Friends Thru A Lens: 'It's all Relative' with Dr Dolly Alderton

Summary

Sentimental Garbage: Friends Thru A Lens – "It's All Relative" with Dr. Dolly Alderton

Podcast: Sentimental Garbage
Host: Caroline O'Donoghue (with guest Dr. Dolly Alderton)
Date: December 11, 2025
Episode Overview:
In this episode, Caroline is joined by Dolly Alderton for an in-depth and frequently hilarious exploration of the theme of family in Friends. The conversation weaves between psychoanalysis, character work, personal reflections, and meaty, laugh-out-loud riffs on both the show and real life. Together they trace the family histories of each main character, discuss what that means for viewers, and dissect the underlying emotional and sociological messaging. The tone is intimate, irreverent, self-revealing, and at times poignant.

---

Main Themes and Purpose

• Exploring Friends through the "relatives" lens: How each character’s family background shapes them, and how the show uses family to drive growth, relational conflict, and the show’s central thesis: friends as family.
• Deep-dive psychoanalysis: Tying the show’s writing and character development to shifts in American (and global) culture—especially the normalization of therapy and introspection.
• Personal resonance: Both host and guest relate the dynamics in Friends to their own family histories, sibling positioning, and experiences with therapy, offering a richer, more reflective conversation.
• Comic brilliance and foibles: The episode is peppered with some of the duo’s favorite lines, meta-analysis of the writing, and playful reimaginings (e.g., building fake crossover episodes, analyzing the casting of side characters).

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Relatives” Lens: Why Family Matters in Friends

• Thesis: Friends uniquely situates its six main characters in a “chosen family” frame, but their actual families are essential backstory, shaping their behaviors, romantic attachments, and personal quests.
  • Dolly: “Each friend is a different template for all the different ways that you can either replicate or reject the family life.” (07:25)
• Contrast with Sex and the City: If SATC is about what men teach women, Friends is about what families set up for them.
  • Caroline: “If Sex and the City is men that teach you a lesson you need to hear, the families of Friends set up what that lesson is.” (06:59)

Cultural Context: Rise of Therapy and Self-Analysis

• Both emphasize how the 90s writing boom coincided with therapy becoming mainstream.
  • Dolly: “Nearly all the jokes are about quite intricate psychoanalysis.” (09:48)
  • Caroline: “The flaws of Friends are quite nuanced... Chandler’s thing... is so really quite complex for a half hour show.” (08:33)

---

2. Character-by-Character Family Analysis

Rachel Green: Breaking Generational Cycles

• Rachel’s growth arc is framed as a break from upper-middle-class expectations:
  • Father = domineering, patriarchal; mother focused on spending and status.
• Her story is “a total correction of what she was taught... her adult life is about independence, having her own identity, making her own money.” (17:14)
• Recurring motif: Rachel rising to independence, then teaching (and failing) to help her sisters do the same.
  • Caroline: “It’s very interesting with Rachel because the first half of the show, it feels like it's all about her trying to beat this narrative... then she mythologizes the fact that she learned the world...” (17:52)
• The sisters—Amy and Jill—are comic foils, embodying what Rachel might have been.
  • Amy’s neurodivergent-adjacent, brutally hot rudeness discussed: “If this was coming out of the mouth of anyone who didn’t look like them, they would be so outcast from society.” (20:04, Dolly)
  • Jill’s “failing upwards” is contrasted; their narrative arcs mirror Rachel’s arrival: “It’s the exact same thing... I’m going to teach you how to be me.” (24:20)

The Geller Family: Hidden Dysfunction in the ‘Happy’ Family

• Monica and Ross represent “what it is to come from a stable, loving family”—but one whose perfection still breeds neuroses.
  • “I think there’s quite a strong argument that even by the end of Friends, Ross has become Jack and Monica is well on her way to becoming Judy.” (55:56)
• Gendered dynamics and birth order deeply explored:
  • The “boy always wins” trope; Monica’s anxiety stems from being chronically overlooked.
  • Dolly’s personal anecdote about family double standards: “My boyfriend had to wait two years before he was granted access to my bedroom. Ben brings a girlfriend home, first night she was allowed to stay in this room.” (71:58)
• The Judy/Monica relationship as paradigm for mother/daughter toxicity—both universal and painful to watch.
  • Caroline: “The way in which that pain is rendered I find very hard to watch, actually, don’t you?” (66:30)
• The “miracle baby” syndrome and how parental favoritism shapes adult outcomes.

Chandler Bing: The Trauma of Negligence and Wealth

• Dissects Chandler’s “hypersexualized, famous mom” and absentee, trans showgirl dad as sources of deep, if comedic, wounding.
  • “It’s a lot more about negligence and wealth than it is about having a trans parent.” (84:41, Caroline)
• The show’s obsession with Chandler’s father as punchline: “There’s such an obsession with Chandler’s dad, as she’s always called, but what’s really more upsetting is the complete negligence.” (84:15, Dolly)
• Class context: Chandler as “trust fund baby”/class outsider, tamed by his friends’ warmth.

Joey Tribbiani: The Power of a Big, Loving Clan

• Joey’s comfort, confidence, and lack of romantic urgency come from being “the prince in a big family of adoring sisters.”
  • “He doesn’t have this desperate need to form a unit beyond that.” (96:03, Dolly)
• Comparison to real family experiences.
• Comedy in family appearances—Joey’s dad as everyone’s dad (“so comfortable with their parents that like... they just kind of weave them in,” 109:28).

Phoebe Buffay: The Search for “Found Family”

• Analysis of Phoebe’s uniquely tragic, chaotic background: homelessness, parental death, abandonment, searching for siblings.
  • “If every friend represents a friend in one’s own circle, everybody has that person who has a needlessly complex backstory that you just can’t be fucked to get into right now. The complexity is almost the joke.” (118:50, Caroline)
• Emotional highlights: bond with her half-brother Frank, acting as surrogate for his children, and the beauty and difficulty of “found family.”
  • “It’s the most beautiful thing you can do for Frank... It’s the most profound family story.” (133:06, Dolly)

---

3. Meta-Reflection on Writing, Therapy, and Art

• Discussion of how Friends’ character work reflects writers’ own therapy and 90s introspection.
• Tension between serious psychological writing and relentless pursuit of the comedic punchline.
  • “What is your biggest trauma becomes one of the biggest jokes in the group.” (81:11, Dolly)
• The ethics of sitcom jokes about trauma (e.g., weight, sexuality, eating disorders).
  • “The way the show treats her eating... is so cruel... one of the things that dates more than the gay panic stuff.” (79:58, Caroline)
  • “It’s probably a mixture of both: a product of the cruelty of comedy of its time, and also a familiarity with these characters... that means we earn the right to joke about their darkest things.” (82:32, Dolly)
• The meaning of “found family,” both as a clichéd trope and as genuinely moving in Phoebe’s story.

