🌆📺The Sitcom Café☕🛋️

*Please note this article gives away huge spoilers about Ross and Emily, if you have not seen all of Seasons 4 and 5 I caution you to go further as this post discusses them thoroughly*

Emily is one of the most misunderstood characters in the Friends universe.
Here I will describe how she was completely in the right and she gets a lot of hate for no good reason if you think about it.

Let’s go to the first time we met Emily, she was okay, not her best. She had just gotten caught in the rain, harassed at the airport and had a hard time getting to Rachel’s place to meet her – she was not in her best mood to say the least. She reacted how anyone else might after a long flight too and someone saying they are then cancelling on you at the end of it. I think had she gone to the opera with Rachel they actually would have become good friends as we see after Ross takes her he has a great time.

Ross and Emily grew to spend lots of time together because they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.

Ross: “Oh yeah, she’s, she’s amazing. And, and she’s so much fun. And! Ya’know what? When I’m with her, I’m fun!”

Crane, David, Marta Kauffman, and Shana Goldberg-Meehan. “The One With The Fake Party.” Friends, season 4, episode 16, NBC, 19 Mar. 1998.

If anything, didn’t we enjoy Emily at first? We had no reason not to like her, we saw Ross in a happy relationship and Rachel kept us distracted as she showed us how into Joshua she was. We soon find out she’s actually in love with Ross the whole time when she realizes after her break-up with Joshua she was sadder about the fact Ross is getting married and thus has been in love with Ross this whole time.

It’s not Emily’s fault that Rachel didn’t know she was into Ross, Emily had just met a guy, had a great time and said yes to a proposal – excited to start a new life with someone in another country. If you notice, everyone is happy with Emily, we see this in The One With All The Rugby and The One With The Fake Party and what’s nice is Emily is great and likes everyone too – for now.

Even though Emily knows about Ross and Rachel’s past she still feels good enough about their relationship to tell Ross he can invite her to the wedding if he’d like – although she does point out she wouldn’t be comfortable with one of her exes being there she still mentions she likes Rachel and it’s ultimately up to Ross if he wants her to attend. This means she still has no beef or ill-will with Rachel and neither does the group (again) yet.

Emily: “If anyone asks, we’ll just say Ben addressed them. (Looking through the envelopes.) Oh! So you invited Rachel then?”

Ross: “Sure. Why not?”

Emily: “Really?”

Ross: “Yeah?”

Emily: “I don’t think I’d be comfortable with any of my old lovers there.”

Ross: “Wait-wait-wait, do you, do you think, maybe we shouldn’t invite her?”

Emily: “Oh, no-no, y’know I absolutely adore Rachel it’s just that, well it might be a awkward for you. But it’s absolutely your decision. *Gets up.* More tea?”

Ross: “Yeah sure.”

Crane, David, Marta Kauffman, and Seth Kurland. “The One With The Invitation.” Friends, season 4, episode 21, NBC, 23 Apr. 1998.

I noticed the moment Emily turned really mad, we actually do not get to see her in a good mood for several episodes after. Seeing someone mad at a couple of the main characters for so long does create an unlikeable trait in them so I understand we are getting programmed to dislike her to root for Ross and Rachel. But this scene, if this had happened to anyone I’m sure they would be just as pissed off as Emily was. It is embarrassing on both ends here but Emily definitely had the worst end of it, this is so traumatizing it could make her insecure for the rest of her life. I feel bad for Ross, I really do because that was genuinely a mistake as we see he does not go after Rachel romantically even after he and Emily split.

On top of saying the wrong name at the altar, Emily does admit that she was going to meet him at the airport considering forgiving Ross but then unfortunately sees Ross about to follow Rachel on the plane to what would have been their honeymoon together. This just adds insult to injury and I can’t imagine how Emily would have felt to see her husband about to go on vacation with the woman whose name he said at their wedding. I understand why she stormed off, and it was right of Ross to go after her instead of go after Rachel stranded on the airplane. At this point, Emily is Ross’s wife and Ross has to be there for her after he wronged her now twice!

As we watch Emily (rightfully) rage we slowly start to forget all the good things and times the friends had with her around. She becomes this pain of a person in Ross’s storyline as we watch him desperately try to speak with her and make amends so she does pull out mopey Ross isn’t very fun to see.

Now something to think about is if Ross had not said Rachel’s name at the altar then there wouldn’t have been an opportunity for him to have invited her on their honeymoon and Ross and Emily’s marriage would be saved! Also Ross did not know about Rachel’s feelings and luckily neither did Emily, so had Ross not messed up twice, we probably would have seen a happy marriage between the two and Emily isn’t a bad person as we are all left with that taste in our mouths now.

