In his book, Matthew Perry said that the character of Joey was very vague until they did the first table read, when Matt LeBlanc basically gave him his personality. It seems the writers weren't all that clear on Joey from the beginning and they just went with the easy route.
That's weird, as far as Joey was one of the four basic Friends original characters: Monica, Rachel, Ross and Joey forming two couples: Monica and Joey and Ross and Rachel. Marta Kauffman and David Crane first thought about Chandler and Phoebe as just side characters. That's what you heard from Marta and David in the DVD's extras. Later they decided to give all characters equal status.
@@marsicogodofwar9280THANK YOU! You're the first person who has ever said this. See my comment above. It's somweord hiwbtheyvare the exact same character in different universes and no one else seems to have ever noticed!
I think Joey worked until Chandler moved out. Their brotherly bond was so fun to watch and as Chandler's story focused more with Monica we got this weird Joey and Rachael story that went nowhere. I wish they took advantage of Chandler moving out as a way to grow Joey and focus on his character arc. What's his end goal? Well for me I think when Estelle died she should have left one more job offer just before she died for a chance for Joey to host something in New York. Not every actor needs to move to LA to "be a star" and he did hosting stuff in the show before (Let's play Bamboozle!) We could have spent that final season cleaning up the Joey/Rachael stuff (maybe it was a chance for Joey to realize he's ready to settle down with someone he's in love with, and realized he just loves Rachael and that's it) and he gets a hosting job in New York where he becomes a presenter perhaps. That way it doesn't feel like Joey's character was benched for the other 5 (and we pretend the Joey spinoff didn't happen)
That did happen to some degree, the relationship with Rachel had a big effect on him and he did realise he wanted more than just the flings he was used to. That was one of the spin offs biggest issues. It neutered the small about of character development he did have.
and thats why the show started to get drastically worse once the chandler and monica arc properly started the show was incredible up until then and after that with every season it got worse as there was less to do with each character joey seemed pointless without chandler and chandler lost half of his character which was the people he dated, rachel stopped being ditsy and the only characters that really kept up were ross (who went from sad to neurotic over time but was still funny) and monica and phoebe who actually stayed the way they were meant to be
I loved Joey's "character arc" because I don't think every main character actually needs an arc. Main people live their lives without change, so in a show that's literally about the dynamics of friendships it's nice to see that come through. In every friend group you have that one friend who is exactly the same as they were, or worse.
Its true that many people live their lives without change, but in that process there is always an internal conflict that either stagnates them or makes them change. I feel like this video focuses more on the outward aspects of his life rather than acknowledging that there was a lack of internal conflict in Joey's own psyche throughout the show that all the other characters had which shaped their character development. It's okay for a character to not grow, if the nuance with such a conflict is established and we see why they aren't able to navigate that. But in Joey's case, there was strong lack of nuance in terms of his own internal struggles and that makes Joey feel like a more empty character if you take out his friends from the equation. I guess this is also part of the reason why his spin off wasn't as impactful because there wasn't any particular hook of conflict that was decently established in the original series in his character that would make the viewer seek for a resolution in such a spinoff.
And for monica changed to much. She went from the grown up sensible 1 to becoming vry scatty, loud and alittle inmature. Still love them all tho, great show, Still funny even after 50th time watching, so who cares
Joey was slightly dim in the first season, but still of average intelligence. However, Matt thought that it would be funnier to make Joey stereotypically dumb. Also, the key reason why the spinoff bombed was because Joey was hilarious when he had his pals to bounce off of in an ensemble, but not so much when he was the leading man.
Fan theory: He has a degenerative brain disease. ... I joke, but my buddy's brain got rotten out from the inside by a JP-8 allergy the USAF refused to diagnose... The result was he went from a fairly normal (if kinda goofy) guy to a manic with a 10 minute memory over the course of 3 years.
Btw, nobody really noticed either, everyone thought he'd just turned into an @$$hole. For example, he'd talk sh@t about a woman one minute, then sleep with them, then talk them up to the same people he talked sh@t about them to like that previous conversation never happened. I had felt for about a year straight that something was wrong, because he and I hung out a lot... And he started basically repeating conversations, up to as close as 10 minutes apart... That was when it felt like I was talking to an alzheimers patient. He attempted suicide at his next base, and the docs there finally did a brain scan and realized he was accumulating brain damage for 3 years. He's a lot better now, he paid out of pocket for hyperbaric oxygen treatment (because the VA is so archaic, its too "new" for them to pay for that type of treatment). But yeah, it was such a slow burn of a problem, nobody really realized there was something deeper causing his moronic behavior. The only reason I had an inkling was because I started spending all my free time with him trying to keep him from doing anything stupid (like offing himself. He waa already suicidal by a year out from leaving that base).
Where's that source? Didn't Matt just thought they should make him slightly dim and more loyal to his friends because the original draft of the character was meant to be considered a "douchebag" by even his friends?
I loved Joey by the end of Friends. You may be right in how his “dumbness” got exaggerated by the end, but he grew into a more compassionate and nurturing person by the final season. He did learn and grow, but not the same way as the other characters. Joey has more emotional maturity than he does intellectual maturity, which really shows in the show’s quieter moments with him. That’s just what I got from his character, though.
Friends is my comfort show. I watch it constantly. I knew Joey was a better character in the beginning, but I never noticed HOW MUCH better he was until now when you play season 1 side by side with the more recent seasons. It’s too bad.
True but honestly it's looking a bit deep. Even though he's worse in later seasons it still works because of what you first said, it's a comfort show. It doesn't take itself too seriously and not every character needed a huge arc.
I really liked watching his growth when he had a crush on Rachel. He had a lot of sensitivity and growth around complicated relationships (Rachel and Ross) and it was a nice change of pace
I disliked Joey’s downgrade in intelligence as each season progresses. He had a good, average intelligence in season 1, with him knowing stuff and historical figures that later Joey wouldn’t even know. But later he becomes incredibly dysfunctional as a human being, that it’s annoying to watch. I do love Joey from seasons 2-5 cause he is more dumb, but he isn’t incredibly stupid to the point of being a man child. He still is a functioning person with some intelligence in those seasons, and is at his most funniest in those years. Just wish they kept that version of him in the show and actually gave him an arc. So sad to see he ended up with nothing of significance at the end of the show
@@carlrood4457 I liked him that way too! The dumber version of him between seasons 2-5 is the funniest Joey ever, but I wish they kept that street smart/average intelligence aspect to balance it out.
Those were the seasons that were great. In later seasons everything and everyone was amplified. Phoebe and Joey got the worst followed by Monica. After 5 seasons most of the characters felt a bit forced.
Love your channel- thanks for the vid! Now I’ve been a huge friends fan most of my life. They definitely flanderized the hell out of Joey. But one thing you got wrong is that at the beginning Joey was never looking for love- only sex. He did go through some relationships that made him start to want and accept real love. That’s how he grew as a person. I also think it’s kind of nice that one character didn’t live out a perfect life. Some people are in the same place at 35 as they were at 25 and Joey is a good representation of that. Not everyone lands their dream job or finds their true love. I found it to be a welcome dose of realism.
Sad thing is that looking back at it now, I realize how most characters didn’t really grow, they gradually got reduced to their extreme traits and basically became caricatures of themselves: Monica turned into this intense controlling neat freak to the point of being annoying; Ross was annoying to begin with so it was basically all downhill for him from the get go; Phoebe became this WTF character who was mostly there just to say something randomly weird and bizarre in the middle of a conversation, and Joey got degraded so bad that the only thing left to do was give him a special needs helmet. Chandler and Rachel are probably the only wholesome characters in the show.
The Joey not being able to speak French bit always bugged me. I can't remember the exact line, but it came up in the previous season that he was able to learn some ridiculously complicated medical term for one of his lines on Days of Our Lives without having any idea what it meant, so learning French, or at the very least being able to imitate being fluent doesn't seem that different.
That was the best part of that episode. What doesn't make sense is Phoebe suddenly being fluent in French when 3 seasons prior(not sure the actual seasons it is) she didn't know sous was french for under and that she thought Tim was Monica's boss. And what makes it even funnier is that Matt LeBlanc is actually fluent in French.
@@RojoCube I don’t get your criticism here. Three seasons is equal to three years in-universe (and in reality as well) so how is it even remotely implausible that Phoebe learned French during that time? And honestly it seemed like she was pretending to not know what “sous” meant as a way to carry on the conversation and sadly as a way to seem somewhat dumb in the eyes of the guy she was talking to. That thing that some women unfortunately felt like they had to do to get a guy to like them at the time.
Romance and kids is not a wrap up, it’s not depressing that he didn’t “get” to go home to a spouse and children because that was never established as something he wanted, at least not so much so that it sticks with the audience.
It kinda was. He valued his friends above everything else and wanted to find love many times throughout the show. The problem is that they didn't made him grow in any way. Even if kids and love wasn't something he wanted, he could've grown professionally, for exemple. He could've been a famous movie actor by the end of the series and it would've been great. He wouldn't need money from his Friends but he would still want to be with them. But since they wanted that forced spin-off show, these kinds of character development were ignored. It's just sad.
@@joaopedrocalheirosmiranda9383 they didn't even want "Joey" to be the spin off. They asked every other main character/pairing first, but they all passed. So they went with Joey, the character least equipped to be the focal point of a series.
If that was actually the point that should've been more explored in proper character arcs. Like making him struggle with that and resolving it with the other characters, to make him come to terms with how everything turned out. But that was not the case. They wanted a spin-off, and Matt LeBlanc was the most available from the Frined's cast. That's why any development for his chaaracter was postponed to that series.
@@freddy04123e’s not “on the attack mode”, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He’s just pointing out how flawed Joey’s character was, and coincidentally, I thought the same thing 2 days ago and had this conversation with a friend. His character got dumber and got nowhere, and was a moocher the majority of the series. “Not growing up” and “being so dumb that you can’t take care of yourself”, aren’t the same thing.
Why sad? If people are a little childish but have good hearts, like Joey, and don´t do nothing wrong to others, Who cares? Mature people not always do good actions.
Why I’m not shocked Matthew Perry died so young friends portrayed actors in a bad light People that stay the same in a world where you’re advised to stay the same are portrayed as people who don’t have things happening or people that don’t achieve society’s ideals of a good life Intelligence is not a hierarchy there are nuances This could have a negative impact on peoples’ health
@PeterSawyer Wrong. You clearly didn't watch the show in that case. the most caricature-like characters by the end are Monica, Joey, and Phoebe. Ross has in fact one of the best developments on Friends. He is way more mature by the end and this is why he gets back together with Rachel, he is a loving, caring father twice, and he is absolutely portrayed as such, he gets tenure at the university, and he also finally finds peace in his personal life, and lets Rachel go to Paris even if she takes his child to another continent, for her own good, but then she comes back to him, and that represents their beautiful growth, but also their love because they were always the end game. So you are very, very wrong. Monica in the end became an abusive bully who lied to Chanlder constantly (like with the name thing - if you don't remember check it out), Phoebe was a bully, and cruel too by the end, and Joey was just painfully dumb, undeveloped, pathetic, childish and single womanizer, in fact way dumber and worse that at the start. So yeah, you had all backwards.
