This Is The Worst Thing Phoebe Ever Did On Friends

With a title like Friends, it's amazing how often the beloved sitcom's characters tested their friendship. It's even more amazing their friendship survived to the end. Of course, sitcoms are full of friends doing morally dubious things to each other that certainly wouldn't fly in real life. Still, some fans wonder how Monica (Courtney Cox) reconciled with Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) after what she did in season 9.

In the episode "The One With Rachel's Dream," Monica is excited about her new job as head chef of Javu. She's receiving glowing praise from her customers, except for one little thing: the music outside is a bit of a mood killer. Monica goes outside and finds none other than her eccentric friend Phoebe Buffay strumming her guitar and singing about buying human spleens. Monica tries to kindly ask Phoebe to not play there anymore, but in true sitcom fashion, it isn't that easy. Instead, the conflict devolves into a storyline that some fans hated.

Monica's approach to the problem is a little too delicate. She says she loves listening to Phoebe's music, but this place is classy. Phoebe shows up the next day wearing a gown and pearls, singing about a fat, smelly woman. Monica simply buries her face in her hands and confronts her friend later, at their favorite café, Central Perk.

Here's where the situation devolves into petty jabs. Monica tells Phoebe she shouldn't play at the restaurant anymore because of the content of her songs. The singer doesn't take this very well and attacks the quality of Monica's food in response: "Well at least all my songs don't taste like garlic!" In fact, all of her insults are about Monica's food tasting like garlic, as if that's a bad thing.

The argument comes to a climax when Monica finds Phoebe back outside the restaurant, singing about how the food will kill people. After making a spectacle of themselves in front of the customers, the pair make up. Monica apologizes. Phoebe admits she likes Monica's food. The plot is easily resolved, but it left a bad taste in many fans' mouths (that definitely wasn't garlic).

This episode recently became the topic of a discussion thread on Reddit's r/howudoin board. User Pondshotcream argued that Monica was very reasonable in her request to Phoebe, while the latter was "vindictive and arrogant." For Pondshotcream, the storyline diminished their enjoyment of the episode: "It just was a humour-free [sic] zone for me, much like most of latter Phoebe's storylines."

Other users agreed that Phoebe wasn't always the greatest friend to the other characters. User awisekiddo commented, "Pheobe is one of the worst and the most selfish characters on the show. Everything just had to be for and about her." User milkmanbonzai wondered why the group kept Phoebe around: "Once again, definitely a moment where it can be questioned how one stays friends with Phoebe for so long with crap like this."

This scene reminded user AnnaK22 of another time Phoebe was inconsiderate about her music. "This was like the time she was asking Chandler and Monica into letting her play at their wedding," they wrote. "At least then, no one's job was at stake." Others commented that Phoebe had gotten meaner over time. For user SPNROWENA, that only lasted a season. As they said, "I will say she was nicer in season one I think because she seemed more innocent in her little reality."

But in the end, Pondshotcream was at least able to relish the fact that Phoebe's insults were rather weak: "Yeah, Monica got much better burns in. I guess that might be the writers acknowledging that Phoebe didn't have a leg to stand on. Her burns were kind of desperate." Overall, it wasn't one of the best episodes of Friends. Still, if that's the worst Phoebe did, it has nothing on all the other ways Friends wouldn't hold up today.