough spot when he finds out that one of his students — one of his most talented students, no less — got an audition for the same role that he's going out for. 

In an effort to sabotage his audition, he guides the student into performing the part in a stereotypically gay manner, believing that it will tank his chances at the show. The twist is that it backfires — the casting team loves his take on the role and quickly sign him to a contract. But that doesn't excuse the fact that "Friends" once again leans on lazy homophobic humor and is quick to equate gay with bad.

This episode, "The One with the Jam," reflects a tendency of "Friends" to treat really dark topics with a levity that borders on flippancy. Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) is walking down the street when she realizes that a random guy is following her, and when she turns around to confront him, she learns that he's mistaken her for her twin sister Ursula. You see, he actually meant to be stalking Ursula, something Phoebe's weirdly okay with. 

In fact, Phoebe's okay enough with it that when sparks fly between her and the stalker, Malcolm (played by David Arquette, Cox's then-husband), they go out together. And really, the only reason their budding relationship hits a bump in the road is because Phoebe finds out that he still secretly wants to be stalking Ursula. But don't worry — Phoebe cares enough about him to offer to let him stalk her for a while. There's a lot to unpack here, and none of it is good.

If someone hasn't already written a doctoral thesis about how Ross carries with him the most toxic views of masculinity while simultaneously being one of the least traditionally masculine characters on "Friends," they should. In "The One with the Male Nanny," Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) and Ross are trying to find someone to take care of their daughter while they're at work. Enter Sandy (Freddie Prinze Jr.), a kind, sensitive nanny who seems too good to be true. 

The only problem? He's a guy. And the crux of the humor in "The One with the Male Nanny" essentially boils down to the idea that there's something inherently wrong, even predatory, about a man who willingly spends time with children. Ross quickly finds a reason to fire Sandy ... because he's in touch with his emotions and good with kids? Make it make sense.

Here, we get a double whammy of a plotline that hasn't aged well combined with real-life factors that give the episode a little bit of awkwardness. Brad Pitt guest stars in "The One with the Rumor" as Will, Ross's friend from high school who harbors an extremely one-sided grudge against Rachel as a result of her behavior towards him while they were teenagers. For her part, Rachel doesn't really seem to even remember who he is and is flummoxed at the idea that she was mean to him back in the day.

The rumor at the heart of the episode is one of the main components that makes this episode feel dated — Will admits to spreading a rumor in high school that Rachel was intersex, which is supremely uncool of him. But also, hindsight adds extra ickiness to his hostility towards Rachel, knowing not only how Pitt's relationship with Jennifer Aniston unfolded, but also knowing more recent allegations surrounding Pitt's marriage with Angelina Jolie. This one isn't entirely the fault of "Friends" writers — it's just a little bit harder to watch now.

When you look at an episode like "The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin," it's kind of hard to know what the writers of "Friends" were thinking. In it, Ross and Monica's cousin Cassie (Denise Richards) comes to town. She is, of course, incandescently beautiful, so it makes sense why Chandler (Matthew Perry) is momentarily stunned by her appearance. But Ross is her first cousin, a close blood relative — the kind of relation that most states see as sufficiently intimate to pass laws against marriage. 

And maybe we're expecting too much from Ross at this point, but it's a real low point for the character to be perving all over his actual cousin. Luckily, nothing happens between them — Cassie is disgusted when she realizes that Ross is attracted to her — but it just feels like a misstep for the show to have even stepped into such dodgy territory.

For most of "Friends," Rachel doesn't have a lot of power in her job. But that hardly excuses the stunts she pulls in "The One with Rachel's Assistant." When Rachel is given the green light to hire an assistant for the first time in her career, she immediately proves why she shouldn't be in charge of anyone — she hires Tag Jones (Eddie Cahill) strictly because he's handsome, even going so far as to have him pose for Polaroids during his interview.

And that's not the end of it, either. She spreads rumors around the office that he's gay so none of the other women there will compete with her for his attention. And although she promises Phoebe (even Phoebe knows she's making a mistake) that their relationship is going to be strictly professional, they inevitably start to date. They're together for several episodes in Season 7, something Rachel knows is wrong but does anyway because ... well, she wants to.

The issue with "The One Where Ross Dates a Student" is, well, right there in the title. And if you notice that Ross is often the problem in old episodes of "Friends," you might be onto something.

Here, Ross is teaching a class when he crosses paths with Elizabeth (Alexandra Holden), a student who has a crush on him. For most faculty members, this is exactly where it would end. But as we're all familiar with by now, Ross isn't most faculty members. 

Instead, he starts to date Elizabeth, justifying their age gap (they're about 10 years apart) and imbalance of power (he's literally her professor) with the fact that they really seem to hit it off. Seemingly oblivious to the fact that dating your students is a really good way to get fired from your job, Ross defies the nay-sayers and goes out with Elizabeth for five entire episodes in Season 6. In a later episode, he even goes so far as to blackmail Elizabeth's father when he threatens to tell the school about their relationship — a plot point which is, of course, played for laughs.

Never underestimate the ability of "Friends" to mine the mere appearance of anything gay for laughs. In "The One with the Ballroom Dancing," Joey is tasked with teaching their building's taciturn super Mr. Treeger (Michael G. Hagerty) how to dance in preparation for the superintendent's ball, where Treeger hopes to woo a woman he has a crush on. 