I love Joey because he was a better friend to all the other characters than they often were to him, or even each other. He always put them first and made sacrifices for them. When he wanted to be with Rachel he wouldn't have dated her if Ross had an issue with it. Yet Ross, who had just started dating Joey's ex Charlie, seconds after their breaking up, still felt he had a claim to Rachel. Joey always seemed to be consistent in being kind to all of his friends, yet some of the friends did things to each other and other people in general, that were hurtful or selfish and that was true for all 10 seasons. Instead of some of them growing up and becoming better humans, their worst traits became more amplified. In some cases so cringe worthy there are episodes l fast forward through, like when Monica doesn't correct the adoptive mother about the mistake about who they are. Everyone always sees Monica as the anchor and the one with a good moral compass, but Joey is often the one encouraging his friends to make the right choices. Also... while it was not a popular pairing between Joey and Rachel, the more you watch Friends... I binge it all the time 🤣 you realize Rachel deserved a better guy than Ross was. Again, Ross never really became a better person. He was always selfish, jealous, controlling, bordering on obsessive with Rachel and exhibited signs often seen in abusive partners... Including the time he yelled at Rachel to get her butt back in her room and get dressed when the whole gang was running late to Ross' work event. But Joey, he would have treated her so well. The person who Rachel grew into after Ross, deserved to be with someone nice like Joey. What some may see as no arc or growth from Joey, I actually see as the one person who was the anchor and the one constant who could be depended upon because he was exceedingly loyal. His lack of growth into that next level of life was also in part because he was the one always sacrificing his own happiness for his friends, something that was not often reciprocated.
I agree And to be honest, the show was growing less funny as the other characters had their growth arcs. Chandler and Monica’s story was so forced tbh, I never really felt it and they became less funny the more they were together, I really hated seeing how they kept sneaking around and how they had to be so teary eyed in emotional moments. Rachel was never really funny, and she never really developed as a character, it’s only Emma that made her seem like she was maturing. I loved the show for Joey and Phoebe tbh😊
@@clivematthews95Rachel had a BIG growth! She went from daddy's credit card, marrying-someone for-money-and-social-status girl to a working woman with a career interest who would marry someone only for love, and a mother. It's a big change to start being responsible for yourself and self-sufficient like that
Very well stated. I always feel that Joey isn't with anyone at the end because eventually he and Rachel will get together. Ross will inevitably become jealous and controlling and Rachel will leave him. This video just doesn't do justice to the Joey character.
In my opinion, Joey is the truest & BEST “friend” in the group to each member. Ross knows* the most about everyone, as he came up with the questions to ‘the game’. Joey though, although not much growth in some areas… he did have the biggest heart and the most selfless personality by the end.
The last we see of Joey in his own spinoff he at least ends up with a woman and has a successful acting career, earning a production company and staring in a big blockbuster movie. He’s at a better place in his life then he was at the friends finale.
On one hand, I like that Joey didn't end up with a partner or a perfect job or kids. Not everyone needs those things to be happy. On the other hand, his relationship with Rachel brought out the most character growth he had gone through. He experienced actual deep love for the first time. He was so incredibly caring toward her and Emma. Plus he brought out a lighter, more fun/silly, relaxed side of Rachel. They shared the same interests and sense of humor and respected each other's work. If the writers had ended the series with Rachel and Joey together, no one would be saying he didn't have character growth. It would have been a beautiful lesson about how the best romances arise out of true friendships where both parties love, care for, and respect each other and can truly be themselves with each other. Unfortunately the writers felt pressure to kill that relationship for the sake of the will-they-won't-they relationship characterized by nostalgia, drama, and passion (Ross and Rachel). Since we saw Joey experience genuine healthy love for a woman and be fulfilled by that, we want that for him going forward. So either way, I have to disagree with this video's assessment. Joey did grow and change, and at the same time, he didn't need to do so in order to be a beloved and realistic character.
What I did think of Joey's character by the end of friends? The only one who wore his heart on the sleeve every damn time. Best loyal friend anyone could ask for. Sure, it would have been great to see him settle down, but he never desired it. For him to have a character growth, it would mean that he would have a flaw to grow out of, but being stupid is not a flaw [A] So, if you take out the stupidity, what character flaw did he have? He was nice to everyone, he peaked in that episode where he helps out that pregnant woman who was alone in the hospital. That's how nice he is as a person. His only flaw, if you even consider it a flaw is his constant womanizing ways. However, he charms women and never abuses them. However, one could say he manipulates their feelings and he did get to be at the other end of it and learn, when Monica and Rachel forcibly set him up with one of his one-night-stands. He realizes how much it sucks and then calls up every woman he ever dated and apologized. That's the kind of person, who quickly realizes his mistake when he experience it himself and has the decency and courage to apologize. He is a great character and honestly, his existence serves as a mirror to every stupid flawed thing that every other character in that show does. Sorry for the rant, but this is the first time I disagreed with nerdstalgic's assessment 🙂 [A] I am sometimes worn down by the number of times I have to convince people that it is OK for someone to be stupid. If they want to be smart, they will find their way. The only reason we want someone to be smart is so that they do not get hurt and taken advantage of by others. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine to be stupid.
I don't think it's about addressing a particular 'flaw' as such, since all that is highly subjective. I guess what is meant is that there was a lack of internal conflict in Joey's own psyche that all the other characters had which shaped their character development. It's okay for a character to not grow, if the nuance with such a conflict is established and we see why they aren't able to navigate that. But in Joey's case, there was strong lack of nuance in terms of his own internal struggles and that makes Joey feel like a more empty character if you take out his friends from the equation. I guess this is also part of the reason why his spin off wasn't as impactful because there wasn't any particular hook of conflict that was decently established in the original series in his character that would make the viewer seek for a resolution in such a spinoff.
@@psydart5945 See now this argument I would have accepted. And I do agree that on some level it would have helped to give his character some struggle. But the needstalgic video was mainly focused on how the character became more stupid and childish and that he did not grow out of it. That I do not agree with.
@@ArunIyerS Nerdstalgic has become all about hot-takes lately, I still enjoy the content but the channel is clearly all about the algorithm these days.
@@Vivi_9 Its understandable and as much as I wish that were not the case, I also know how difficult that would be 🙂 On the other hand, nerdstalgic's videos are still high above several things we see on RUclips, so I just have to be content with the content 🙂
That’s why I love New Girl, Jess’ goofiness rubs off on the rest of the gang and the gang’s realism at the start of the show rubs off on Jess. There is no “butt of the jokes”, like reality you learn from your experiences and the people that surround you
I’m sure Joey didn’t mind that because it made him a multi-millionaire! When the show started he was down to his last few dollars and God blessed him with his role on the show, even if some of you think his character didn’t change! I am very happy that Matt LeBlanc found fame and fortune! Good for you Matt!! I am a HUGE FRIENDS fan!!! ❤️❤️🙂
They did with Chandler too. At the beginning of the show he loved going to games with his friends by the end of the show he knew nothing about sports. Plus with Joey I felt like they made him dumber as the show went on.
@@startracker5895 i remember the one episode with the tuxedos Rachel mentioned a famous baseball player and Chandler didnt know who he was but he knew more about details about a red carpet event which Rachel advised him to watch more espn and less e
@@chrispinion Yeah the show was really bad with continuity. Like we've seen Chandler cry loads of times, then they have an episode where it's "revealed" Chandler can't cry.
I am soo thankful of this video. I binge watched all the seasons at timespan of two months in lockdown and i didn't even notice joey was dumb in first few seasons and later suddenly he begin to act that way... I thought it was weird because my friends who watched it taking so much time never noticed that.... I guess writer were taking advantage of it being a comedy tv series and when all character are flat people wouldn't notice... But watching it like a movie made me realize how different they treat joey then other characters... i liked season 1 joey more then his later versions....
Joey and Phoebe are my favourite characters from Friends. I recently rewatched the series and actually believed they carried the show into stardom. Joey did have a character arc. No, he did not settle down like his other friends, but that teaches the audience that happiness can be found in different forms. He moves to LA to chase his dream and we all know a friend in the friend group who chooses a career and then later in life once they are happy with their progress they settle down or don't which is also fine. Joey showed more empathy, character growth and understanding than the other male leads. Examples of this involve Joey babyproofing his apartment for Rachel and stepping up for her when no one else did, Joey telling his female friends when men are using them, and Joey and Phoebe having a genuine friendship where he respected her and didn't try to sexualise the relationship, Joey proposing to Phoebe then Rachel when he heard they would be a single parent. Joey steps up constantly and gives the other two male leads amazing advice. If any character in Friends didn't work it's Ross. Joey gets portrayed as the playboy but Ross has several divorces and two single baby mamas and treats women as pokemones where he has to collect them all. His will they won't they relationship with Rachel is cruel and mean-spirited as he treats her as an inferior for most of the show if she refuses to do things his way. Ross treats Rachel poorly while she is pregnant, and is possessive over her body because she has his baby so he tries to force her not to date but freely dates other women himself. Joey is not the character who runs from responsibility, Ross is. And Ross and Rachel ending up together after Joey would have been a better choice for Rachel and let's face it a better dad (yes, cause he raised all those sisters and he took amazing care of Rachel while she was pregnant which is something that does not get highlighted enough). Moreover, the spin-off show with just him is iconic and it is an ode to the great actor he is. We get to see the reality behind being the friend that follows your dreams and Joey brought a fresh perspective to the trope. He showed that it wasn't easy but to never give up and he does not find everything he is looking for in the spinoff, rather he finds what he needs which I think is amazing writing. In life, everything does not wrap up with a perfect bow and I love that Joey teaches us this. I think overall people don't give Joey enough props for the character growth he shows.