---

4. Personal Anecdotes, Recognizable Archetypes, and Recurring Gags

• The episode is rich in humorous tangents and notable quotes:

  • “Waltham Interiors” as favorite Friends in-joke, and the fantasy of setting up “Waltham Interiors Ltd.” (03:02, Dolly)
  • “His whole presence is like somebody watching you type.” (40:08, Caroline, on Rachel’s dad)
  • “Every person who’s been a part of a family has one of those [family narratives]. Poor Monica. It drives you crazy.” (75:03, Dolly)
  • “She's never met the baby. She starts straightening her hair... her Thanksgiving plans fall through because her boyfriend is married and has to spend it with his wife.” (22:36, Caroline, on Amy)
  • The meta-moment: “That's what a writer's room is—just psychoanalyzing fake people.” (35:52, Dolly)

• Reflections on class, wealth, and privilege in the Friends universe, mapped onto British/US contexts.

• Dissection of family roles, especially how writers and artists draw from the quality of their relationships—not their consumption of art.

  • “The most important thing as a T... as any kind of writer, for inspiration isn’t reading and isn’t watching. I think it’s the quality of your personal relationships.” (27:01, Dolly)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Monica's mother:
  “The way in which that pain is rendered I find very hard to watch…” (66:30, Caroline)

• On Chandler's trauma:
  “It’s a lot more about negligence and wealth than it is about having a trans parent.” (84:41, Caroline)

• On the cruelty of comedy:
  “What was the funniest thing in the world when we were growing up? A man in a dress, an overweight person, someone with a foreign accent…” (82:32, Dolly)

• Personal reflection:
  “Every time I sit down and talk to somebody about it, I feel like I learn how they feel about relationships... I have some feelings about Friends.” (134:58, Caroline)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [06:59-08:33] — Main thesis: Friends as psychoanalysis playground; family vs. men teaching lessons
• [14:08-19:18] — Rachel and her sisters: dynamic, growth, comedic archetypes
• [32:28-36:01] — The therapy episode; writers’ room as group analysis
• [40:00-44:44] — Parental transactional love (Rachel’s dad); being needed by parents
• [53:08-72:25] — The Geller household: gender dynamics, parental favoritism, endless family roles
• [77:18-84:41] — Chandler’s family, class status, trauma
• [96:05-103:00] — Joey’s big family, friendship with sisters, dynamic with Phoebe
• [117:17-134:27] — Phoebe’s search for family, found family, sacrifice and love
• [134:27-end] — Program reflections, personal impact, “I have some feelings about Friends”

---

Additional Highlights

• Meta moments: Constant crossing between fiction and real life—how Friends mirrors their own families, neuroses, and sibling positions.
• “Waltham Interiors” gag: Continual riffing on the “Waltham Interiors” episode (and use of posh company names) as peak comedy.
• Running gags: Who is the “main friend,” insightful yet self-mocking assertions of their resemblance to certain characters.
• Musings on time and memory: The emotional weight of childhood familiarity, evolving familial bonds as one ages.
• Anecdotes: Stories about parents’ double standards, living near childhood homes, family gender politics.

---

Conclusion

Caroline and Dolly deliver a deeply thoughtful, self-revealing, and sharply funny deconstruction of how Friends constructs family—both real and chosen. Their own personal experiences enrich the analysis at every turn. Whether they’re psychoanalyzing Monica’s anxiety, Rachel’s rebellion, or Chandler’s brittle trauma, the result is a generous, escapist, and profound examination of why Friends, beneath the jokes, feels like home for so many.

“I have some feelings about Friends. And this is what you’ve been getting this season.” – Caroline (135:09)

---

For those who missed the episode, this summary cuts to the heart of the chat—witty, neurotic, deeply personal, and always brilliantly aware.

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Grief doesn't keep a calendar. Anxiety doesn't clock out after five, Depression doesn't care if it's your busy season, but support can still fit into your life. With Grow, you can find a therapist who meets you where you are. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions. You can search by insurance provider, specialty treatment methods and more to find a therapist who works for you. And if it's not the right fit, switching is easy. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments. You just pay per session. Find therapy on your time, evenings, weekends, and Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. Whatever challenges you're facing, GrowTherapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's GrowthTherapy. Do.

Growtherapy.Com acast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.

[Caroline]

Hi everyone. Little heads up before you listen to this week's episode. We had some technical failings on the day of record here. I went to Dolly's house. We had a lovely time. My very trusty portable microphones for some reason failed on me that day. Mercury was in retrograde and we dug out Dolly's old podcasting microphone from a sock drawer and whatever way she was storing that thing, I don't know. But the audio quality here is not what I would normally expect. So please be patient with it. It's still a great episode. I'm very fond of it and please enjoy Dr. Dolly Alderton.

Hello and welcome to Friends Through a Lens, the podcast where I talk about the aspects of the show Friends through a specific lens with one of my real life friends. And today on the show, the category is It's All Relative with Dolly Alderton. Maybe one of the best jokes in the whole show. It's so good is the game show.

[Dolly Alderton]

This is such a good idea for a miniseries.

[Caroline]

I've been waiting for Prince.

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm loving it.

[Caroline]

What's been your favorite episode so far?

[Dolly Alderton]

I love the Weddings episode.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

So good because I just love weddings as a trope within storytelling. I just think it's so cozy and so funny. But it's interesting now when I was thinking about the weddings. I have never gone back to watch Monica and Chandler's Wedding and I rewatch Ross and Emily's Wedding I think three times a year.

[Caroline]

Are you annoyed that you're not getting the space today to talk about Waltham Interiors.

[Dolly Alderton]

Okay. I'm so upset about it because I actually think I pitched this to you off the back of Waltham Interiors. Waltham Interiors is my favourite two lines uttered on the silver screen ever.

[Caroline]

And, yeah, it show up in, like, every episode. Waltham and tyrannies.

[Dolly Alderton]

I love it. Do you know, there's something about the characterization of those two characters that's like. It's so. The English upper class is in such a recognisable way of basically a man and a woman who have nothing in common other than when they were young, he made money and she was hot, and her life is now just about spending as much money as possible with all her weird little projects. And his life is about spending as time with her as possible and making money. And they. I'm sorry, they are always interior designers, those women they just saw, or they're.

[Caroline]

Garden designers, like landscape designers as well. They reach a certain level of posh where they take all of their interests outside. It's all. Because it's all about horses and dogs and all that stuff. And grounds. Yes. They hit a ceiling and then they're no longer comfortable with sofas and fabric swatches. They're going outside, they're going topiary, they're going water features.

[Dolly Alderton]

So maybe they're going privet hedges. Maybe they move out of London and they moved to the Cotswolds. And if it had been filmed 20 years later, it would have been Waltham Gardens.

