🌆📺The Sitcom Café☕🛋️

*Note: Small spoilers alert as this blog post does discuss episodes Rachel is in throughout Seasons 1-10. Please beware of reading if one has not seen the whole series and does not want any spoilers*

I feel like I have said this before but I do absolutely adore Rachel Green as a character. You get that main character vibe from her from the very beginning when she storms onto the set in that strikingly white wedding dress. While I could argue each of these characters have main character vibes, the most prominent one is Rachel and this blog post is to showcase how she is not only a (THE) main character but why she is. She is meant to represent the viewer and have the most relatability.

Rachel starts as someone looking to refresh and change their lifestyle from something completely different than they have known before which makes this a great base for those looking to start over new in their lives (no matter what stage they are at). From the first episode, we step into the lives of the Friends hanging out, their lives are already in motion as in they all have jobs, established places to live and a basic routine to function in their everyday lives. However, Rachel comes into the picture with no job, no experience and no place to stay at first, it is time to rebuild her life and that is where she show begins, it begins to follow the start of Rachel starting over with a group of Friends that helps support this lifestyle transition.

We see Rachel take chances she may not have had she not left her old life behind. We see her going from the first season running away from her ex Barry, to at the end of the second season where she has the guts to go to his next wedding as a bridesmaid to her former best friend. She even overcomes an childhood fear of singing The Copa Cabana live at the reception. Rachel is not a scared little daddy’s girl anymore, she is becoming her own woman making her own choices and trying her best to now make good life decisions for herself. We can admire the strength she has because there are times where we would like some form of redemption in our lives and this is how Rachel shows us she got hers.

One of Rachel’s biggest decisions ever was quitting her job from Central Perk. This was a life changing moment for her as she soon finds out it will lead her to opportunities she could never dream of. Rachel’s career is one of the more inspiring ones I found to be; she came to the city with no job, no credentials or past work experience. She starts off at a coffee shop and once quitting decides to follow what she her passion in life is – fashion. She quits with no job lined up and panics, we see her going to job interviews and not getting them, we see her taking odd jobs to try and get promoted to what she actually wants to do. It is motivational to the viewers to see this, we all know what its like to be working at a job that is not your passion and the ups and downs of trying to get a job so it’s admirable to see someone else going through similar situations like Rachel.

Through networking and gaining experience through her current jobs, Rachel goes from being a waitress to this executive at a high designer company, talk about hard work paying off.

And sure, Rachel has definitely made some mistakes in her life that were not the smartest choices. We all remember her taking a plane to London to tell Ross how she felt about him even though he was getting married to another woman. She also gets drunkenly married to Ross about 2 seasons later in The One in Vegas Part 1, fights to get the marriage annulled and after both failing to communicate properly with each other (as always) – ends up getting a divorce.

Even though it is hard to see Rachel go through these downfalls, I am grateful for her. She shows the humane side to her character, Rachel is not perfect – she acts impulsively and sometimes out of self-interest which we all do. We don’t like to do it and in certain situations, we decide to make those decisions to see how they turn out. Rachel takes that step for us, she shows us what it would be like to act upon those feelings and go for what you want out of life. Even though she fails, it is encouraging to see her get back up, laugh at her mistakes and try again.

We can also see how Rachel evolves handling relationships, in the first few seasons you can see she is quite lost in what she wants. At the beginning of the show we see her getting out of what could have been a terrible marriage, she hooks back up with her ex while he is engaged to her best friend, she goes back and forth between Ross, she dates a man unknowingly looking like Ross and who can forget the famous crap-weasel, Paolo.

We see her learning to navigate what she wants out of life, like in The One Where They All Turn Thirty where she decides as she gets older she needs to start getting serious about her love life. Although she had a fun and sweet relationship with Tag, she nobly lets him go in a mature manner. You can see she is sad about it but she knows it’s the right thing to do for both her and Tag. This is important, as the viewer you may relate to having to break up with someone who you still have feelings for, she shows us to be considerate for others lives we affect.

We also see Rachel grow from earlier seasons when she seems lost and confused about how to go through her life, even when Ross has Ben she is nervous about holding him. We fast forward to Season 8 where she is embracing becoming a mother each episode at a time. We see her fear, her excitement and her surprises, Rachel embraces most of her changes with positivity and eventually figures it out. We root for Rachel and we wouldn’t want to if we didn’t feel for her. She shows us that one can be vulnerable AND strong at the same time.

One of the best ways to see how much Rachel has grown as a person is when you see her sitting next to her sister Amy in The One With Rachel’s Other Sister. You can see how Amy was probably the way Rachel was and could have turned out had she not chosen a life to build for herself. You can see how Rachel has matured when sitting next to her, Rachel had just had a baby and a successful career compared to her sister who does small tasks to help out their family and calls it a career. This could have been Rachel and I think Rachel sees that which is why she does feel for her sister when the time comes, opening her heart to her which she might not have done in the past.

Rachel is a fantastic character in my opinion, we grow with her from a spoiled, lost person just trying to figure out how to become and function as an adult after being taken care of her whole life.

Friends goes through different life changes with all the characters, however, it seems that Rachel has had one of the more prominent breakthroughs as a main character. From making her grand entrance into the group in the first episode to when she almost leaves the group in the very last episode, Rachel has shown what its like when you go after what you want and make the changes along the way. I was brought great comfort when I see her struggles with her career, love life and friendship because we all go through those events.

What do you think? Do you feel Rachel is a good representation of the viewer? Who do you think represents the viewer best? Please let me know in the sit-comments below! 🙂

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