Friends fandom has a clear, positive bias toward Joey but the fact is that he is the worst, most sexist, misogynist, and least-developed character on the show, if we do an in-depth analysis. He is a sc0m towards all women during the whole show! Everyone always treats him as some saint, just a sweet, dumb guy with a big heart - and he was not that at all!! At the same time, fans give Ross cr*p 24/7!! This is why I can't stand the hypocrisy of this fandom!! Joey changed women like socks and threw women away like broken toys, he literally brags during the entire show about how he never calls back after a one-night stand, how he breaks up with girls by phone, or how he doesn't call at all, he is also always gaslighting his ex-partners or girls he wanted to break up with, that it was all their fault - what was wrong in their relationship, the list goes on and on. The majority of the people in this fandom gloss over Joey's awfulness, only because Joey's personal life wasn't front and center storyline, a major storyline on the show, but it was always kinda in the background, his relationships were mostly short and episodic, so people don't see it. The show put a spotlight on Ross's personal life, so this is why it was more detailed and fleshed out on the show, and now people give Ross hate. But Joey was awful, and no, his 'cuteness' towards his friends doesn't erase it or make him better, because he was also awful to his friends at times, like when he gave Chandler the whole lecture and didn't want to forgive Chandler after Chandler kissed Kathy, yet only a few years later, Joey went after Rachel who was not only Ross' greatest love, but mother of his child!! You simply don't go after the baby momma of your best friend - it's messy and it just doesn't happen, period! So Joey was a hypocrite. He also never properly thanked Chandler for all the financial and other support Chandler gave him all these years when Joey struggled with money, he was often very inconsiderate towards Ross, Monica, or Rachel (there are many episodes when he acts like an as*) and with Rachel it is, of course, until this absolutely forced, cringe, and inorganic 'romantic relationship' storyline in season 8, which didn't make any sense! And it didn't make any sense, exactly because until season 6 when they started interacting more with each other, and later when they started to live together, actually, Joey and Rachel didn't have anything in common, and never had any significant interactions with each other except some basic, vague convos in the Mon's apartment just because they were in one group of friends. It all slowly started to change only in late season 6, so literally after more than half of the show already passed! This is why their pairing, no matter what their stans say, never made any sense, and it's a classic example of the forced, inorganic, 'wtf' pairing done purely for the rating sake, and for the controversy. And it was all because, by season 8, Friends was really struggling for the first time with the viewership, and putting Joey with Rachel together, when Ross and Rachel were already established for years as iconic star-crossed lovers and on-and-off couple on the show, was going to make big news and drew attention to the show again, and the creators knew it! So to suddenly pair Rachel with Joey was going to stir the pot and bring viewers back, that was what was needed at this point for ratings. The creators themselves talked about it after the reunion. To sum up, Joey was only ever nice to Rachel, out of the women he was interested in romantically, and it was part of the cringe, forced, unnatural storyline for the sake of ratings, that only managed to ruin Joey as a friend, and never went anywhere as far as romance is concerned. Because we all remember that it all took literally only 3 episodes in season 10 during which it was all resolved, and ended in nothing. Rachel rejected Joey, hitting him every time he tried to start sex, and they were never able to sleep together even once because they realized they were always just friends and didn't desire each other (remember Ross was not the problem anymore, after The One When Ross is Fine, because at the end of The One When Ross is Fine, Ross himself came to terms with Joey and Rachel pairing, and gave Joey his blessings, being an amazing friend, as clearly, Ross never stopped loving Rachel; yet he decided to give them free way to do what they want). And what is even worse, this storyline never went anywhere as far as Joey's development goes, because Joey was supposed to mature when it comes to romantic relationships after Rachel, and he didn't at all, he literally went back to his old, womanizing habits once he and Rachel ended their experiment. Just two episodes later he is after meaningless dates again, and he is also the same at the start of his own spin-off show that was created and written by the same creators and writers that made Friends, so it was all the same universe, and it counts, no matter how hard some people don't want it. Joey only changed for real during the spin-off, when he met Alex. You - this channel - don't get a pass either, since you are also among the crowd who often bash Ross in your videos, while at the same time, you still support Joey, while he NEVER cared that he hurt women left and right! Ross always said sorry and never wanted to hurt Rachel on purpose (he was drunk, and she did break up with him before he slept with Chloe, and he was very sorry after - facts!) The difference is, that we never really saw women whom Joey hurt suffering on the show because no one of these women was the main character like Rachel. We as viewers never had a chance to see how broken and hurt they were after Joey threw them away! The fact is that Joey was the one character on Friends who never matured, never changed, or developed for real, he ended Friends in almost the same place as he started (only with a better job but he already had a good acting job with Mac&Cheese early on the show, so that was not a really big change, and it wasn't any kind of steady evolution as all the rest characters went through). And this is why I will never understand how anyone could say Joey was a good character or is someone's favorite character. If you start to analyze it all fairly and in-depth, it's clear Joey is one of the worst characters on the show, and his cuteness as a friend can't make up for all the flaws. In opposition to all the other characters who are also flawed, he didn't develop at all. The rest of them, even if flawed, went through multiple changes, and life experiences and ended up in a completely different place than they started.
Well! That was the most realistic part of Friends. Not everyone achieve what they want in life. Some people just go on to never change and never be successful.
While never “intelligent,” early Joey had street smarts, was self-sufficient, cooked, could take care of himself. By the end he was nothing more than a helpless child.
Yeah - though nothing compared to Kevin on The Office. Early seasons, he could sometimes he might say something clever and had that dynamic with Oscar. He was even a drummer in a rock band. By the end, he acted like a baby in diapers who could resist candy.
As someone, who doesn't like characteristic changes on sitcoms, I like that Joey never changed. He is also my favourite character, because sometimes his dumbness makes me laugh until tears
I agree in that Joey never having a good arc was disapointing as he was loveable, and we all wanted him to get a happily ever after. However, with all the cast changing and their lives all becoming different, Joey fills the roll of nostalgia from where everyone started and I wonder if this is why the show feels so good and nostalgic because there is a constant thread from the beginning that runs the whole way through. Just a thought.
I don’t think Joey was the one with the character arc issue, it was Phoebe. Joey had a career where he took chances, learned about love and friendship as he progressed and even understood how ‘change’ impacted his closest friendships. On the other hand, Pheobe stayed weirdly ‘eccentric’, with no actual progress and character growth. At some points, she even was quite evil and asshole-ish but the writers gave her a pass regardless.
I think Phoebe changed over the course of the show. But in a bad way. Around Season 5, she became this really sadistic diva who had no filter, constantly tried to break up Monica and Chandler’s relationship, repeatedly insulted the other characters (most notably Ross and Chandler) with absolutely zero regards to how that made them feel, etc. Whenever someone finally had the nerve to stand up and call her out for what she did, Phoebe would immediately play victim and act like the person calling her out was the bad guy. This is not who Phoebe’s character was at all in the earlier seasons
@@superjackster0165 The writers clearly didn't know what to do with Phoebe as a character. She served no purpose, really, and had no clear story of her own. So it seems like they started to push this crazy side of her to compensate. But it looked not "cute crazy" but "evil crazy" most of the time, bitter and twisted. With that her happy end seems contrived and forced.
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о I have a theory on why these changes were made to Phoebe. Like I said, these changes to her character happened in Season 5. This was the same time that Joey’s character became a lot dumber and more stupid than he was in the earlier seasons. I’m guessing that the writers didn’t want to have 2 idiot characters and instead decided to change Phoebe to be more of the mean girl of the group
@@superjackster0165 Interesting, thank you! I feel the writers simply weren't up to the level of the game, had no ability to handle so many characters consistently for a long time. That's where their simplification ("flanderization") stems from. And yeah, it even happened so abruptly that almost everyone noticed.
Phoebe was my least favourite character. She was unnecessarily eccentric and weird and it became boring and annoying after a while, instead of endearing. I hated that she ended up with Mike instead of David and I think the episode that turned me against her was when David came back for good and she turned him down. The writers made such a huge deal out of David being the love of her life and when he comes back she's like, "nah, see ya". There wasn't much chemistry between her and Mike and it was just cruel how she discarded David like he never existed.
I liked Joey's arc actually. Since the begining he showed us positivity, and determanation to follow your dreams. During the show he became more mature about friendships and relationships. And even his dumbness in the seasons made sense, because they wanted to show us that he is still stuck on his childness and not ready to marrange yet.
I once saw an article on Cracked (back in time when they had good stuff, mid to late 00's, which feels like millennia) that showed with a simple cartoon how every character on any sitcom, all their quirky traits are boosted and boosted until they feel like a parody of themselves. I love FRIENDS, but this felt very close to home. Specially on Joey.
I really relate to Joey's character the most... it seems as if we should all keep changing and evolve, while joeys progression is the ability to keep the world from changing around him - and stay the way he is ❤
Doesn’t matter if they made him more stupid over the course of the series, he still was the best, most devoted, most loyal, kindest and true friend. Maybe he didn’t grow intellectually, but he grew in terms of human qualities, he was the best of them all and that’s what matters more to me.
I think more of the problem is that he didn’t have any ambitions or goals. What you described is basically him being a puppy. Which are cute and lovable but, when you watch a character for 10 years and grow attached to them like they are one of your actual friends then they’re turned into someone who isn’t an actual individual themselves, it makes them feel hollow.
I always thought "The one where Joey is both fundamentally unchanged from a story perspective, and yet demonstrably worse off as a character" was a weird way for the producers to title the final episode, but it makes a lot more sense after watching this video.
There's no character type more vulnerable to Flanderization than "The Dumb One." I've been watching the original Zack and Cody and they had an episode where London beats Maddie at chess over and over without even trying. I also occasionally watch classic Spongebob episodes and Patrick is hilariously sarcastic and mean in clever ways sometimes. But when all you have to do to entertain the masses is having a character say "durrrr what's utah", it's hard to not pick the easy route!
Not everybody grows up. Joey is a prime example of that, and that's what makes him more human than characters in other shows. Why should he mature when he just wants to have a good time?
I think the real problem with it is they didn’t show why. There are people who don’t grow up and there are lots of characters who don’t grow up but, a good screenwriter will show us why they are the way they are. Joey’s character is just hollow, there’s no rhyme or reason to what he does or even who he is. And the thing is, he didn’t just not grow up, he regressed. Before he had ambitions and goals but, at the end, he didn’t really have any goals or ambitions. They didn’t give a reason for that either. It didn’t have to be some complex, well thought out narrative but, some sort of explanation would have been nice.
At the start of the show Joey seemed more graceful (yes weird world to use for Joey) but he had so much charm and he was very charismatic and attractive. If that guy got a date or hooked up with a girl it made sense but as time went on and Joey’s character was made dumber it was so hard to imagine any girl actually Bering interested in him because it was hard to get past the stupid. Every time I rewatch Friends and start with season one it feels like Joey is a completely different person.
Here’s the thing Joey was never the most educational smart person in the group but was one of the most emotionally smart characters who a lot of the characters used to go to earlier on in the seasons for advice, especially Chandler.
Joey's character stopped working once the rest of the characters started "growing up" but Joey essentially stayed the same. The writers didn't have the courage to let Joey grow up too. They had already paired off Monica and Chandler as well as Ross and Rachel (even before the finale they had a kid together so they were a unit in that way). They weren't going to put him and Phoebe together and gave her an arc of meeting and marrying Mike. But they didn't do the same for Joey and I think with some courage they could have. But they knew they were doing a spinoff with him so they didn't want to hamstring that. I think even if in the final few episodes they had him get an offer to do a show in LA that would have given him some kind of final arc. It would have made the finale a little more poignant as Joe would also be moving away and starting a new life, something he basically did in the spinoff anyway.
what i would've like from the joey arc is if he started off as the airhead but the gradually became educated as time went on with his friends teaching him new things episode after episode like phoebe teaching him how to speak french. all of this information he has would bolster his acting abilities and would one day get him the starring role he so desperately dreamt of, or alternatively he could pursue college and succeed at getting a degree and one day becoming a teacher or something. he'd still remain the lovable goofball but not so braindead that it becomes annoying, because that's what saddened me by the end, that joey's friends left him at square one whilst they went on to have great lives
This is a hill I will die on: the best version of Joey was the one who was in love with Rachel. We got to see his loyalty, vulnerability, protectiveness, and selflessness on full display, and honestly, it brought out the best of Rachel too (her empathy, care, and gentleness). When the showrunners started that romance, they intended it to go somewhere, but the fans demanded more of the ultra-toxic, codependent Ross/Rachel relationship (because DRAMA), so they abandoned what was poised to be a massive opportunity for character growth in both Joey and Rachel in favor of it.
Yes, the writers dropped the ball with this pairing in a most pathetic fashion, bowing down to demands from "fans". Fans should never be taken into the equation with regards anything creative, much less dictate or demand. The Joey/Rachel pairing was an inspired decision and could've opened the door for better things - but no, the writers budged and the show started to lose steam quickly and went out with a whimper. Sad.