[Caroline]

Waltham Landscape Gardens.

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm so obsessed with the power of the words Waltham Interiors that I have suggested to Caroline, who still hasn't set up a limited company, even though I've been on at her about it for five years, that she. I've checked. Waltham Interiors Limited is still available as a limited company. And I really need you. I need you to start a company called Walls and Interiors.

[Caroline]

First of all, I'm never going to do that now. Because the thing is, people, when someone has a limited company, people loved and they say what it is, it's like, oh, here's my jokey name. Then they fucking search it and it goes on the Daily Mail. Or old Joanne McNally. She's had her entire statements printed everywhere.

[Dolly Alderton]

Sometimes when I'm like on a deadline and I'm feeling that I just want to procrastinate. There is one famous writer's name.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just put into company's house. So you know who it is because I've sent you pictures.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

But I don't know why. It's like.

[Caroline]

It's very inclusive chat we're having, isn't it? Very. Really. Again, once again pushing the listeners on how. How much they'll put up with how much exclusive London media, 1% dropping the curtain.

[Dolly Alderton]

But everyone has one of those things of, like, when you've exhausted everything on the Internet.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. When you the Internet been on and.

[Dolly Alderton]

Other stories, you've been on Gmail, you've been on the Instagram since that back.

[Caroline]

Down to earth with another stories.

[Dolly Alderton]

Thank you.

[Caroline]

Like it is in my Teresa.

[Dolly Alderton]

I would have gone asos. Yeah, but you would have called me out for that. Being too unrealistic. And then you find your. And then you find your, like, seat.

[Caroline]

You find your groove.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

It's like your speakeasy on the Internet.

[Dolly Alderton]

Sometimes I look, I just put like famous actors and I'll just see.

[Caroline]

I just want to see how much money is Michael Sheen really giving away.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just want to see what's in their savings, what they withdraw, what they've withdrawn, where their office is registered.

[Caroline]

I've done that with everybody who appears on Plum Sykes's newsletter. I just type their name into.

Anyway, can we talk about what we talk about, which is that when I pitched the series to you, you said immediately, it's all Relative, the relatives of Friends. And you immediately had this entire thesis statement typed into WhatsApp. Of all the different. How. I mean, I think when we talked about Sex and the City, the kind of thesis of Sex and the City is like all of the men that these women meet are there to sort of teach them something. And I actually, I think you said something in the WhatsApp that was like all of the familial relations that exist for friends. Because as we know, and we've said many times in this podcast so far, that kind of the point of Friends is the period of one's life where your friends matter more than your family. But all of these people do come from families of different sort of shapes and sizes, and it sort of sets the quest in motion for them.

[Dolly Alderton]

Absolutely.

[Caroline]

If Sex and the City is men, that teach you about a lesson, you need to hear the families of friends set up what that lesson is completely.

[Dolly Alderton]

And I think as well, I remember reading once, a film critic was saying about the work of Nora Ephron and her peer group that the most important influence on them was. Were not other filmmakers. It was the, like, standardization of Western therapy of analysis.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Like, that became a thing during the time that these people were growing up and then making their art. And I would say that about David Crane as well, that this would have been a group of people, particularly in la, in a period where they were coming of age, where analysis and self reflection was like a really important part of how you get your material as a writer. And I did the first therapy that I did was Freudian therapy, which obviously is just about everything goes back to the parents. And I do think it's very persuasive, not just in Friends, but in life generally to make the connections between how you form attachments romantically and whether that's a correction or a rejection of what you experienced in your family home. And I think each friend is a different template for all the different ways that you can either replicate or reject the family life.

[Caroline]

That's so interesting. You just said something there at the beginning that, like, I'd never thought about before, which is that you're right there. There is a kind of a sea change where. And I guess you see it as early as something like Annie hall, where so much of, like those characters growing is about him pushing her to see his analyst.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And like how that changes her and stuff. And like, you are right that as a show they do refer to each other's psychology quite a lot. Like they refer to Chandler being unable to cry and not unable to have arguments. Yeah. Like, if we're used to these kind of like, up till now, these sort of sitcom characters who have, like, outsized character flaws and if, like, they're stupid or greedy or dumb or all these, like, very human flaws. Flaws that we can sort of extenuate with the power of sitcom. The flaws of Friends are quite nuanced. I mean, like, Chandler's thing, which we'll get into in a minute, is so really quite complex for a half hour show that's aimed at everyone aged 8 to 80 of, like, this kind of stunted, regressed character who can't express himself and can only really communicate through jokes. And then even, like, I find Rachel's character quite nuanced in that she is this incredibly cool girl who everyone wants to get near and be friends with. But she's also sort of a bit sort of just spoiled and kind of unprepared for life in a way I find very recognizable sometimes, especially in those early seasons when she's still on that journey. I never thought about that before. But yeah, of course, like, the Friends coincides with the sort of mass acceptance that everybody who's creative and lives in New York also has a therapist.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah. I would say nearly all the jokes is about quite intricate psychoanalysis.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I Did like a really try Hardy paper when I was at uni. That was like comparing all the characters of Friends to the characters and the tropes of Commedia del Arto.

[Caroline]

Beautiful. So glad we met.

[Dolly Alderton]

Oh, my God. Can you imagine if you and I had met when we. I mean, we talk about this all the time.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It would have been so unbearable.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

The other day, my friend Lauren reminded me that in my statement for University, it ended with a quote from Joni Mitchell from a Jodi Mitchell called Woodstock. And the line is, we are stardust, we are golden, and we have to get ourselves back to the garden. And I quoted that and I said, this is a sentiment I'd love to live out at your university.

[Caroline]

We must get back to the garden.

[Dolly Alderton]

At Royal Holloway University.

[Caroline]

Great.

[Dolly Alderton]

But, yeah, I think.

So much of the comedy is about understanding, understanding everything about these characters and then the comedy being them doing something that's totally predictable and aligns with what we know of their character or totally out of character. And that also is funny. But as you said, what we know about them normally in sitcom is quite broad brushstrokes, understanding of these splodges of characterization. Whereas with this stuff, it's like, Monica's really controlling, and that's probably because of her controlling mother.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Or she was a fat teenager, so now she's very controlled with her lifestyle or, you know.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It all.

[Caroline]

It all joins up. No matter who we're talking about, it all joins up. It's like, it really is. If this. Then this. But thinking of, like, quite advanced psychological thinking, which is for, again, for what is supposed to be a broad brush sitcom that plays to every country in the world, in every language, for every age group and every demographic.

[Dolly Alderton]

But that's because that is actually what we all do about our friends.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All we do is just sit around and talk about why our friends are the way we are.

[Dolly Alderton]

Even when they're driving you mad, you'll be like, well, to be fair, it's because of that thing that happened with her dad. Or she never faced the trauma of this. Or if you look at the pattern, with her partners. That's why, you know, that's what we love doing that.

