How Friends Decided to Pair Off Monica and Chandler

Equally Friends wrapped up its fourth flavor in May of 1998, Ross and Rachel'due south on/off relationship notwithstanding provided the show'south emotional core, with the other four roommates serving as the platonic Greek chorus to the couple's climactic kisses and "on-a-intermission"-dom. But then, in the second half of the season's hour-long finale — the one with Ross's ill-fated London wedding weekend with Emily — some other duo surprisingly hooked upward, much to the glee of audience members: Monica and Chandler. Their human relationship would evolve as the complete contrary of Ross and Rachel's: long-kept secret from the other roommates, and healthy and strong until the series ended with them married, parents of adopted twins. Although pairing off sitcom characters is always a risky venture, especially when a evidence already has ane successful couple, Monica and Chandler quickly became a fan-favorite romance, with viewers loving the chemical science betwixt Courteney Cox and Matthew Perry. Dorsum in 2013, when this story was first published, former Friends exec producer Scott Silveri, who co-wrote the episode with future wife Shana Goldberg-Meehan (and, every bit with almost sitcoms, lots of input from the rest of the show'south writing staff) explained the genesis of the human relationship, the reservations that nearly stopped it from happening, and why he thinks it added years to the evidence's life.

Friends was nearly 100 episodes into its run before the show's writers played the Monica-and-Chandler card, but the coupling was something that almost happened earlier. The idea had been "kicking effectually" since before Silveri and Goldberg-Meehan joined the show in flavour three, he remembers, with his predecessors taking note of the chemistry between the 2 characters as early as the season-two episode "The I Where Ross Finds Out." That plot had Monica interim as a trainer for Chandler as he tried to shed a few excess pounds, and "there was a existent fun dynamic between the two of them," Silveri says. "So even as early every bit that, they said, 'Oh, they're kind of special together. If nosotros're e'er looking for another relationship, that's something to file away.'"

The notion of Monica and Chandler was as well seriously pitched in the writers' room in season three, Silveri says. "People got excited near the thought," he says, including himself among that grouping. Goldberg-Meehan, however, idea it was simply too soon in the show's life to introduce another couple. "She was the one who said, 'I but experience like at this point information technology would feel a little desperate,'" Silveri recalls. "We had gotten excited nearly the stories nosotros could tell, but once she said that, we were all shamed and ran abroad. It became clear information technology was too early to explore something like that." Another reason the writers put a pin in the idea: "In that location was a niggling bit of human relationship ennui amongst u.s.a. writers," Silveri says. "We'd already done a lot of drama betwixt Ross and Rachel. And nobody wanted it to get the 'Assemble and Break-up' evidence."

Only later on season three, with Ross and Rachel well into their legendary "break," the timing objections started to melt away. "Nosotros weren't then immersed in relationships," Silveri says. Plus, the logic of another coupling was starting to grow stronger, at least in the optics of some of the writers. "The thinking was, if the show's going to be entertaining for years to come, it tin can't but remainder on this ane [Ross and Rachel] relationship," Silveri says. "So information technology follows that if another pair got together, that would be fun and provide more story. And information technology's organic: If y'all become six friends together, all around the aforementioned age, there's gonna be a little mixing and matching equally fourth dimension goes on. It felt existent." As they got together in summertime of 1997 to map out story lines for the upcoming flavor four, the writers decided that bringing Monica and Chandler together would be, co-ordinate to Silveri, "a cracking goal for the cease of the season." They simply needed to figure out how.

The writers knew they couldn't "do the exact same thing" as Ross and Rachel, Silveri explains. Their different approach mirrored how people ofttimes arroyo new romantic relationships, "which are oft reactions to the last relationship you had," he says. "If someone'due south as well high drama, y'all look for someone stable. And so with Monica and Chandler, we decided to roll out in a way that was a reaction to the last big relationship [the show] had." Specifically, they wanted to keep things low-key. "With Ross and Rachel, it was so public, it was experienced by the grouping," Silveri says. "Like, before there even was a 'Ross and Rachel,' at that place were the guys coaching Ross [about how to go her]. And and then in the third flavour, with the breakup, it affected the vi of them as much of the two of them. Nosotros'd ridden that bus as far every bit nosotros cared to." So the mandate was to introduce Monica/Chandler in a fashion that "would be not too heavy, not also soap opera, but besides something surprising."

What the writers came up with was definitely a shocker. Aye, some Friends fans probably saw hints of a relationship coming for a while; the first episode of flavor four had the twosome cutely bonding over a jellyfish sting. Just information technology'due south hard to imagine even the most ardent 'shippers expecting the big reveal to happen during the wedding, when at that place was then much focus on about Rachel'southward emotions almost Ross marrying someone else. The hookup happened of a sudden in the final half of the show, with zero preamble; later on Ross excitedly bursts into Chandler's hotel room and so leaves, Monica pops out from nether the covers and asks, "Practise you think he knew I was hither?" to much audition shrieking. (A flavor-7 episode, "The 1 With the Truth About London," revealed more than details.)