Its interesting how Friends is essentially a spinoff of Married with Children. Joey was friends from its creation perspective. I feel like he really helped get the show off the ground.
i think part of the point of joey was to show how much everyone else had changed. i mean, there are people like him in real life, that they're essentially the same as they were in their early twenties when they're in their forties and fifties, and you wonder what's wrong with them. it's unfortunate that it happened to joey, but it is a real thing that i kind of think was used decently in friends (though the character assassination part was just stupid.)
Joey "trying" to speak French was just absolutely terrible. It's always the number one moment I point to for his poorly written character. He is an actor, his job for the entirety of the show has been to memorize lines. Joey should be able to memorize some basic French lines even if he doesn't understand them. Earlier in the show, he memorizes an entire tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he can't remember which direction is right or left (another absurdity).
It's strange how even with all this, Joey seems to still be the most liked out of the 6. I've heard worse said about Ross or Monica while Joey's often gets interpreted as a genuine, likeable guy who doesn't have much to hold against him apart from that he Doesn't Share Food. Might be interesting to talk more about the trajectory of some of the other characters on the show if you haven't already. I'd have said Ross probably got it the worst, considering how unlike with Joey, lots of people came out of the show genuinely disliking him. I myself always just felt bad for him watching him get Flanderized to the point that he became seemingly unsalvageable to so many viewers, especially after the post-Vegas debacle (which to me wrecked Phoebe just as badly, but it seems fewer people talk about that).
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о The fact that Phoebe needlessly taunts Ross about how this would be his 3rd divorce, then this is never apologized for or addressed again in any way. Like, yeah that whole arc wasn't all Phoebe's fault, but it bugs me that the whole annulment-avoidance arc started with Phoebe making an uncharacteristically insensitive taunt to her friend then never even has her try to counteract her stoking his insecurities that badly, even after he responds to it in the worst way possible.
woah I never thought of the after that last coffee, everyone going home with their partners and children and Joey going back to being alone in his apartment, so sad :(
@@DodaGarcia Professioanlly fulfilled? Where? When? With a family? You mean his sisters? He didn't achieve anythng in the show and ended up excatly where he was at the beggining.
@@lagadema16 Yes, he's very close to both his parents and sisters who all look up to him. Not sure why you were confused by siblings counting as "family". Did you... watch the show? By the later seasons he was back in the main cast of Days Of Our Lives, starring in movies with acclaimed actors like the one played by Gary Oldman, effortlessly lending his friends thousands of dollars and looking to invest in real estate. Please walk me through how that's "exactly where he was" back when he had no work and had to rely on Chandler for food and rent.
When I binge watched friends last year I literally searched for “Joey flanderization” in the RUclips search bar after finishing the show hoping someone made a video on it. I was just so frustrated with how his character was handled! Glad you guys covered this topic
Someone made the point that Ned Flanders isn’t-ironically-the most Flanderized character on the Simpsons, it’s Ralph Wiggum. Going from a slightly clueless laughingstock dealing cringeily with a crush in “I love Lisa” to a special needs kid who wets his pants in the later seasons. It’s commonality with Joey being that long-running comedies will take a slightly stupid character and magnify the stupidity to an absurd degree for laughs at the expense of character development
They should have made him like a cooking savant. That makes Monica insecure but it's shown he can't manage a kitchen or cook to recipes consistently which means he can never challenge Monica as a pro chef.
Joey exemplifies the character that is scared of change, so probably that is why we don't see much progression and I think that change was the idea behind that progression. There is a scene in the spin-off where Joey talks about his struggle to accept change and how he is embracing it for himself. Great video
Not every character is meant to have a huge changing arc, he might’ve been dumbed down but he was the heart of the show, also… every sitcom has a “Joey” character, the one that isn’t that bright but has a heart of gold so, are you gonna make this kind of video for every sitcom?
Joey would have been great with Rachel. He was making a lot of growth during that time when he was in love with her, but then they made him stupid again. That was really sad how it ended for him .
I definitely agree with everything you're saying, but I think it's worth mentioning that Matt was given complete redemption in the tv series "Episodes"
Joey is, by a far mile, the best character in Friends through the show's entire run, and never needed an arc. Also the episode where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
@@RojoCube Again it is amazing how good David Schwimmer was that Ross was somewhat tolerable despite being a creep, misogynist and just an all round douche
I was more pissed off at how they ruined Eric on Boy Meets World. Eric was shown to be very emotionally intelligent and had moments throughout the series that showed he was a pretty good student. By the end, he was just as dumbed down and sidelined as Joey.
Heavily disagreed Not every character has to change or undergo an arc to be fun to watch. Goku has been one of the most stagnant characters in all of fiction yet people adore him too. Reason being that the relationships between him and people and his consistency in how he reacts to situations is fun to watch. Same goes for Joey. Please stop wanting every piece of media to be the exact same, because that's what shit like this does
agree. by the end of the show Joey was the worst character by far, next to Phoebe who became abusive and cruel, and Monica who became abusive and cruel towards Chandler especially.
Ah yes Another video essay on why something is a problem. My goodness, can we not just enjoy things anymore? Joey may have been stale the entire show, but he's always been one of my favorites, so maybe i'm just taking it too personally, but i dont understand why every video in my youtube feed is why something is a problem or bad. Why can't we just enjoy things?
Also putting Joey between Rachel and Ross in the final season was questionable. The show has always been about the will they/won't they between Rachel and Ross. Putting Joey in the middle wasn't going to work either way. It merely delayed the inevitable Rachel and Ross getting together. The only way to subvert that would be to put Rachel and Joey at the finale, but that would leave a lot of fans ticked that Ross was left out to dry
Very nice! Great observations! I really enjoyed the one where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French. But you're right. It only works as absurdist comedy. It's a deadly twist if we take Joey's level of intellectual incompetence seriously
Love your content. You talk a lot about failed spinoffs, but I'd love to see your examination on why Fraiser seems to be the only successful one--arguably better than its predecessor. Hope you do a video on that in the future.
I never liked Joey. Yes, he had hilarious moments like all of them, but he had almost no development during the entire show and ended up in the same place as he started, he also became less charming as the show progressed. It's very visible if you pay attention. They made him too dumb in the late seasons, to the point that it was no longer funny but pathetic, and he was consistently awful to women: he played games with them like a typical womanizer 24/7 and gaslighted them all the time. In fact, Joey's character arc is very similar to the one of Raj on The Big Bang Theory. Both started off as very likable, charming characters, with one big, obvious difference that Joey was always a confident womanizer popular with women while Raj was painfully shy and afraid to talk to women, but both were charming and cute in their own way. And as both shows progressed, both of these characters became less and less charming, and more and more dumb and annoying, and both ended up completely undeveloped. Yes, Joey was still a more pleasant character than Raj at the end, but still, he had a very similar path to Raj, and he also became less charming and undeveloped.
Nah man there are ppl like Joey and if he is happy like that why do we have to put down ppl or characters who are not normatively happy like have a big job or kids or family!
Some perspective could be had in that LeBlanc was the only member who was requested into the role by the studio instead of trying out for it. The studio had seen his charm in a couple of failed pilots he had done earlier and wanted him included - maybe why the show-creators seemed to not know what to do with his character. I still have an audition tape of LeBlanc from a movie I worked on in 1993 just before he was chosen for Friends. Possibly because he was already “in the business” he was the nicest and most confident of the 30 or so who tried out.
Yea I agree with a lot of the comments here that: does every character need a clear and defined arc? He does grow as a person, he just doesn’t have a wildly massive change
Totally agree. I thought I was alone in this among my friends, no one noticed the writers had been over-playing his idiocy. It felt like they were running out of ideas
In his book, Matthew Perry said that the character of Joey was very vague until they did the first table read, when Matt LeBlanc basically gave him his personality. It seems the writers weren't all that clear on Joey from the beginning and they just went with the easy route.
That makes sense. It seems like they wanted a hot guy character, without thinking of his personality
That's weird, as far as Joey was one of the four basic Friends original characters: Monica, Rachel, Ross and Joey forming two couples: Monica and Joey and Ross and Rachel. Marta Kauffman and David Crane first thought about Chandler and Phoebe as just side characters. That's what you heard from Marta and David in the DVD's extras.
Later they decided to give all characters equal status.
No he actually had to watch blossom film and make himself a 25 yr old Joey Russo
@@marsicogodofwar9280THANK YOU! You're the first person who has ever said this. See my comment above. It's somweord hiwbtheyvare the exact same character in different universes and no one else seems to have ever noticed!
I Love Joey, he’s funny 😂😂😂
I think Joey worked until Chandler moved out. Their brotherly bond was so fun to watch and as Chandler's story focused more with Monica we got this weird Joey and Rachael story that went nowhere. I wish they took advantage of Chandler moving out as a way to grow Joey and focus on his character arc. What's his end goal? Well for me I think when Estelle died she should have left one more job offer just before she died for a chance for Joey to host something in New York. Not every actor needs to move to LA to "be a star" and he did hosting stuff in the show before (Let's play Bamboozle!) We could have spent that final season cleaning up the Joey/Rachael stuff (maybe it was a chance for Joey to realize he's ready to settle down with someone he's in love with, and realized he just loves Rachael and that's it) and he gets a hosting job in New York where he becomes a presenter perhaps. That way it doesn't feel like Joey's character was benched for the other 5 (and we pretend the Joey spinoff didn't happen)
That did happen to some degree, the relationship with Rachel had a big effect on him and he did realise he wanted more than just the flings he was used to.
That was one of the spin offs biggest issues. It neutered the small about of character development he did have.
Can you do a video about the relationship between Monica & her parents please and explain why her mom was so mean to her?
Yes the Joey/Chandler brotherly bond was one of my favorites during the early to mid seasons moments. Really agree with most of your thoughts.
@GrizzyGazza I agree but instead of Rachel I think he should’ve gotten with phoebe
and thats why the show started to get drastically worse once the chandler and monica arc properly started the show was incredible up until then and after that with every season it got worse as there was less to do with each character joey seemed pointless without chandler and chandler lost half of his character which was the people he dated, rachel stopped being ditsy and the only characters that really kept up were ross (who went from sad to neurotic over time but was still funny) and monica and phoebe who actually stayed the way they were meant to be
I loved Joey's "character arc" because I don't think every main character actually needs an arc. Main people live their lives without change, so in a show that's literally about the dynamics of friendships it's nice to see that come through. In every friend group you have that one friend who is exactly the same as they were, or worse.
Joey just had the arc of his friends. And without friends, each single one of them barely had an arc
Its true that many people live their lives without change, but in that process there is always an internal conflict that either stagnates them or makes them change.
I feel like this video focuses more on the outward aspects of his life rather than acknowledging that there was a lack of internal conflict in Joey's own psyche throughout the show that all the other characters had which shaped their character development.
It's okay for a character to not grow, if the nuance with such a conflict is established and we see why they aren't able to navigate that. But in Joey's case, there was strong lack of nuance in terms of his own internal struggles and that makes Joey feel like a more empty character if you take out his friends from the equation.