[Caroline]

What was it even like to have a friend pre the mainstreaming of psycho talk? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. When my mom was just like, just.

[Dolly Alderton]

WhatsApp would have been out of business.

[Caroline]

Sitting around with her. Exactly. My mom was sitting around with her mates in 1981 or whatever.

When they were bitching where they were Just like she's being a bit of a cow. Yeah. And then they just. And then with the conversation just end there. Or would they not talk about, like, that her dad ran out of her mum or whatever? Do you know what I mean? Like.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

What was it like to have a friend? 1981. Please write it. I genuinely want know.

[Dolly Alderton]

Let's watch Cheers and find out.

But yeah, it's. You're right, everything joins up. Even what you were saying about Rachel being so recognizable. And actually, weirdly, when I was growing up and obsessed with friends, like all of our generation was, I remember really, really disliking Rachel. And it's because as I've got older, I think she is the one that I identify the most with.

[Caroline]

I was gonna say this, actually, I was thinking about this last night because obviously everybody I've spoken to on this miniseries has talked trend. I identify with. And people are often almost too scared to identify with Rachel because it's a bit like identifying as Carrie Bradshaw or identifying as Joe March. It's like, well, I'm the main one, the one, the one everyone's obsessed with. That's me. But actually I was like, oh, Dolly is Rachel, actually, because, like, you are somebody that, like people are obsessed with. People love getting close to people ask a lot of and love being with and is cool and is fun. But like, you, like, everybody have stuff to get through. Like, I have bits of that in me as well. But just like I watched an episode last night where Rachel, first she's trying to take the garbage out and she refuses to empty the bin. And Monica's like, just empty the bin. Just go downstairs and go into the, whatever, the trash room. And then she's trying to shove a pizza box down the chute. And she just won't break it down. She just keeps shoving it.

[Dolly Alderton]

And then that's the moments I just relate to her so much.

[Caroline]

I relate to her so much. And then she turns around and Trigger is there and he's just like, you just. You've never given a thought to any other person in your life. I've spent a half an hour unplugging that. You don't think about anybody yet. And she starts crying. And I felt for her. So I was like, that's me. Yeah, it's not that I'm like. It's not that I'm horrible. I'm just self involved.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think her flaws are just so relatable. It's like how self involved she is. I think she's quite anxious. I think she's quite fearful, which probably informs her self involvement and kind of self preservation. Her vanity I really identify with. I think her kind of. She's got quite big delusions in romance. She's a bit of a fantasist.

[Caroline]

That part of Rachel's character is quite interesting. I've really noted on this rewatch of like. Yeah, she is like a fantasist when it comes to romance. She's always like reading romance or writing romance or.

[Dolly Alderton]

The episode I rewatched this morning was when they go to Judy and Jack's wedding anniversary.

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And Judy and Jack are like really upset that they're pregnant out of wedlock. So they pretend that they're married. And then Rachel just has the best day of her life at this wedding.

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Talking about a spake wedding that she had with Ross where people said she looked like a floating angel that I just identify so much with her. I just think there's something like so like childlike about her in a way that's. And also it makes so much sense that again, when you meet her two sisters.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I was gonna say that we're talking about the relatives. So let's start. We're on Rachel now. Let's start with Rachel and we'll drill.

[Dolly Alderton]

So I think Rachel is like, what?

[Caroline]

What?

[Dolly Alderton]

My. By the way, please, I've asked you this so many times and every time I ask you this, you just ignore it. Please, can we credit me on this episode as Dr. Dolly Alderton?

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Dolly Alderton]

Can we please?

[Caroline]

Yes, we can.

[Dolly Alderton]

Thank you.

[Caroline]

I think it will be an insult to the many PhD students who. Who are trying to be doctors. But okay, if you think you. If you think you've done as much work about friends as they have about whatever the fuck they're on about.

[Dolly Alderton]

I googled so many times if I'm allowed because I have an honorary doctorate, if I'm allowed to use it. And you are allowed to use it, but it's highly frowned upon by the academic community.

[Caroline]

Okay, you can meet. You can. I will literally list you as Dr. Dalian.

[Dolly Alderton]

Thank you. So in my thesis of the. Of the family templates that are offered up. I think the story that's offered up with Rachel Green is a story of someone who wants to break generational patterns and traumas with her behavior. So she, her father is this like incredibly paternalistic, angry, domineering, like seems quite misogynistic man who had seemingly very little in common with his ex wife. Doesn't sound like he really respected her. Doesn't sound like she really respected him.

And then. And women within that family are expected to. To marry and. And stop working.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Rach Story is about marrying the man who could not be more the opposite of her dad. Ross is like, the beta male. And her. And what was so important for her was about having independence, having her own identity, making her own money, having this huge career. So I think, like, that's the big. That's the big story that's offered with her of how her adult life has been a total kind of correction of what she was taught when she was young in her family home.

[Caroline]

And I think what's fascinating about that, as I've been watching through and often when I've been doing these episodes, I have been, like, essentially picking a theme, gathering many episodes from across the series, and then watching them in order. So I'll watch something from season two, then season seven, then season nine, or whatever. And it's very interesting with Rachel because the first half of the show, it feels like it's all about her trying to beat this narrative. Her trying to learn about the world, her trying to be a kind of a human being, being a fully rounded person, and not just this kind of, like, girl who ornaments a room. And then once she achieves that, it's all about mythologizing that fact that she did that, so true. Like when her sisters Jill and Amy, who are Reese Witherspoon and Christina Applegate, respectively, come in, it's all about teaching those women how they can be more like Rachel. And she tries and she fails, and she falls out with them, and she finally, when I think Christian Applegate's character comes back twice, and eventually she reaches this kind of final stage of enlightenment of Rachel Green, where she was like, she was a naive little tool trying to learn the world, then she learned the world, and she mythologized the fact that she learned the world and that she broke out on her own and came to the city and got this big career and whatever. And there's this moment where she looks at Amy and she just says, I've been trying to make you into me, but actually, you're a pretty perfect version of what you are. And, like, Amy's really touched by this because she's like, thank you. Because Amy's just, like, a massive bitch, but really fun.

[Dolly Alderton]

Amy is such a good character.

[Caroline]

She's so. Reese Witherspoon feels like stunt casting. I think Reese's Boone is, like, an amazing actor, but I don't. I don't love Jill as a thing, but Amy, it's just like. It's just real, it's just true.

[Dolly Alderton]

You meet one of those women, I would say it's like one in 500 women.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I was at a dinner recently with one of them.

[Caroline]

One in 500 women.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's so interesting to watch them. They're like, they're just so crucially so hot and have always been gorgeous. From the day they were born until the day they die. They will be gorgeous.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And they are just so fucking rude. And they have no idea how rude they're being.

