The creators of Friends have revealed that parts of the script for the final episode were leaked by a source before the show aired.
Simply titled The Last One, millions of people tuned in to the episode that ended the hit comedy 20 years ago on May 6, 2004, finally resolving the decade-long dilemma of “will they, won’t they?” Romance between Ross and Rachel.
It was the end of an era for its stars. Jennifer Aniston, Courtney CoxLisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer, and fans around the world.
Looking back at the final shows in an interview with NBC’s Today show in the US, Friends Creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane revealed details of the leak.
“My God, we tried so hard to keep it a secret!” Kauffman said. “We were desperate to keep it a secret and it came out. And it was an inside job.”
Scripts submitted before the final episode premiered were numbered, Crane explained.
“We knew how many people knew what it was going to be,” he said. “So it was, through an element of… it became a behind-the-scenes detective show.
“It was frustrating, but at the end of the day, what are you going to do?”
Matthew Perry, who died in 2023, received the final line of the series. Photo: AP
Part of the leaked script included the details of how Ross and Rachel would eventually get back together, Kauffman said.
But when asked if the mystery of who had revealed the information had been solved, he replied with a smile: “Ish.”
“Ish,” Crane repeated.
After 10 series and 236 episodes, in addition to the reunion of Ross and Rachel, in the last installment, Monica and Chandler left their famous Manhattan apartment and moved to the suburbs as new parents of adopted twins.
Perry, who died last year at age 54, wrote about the ending in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, And The Big Terrible Thing.
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“Before that final episode, I had cast Marta Kauffman aside,” he wrote. “‘No one else will care about this but me,’ I said. ‘So, could you give me the last line?'”
In fact, his character Chandler had the last line. When the Friends decide to go for one last coffee before moving, he simply asks, “Where?”, in a sarcastic but touching joke about the fact that much of their screen time has been spent in the coffee shop. from Central Perk. .
“It’s incredibly moving. It’s a legacy for him, one of his many legacies,” Kauffman said.
Friends has found a new generation of fans in recent years after being picked up by streaming sites.
Earlier this year, two scripts were published for The One with Ross’s Wedding, the famous two-part finale to season four filmed in London. sold at auction for £22,000 after being found in a container.
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