I guess this is also part of the reason why his spin off wasn't as impactful because there wasn't any particular hook of conflict that was decently established in the original series in his character that would make the viewer seek for a resolution in such a spinoff.
@@psydart5945 Fantastic analysis! You also helped me realize why Frasier worked so well as a spinoff where many others failed.
And for monica changed to much. She went from the grown up sensible 1 to becoming vry scatty, loud and alittle inmature. Still love them all tho, great show, Still funny even after 50th time watching, so who cares
agreed
Joey was slightly dim in the first season, but still of average intelligence. However, Matt thought that it would be funnier to make Joey stereotypically dumb. Also, the key reason why the spinoff bombed was because Joey was hilarious when he had his pals to bounce off of in an ensemble, but not so much when he was the leading man.
They took it too far because it contradicted previous episodes and I hate it
Fan theory: He has a degenerative brain disease.
... I joke, but my buddy's brain got rotten out from the inside by a JP-8 allergy the USAF refused to diagnose... The result was he went from a fairly normal (if kinda goofy) guy to a manic with a 10 minute memory over the course of 3 years.
Btw, nobody really noticed either, everyone thought he'd just turned into an @$$hole. For example, he'd talk sh@t about a woman one minute, then sleep with them, then talk them up to the same people he talked sh@t about them to like that previous conversation never happened.
I had felt for about a year straight that something was wrong, because he and I hung out a lot... And he started basically repeating conversations, up to as close as 10 minutes apart... That was when it felt like I was talking to an alzheimers patient. He attempted suicide at his next base, and the docs there finally did a brain scan and realized he was accumulating brain damage for 3 years. He's a lot better now, he paid out of pocket for hyperbaric oxygen treatment (because the VA is so archaic, its too "new" for them to pay for that type of treatment). But yeah, it was such a slow burn of a problem, nobody really realized there was something deeper causing his moronic behavior. The only reason I had an inkling was because I started spending all my free time with him trying to keep him from doing anything stupid (like offing himself. He waa already suicidal by a year out from leaving that base).
Matt thought? So Matt was the one writing the dialogue for the show huh? Lol.
Where's that source? Didn't Matt just thought they should make him slightly dim and more loyal to his friends because the original draft of the character was meant to be considered a "douchebag" by even his friends?
I loved Joey by the end of Friends. You may be right in how his “dumbness” got exaggerated by the end, but he grew into a more compassionate and nurturing person by the final season. He did learn and grow, but not the same way as the other characters. Joey has more emotional maturity than he does intellectual maturity, which really shows in the show’s quieter moments with him. That’s just what I got from his character, though.
the sky is blue and I had sex yesterday
I used to think this exact argument about Joey, but as I'm getting closer to 30, "being stagnant" is a VERY REALISTIC MAN'S "character arc"
Lol...
ok femcel
Well said.
LOL. Umm no. I'm quite different than I was in my 20's. Don't want to go back to those days.
Wait until you are forty-one, like me.
Friends is my comfort show. I watch it constantly. I knew Joey was a better character in the beginning, but I never noticed HOW MUCH better he was until now when you play season 1 side by side with the more recent seasons. It’s too bad.
True but honestly it's looking a bit deep. Even though he's worse in later seasons it still works because of what you first said, it's a comfort show. It doesn't take itself too seriously and not every character needed a huge arc.
He is stupidier in later seasons but by no means is he a bad character in later seasons.
I really liked watching his growth when he had a crush on Rachel. He had a lot of sensitivity and growth around complicated relationships (Rachel and Ross) and it was a nice change of pace
Yes!!! I felt that was a huge milestone too!
I thought so too. To ignore the romance with Rachel arc on this video is to not explore the topic properly.
that was a horrible angle. Joey and Rachel had terrible chemistry.
I don't know what people like on that. That romance was so forced and unnecessary..
@@GothPaoki agreed
I disliked Joey’s downgrade in intelligence as each season progresses. He had a good, average intelligence in season 1, with him knowing stuff and historical figures that later Joey wouldn’t even know. But later he becomes incredibly dysfunctional as a human being, that it’s annoying to watch. I do love Joey from seasons 2-5 cause he is more dumb, but he isn’t incredibly stupid to the point of being a man child. He still is a functioning person with some intelligence in those seasons, and is at his most funniest in those years. Just wish they kept that version of him in the show and actually gave him an arc. So sad to see he ended up with nothing of significance at the end of the show
I liked him as the more street smart guy compared to Ross and Chandler.
@@carlrood4457 I liked him that way too! The dumber version of him between seasons 2-5 is the funniest Joey ever, but I wish they kept that street smart/average intelligence aspect to balance it out.
It’s funny that you don’t think he’s a functional adult when I actually know people who are functioning adults who are… incredibly stupid.
@ not saying they don’t exist, but Joey gets the brain of a child. No idea how he survived those final years of the show
Those were the seasons that were great. In later seasons everything and everyone was amplified. Phoebe and Joey got the worst followed by Monica. After 5 seasons most of the characters felt a bit forced.
Love your channel- thanks for the vid!
Now I’ve been a huge friends fan most of my life. They definitely flanderized the hell out of Joey. But one thing you got wrong is that at the beginning Joey was never looking for love- only sex. He did go through some relationships that made him start to want and accept real love. That’s how he grew as a person.
I also think it’s kind of nice that one character didn’t live out a perfect life. Some people are in the same place at 35 as they were at 25 and Joey is a good representation of that. Not everyone lands their dream job or finds their true love. I found it to be a welcome dose of realism.
Thanks for this feedback. I think you're right about this.
This comment 👌🤌
@@Nerdstalgic apparently he was meant to be hooking up with phoebe the whole time which would have been an AMAZING reveal
Sad thing is that looking back at it now, I realize how most characters didn’t really grow, they gradually got reduced to their extreme traits and basically became caricatures of themselves: Monica turned into this intense controlling neat freak to the point of being annoying; Ross was annoying to begin with so it was basically all downhill for him from the get go; Phoebe became this WTF character who was mostly there just to say something randomly weird and bizarre in the middle of a conversation, and Joey got degraded so bad that the only thing left to do was give him a special needs helmet. Chandler and Rachel are probably the only wholesome characters in the show.
The Joey not being able to speak French bit always bugged me. I can't remember the exact line, but it came up in the previous season that he was able to learn some ridiculously complicated medical term for one of his lines on Days of Our Lives without having any idea what it meant, so learning French, or at the very least being able to imitate being fluent doesn't seem that different.
That was the best part of that episode. What doesn't make sense is Phoebe suddenly being fluent in French when 3 seasons prior(not sure the actual seasons it is) she didn't know sous was french for under and that she thought Tim was Monica's boss. And what makes it even funnier is that Matt LeBlanc is actually fluent in French.
@@RojoCube Maybe it was just a move by Phoebe on Tim. ;) She's done weirder things!
@@RojoCube I don’t get your criticism here. Three seasons is equal to three years in-universe (and in reality as well) so how is it even remotely implausible that Phoebe learned French during that time? And honestly it seemed like she was pretending to not know what “sous” meant as a way to carry on the conversation and sadly as a way to seem somewhat dumb in the eyes of the guy she was talking to. That thing that some women unfortunately felt like they had to do to get a guy to like them at the time.
@@AustinNGrayson
What complaint? Nothing in my comment indicates I am complaining.
@@RojoCube sorry, your criticism. I’ll edit my reply.
Romance and kids is not a wrap up, it’s not depressing that he didn’t “get” to go home to a spouse and children because that was never established as something he wanted, at least not so much so that it sticks with the audience.
It kinda was. He valued his friends above everything else and wanted to find love many times throughout the show.
The problem is that they didn't made him grow in any way. Even if kids and love wasn't something he wanted, he could've grown professionally, for exemple. He could've been a famous movie actor by the end of the series and it would've been great. He wouldn't need money from his Friends but he would still want to be with them.
But since they wanted that forced spin-off show, these kinds of character development were ignored. It's just sad.
Brother missed the point of the video smh
@@joaopedrocalheirosmiranda9383 they didn't even want "Joey" to be the spin off. They asked every other main character/pairing first, but they all passed. So they went with Joey, the character least equipped to be the focal point of a series.
Agree 💯 %
Yall will blindly defend this ridiculous show even when they're clearly in the wrong 😂
Maybe Joey's character was there to show that some people unfortunately never change? They never grow.
That's precisely what his character is for. Sad that Nerdstalgic just likes to go on the attack more.
It’s true. While most of my friends have grown up, there are a couple that are exactly the same, and one sadly that’s regressed.
If that was actually the point that should've been more explored in proper character arcs. Like making him struggle with that and resolving it with the other characters, to make him come to terms with how everything turned out.
But that was not the case. They wanted a spin-off, and Matt LeBlanc was the most available from the Frined's cast. That's why any development for his chaaracter was postponed to that series.
100%. This article, altho well written, is a clickbait piece because none of us have an issue with his arc lol
@@freddy04123e’s not “on the attack mode”, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He’s just pointing out how flawed Joey’s character was, and coincidentally, I thought the same thing 2 days ago and had this conversation with a friend. His character got dumber and got nowhere, and was a moocher the majority of the series. “Not growing up” and “being so dumb that you can’t take care of yourself”, aren’t the same thing.
I hated how they made Joey stupid.
But everyone has that one friend who never really grows/changes. Sad but true
I absolutely agree!
I'm not sure but I've read that it was actually the actor's own idea to make Joey stupid
Why sad? If people are a little childish but have good hearts, like Joey, and don´t do nothing wrong to others, Who cares? Mature people not always do good actions.
I liked the show “Joey”
Why I’m not shocked Matthew Perry died so young
friends portrayed actors in a bad light
People that stay the same in a world where you’re advised to stay the same are portrayed as people who don’t have things happening or people that don’t achieve society’s ideals of a good life
Intelligence is not a hierarchy there are nuances
This could have a negative impact on peoples’ health
I actually thought the writers did that on purpose - Joey pursued so many women he ended up alone in the end, while his friends had someone.
Joey likes pursuing women, so much like the others he ended the show doing the thing he likes.
@PeterSawyer Wrong. You clearly didn't watch the show in that case. the most caricature-like characters by the end are Monica, Joey, and Phoebe. Ross has in fact one of the best developments on Friends. He is way more mature by the end and this is why he gets back together with Rachel, he is a loving, caring father twice, and he is absolutely portrayed as such, he gets tenure at the university, and he also finally finds peace in his personal life, and lets Rachel go to Paris even if she takes his child to another continent, for her own good, but then she comes back to him, and that represents their beautiful growth, but also their love because they were always the end game. So you are very, very wrong. Monica in the end became an abusive bully who lied to Chanlder constantly (like with the name thing - if you don't remember check it out), Phoebe was a bully, and cruel too by the end, and Joey was just painfully dumb, undeveloped, pathetic, childish and single womanizer, in fact way dumber and worse that at the start. So yeah, you had all backwards.
The laugh track was the main character
I love Joey because he was a better friend to all the other characters than they often were to him, or even each other. He always put them first and made sacrifices for them. When he wanted to be with Rachel he wouldn't have dated her if Ross had an issue with it. Yet Ross, who had just started dating Joey's ex Charlie, seconds after their breaking up, still felt he had a claim to Rachel. Joey always seemed to be consistent in being kind to all of his friends, yet some of the friends did things to each other and other people in general, that were hurtful or selfish and that was true for all 10 seasons. Instead of some of them growing up and becoming better humans, their worst traits became more amplified. In some cases so cringe worthy there are episodes l fast forward through, like when Monica doesn't correct the adoptive mother about the mistake about who they are. Everyone always sees Monica as the anchor and the one with a good moral compass, but Joey is often the one encouraging his friends to make the right choices.