[Caroline]

And it's almost like.

[Dolly Alderton]

And they don't think it's funny.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And they do. It's not like a cute thing, but they are just. If this was coming out of the mouth of anyone who didn't look like them, they would be like so outcast from society.

[Caroline]

Like, give me. Let's give a reminder of the kind of thing that Amy says to people because it's so brilliant every time. It makes me laugh so much. Where it's like she meets Joey and she goes, oh my God, you're on Days of our Lives. And he goes, yeah. She goes, oh, you are not good. It's so good. Oh, they must put a lot of makeup on you. It's almost like I think you could view Amy through the lens of neurodivergence.

[Dolly Alderton]

Just like you were gonna go there. And I'm glad you've got there because.

[Caroline]

I'm not saying that being neurodivergent makes you a massive. But I have met. Met incredibly good looking women who clearly don't understand social cues and also haven't been course corrected in the same way because of their beautiful faces and say crazy things that are just like. And it's actually the way that Amy delivers it. It's like not born out of. Because when generally when people. Someone's being a massive bitch of a normal day, it's because they feel jealous, they feel vulnerable, they're insecure or whatever. It's coming from a place of like darkness that they wish wasn't there. But Amy almost does it in this kind of morally neutral way. She doesn't know she's doing it, she's just doing it.

[Dolly Alderton]

And I think women find it that women find it kind of unnerving. And then they try harder to be nice to that person and be friends with them because they think they have to seek approval.

[Caroline]

Yes, that's it. That's it.

[Dolly Alderton]

So that's how they end up having friends. And then men just find it like so fit.

[Caroline]

So really it's the, it's the world's fault for not teaching the Amy's. Yeah, Really.

[Dolly Alderton]

I tell you what men hate. And I know this because I was one. Like.

A mean, rude, spotty, chubby, six foot girl. They do not like that. But if you look like Christina Applegate in the Noughties and you are horrible.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

They want you to tread on their balls. They will give you everything.

[Caroline]

They will give you everything.

[Dolly Alderton]

They will sell everything they own for you.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I've seen it time and time again. She's such a great character.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And the thing, what's the peak that she does is that she wants to. The job that she decides. Inspired by Rachel, the job that she decides to do to make it on her own is to be a baby stylist.

[Caroline]

Yeah, she wants to be a baby stylist. But it turns out people don't want to hear their babies aren't cute.

Like, it's like. And she takes like. So the way that her character is introduced is that it's when Emma's just been born. The start of the episode is when. I can't remember what it's called now, but it's sort of season seven, season eight. There's a knock on the door. Rachel is living in Ross's house. And it's like, who is it? It's your favorite sister. And they both look at each other and go, jill. But the way that Ross says it, it's almost like I'm not even sure if Jill is her favorite sister. She doesn't have a favorite sister. She just has sisters, which I think is important. And then she comes through and she's like, oh. She's like, do you have a hair straightener? She's never met the baby. She starts straightening her hair. Her, like her, her, her Thanksgiving plans fall through because her boyfriend is married and he has to spend Thanksgiving with his wife. And then.

Where she's like, this is kind of a private conversation. Do you mind if I go upstairs? And Ross goes, you can. We don't live up there. And then she goes, oh, it's, it's just these rooms. It's just that again and again the joke never changes. It's just her being completely unaware of her surroundings in a really hot, mean way.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally. Like. Yeah, it's so, it's so funny.

[Caroline]

So where do you see. So I think, I think the kind of pecking order is Rachel first, then Amy, then Jill. Right? Yeah. Is that how you pictured it?

[Dolly Alderton]

That Rachel's the eldest? Yeah, yeah, that's exactly how I would have done it. It's interesting as well. Both of the Amy and the Jill entrances into the Friends mirrors Rachel Green's first episode of walking into Central Perk in a moment of crisis.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. And it's like the exact same thing with both of them. I'm going to teach you how to be me.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And both of them rejecting that in different ways. So when you get Jill's character doing it, it's. What is it? It's like.

She gets cut off by Daddy because she bought her friend a boat. Yeah. Friends with the wr.

And then they sort of take her in and she goes out with Ross. And that's kind of a thing I find really interesting as well because it's like, it's played quite well the whole, like, is Jill allowed to go out with Ross? Because Rachel has that initial thing of being like, oh, okay. And then she just goes mental being like, absolutely not. And then where it ends up is Ross doesn't go out with her. It actually progresses their kind of relationship on quite a bit because he says if anything were to ever happen with Jill, that would mean nothing would ever happen with you and I ever again. Which I think is good plotting from the writers. It's like they don't have to give us anything, but they also can keep the flame alive in, like, again, we've brought it up a lot. But the way they stretch out Ross and Rachel over 10 seasons by just giving us these little breadcrumbs of like every now and then, like a little, like, keep the candle burning, everyone. We're not done with this. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

How old were you when it was the last episode? Do you remember?

[Caroline]

Oh, God.

Maybe 13.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, I was like about 16, I think. So you would have been mid teens. I remember it so well. And I have never. I don't think I have ever or will ever care about two fictional characters love story as much as I do about them.

[Caroline]

It's hard to. It's really hard. There's really nothing quite like it in the same way because you could even, like, where does it map along the sort of Big and Carrie, like the two. A love story that we witnessed for 30 years and that ended in one of their deaths.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Like, where. Where would you map your caring about Ross and Rachel versus your caring about carrying Big?

[Dolly Alderton]

I just. Different universes.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's interesting.

[Caroline]

I've been.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think about Slot because. Have you been watching Nobody wants this.

[Caroline]

No, of course.

[Dolly Alderton]

Because you hate being told to watch Modern tv. There's nothing Caroline hates more I know, than being recommended a tv.

[Caroline]

She recommended anything. I hate being recorded. No. I hate being recommended restaurant.

[Dolly Alderton]

I hate being recommended a film with, like, Tom Conti in the 1970s.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, that'll. That'll pick up.

[Dolly Alderton]

But you hate being told to watch. So do you, though.

[Caroline]

We're the same in this.

[Dolly Alderton]

But you just also. But you also just don't. You don't watch masses of new tv, do you?

[Caroline]

No. Which is really bad because I'm making new tv.

[Dolly Alderton]

I don't think it is bad.

[Caroline]

Do you not think?

[Dolly Alderton]

No, I. I actually think the most important thing as a t. As any kind of writer, for inspiration, isn't reading and isn't watching. I think it's the quality of your personal relationships.

[Caroline]

Do you really think that?

[Dolly Alderton]

I believe it's the quality of the conversations that you have with people.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I do think you're right on that.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think the conversations you have are the things that inform your characters and your dialogue. Maybe. Maybe you can learn about story and plotting from watching stuff, but. Which is why I just never understand this idea of the secluded good writer.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Because I just think your writing is only as good as the conversations in the pub, basically.