If Joey can pull this off, he'll keep the whole gang in Mr. Treeger's good graces (something that becomes crucial when Treeger learns that Monica has been illegally subletting a room in her rent-controlled apartment). But in order to do this, he'll have to do something unthinkable (at least, in the world of '90s sitcoms) — Joey will have to dance with a man. Although he begins to enjoy their dancing lessons, he's mercilessly mocked by the girls, who can't help but bust out every gay joke in the book.

Look, we've all had terrible roommates — it's a rite of passage, and honestly, it's only fair that the friends from "Friends" should have to deal with a few duds in exchange for living in New York City apartments that are all by metrics way beyond their means. Eddie (Adam Goldberg) is Chandler's roommate for three episodes in Season 2 while Joey briefly moves out. It's clear from fairly early on that Eddie is dealing with some mental health issues that give Chandler pause (although they're all played for laughs), but the final straw comes when Chandler discovers that Eddie watches him while he's asleep in "The One Where Eddie Won't Go." 

Chandler struggles to break up with Eddie as a roommate, until he comes up with the idea that lands this episode on our list. Knowing that Eddie is mentally unstable, he tricks him into believing that they were never actually roommates. People throw around the word gaslighting all the time, but this is textbook gaslighting — and is probably not a cool thing to do to someone who already struggles with their perceptions of reality.

Phoebe works as a massage therapist, a job that unfortunately entails issues of sexual harassment. The problem with "The One with the Dozen Lasagnas" is not that one of her clients tries to take advantage of her — which he does — it's that the episode chooses to focus on who the client is rather than what he does. When Rachel's boyfriend Paolo (Cosimo Fusco) grabs Phoebe's butt and exposes himself to her, the focus of the episode is on how Phoebe's going to explain to Rachel that he's a cheater. 

The fact that Phoebe has been sexually assaulted in the workplace barely warrants a mention, and it's treated as awkward more than violating. It's obviously difficult for light-hearted sitcoms to delve into these issues in less than 30 minutes but not treating it like a joke would probably be a good place to start.

Out of all the iffy episodes of "Friends," "The One with Chandler's Dad" is one of the few that even the writing staff of the show wishes they could take back. In it, Chandler reconnects with his dad, a drag queen who goes by the name of Helena Handbasket. (Honestly? Iconic.) The character, who is framed as gay and trans, is played by the cisgender actress Kathleen Turner. The elder Bing is frequently the butt of homophobic and transphobic jokes, particularly from their ex-wife Nora (Morgan Fairchild).

Looking back at the episode, co-creator Marta Kauffman has regrets for how the character was portrayed. "We kept referring to her as Chandler's father, even though Chandler's father was trans," she explained in an interview on BBC's "The Conversation." "Pronouns were not yet something that I understood. So, we didn't refer to that character as 'she.' That was a mistake."

Over the course of the 10 seasons of "Friends," Ross doesn't come across as a top-tier father. He's in and out of his son Ben's life, leaving him to be raised primarily by his ex-wife Carol (Jane Sibbett) and her wife (Jessica Hecht). But one of his least shining moments as a parent comes in "The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel," where he's set off in a huge way when Carol drops Ben off at his apartment clutching his current favorite toy — a very stylish Barbie doll. 

The idea that toys can be for only boys or girls has fallen out of fashion over the past few decades, making Ross's outrage over his son — a boy child — playing with a Barbie feel extremely dated. It also reflects a very old-fashioned approach to parenting, where the father leaves the day-to-day work to the child's mother but suddenly has strong opinions when it comes to the prospect of his son being raised with anything he perceives as girly. Not a great look for our guy Ross, here.

"The One That Could Have Been" is a two-part episode that takes the gang through a "Friends" version of "Sliding Doors," where they get to see what their present lives might have looked like if they had made different choices at various points. But unofficially, it's an opportunity for the show to declare open season on Fat Monica (i.e. the tiny Courteney Cox in a ridiculous fat suit). 

While each of the characters is noticeably different in this version of reality (Phoebe's a tough-as-nails businesswoman, Joey's a successful actor, etc.), Fat Monica is the butt of the majority of this two-parter's jokes. It's not the first time that "Friends" declared war on the more full-bodied among us — we've seen flashbacks to Monica as a teenager before — but it stands out as one of the most relentless and mean-spirited examples of its recurring issues with fatphobia.

The fact that this episode is called "The One with the Ick Factor" makes us feel like even when it came out, the writers knew that it wasn't quite kosher. But like so many other episodes of "Friends" that have aged poorly, it takes something legitimately problematic and gives it a light, fluffy, "aren't we quirky?" treatment. In this case, Monica goes out with a guy named Ethan (Stan Kirsch) and they have great chemistry — so much so that they end up having sex. 

There are just a few problems here, and they most boil down to the two being completely dishonest with one another. Monica tells him that she's 22 years old when she's actually 26, which she doesn't think is that big of a deal, since he's a senior in college. Right? Well, actually, he's a senior in high school — and for those of you playing at home, that means he's just 17 years old. Yikes. Might as well call this "The One Where Monica Has to Register as a Sex Offender."