Also... while it was not a popular pairing between Joey and Rachel, the more you watch Friends... I binge it all the time 🤣 you realize Rachel deserved a better guy than Ross was. Again, Ross never really became a better person. He was always selfish, jealous, controlling, bordering on obsessive with Rachel and exhibited signs often seen in abusive partners... Including the time he yelled at Rachel to get her butt back in her room and get dressed when the whole gang was running late to Ross' work event. But Joey, he would have treated her so well. The person who Rachel grew into after Ross, deserved to be with someone nice like Joey.
What some may see as no arc or growth from Joey, I actually see as the one person who was the anchor and the one constant who could be depended upon because he was exceedingly loyal. His lack of growth into that next level of life was also in part because he was the one always sacrificing his own happiness for his friends, something that was not often reciprocated.
I agree
And to be honest, the show was growing less funny as the other characters had their growth arcs. Chandler and Monica’s story was so forced tbh, I never really felt it and they became less funny the more they were together, I really hated seeing how they kept sneaking around and how they had to be so teary eyed in emotional moments. Rachel was never really funny, and she never really developed as a character, it’s only Emma that made her seem like she was maturing. I loved the show for Joey and Phoebe tbh😊
Good observation 👏👏👏
I'm gonna say it : Joey and Rachel should have ended together. Their attraction to each other felt more real than the one with Rachel and Ross.
@@clivematthews95Rachel had a BIG growth! She went from daddy's credit card, marrying-someone for-money-and-social-status girl to a working woman with a career interest who would marry someone only for love, and a mother. It's a big change to start being responsible for yourself and self-sufficient like that
Very well stated. I always feel that Joey isn't with anyone at the end because eventually he and Rachel will get together. Ross will inevitably become jealous and controlling and Rachel will leave him. This video just doesn't do justice to the Joey character.
The ending for him was really sad and depressing, was hoping that the spinoff would change it but I did not like it
Really did him dirty
Poor Joey...
In my opinion, Joey is the truest & BEST “friend” in the group to each member. Ross knows* the most about everyone, as he came up with the questions to ‘the game’. Joey though, although not much growth in some areas… he did have the biggest heart and the most selfless personality by the end.
The last we see of Joey in his own spinoff he at least ends up with a woman and has a successful acting career, earning a production company and staring in a big blockbuster movie. He’s at a better place in his life then he was at the friends finale.
On one hand, I like that Joey didn't end up with a partner or a perfect job or kids. Not everyone needs those things to be happy.
On the other hand, his relationship with Rachel brought out the most character growth he had gone through. He experienced actual deep love for the first time. He was so incredibly caring toward her and Emma. Plus he brought out a lighter, more fun/silly, relaxed side of Rachel. They shared the same interests and sense of humor and respected each other's work. If the writers had ended the series with Rachel and Joey together, no one would be saying he didn't have character growth. It would have been a beautiful lesson about how the best romances arise out of true friendships where both parties love, care for, and respect each other and can truly be themselves with each other. Unfortunately the writers felt pressure to kill that relationship for the sake of the will-they-won't-they relationship characterized by nostalgia, drama, and passion (Ross and Rachel). Since we saw Joey experience genuine healthy love for a woman and be fulfilled by that, we want that for him going forward.
So either way, I have to disagree with this video's assessment. Joey did grow and change, and at the same time, he didn't need to do so in order to be a beloved and realistic character.
What I did think of Joey's character by the end of friends?
The only one who wore his heart on the sleeve every damn time. Best loyal friend anyone could ask for. Sure, it would have been great to see him settle down, but he never desired it.
For him to have a character growth, it would mean that he would have a flaw to grow out of, but being stupid is not a flaw [A] So, if you take out the stupidity, what character flaw did he have? He was nice to everyone, he peaked in that episode where he helps out that pregnant woman who was alone in the hospital. That's how nice he is as a person. His only flaw, if you even consider it a flaw is his constant womanizing ways. However, he charms women and never abuses them. However, one could say he manipulates their feelings and he did get to be at the other end of it and learn, when Monica and Rachel forcibly set him up with one of his one-night-stands. He realizes how much it sucks and then calls up every woman he ever dated and apologized. That's the kind of person, who quickly realizes his mistake when he experience it himself and has the decency and courage to apologize. He is a great character and honestly, his existence serves as a mirror to every stupid flawed thing that every other character in that show does.
Sorry for the rant, but this is the first time I disagreed with nerdstalgic's assessment 🙂
[A] I am sometimes worn down by the number of times I have to convince people that it is OK for someone to be stupid. If they want to be smart, they will find their way. The only reason we want someone to be smart is so that they do not get hurt and taken advantage of by others. Otherwise, it is perfectly fine to be stupid.
Well said!
I don't think it's about addressing a particular 'flaw' as such, since all that is highly subjective. I guess what is meant is that there was a lack of internal conflict in Joey's own psyche that all the other characters had which shaped their character development. It's okay for a character to not grow, if the nuance with such a conflict is established and we see why they aren't able to navigate that. But in Joey's case, there was strong lack of nuance in terms of his own internal struggles and that makes Joey feel like a more empty character if you take out his friends from the equation.
I guess this is also part of the reason why his spin off wasn't as impactful because there wasn't any particular hook of conflict that was decently established in the original series in his character that would make the viewer seek for a resolution in such a spinoff.
@@psydart5945 See now this argument I would have accepted. And I do agree that on some level it would have helped to give his character some struggle.
But the needstalgic video was mainly focused on how the character became more stupid and childish and that he did not grow out of it. That I do not agree with.
@@ArunIyerS Nerdstalgic has become all about hot-takes lately, I still enjoy the content but the channel is clearly all about the algorithm these days.
@@Vivi_9 Its understandable and as much as I wish that were not the case, I also know how difficult that would be 🙂 On the other hand, nerdstalgic's videos are still high above several things we see on RUclips, so I just have to be content with the content 🙂
I remember on my second watch through I was shocked that Joey was reading a book! Even if he did have to put it in the freezer 😜
That’s why I love New Girl, Jess’ goofiness rubs off on the rest of the gang and the gang’s realism at the start of the show rubs off on Jess. There is no “butt of the jokes”, like reality you learn from your experiences and the people that surround you
New Girl and Cougar Town were two sitcoms that failed to make me laugh. I kept watching them for some reason though. 🤔
We had s1 of Joey on DVD and I grew up with it. Since I was a kid I had no idea it was considered bad so I loved it lmao
I’m sure Joey didn’t mind that because it made him a multi-millionaire! When the show started he was down to his last few dollars and God blessed him with his role on the show, even if some of you think his character didn’t change! I am very happy that Matt LeBlanc found fame and fortune! Good for you Matt!! I am a HUGE FRIENDS fan!!! ❤️❤️🙂
They did with Chandler too. At the beginning of the show he loved going to games with his friends by the end of the show he knew nothing about sports. Plus with Joey I felt like they made him dumber as the show went on.
The video mentioned that the show runners did that with all of the characters. But it was the worst with Joey.
Don’t remember Chandler not knowing anything about sport.
@@startracker5895 i remember the one episode with the tuxedos Rachel mentioned a famous baseball player and Chandler didnt know who he was but he knew more about details about a red carpet event which Rachel advised him to watch more espn and less e
@@chrispinion Yeah the show was really bad with continuity. Like we've seen Chandler cry loads of times, then they have an episode where it's "revealed" Chandler can't cry.
@@spenser9908 yeah same with Joey he wasn’t that dumb earlier seasons but then he got dumber and dumber than before
I am soo thankful of this video. I binge watched all the seasons at timespan of two months in lockdown and i didn't even notice joey was dumb in first few seasons and later suddenly he begin to act that way... I thought it was weird because my friends who watched it taking so much time never noticed that.... I guess writer were taking advantage of it being a comedy tv series and when all character are flat people wouldn't notice... But watching it like a movie made me realize how different they treat joey then other characters...
i liked season 1 joey more then his later versions....
Agreed
Joey and Phoebe are my favourite characters from Friends. I recently rewatched the series and actually believed they carried the show into stardom. Joey did have a character arc. No, he did not settle down like his other friends, but that teaches the audience that happiness can be found in different forms. He moves to LA to chase his dream and we all know a friend in the friend group who chooses a career and then later in life once they are happy with their progress they settle down or don't which is also fine. Joey showed more empathy, character growth and understanding than the other male leads. Examples of this involve Joey babyproofing his apartment for Rachel and stepping up for her when no one else did, Joey telling his female friends when men are using them, and Joey and Phoebe having a genuine friendship where he respected her and didn't try to sexualise the relationship, Joey proposing to Phoebe then Rachel when he heard they would be a single parent. Joey steps up constantly and gives the other two male leads amazing advice. If any character in Friends didn't work it's Ross. Joey gets portrayed as the playboy but Ross has several divorces and two single baby mamas and treats women as pokemones where he has to collect them all. His will they won't they relationship with Rachel is cruel and mean-spirited as he treats her as an inferior for most of the show if she refuses to do things his way. Ross treats Rachel poorly while she is pregnant, and is possessive over her body because she has his baby so he tries to force her not to date but freely dates other women himself. Joey is not the character who runs from responsibility, Ross is. And Ross and Rachel ending up together after Joey would have been a better choice for Rachel and let's face it a better dad (yes, cause he raised all those sisters and he took amazing care of Rachel while she was pregnant which is something that does not get highlighted enough). Moreover, the spin-off show with just him is iconic and it is an ode to the great actor he is. We get to see the reality behind being the friend that follows your dreams and Joey brought a fresh perspective to the trope. He showed that it wasn't easy but to never give up and he does not find everything he is looking for in the spinoff, rather he finds what he needs which I think is amazing writing. In life, everything does not wrap up with a perfect bow and I love that Joey teaches us this. I think overall people don't give Joey enough props for the character growth he shows.
Friends fandom has a clear, positive bias toward Joey but the fact is that he is the worst, most sexist, misogynist, and least-developed character on the show, if we do an in-depth analysis. He is a sc0m towards all women during the whole show! Everyone always treats him as some saint, just a sweet, dumb guy with a big heart - and he was not that at all!! At the same time, fans give Ross cr*p 24/7!! This is why I can't stand the hypocrisy of this fandom!!
Joey changed women like socks and threw women away like broken toys, he literally brags during the entire show about how he never calls back after a one-night stand, how he breaks up with girls by phone, or how he doesn't call at all, he is also always gaslighting his ex-partners or girls he wanted to break up with, that it was all their fault - what was wrong in their relationship, the list goes on and on.
The majority of the people in this fandom gloss over Joey's awfulness, only because Joey's personal life wasn't front and center storyline, a major storyline on the show, but it was always kinda in the background, his relationships were mostly short and episodic, so people don't see it. The show put a spotlight on Ross's personal life, so this is why it was more detailed and fleshed out on the show, and now people give Ross hate.