[Caroline]

But then what about all these, like, amazing famous writers who, like, famously had one friend or whatever? I think you.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think they.

[Caroline]

I think that, like these introverts, you.

[Dolly Alderton]

Know, I think that happens as you. I think that all of those people who went and lived on a hill, if you read, like, early life on their Wikipedia page, the likelihood is they were around loads and loads of people. They would have had, like, a big family or they would have, you know.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Worked in a job with loads. I just think that's the only way that you learn about human behavior. And it's like that classic thing of every general meeting that you take for as a TV writer. What they say is what we're looking for is, like, serialized rom com. Like a TV rom com. And nobody wants. This is really good and I'm really enjoying it. But it definitely shows the challenge of doing a TV rom com, which is how do you keep two people apart when they're the main focus of the story? Over eight hours, repeatedly. How do you bring them together and pull them apart? It's like you do kind of run out of tricks. And the key, the thing that really worked with Ross and Rachel is that it was. It was. It was not the highest story in the mix.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Oh, you're so right.

[Dolly Alderton]

So they could.

[Caroline]

It could fade away. For a while and then come back.

[Dolly Alderton]

Exactly. And that's how we were. Kept wanting more.

[Caroline]

Even though somebody pointed this out in the comment section when we did our Ross episode the other day. But, like, they. They believed the thing that kept Rachel coming back to Ross was that he was a bad boyfriend but a great friend and that he would show up for people in a friend way and then disappoint her over and over again as a boyfriend. And I find that very interesting.

[Dolly Alderton]

That is interesting because also, I suppose what is so interesting about Ross and Rachel, which you don't see in other rom coms, is like, how do you recalibrate? How do you recalibrate friendship when you have been so intimate with each other?

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

How do you. I find that really fascinating when I'm watching those series in between their romantic moments where they're just goofing around together or they're on a long road trip together or they're just the two of.

[Caroline]

Them getting drunk in the hotel room together. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Or meeting each other. Other's partners or whatever. And. And you know that they've had, like, a huge amount of sex. Known each other's families very intimately.

[Caroline]

So when Ross lists how many times he counts the shag, like 211 times.

[Dolly Alderton]

Never related to Rossmore.

[Caroline]

I so have that in me counting the shags.

[Dolly Alderton]

If I were to actually do my true friends personality, I think it's like.

[Caroline]

Yeah, what's your Myers Briggs of friends?

[Dolly Alderton]

My Myers Briggs is like. I think I'm like, the sensitivity and the self absorption and the vanity of Rachel with the sort of pettiness of Ross.

With. And then these two are so rogue, but I just really identify with them. The, like, exhibitionism of Bonnie.

[Caroline]

Wow.

[Dolly Alderton]

I relate way too much.

[Caroline]

Who wants to go in for a naked swim?

[Dolly Alderton]

Bonnie, who just, like, has to tell every story is her showing off about.

[Caroline]

About how much sex she's had and how she's had it.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

God love her. And you shaved your head.

[Dolly Alderton]

She's so annoying. And I hate watching that episode because.

[Caroline]

I'm like, I think she's only in two episodes.

[Dolly Alderton]

I know, but I'm like, I think those two episodes just basically sum up how I was in my 20s, which was just completely unbearable.

[Caroline]

I think I know the other character. You're gonna say the other minor side character. Is it the therapist from season one who goes out with Phoebe? Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I related so horribly to that character.

[Caroline]

I'm amazed we haven't brought him up sooner. And I know we're kind of jumping all around the place, but kind of podcast you and I were texting. Because that is the episode, I believe, where we meet Joey's parents.

[Dolly Alderton]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Caroline]

So everyone knows about Joey's sisters because they kind of come up in conversation quite a lot. But Joey's parents come up far. Seldomly, and only in one episode, which is where.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally forgotten that episode.

[Caroline]

Totally forgotten about it. It was Ella who had to remind me.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's such a good one.

[Caroline]

It's so good. And you really sort of. It makes him feel very real in a way that, like, sometimes I think, particularly in those early seasons, his grasp on. No, wait, do you know what it is? It's that he is more sexual in the early seasons where he's just like, chasing skirt around New York or whatever. And then he's more stupid in the later seasons. And so sometimes he feels like the most ephemeral at times in terms of being a real human being who really on planet Earth. And then when you see him cooking with his dad, it just feels just very grounded. Just very grounded or whatever. And those two actors make him, like, feel very grounded and. But anyway, in that. We'll get back to in a second, but in that same episode, Phoebe is going out with psychotherapist who sort of diagnoses all of the friends.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And everyone starts thinking it's really charming and really cool. And they're all sitting around hearing about themselves, and by the end of it, they hate that guy. I hate that guy.

[Dolly Alderton]

I simply love to do that in a room. It's so annoying. I love to just sit and meet a new person.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Ask them a million questions and then like. Like analyze them and then just give them advice they have not asked for.

[Caroline]

It's great, though. It's really good, I think. Do you.

[Dolly Alderton]

Do you do?

[Caroline]

I do. I do it a lot. And I think, actually, to go back to your earlier point about what. What makes an actually good writer, is it reading books and watching films or is it the quality of conversation? Sometimes I do feel myself going into record mode. Do you mean just being like I'm just sort of sucking it all off from somebody? Yeah, because I just find them a bit fascinating. And I'm like, all right, I'm just gonna sort of send the evening sort of extracting. And it will come across as extreme care and intensity and connection. What I'm really doing is gathering. And it's such a. It's such a boring cliche about writers of like, oh, don't. She'll use you of your material or whatever. And I think people think what that's going to be is that, like, you're going to talk to somebody for an evening and then the next time they pick up one of your books, there you'll be. But it's much more diluted than that. It's like you're just, like, pumping the earth for resources and eventually that oil will turn into a necklace five years from now.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's such a good metaphor. That is exactly what it is.

[Caroline]

Yeah, it's. And, like, then what happens sometimes is that, like, you. This is so not about friends.

Is that you are so attentive in these moments that people think that it's the beginning of a great big, beautiful relationship. And it's like that Sex and the City meme. They, like, call you up a week later being like, oh, we should get lunch sometime. And you're like, who is this?

[Dolly Alderton]

Who is this?

I know, it's. Yeah.

[Caroline]

So, yeah, Phoebe's boyfriend.

[Dolly Alderton]

I really, really relate to that.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And I think it's like. It's also a way of just kind of controlling everything. You're kind of controlling the conversation. If you're.

[Caroline]

You're guiding all the time.

[Dolly Alderton]

If you're. If you're asking people questions and then just, like, taking up so much space with analyzing them, it means that you're kind of in control of the conversation without really revealing anything about yourself. Yeah, I really watched that episode. I was like, I've got to stop being that therapist guy.

