The One Where Rachel Kisses Everyone

Flashback to the 90s and early 2000s. Friends was the big sitcom. In my opinion, no other sitcom can match up. I love Community and I appreciate Scrubs and The Office (How I Met Your Mother is another subject all together), but there’s something to be said about Friends lasting ten seasons. Never mind the longevity it had, it had some amazing continuity that was rare back then, before streaming services--not perfect continuity, but pretty good for the 90s. 

Of course with all sitcoms we have the comedy portion and a lot of character drama too, especially romance. In Friends, like most sitcoms, the two often overlapped a bit. The romance/comedy that I want to focus on is the sheer amount of kissing that happened between the six friends. Unless you count the implication of a single line between Ross and Chandler, only one friend has the “glory” (if you can call it that) of kissing the other five friends. That honor goes to Rachel Green. So let’s take a look at those five moments in her history.

Rachel and Ross

Obviously Rachel kissed Ross a lot over the course of the series. Their first kiss was when they did laundry together, but they also dated for over a year and were on and off for years after. Even after they broke up, they kissed at the beach, in the hallway, after Rachel’s Europe story, and when they finally got back together in the finale. I’m sure I’ve missed plenty of times they kissed, but I figured that covers them for our purposes.

Rachel and Monica

It never happened on screen, but Rachel and Monica did kiss. After being roommates for 3+ years, they lost their apartment to the boys. In order to finally get their apartment back, they played into boys’ lust and agreed to kiss each other in order to win back their place. So at least they got their home back in the end. Think it was awkward between them afterwards?

Rachel and Chandler

Their first on-screen kiss was all part of a ruse. As Chandler was trying to hide his relationship with Monica, he covered up kissing her by being “European” and kissing the other girls too. So it may not have been consensual (and Rachel definitely told him off for it pretty quickly) but that’s how it happened. However, later on, during a season 10 flashback, we learned that Chandler actually kissed Rachel back in college, to get back at Ross. 

Rachel and Joey

The first kiss that comes to mind for Rachel and Joey is probably the kiss in Barbados or their brief time dating in season 10. We definitely need to address those for this subject, but I’m actually going to throwback to New Years 1999. In an effort to hide Chandler and Monica’s relationship from the others, Joey schemed a way to make it work for them, by pairing up Ross with Phoebe and Rachel with himself. Who ever said Joey wasn’t smart? Even years before dating her, Joey knew how to get a kiss from Rachel.

Rachel and Phoebe

Always the dull straight shooter, Phoebe didn’t think Rachel would do anything so “wild” as getting drunk and kissing her sorority sister. After Rachel got Melissa to confess (by surprising her with another kiss), Phoebe surprised Rachel with a kiss of her own. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that much; Phoebe is probably the loosest one of the group, even compared to Joey. But here we are.

Which kiss was your favorite in Friends? And which was your favorite of Rachel’s boyfriends? Not Ross, they’re dysfunctional. Let me know for the next time we discuss Friends on the blog.