Friends (Season 6)

Season 6 of Friends came right after the best two seasons that Friends has ever had, and you can tell that the cracks are starting to show. However, there's still a lot of love throughout this season, with tons of funny episodes and strong moments.

This season didn't really have a particular focus for most of it. The first few episodes dealt with Chandler moving in with Monica and Ross and Rachel having to divorce. Joey spends a lot of the season trying to get a new roommate to replace Chandler, ultimately taking in Phoebe and Rachel when their house is set on fire. The season also ends with Chandler and Monica finally getting engaged. All of these storylines were strong and utilized all of the characters well, however...

The second half of the season is a bit of a dip in quality, as we get one of the most questionable storylines in the whole show, in which Ross starts dating a student and Rachel start dating said student's father. I'm not a big fan of this storyline. I think it's not super funny and it definitely drags down what was otherwise a pretty solid season.

Despite this, there's still a lot of love in Season 6. There are a lot of really funny individual episodes, and the first half of the season is particularly strong. There were a lot of really big and permanent changes to the show that were dealt with beautifully, and thankfully, Friends managed to stay enjoyable despite Chandler and Joey not being neighbors anymore.

Notable episodes this season include:

The One Where Ross Got High: Another one of Friends's iconic bottle episodes, TOW Ross Got High does an amazing job of juggling half a dozen plot threads, all of which were hilarious in their own right. The highlight here is Ross and Monica's parents, who manage to single-handedly resolve every single storyline in one glorious rant at the end of the episode. 

The One With The Routine: The titular routine is so much fun to watch. The bizarre yet meticulously choreographed dance is one of the best showcases of Schwimmer and Cox's comedic chops, and the whole episode just screams New Years.

The One With Unagi: This entire episode is just hysterical. Ross's fake martial arts are iconic and serve as one of his best moments, but the subplots about Joey's body double and the Janice tape were both excellent as well. It's rare to get an episode where every single storyline is top-notch.

The One Where Paul's The Man: Bruce Willis wasn't super well utilized this season, but he had some really funny moments here, and this episode was definitely the highlight of an otherwise bad story arc. What really made this episode for me, however, was the big reveal that Chandler wants to propose to Monica.

The One With The Proposal: Coming after three of my favorite cliffhangers ever, this finale felt a bit underwhelming. However, I can't deny that the proposal itself was beautifully executed, and while I feel it shouldn't have been a two-parter, this finale did a great job at building suspense to Chandler's big proposal.

Overall, Season 6 was definitely a bit underwhelming coming after the show's two best seasons, tapering off at the end with one of the show's weaker story arcs. Despite this, it was still packed with a lot of really good moments and episodes that did a good job of dealing with the fallout of Season 6.

4/5 Stars