[Caroline]

I hate that guy. The thing is, like, back to your earlier point about sort of of. Did therapy change TV writing? Which I think it probably did. And I think there actually is a Dr. Dolly Alderton in that. In the effect of. Of therapy on popular culture. That is a quite a knowing episode, isn't it? Because it's just like, yes, the character is a therapist talking about, like, oh. Like, I think at one point, one of his analyses is like, maybe you always. Ross, maybe you always knew Carol was a lesbian. And maybe you were trying to.

Protect your younger sibling from critique by sort of failing yourself kind of thing. It's all quite, very advanced, quite spurious stuff. But obviously it's the kind of thing that groups of friends initially really want to hear and then really don't want to hear anymore. It does feel like, oh, this is. Is this them showing us the writer's room?

[Dolly Alderton]

Exactly what I was gonna say. Exactly the same thing. Because that is so much of a writer's room. It's just sitting around just basically psychoanalyzing these fake people.

[Caroline]

It's that is it. That is. And then you come home knackered and you talk to your spouse and you're like, really tough day there. We were really talking about, like, you know, whether or not Rachel's ever been fingered by another guy before. And we thought maybe, yeah, she had.

[Dolly Alderton]

And they're like, these are fake people.

[Caroline]

They're fake people.

[Dolly Alderton]

Invented. Yeah, yeah, it's. I always remember when I was.

Studying Macbeth at school, I did a paper about Lady Macbeth and my teacher said to me, failed the paper and said, you have to start writing about the book and stop psychoanalyzing them as if they're real people.

[Caroline]

It's like, why the hell would you do that? That's like, oh, but so boring.

[Dolly Alderton]

Really stuck with me. Cuz I remember thinking like, I was so confused by what that meant. And I was also so embarrassed that I was doing that. As I've got older, I'm like, that is actually what good art should. That's what you should do. You should like anything that you really fall in love with and that you believe is real. And characters you're invested in, all you do as a viewer is psychoanalyze them.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I think that. I think that's a far more honest way to approach a piece of work, rather than like themes of. Themes of war or theme. Well, I know we love themes, obviously, but like that thing, the idea that you could sort of like boiled down a piece of art into three or four keywords that you could then extrapolate because of whether or not they use this word or the other feels to me like an artistically shallower experience than really. Like, this is going to sound like I'm showing off, but the something me and Gav have been doing a lot in the last year is like one Saturday a month going to an art gallery and just picking a few paintings and just talking about them for a really long time. And like, the way I've been sort of rebranding paintings to myself has been. And it's just movies you can talk through, do you mean? And like, we've just been like, it's been so lovely. Just like standing in, like learning a lot more about artists, like visual artists. And standing in front of a painting and like for 25 minutes being like, what is going on here? And like, what does every single person in this painting, what do they arrive to the painting with? And because like, the thing I think about what's like that art form has finally clicked for me in the last year because I'VE realized that every single, like, millimeter on a painting was. Was a decision. And therefore the artist has thought about it for years, every single fleck of paint. And therefore it's not a wasted effort for me to think about this, like, random blurry man in the background of a scene to think about, like, why he was there and what he was doing until he got there.

[Dolly Alderton]

Oh, I love that.

[Caroline]

It's, it's. It's been one of the best things for my marriage in the last year. I would love to. I would do that with anybody. Yes, of course.

[Dolly Alderton]

All my thing with an art gallery is you're in the gift shop after 45.

[Caroline]

I know. Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And you take one picture on your phone to remember that you went there and you remember one thing from one of the little plaques.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Now, I don't think that's how art should be viewed. I don't think that's how it was designed to be consumed.

[Caroline]

Movies you can talk through.

[Dolly Alderton]

Okay. I love that.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Anyway.

[Dolly Alderton]

Anyway. What do you think of Rachel's dad?

[Caroline]

I'm obsessed with him.

[Dolly Alderton]

Me too. By the way. I think he's so fit.

[Caroline]

We were talking about this on the last episode. So we got into Rachel's dad because he. One of his best appearances is one of the house party episodes we just.

[Dolly Alderton]

Did with Alexander Haddo when he's in the nautical top.

[Caroline]

Yes. The bit that's going round and round in my head is when Ross is trying to make polite conversation with him.

[Dolly Alderton]

Say, it's not a game, Ross.

[Caroline]

It's not a game, Ross. A woman died on my table today.

[Dolly Alderton]

How things in the.

[Caroline]

What did you say? How are things in the cardiovascular game?

[Dolly Alderton]

It's not a game, Ross. A woman died.

[Caroline]

Woman died on my table today.

[Dolly Alderton]

If a man said that to me at a party, I would just follow him around all night.

He's so trying to make him laugh.

[Caroline]

I think Alex described that man as being. His whole presence is like somebody watching you type. Just like, ah, just forget how to do it.

[Dolly Alderton]

Very fit.

[Caroline]

Very fit.

[Dolly Alderton]

And then I love his glasses, love his cigarettes.

[Caroline]

They just. All of the parents that we see are the most lived in characters. Every. Every family member in the world of Friends is just the most plausible human being for that character to have been raised by. Yeah, I think the two main times we see Rachel's dad are that party that I mentioned and the one where he doesn't tip at the restaurant. The one where he.

[Dolly Alderton]

And the episode where he and Ross just really don't get on.

[Caroline]

Yes, that One as well. And they sort of, like, take the piss out of Rachel.

[Dolly Alderton]

And that's finally.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, like, I think it's very telling that Rachel Green is one of these women who calls their dad daddy until they're, like, 40. Yeah. Tell me what you think that parenting journey was like.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think he was completely absent dad. A bit like the American version of Waltham Interiors, by the way, I still haven't done my best impression of Friends, which is related to Autumn interiors. She's in hiding.

[Caroline]

You've humiliated her.

[Dolly Alderton]

You've humiliated her. She's in hiding. It's so perfect. He's so half cutting it. I will just WhatsApp a voice note to Caroline every other day of Jesus in the Hiding.

[Caroline]

It's come up in every episode. Those London episodes, I don't know because I'm recording this whole miniseries in London, but it has penetrated the culture. So the best two episodes of Friends, they really are. They are so good.

[Dolly Alderton]

And those characters are the best two characters in Friends.

But I wonder if it's like. If it's a bit of a Waltham Interiors background in that. I think her mother was busy spending her dad's money and was like. You know, he mentions in that party episode when he's ranting about Rachel's mum, he's like, she spent twelve hundred dollars on bonsai trees. And she mentions her Chihuahua and he. I think that she basically created, like, loads and loads. She didn't have a job, and she created loads of expensive hobbies to keep her busy that she spent her husband's money on. The more she did that, the less respect he had for her. And I think the dad was just, like, desperately trying to be out of the house as much as possible. And in lieu of love, he just gave them credit cards.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah. One of my favorite. I think. I don't know why I find this so telling, but when Amy shows up and Rachel's like, I've been so busy, you know, I've had a baby. And Amy's like, I decorated dad's office.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

Yeah. You can tell. They're so entwined.