But Joey was awful, and no, his 'cuteness' towards his friends doesn't erase it or make him better, because he was also awful to his friends at times, like when he gave Chandler the whole lecture and didn't want to forgive Chandler after Chandler kissed Kathy, yet only a few years later, Joey went after Rachel who was not only Ross' greatest love, but mother of his child!! You simply don't go after the baby momma of your best friend - it's messy and it just doesn't happen, period! So Joey was a hypocrite.
He also never properly thanked Chandler for all the financial and other support Chandler gave him all these years when Joey struggled with money, he was often very inconsiderate towards Ross, Monica, or Rachel (there are many episodes when he acts like an as*) and with Rachel it is, of course, until this absolutely forced, cringe, and inorganic 'romantic relationship' storyline in season 8, which didn't make any sense!
And it didn't make any sense, exactly because until season 6 when they started interacting more with each other, and later when they started to live together, actually, Joey and Rachel didn't have anything in common, and never had any significant interactions with each other except some basic, vague convos in the Mon's apartment just because they were in one group of friends. It all slowly started to change only in late season 6, so literally after more than half of the show already passed!
This is why their pairing, no matter what their stans say, never made any sense, and it's a classic example of the forced, inorganic, 'wtf' pairing done purely for the rating sake, and for the controversy. And it was all because, by season 8, Friends was really struggling for the first time with the viewership, and putting Joey with Rachel together, when Ross and Rachel were already established for years as iconic star-crossed lovers and on-and-off couple on the show, was going to make big news and drew attention to the show again, and the creators knew it! So to suddenly pair Rachel with Joey was going to stir the pot and bring viewers back, that was what was needed at this point for ratings. The creators themselves talked about it after the reunion.
To sum up, Joey was only ever nice to Rachel, out of the women he was interested in romantically, and it was part of the cringe, forced, unnatural storyline for the sake of ratings, that only managed to ruin Joey as a friend, and never went anywhere as far as romance is concerned. Because we all remember that it all took literally only 3 episodes in season 10 during which it was all resolved, and ended in nothing. Rachel rejected Joey, hitting him every time he tried to start sex, and they were never able to sleep together even once because they realized they were always just friends and didn't desire each other (remember Ross was not the problem anymore, after The One When Ross is Fine, because at the end of The One When Ross is Fine, Ross himself came to terms with Joey and Rachel pairing, and gave Joey his blessings, being an amazing friend, as clearly, Ross never stopped loving Rachel; yet he decided to give them free way to do what they want).
And what is even worse, this storyline never went anywhere as far as Joey's development goes, because Joey was supposed to mature when it comes to romantic relationships after Rachel, and he didn't at all, he literally went back to his old, womanizing habits once he and Rachel ended their experiment. Just two episodes later he is after meaningless dates again, and he is also the same at the start of his own spin-off show that was created and written by the same creators and writers that made Friends, so it was all the same universe, and it counts, no matter how hard some people don't want it. Joey only changed for real during the spin-off, when he met Alex.
You - this channel - don't get a pass either, since you are also among the crowd who often bash Ross in your videos, while at the same time, you still support Joey, while he NEVER cared that he hurt women left and right! Ross always said sorry and never wanted to hurt Rachel on purpose (he was drunk, and she did break up with him before he slept with Chloe, and he was very sorry after - facts!) The difference is, that we never really saw women whom Joey hurt suffering on the show because no one of these women was the main character like Rachel. We as viewers never had a chance to see how broken and hurt they were after Joey threw them away!
The fact is that Joey was the one character on Friends who never matured, never changed, or developed for real, he ended Friends in almost the same place as he started (only with a better job but he already had a good acting job with Mac&Cheese early on the show, so that was not a really big change, and it wasn't any kind of steady evolution as all the rest characters went through).
And this is why I will never understand how anyone could say Joey was a good character or is someone's favorite character. If you start to analyze it all fairly and in-depth, it's clear Joey is one of the worst characters on the show, and his cuteness as a friend can't make up for all the flaws. In opposition to all the other characters who are also flawed, he didn't develop at all. The rest of them, even if flawed, went through multiple changes, and life experiences and ended up in a completely different place than they started.
Well! That was the most realistic part of Friends. Not everyone achieve what they want in life. Some people just go on to never change and never be successful.
I wish his character arc was that by the end of the show he would have learned to share food.
While never “intelligent,” early Joey had street smarts, was self-sufficient, cooked, could take care of himself. By the end he was nothing more than a helpless child.
Yeah - though nothing compared to Kevin on The Office. Early seasons, he could sometimes he might say something clever and had that dynamic with Oscar. He was even a drummer in a rock band. By the end, he acted like a baby in diapers who could resist candy.
As someone, who doesn't like characteristic changes on sitcoms, I like that Joey never changed. He is also my favourite character, because sometimes his dumbness makes me laugh until tears
Same dawg, same 😄
I agree in that Joey never having a good arc was disapointing as he was loveable, and we all wanted him to get a happily ever after. However, with all the cast changing and their lives all becoming different, Joey fills the roll of nostalgia from where everyone started and I wonder if this is why the show feels so good and nostalgic because there is a constant thread from the beginning that runs the whole way through. Just a thought.
I think 'Episodes' gave Joey a nice farewell
Exactly!!
I don’t think Joey was the one with the character arc issue, it was Phoebe.
Joey had a career where he took chances, learned about love and friendship as he progressed and even understood how ‘change’ impacted his closest friendships.
On the other hand, Pheobe stayed weirdly ‘eccentric’, with no actual progress and character growth. At some points, she even was quite evil and asshole-ish but the writers gave her a pass regardless.
I think Phoebe changed over the course of the show. But in a bad way. Around Season 5, she became this really sadistic diva who had no filter, constantly tried to break up Monica and Chandler’s relationship, repeatedly insulted the other characters (most notably Ross and Chandler) with absolutely zero regards to how that made them feel, etc. Whenever someone finally had the nerve to stand up and call her out for what she did, Phoebe would immediately play victim and act like the person calling her out was the bad guy. This is not who Phoebe’s character was at all in the earlier seasons
@@superjackster0165 The writers clearly didn't know what to do with Phoebe as a character. She served no purpose, really, and had no clear story of her own. So it seems like they started to push this crazy side of her to compensate. But it looked not "cute crazy" but "evil crazy" most of the time, bitter and twisted. With that her happy end seems contrived and forced.
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о I have a theory on why these changes were made to Phoebe. Like I said, these changes to her character happened in Season 5. This was the same time that Joey’s character became a lot dumber and more stupid than he was in the earlier seasons. I’m guessing that the writers didn’t want to have 2 idiot characters and instead decided to change Phoebe to be more of the mean girl of the group
@@superjackster0165 Interesting, thank you! I feel the writers simply weren't up to the level of the game, had no ability to handle so many characters consistently for a long time. That's where their simplification ("flanderization") stems from. And yeah, it even happened so abruptly that almost everyone noticed.
Phoebe was my least favourite character. She was unnecessarily eccentric and weird and it became boring and annoying after a while, instead of endearing. I hated that she ended up with Mike instead of David and I think the episode that turned me against her was when David came back for good and she turned him down. The writers made such a huge deal out of David being the love of her life and when he comes back she's like, "nah, see ya". There wasn't much chemistry between her and Mike and it was just cruel how she discarded David like he never existed.
Joey was the best character. Some people are stuck in arrested development.
Trauma is a common cause.
I liked Joey's arc actually. Since the begining he showed us positivity, and determanation to follow your dreams. During the show he became more mature about friendships and relationships. And even his dumbness in the seasons made sense, because they wanted to show us that he is still stuck on his childness and not ready to marrange yet.
I once saw an article on Cracked (back in time when they had good stuff, mid to late 00's, which feels like millennia) that showed with a simple cartoon how every character on any sitcom, all their quirky traits are boosted and boosted until they feel like a parody of themselves. I love FRIENDS, but this felt very close to home. Specially on Joey.
I really relate to Joey's character the most... it seems as if we should all keep changing and evolve, while joeys progression is the ability to keep the world from changing around him - and stay the way he is ❤
A video like this could be made about Raj Koothrappali
I like that idea...
Doesn’t matter if they made him more stupid over the course of the series, he still was the best, most devoted, most loyal, kindest and true friend. Maybe he didn’t grow intellectually, but he grew in terms of human qualities, he was the best of them all and that’s what matters more to me.
I think more of the problem is that he didn’t have any ambitions or goals. What you described is basically him being a puppy. Which are cute and lovable but, when you watch a character for 10 years and grow attached to them like they are one of your actual friends then they’re turned into someone who isn’t an actual individual themselves, it makes them feel hollow.
He 100% was the best!
Pretty sure he was never looking for love, except when he developed feelings for Rachel
I always thought "The one where Joey is both fundamentally unchanged from a story perspective, and yet demonstrably worse off as a character" was a weird way for the producers to title the final episode, but it makes a lot more sense after watching this video.
There's no character type more vulnerable to Flanderization than "The Dumb One." I've been watching the original Zack and Cody and they had an episode where London beats Maddie at chess over and over without even trying. I also occasionally watch classic Spongebob episodes and Patrick is hilariously sarcastic and mean in clever ways sometimes. But when all you have to do to entertain the masses is having a character say "durrrr what's utah", it's hard to not pick the easy route!
Not everybody grows up. Joey is a prime example of that, and that's what makes him more human than characters in other shows. Why should he mature when he just wants to have a good time?
Yessss
I think the real problem with it is they didn’t show why. There are people who don’t grow up and there are lots of characters who don’t grow up but, a good screenwriter will show us why they are the way they are. Joey’s character is just hollow, there’s no rhyme or reason to what he does or even who he is. And the thing is, he didn’t just not grow up, he regressed. Before he had ambitions and goals but, at the end, he didn’t really have any goals or ambitions. They didn’t give a reason for that either. It didn’t have to be some complex, well thought out narrative but, some sort of explanation would have been nice.
At the start of the show Joey seemed more graceful (yes weird world to use for Joey) but he had so much charm and he was very charismatic and attractive. If that guy got a date or hooked up with a girl it made sense but as time went on and Joey’s character was made dumber it was so hard to imagine any girl actually Bering interested in him because it was hard to get past the stupid. Every time I rewatch Friends and start with season one it feels like Joey is a completely different person.
I couldn't care less about "Friends". But without it we never would've had the brilliant "Episodes". So more power to Matt LeBlanc.
Here’s the thing Joey was never the most educational smart person in the group but was one of the most emotionally smart characters who a lot of the characters used to go to earlier on in the seasons for advice, especially Chandler.
Joey's character stopped working once the rest of the characters started "growing up" but Joey essentially stayed the same. The writers didn't have the courage to let Joey grow up too. They had already paired off Monica and Chandler as well as Ross and Rachel (even before the finale they had a kid together so they were a unit in that way). They weren't going to put him and Phoebe together and gave her an arc of meeting and marrying Mike. But they didn't do the same for Joey and I think with some courage they could have. But they knew they were doing a spinoff with him so they didn't want to hamstring that. I think even if in the final few episodes they had him get an offer to do a show in LA that would have given him some kind of final arc. It would have made the finale a little more poignant as Joe would also be moving away and starting a new life, something he basically did in the spinoff anyway.
what i would've like from the joey arc is if he started off as the airhead but the gradually became educated as time went on with his friends teaching him new things episode after episode like phoebe teaching him how to speak french. all of this information he has would bolster his acting abilities and would one day get him the starring role he so desperately dreamt of, or alternatively he could pursue college and succeed at getting a degree and one day becoming a teacher or something. he'd still remain the lovable goofball but not so braindead that it becomes annoying, because that's what saddened me by the end, that joey's friends left him at square one whilst they went on to have great lives
What's not to like?