"The goal from the starting time was to treat Monica and Chandler's hookup as a surprise, a jolt in the 2nd half of the hour-long episode to add together some energy and fun," Silveri says. "The only real fence was around merely how we'd get Monica and Chandler there that forenoon, how many crumbs to drib to lead the audience and the characters to the moment, all in hopes that the fact that they ended upward in bed that morning wouldn't feel unmotivated and false." In earlier scenes at the rehearsal dinner, Chandler had tried to talk a boozer Monica out of her funk over having no beau, and a drunk party guest mistaking her for Ross' mother. "Who wouldn't want yous?" he asked. Says Silveri, "[We were] basically shooting for the spot between, 'This stinks, that never would have happened!' and, 'This stinks, I saw that coming!' More than of a delighted, 'That is surprising, but as well very satisfying and organic. It might not stink!'"

Silveri and the other producers got a sense of how viewers would react to their storytelling decisions months before the episode aired on NBC. With the episode shooting in London (where the show was also a striking) instead of Burbank, producers wanted to give equally many locals the chance to see a taping as possible. So rather than following the standard practice of filming multiple takes of scenes, producers instead shot the episode all the mode through, like a play, for three different studio audiences. "So we got to experience them seeing that [Monica and Chandler] scene three times," Silveri says. "The first time, I was huddled around a monitor, watching [the actors] perform. And when Monica popped up from beneath the sheets, in that location was just this explosion from the audience. It was a combination of a laugh/gasp/cry/shriek. They were merely diddled away by information technology. It was and then intense, for the second or third takes, instead of watching the monitors, I merely turned around and watched the audience." Today, of course, producers would've filmed that scene on a closed set, fearful that audience members would tweet about the moment the second they left the studio. "Before the dawn of social media, you could keep secrets," Silveri laughs. "Nosotros didn't have to worry about it."

But while in retrospect it all seemed like the perfect showtime to what would get a great Television receiver human relationship, Silveri insists that while he and Goldberg-Meehan wrote the London episode, they weren't sure the whole thing would last. Even later that twelvemonth, when the writers returned from hiatus and began breaking stories for season 5, "The question was, 'All right, is this something we dispense with after a calendar week? [or] Is it something we explore a little more?'," he says. In fact, Silveri admits the London hookup was something of a trial airship, designed to run into how viewers reacted to the idea, and if Perry and Cox had the sort of sexual chemical science that producers thought they might. Co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane were always "eager to try things" on Friends, says Silveri, only they also e'er tried to make sure they didn't get stuck in boxes they couldn't become out of if demand exist. "They did that with all of the relationship arcs," Silveri explains. "With Courteney and Tom Selleck [in season two], if I'yard not mistaken, in that location was no sense [at outset] that was going to go a human relationship with a upper-case letter 'R,'" he says. "They went into that, and information technology was going to exist one episode, two tops. And and so they had such practiced chemistry, the producers and the writers at the time decided to explore it a little more." So with Monica and Chandler, "There were plans, only there was no [final] decision," he says. "It was always, 'We're gonna see how it feels … We're gonna see how it plays to the audience,' and then go forrad from in that location. Information technology was audio producing on their part."

The accept-it-slow arroyo also helped smoothen out another potential pitfall of Monica-Chandler: the actors. The writers knew Perry and Cox, along with the other four series regulars, were protective of their alter egos, peculiarly when information technology came to romantic entanglements within the group. "I'k remembering there were a lot of conversations about, 'Is this the right thing to do?'," Silveri says. "I don't think anybody balked too much at them hooking up. That felt natural. The fallout came in the following year, when it became a relationship. They were acutely sensitive to how it played out." That hesitation, plus the writers' own doubts, helped shaped the first half of season v. "We plotted it out in a self-protective way," he says. "It wasn't a relationship [the other characters were] talking well-nigh. Nobody knew most it. We every bit writers were nearly as protective of information technology every bit those characters were. We didn't desire to make too much of a deal about information technology also early. That's what you saw on the screen, but it's also how nosotros experienced it. We didn't want to spend also much too fast. We didn't want it to be high drama. Then nosotros just kept taking baby steps frontward and feeling our style through." And it seemed to work: Audiences embraced the two as a couple, and Perry and Cox ultimately accustomed the idea as well. "Because of the way nosotros eased into it, nosotros sort of greased the automobile," Silveri says.

In the finish, the pairing of Monica and Chandler concluded up rivaling that of the show's core romance, Ross and Rachel. It altered the testify's dynamic, merely didn't ruin it. This was no pocket-sized feat: Virtually shows have trouble managing ane big couple (encounter: New Girl), let alone ii. And even Friends didn't make every coupling click: Joey and Rachel flirted with a relationship toward the end of the testify'due south run, simply the 2 didn't become all the mode. ("They ultimately did feel more similar a brother/sister relationship," Silveri says.) Monica and Chandler, nonetheless, just worked — and Silveri believes that success was a critical component to the show's ultimate longevity. "If you didn't have a Monica-and-Chandler human relationship, if the center of Friends had remained Ross and Rachel, yous would've seen a much shorter shelf life for the show," he says. "Without Monica and Chandler, it ends three years earlier. I don't owe my whole firm to them, simply at least two bedrooms and a bath are because of them."

How Friends Decided to Pair Off Monica and Chandler