An important question to explore is; if Rachel had not flown to London would that have affected how Ross responded at the altar? Did he really just say her name because she had just flown in? Or was he always expecting to say Rachel’s name at an altar so it came out in this most unfortunate way? If he was into Rachel – how come he did not respond with love back when she finally did confess to him? We may never know. But it seems Ross is not into Rachel, he loves Emily, Emily loves him and Rachel may have sabotaged yet another relationship he could have been happy with (AKA Julie!) because she realizes she has feelings for Ross.

It was written in the show in a way that made us go from rooting for Ross and Emily right back to Ross and Rachel. But the way they got us was they had us rooting for their friendship, not necessarily as a couple. The thought of Rachel not being allowed around the Friends group when she clearly is the main character of the show (post about this opinion to follow in the future) is unbelievable and we know they are not going to cut her out of the show over someone like Emily who is not as close to the group as Rachel is. We also don’t want to lose Ross as a character to the group because we see how connected he is with his sister and his pals Joey and Chandler.

Joey: “We all hate Emily!”

Phoebe: “Nooo!!”

Monica: “No, Ross, we do not hate Emily. We-we just, we just think that you’re having to sacrifice a whole lot to make her happy.”

Joey: “Yeah!”

Chandler: “Look, we just think that maybe she’s being a little unreasonable.”

Joey: “Yes! Yes! Unreasonable!”

Crane, David, Marta Kauffman, and Alexa Junge. “The One With The Yeti.” Friends, season 5, episode 6, NBC, 5 Nov. 1998.

I was looking for the right time the group completely switched sides from ‘Emily is in the right to be mad at Ross’ to ‘Emily is being unreasonable and we all hate Emily!” I see how the build-up was set up. We watch as Emily agrees to work things out with Ross (good thing) but then we see he has to get rid of all his furniture because she does not want anything that reminds him of Rachel or that Rachel touched (bad things). We can see this as slightly understandable, after all, he did humiliate her and show signs of possibly being into Rachel even when he wasn’t.

This is then followed by the news he may have to move now across town and away from the group (3 trains away!) Ross makes comments about how it’s further from work but he’s doing anything to make her happy. The group now sees Ross having to change a lot but they want his marriage to work out – they still show they are impartial as Ross constantly asks for their advice. This is why the last request of Emily’s they hear sets them to switch sides and root for Ross instead of her side or being impartial – Ross has to stop seeing Rachel. Now normally, this would be a given.

Ross should know he cannot be around his ex-girlfriend whom he said their name on his wedding day instead of his fiances’ and invited onto their honeymoon despite what happened at the altar. This should have been known, so it’s not that dramatic that she’s asking him to space himself from her, she now becomes paranoid that he will see her and wants to know where he is all the time. When they realize that they can’t do that because it’s not realistic and they should trust each other, they come to the conclusion that the marriage cannot work.

We don’t like to say it but, it’s good of Emily to have left Ross alone. She saved them from what could have been an awful marriage and miserable life for both of them. She knew she wasn’t going to be happy, she voiced her concerns and Ross lead her on by telling her everything she wants to hear so he could get her back. But he wasn’t willing to do just anything for her, which we understand why (for our own selfish reasons we clearly do not want our show of the Friends to be split up after all!) but we have to see how Ross broke her trust and it was something they could not repair – perhaps because they did get married after only knowing each other for like 6 weeks. They needed more time to develop a stable relationship, they could not survive something like the doozy of what Ross did, so once that name was said it was pretty much done between them.

Emily did not try to ruin Ross’s life after he did what he did, she just wanted space away from him and when he offered to do anything she gave him her boundaries. Ross did not want to accept the conditions and Emily let Ross go. She could have been vindictive, could have done a lot worst, sure she got him kicked out of her cousin’s apartment that they would have moved into but it didn’t make sense for Ross to stay at anyone’s in her family.

Even though it did not work out between Ross and Emily, I think Emily was a good person who gave a normal response to a very awkward and hurtful situation. We should feel bad for what Rachel and Ross put Emily through, had they sorted out their own feelings beforehand they could have saved this poor girl from a humiliating first marriage.

Something I will always love Emily for doing as well, she gave Rachel and Ross the break they needed from each other. After Rachel tries to pursue Ross and he turns her down because he is married and his life is chaotic, she backs down and decides to give Ross some space in his love life. So I’d love to say thank you Emily for giving us seasons 5,6 and 7 Ross and Rachel! Those were some of the funniest seasons because the 2 of them did not have as much drama between them. We got to see them breathe and just be themselves, I am so grateful for Emily giving us a true break from Ross and Rachel so that’s something to think about if you’re still not convinced why we should like Emily.

Check out what I say about Ross’s humour in Seasons 5,6, and 7 and see if you agree (remember, all because of Emily we got this!)

What do you think? Are you always going to hate Emily? Do you agree she does not deserve as much flack as the fans give her? Are you on Rachels’s side? Let me know what your thoughts are in the sit-comments below! 🙂

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