Custard, good.
Jam, good
Meat, GOOOOD.
This is a hill I will die on: the best version of Joey was the one who was in love with Rachel. We got to see his loyalty, vulnerability, protectiveness, and selflessness on full display, and honestly, it brought out the best of Rachel too (her empathy, care, and gentleness). When the showrunners started that romance, they intended it to go somewhere, but the fans demanded more of the ultra-toxic, codependent Ross/Rachel relationship (because DRAMA), so they abandoned what was poised to be a massive opportunity for character growth in both Joey and Rachel in favor of it.
Yes, the writers dropped the ball with this pairing in a most pathetic fashion, bowing down to demands from "fans". Fans should never be taken into the equation with regards anything creative, much less dictate or demand. The Joey/Rachel pairing was an inspired decision and could've opened the door for better things - but no, the writers budged and the show started to lose steam quickly and went out with a whimper. Sad.
Bless you! Yes yes yes yes yes! I couldn’t agree more
Its interesting how Friends is essentially a spinoff of Married with Children. Joey was friends from its creation perspective. I feel like he really helped get the show off the ground.
Joey was one of the best of entire series. Joey,Chandler and Phoebe are by far the best of the 6
Joey is an amazing character and the loyalty he showed towards hos friends is a staple stone of what made the series so amazing.
i think part of the point of joey was to show how much everyone else had changed. i mean, there are people like him in real life, that they're essentially the same as they were in their early twenties when they're in their forties and fifties, and you wonder what's wrong with them. it's unfortunate that it happened to joey, but it is a real thing that i kind of think was used decently in friends (though the character assassination part was just stupid.)
Joey was great the first few seasons. They made him too dumb after that.
Joey is the real life friend who is single while everyone else got married and had children.
Joey "trying" to speak French was just absolutely terrible. It's always the number one moment I point to for his poorly written character. He is an actor, his job for the entirety of the show has been to memorize lines. Joey should be able to memorize some basic French lines even if he doesn't understand them. Earlier in the show, he memorizes an entire tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but he can't remember which direction is right or left (another absurdity).
It's strange how even with all this, Joey seems to still be the most liked out of the 6. I've heard worse said about Ross or Monica while Joey's often gets interpreted as a genuine, likeable guy who doesn't have much to hold against him apart from that he Doesn't Share Food.
Might be interesting to talk more about the trajectory of some of the other characters on the show if you haven't already. I'd have said Ross probably got it the worst, considering how unlike with Joey, lots of people came out of the show genuinely disliking him. I myself always just felt bad for him watching him get Flanderized to the point that he became seemingly unsalvageable to so many viewers, especially after the post-Vegas debacle (which to me wrecked Phoebe just as badly, but it seems fewer people talk about that).
How did it wreck Phoebe?
@@ВладимирКруглов-к9о
The fact that Phoebe needlessly taunts Ross about how this would be his 3rd divorce, then this is never apologized for or addressed again in any way.
Like, yeah that whole arc wasn't all Phoebe's fault, but it bugs me that the whole annulment-avoidance arc started with Phoebe making an uncharacteristically insensitive taunt to her friend then never even has her try to counteract her stoking his insecurities that badly, even after he responds to it in the worst way possible.
I wish they kept Season 1 Joey
Joey not being able to speak french is the most hilarious bit when you know that Matt is fluent. Yes, stupid plot, but funny meme
woah I never thought of the after that last coffee, everyone going home with their partners and children and Joey going back to being alone in his apartment, so sad :(
You would’ve been a very valuable presence in any of the writer’s rooms you talk about, your level of insight is amazing!
How is this different from many people who we all know? It’s 10 years not 50 years!
he did not need the arc, he was perfect as all of them
Weird coincidence that I'm watching the last few episodes of Friends atm.
I am so sorry for Joey, such a great character he was. His ending was unfair :(
His ending as a rich, handsome, professionally fulfilled man with a good family and loving friends was unfair?
@@DodaGarcia Professioanlly fulfilled? Where? When? With a family? You mean his sisters? He didn't achieve anythng in the show and ended up excatly where he was at the beggining.
Did you watch the show “Joey”? It was actually really good imo.
@@lagadema16Did you watch the spin off “Joey”?
@@lagadema16 Yes, he's very close to both his parents and sisters who all look up to him. Not sure why you were confused by siblings counting as "family".
Did you... watch the show? By the later seasons he was back in the main cast of Days Of Our Lives, starring in movies with acclaimed actors like the one played by Gary Oldman, effortlessly lending his friends thousands of dollars and looking to invest in real estate. Please walk me through how that's "exactly where he was" back when he had no work and had to rely on Chandler for food and rent.
Joey was a child in heart that never wanted to be grow old. And he did it. Period. Nothing wrong with this.
When I binge watched friends last year I literally searched for “Joey flanderization” in the RUclips search bar after finishing the show hoping someone made a video on it. I was just so frustrated with how his character was handled! Glad you guys covered this topic
Someone made the point that Ned Flanders isn’t-ironically-the most Flanderized character on the Simpsons, it’s Ralph Wiggum. Going from a slightly clueless laughingstock dealing cringeily with a crush in “I love Lisa” to a special needs kid who wets his pants in the later seasons.
It’s commonality with Joey being that long-running comedies will take a slightly stupid character and magnify the stupidity to an absurd degree for laughs at the expense of character development
They should have made him like a cooking savant. That makes Monica insecure but it's shown he can't manage a kitchen or cook to recipes consistently which means he can never challenge Monica as a pro chef.
Joey exemplifies the character that is scared of change, so probably that is why we don't see much progression and I think that change was the idea behind that progression. There is a scene in the spin-off where Joey talks about his struggle to accept change and how he is embracing it for himself. Great video
Not every character is meant to have a huge changing arc, he might’ve been dumbed down but he was the heart of the show, also… every sitcom has a “Joey” character, the one that isn’t that bright but has a heart of gold so, are you gonna make this kind of video for every sitcom?
Joey would have been great with Rachel. He was making a lot of growth during that time when he was in love with her, but then they made him stupid again. That was really sad how it ended for him .
I definitely agree with everything you're saying, but I think it's worth mentioning that Matt was given complete redemption in the tv series "Episodes"
Joey was the best! He never drove me crazy as some of the other sometimes did:)))
Friends tv show it's my favorite and Joey is my favorite and I like his quotes and he funny too ❤❤❤ and I would like to BE his friend
Joey is, by a far mile, the best character in Friends through the show's entire run, and never needed an arc. Also the episode where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French is still one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
I'd say Joey,Chandler and Phoebe are the best. Then 4-6 I'd say Rachel, Monica and Ross is by far the worst. Gunther at times was better than Ross
That episode is garbage. Its so unrealistic that it borders on insanity.
@@RojoCube Again it is amazing how good David Schwimmer was that Ross was somewhat tolerable despite being a creep, misogynist and just an all round douche
I was more pissed off at how they ruined Eric on Boy Meets World. Eric was shown to be very emotionally intelligent and had moments throughout the series that showed he was a pretty good student. By the end, he was just as dumbed down and sidelined as Joey.
Heavily disagreed
Not every character has to change or undergo an arc to be fun to watch. Goku has been one of the most stagnant characters in all of fiction yet people adore him too. Reason being that the relationships between him and people and his consistency in how he reacts to situations is fun to watch.
Same goes for Joey.
Please stop wanting every piece of media to be the exact same, because that's what shit like this does
Hated Joey towards the end. French lessons, identical hand twin were so dumb
agree. by the end of the show Joey was the worst character by far, next to Phoebe who became abusive and cruel, and Monica who became abusive and cruel towards Chandler especially.
Ah yes
Another video essay on why something is a problem.
My goodness, can we not just enjoy things anymore?
Joey may have been stale the entire show, but he's always been one of my favorites, so maybe i'm just taking it too personally, but i dont understand why every video in my youtube feed is why something is a problem or bad.
Why can't we just enjoy things?
Also putting Joey between Rachel and Ross in the final season was questionable. The show has always been about the will they/won't they between Rachel and Ross. Putting Joey in the middle wasn't going to work either way. It merely delayed the inevitable Rachel and Ross getting together. The only way to subvert that would be to put Rachel and Joey at the finale, but that would leave a lot of fans ticked that Ross was left out to dry
Very nice! Great observations! I really enjoyed the one where Phoebe tries to teach Joey French. But you're right. It only works as absurdist comedy. It's a deadly twist if we take Joey's level of intellectual incompetence seriously
Love your content. You talk a lot about failed spinoffs, but I'd love to see your examination on why Fraiser seems to be the only successful one--arguably better than its predecessor. Hope you do a video on that in the future.
Joey wasn't looking for love. 🤣
Joey turned into Homer Simpson. Slowly turned into a plot device with no actual character anymore.
I never liked Joey. Yes, he had hilarious moments like all of them, but he had almost no development during the entire show and ended up in the same place as he started, he also became less charming as the show progressed. It's very visible if you pay attention. They made him too dumb in the late seasons, to the point that it was no longer funny but pathetic, and he was consistently awful to women: he played games with them like a typical womanizer 24/7 and gaslighted them all the time. In fact, Joey's character arc is very similar to the one of Raj on The Big Bang Theory. Both started off as very likable, charming characters, with one big, obvious difference that Joey was always a confident womanizer popular with women while Raj was painfully shy and afraid to talk to women, but both were charming and cute in their own way. And as both shows progressed, both of these characters became less and less charming, and more and more dumb and annoying, and both ended up completely undeveloped. Yes, Joey was still a more pleasant character than Raj at the end, but still, he had a very similar path to Raj, and he also became less charming and undeveloped.
Phoebe’s character wasn’t exactly cerebral. Her silliness and self absorption bothered me more than Joey’s dumbness.
Exactly! I liked all the major characters except Phoebe.
Honestly, people need to stop over analysing friends. It isn't that deep. Just enjoy the show. Joey is completely fine.
Nah man there are ppl like Joey and if he is happy like that why do we have to put down ppl or characters who are not normatively happy like have a big job or kids or family!
Great video.
Some perspective could be had in that LeBlanc was the only member who was requested into the role by the studio instead of trying out for it. The studio had seen his charm in a couple of failed pilots he had done earlier and wanted him included - maybe why the show-creators seemed to not know what to do with his character. I still have an audition tape of LeBlanc from a movie I worked on in 1993 just before he was chosen for Friends. Possibly because he was already “in the business” he was the nicest and most confident of the 30 or so who tried out.
Yea I agree with a lot of the comments here that: does every character need a clear and defined arc? He does grow as a person, he just doesn’t have a wildly massive change
I always wished Joey and Phoebe had ended up together. They had great chemistry.
Totally agree. I thought I was alone in this among my friends, no one noticed the writers had been over-playing his idiocy. It felt like they were running out of ideas