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New Year's Eve is associated with romance. In movies and TV, characters often share that midnight kiss when the ball drops to dark music, showing off a new love or rekindling an old passion. However, in the first episode of Friends of the New Year, the great romance is not a happy tragedy. In the classic The One with the Monkey, Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow) finds true love with scientist David (Hank Azaria), but ends up letting him go forever, kissing him long before the ball drops.
Phoebe and David meet in this episode when he's doing his live show at Central Park and she yells at him for talking while he's playing. Conversations with her friend Max about her beauty range from banter to romance, as Phoebe and David enjoy a sweet and growing romance over the holidays, with a pretty awkward first kiss and Phoebe admiring David's quiet charm. . However, things quickly go wrong when David is offered to study abroad in Minsk for a year. Phoebe must decide to follow her dreams and be encouraged to lose them.
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Why is Phoebe and David's romance so important?
Although Friends has had romantic storylines since the pilot, the show's early romance focuses on failed love or breakups rather than new, blossoming relationships. Rachel and Barry, Ross and Carol, Chandler and Janice, Monica and "Paul the Wine Guy," Joey and Angela, all of these romances are not just breakups but average love stories for most fans. Although there was Ross/Rachel material, it never went beyond light flirting, which gave rise to the term "friend zone". This series was meant to prove that true love can exist.
Phoebe and David changed that. Although they had another romance that ended in a breakup, the show spent time showing why he loved them both. Viewers saw "cute dates", blossoming love, chemistry as everything worked out and the two shared happiness. They also looked at couples who broke up due to circumstances, where one partner was described as unattractive (Rachel/Barry and Chandler/Janice), one partner was only interested in sex (Monica and Paul, Joey and Angela) or the main character became supportive. Because of the character's true love (leaving Carol Ross for Susan). It was something different.
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What sets Phoebe and David apart from their friends' previous romances?
Phoebe and David did not break up because of this. They are separated because of their condition. Phoebe sadly tells David that she can't ask him to stay in New York just for her because it would make him unhappy, and that unfortunately she is in Minsk for research and discovery. To help her achieve her dreams, she gives up her loving and supportive relationship with David and has to say goodbye to him on New Year's Eve long before the ball drops. At the end of the episode, he is too sad to hug his friends at midnight to welcome the new year. Phoebe's grief over losing David may be the loss of a true love that should have lasted a lifetime.
This script proved that friends can deliver a strong holiday romance, in this case, in one episode. Phoebe and David were immediately recognizable and engaging as characters. Their chemistry still makes them a couple that some fans will root for, and their tragic romance is one of the most memorable moments from the early days of Friends . Although the episode is named after Marcel, Ross' relatively unknown monkey from Season 1, what fans remember most is Joey and Chandler's kiss and Phoebe's romance. This is what separates and perpetuates friends : the emotional connection between characters.