[Caroline]

They're on the teat. They're those, like. I think it's so interesting, those family dynamics where, you know, there's multiple siblings, and some siblings are either financially or emotionally on the teat for an incredibly, like, well into their 30s, and other. Other family members aren't. And the interesting thing is that you would think that the presumption would be the valorizing of the independent sibling versus not that any sibling should be valorized or loved more or loved less. But one would think the independent sibling would have a sort of a status, some kind of a high status in the family, and the siblings that are still on the teeth would aspire to be that independent sibling. But actually, I think this is quite true for what happens in Rachel's family is that the siblings that are on the teeth still.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Can't believe how often I've said teat. The last minute is queasy making. Yeah, they're still fastened. Yeah. They end up being much closer to the parental unit and there's a. More intimacy because they still need things from their parents. And actually, like, I think what I've learned now, kind of watching all my friends and various families I know are over the years is that like you think that needing nothing from your parents is the greatest gift you can give them. And actually it is the greatest act of alienation. Yeah. When you actually. Because. Because when a parent, regardless of their age, feels like they are not needed anymore by a child, it is basically telling them they're gonna die soon.

[Dolly Alderton]

That is why my mum is never more alive than when I come home.

[Caroline]

Ill. Oh, my God. Never more alive.

[Dolly Alderton]

If I say to mum this, these are the words that I will say. And I know that she just like. It's like it adds another 10 years to when I say it. So I'll be like, I'm feeling weak.

[Caroline]

I'm feeling weak. Oh, my God.

[Dolly Alderton]

Or under the weather. And she literally is just like. The color comes into her cheeks and she's like, right, well, you need to catch up on your sleep while you're here.

[Caroline]

You are run down.

[Dolly Alderton]

You've been burning the candle at both ends. I'm going to get. And then she'll just be like. And then I'll just lie on the sofa watching Friends and she'll just keep coming in and being like, putting her hand on my forehead, on my forehead and be like, how's your blood sugar? Do you need a sugar? Because it's the only way that I ever need my mom now, basically.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Is if. If I go home and I'm feeling better under the weather.

[Caroline]

I remember when I was in, like in my early 20s. And there's. The thing is, there's even. There's still opportunities for your mom to slip into that kind of nursing role. It's so toxic. But we all. We're all getting something from it. But as you get older, there are. Are fewer and fewer experiences for your dad to be able to Step in and do that for you. Unless it's with things like money, which is obviously what we see in Rachel Green's family.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, exactly.

[Caroline]

I remember in my early 20s, I was over here, but I was working for an Irish newspaper, and they weren't paying me. My dad just waited outside that office and he just buttonholed them when they came out and being like, you owe my daughter €300 or whatever. And then just. He just called me, I think, from a pay phone and was like, you'll get your money. Then today it was such. Rachel Green's dad.

[Dolly Alderton]

M. Oh, Rachel Green's dad. My dad would do something crazy like that as well.

[Caroline]

It's so crazy. But I did get the money and I was grateful. Like, a girl needs her daddy.

[Dolly Alderton]

Well, going back to your do referenced.

[Caroline]

Te.

[Dolly Alderton]

Something that's interesting is that I've realized as I've got older is like, I personally, in my close group of friends, I don't know women who. Who don't work, and I don't know women who rely on a partner or parent for money. Most women I know, I mean, I know a lot of women who are the breadwinners in their family.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think that's quite normal in my circle. In the last couple of years, there are women I've come across through other social circles who basically, the culture that they've grown up in is your. Your dad. Dad pays for your life, and then. And then you get handed over into a. Into a relationship, and then the man pays for your life. And what I've realized is normality. It's only weird for me because I don't know other women or. Or shameful for me because I don't know other women who do that.

[Caroline]

If you've grown up in a family.

[Dolly Alderton]

Where that's what all the women do.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Or you look side to side and the girls you grow up. Grew up with at school, they all have that. They all do it. Then that just becomes your normality.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Rachel Green will be the freak.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

She will not. All her friends that. That she grew up around and her sisters and her mum. Yeah, Mindy, they will. All that. That's the normality.

[Caroline]

And we finally. She finally gets her payoff on that. When I think it's when Jill shows up and she's in tears because actually, I think Ruzpoon's a great actress, but I don't think she was a great actress.

[Dolly Alderton]

That.

[Caroline]

Then. Is that. Is that controversy or. I don't know. But she. She was amazing in stuff. Like election. But there's. I don't know, it's just, like, not great.

[Dolly Alderton]

That was very much the Legally Blond years, wasn't it?

[Caroline]

It was like.

[Dolly Alderton]

Was playing these quiet kind of.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was surprised by how much I didn't enjoy her performance. Looking back on this episode, I was.

[Dolly Alderton]

Surprised how much I had forgotten about Pashmina's. Watching that episode comes up like, twice. But pashminas was such a massive part of it.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I know. Disapp.

[Dolly Alderton]

And I cannot remember. It's 15 years since I heard the word. It is.

[Caroline]

It is bizarre the way in which, like, words that we've never heard before will just get ingested into the vocabulary, like kombucha. There was a day you didn't know that word. And then there was a day you did. And now you'll never not know that word. Jill says to Rachel, daddy said, come go visit Rachel. And the only daughter I'm actually proud of.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Which is a horrible thing to say. And obviously makes Rachel's life.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Good for her.

[Dolly Alderton]

But he never shows that pride to her.

[Caroline]

No.

[Dolly Alderton]

He's, like, pretty horrible to her.

[Caroline]

Yeah. He just yells at her all the time.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And that is the thing in those relationships where, once again, the oft quoted teat. If a child is still dependent on you for something, in this case, financial, you can be as horrible to them as you want. But there's an understanding that there's a transaction involved. And so with his other daughter, water is. He can be like, I'm gonna yell at you for five minutes about everything I believe you to be terrible at. And then I'm gonna give you three grand.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yes, exactly.

[Caroline]

And then we both understand it to be a transaction. When that transaction doesn't exist between one of your kids, it's just the yelling and there's no paying. And it really rots the relationship even more.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose it's an interesting journey for Rachel because when she doesn't need her dad's money anymore, it's like, well, what do I need from this man now? What is the. What is our connection beyond. I'm nice to you and you provide for me.

[Caroline]

Which is why when Ross. When they go out for that dinner and Dr. Green pays and then Ross leaves the tin, it is. It's such an interesting power dynamic. Right. Because, like, yes, he's probably a man that has been used to the idea for a while that I'm going to raise my daughters to a certain stage and then I will hand them over to a as rich or richer man.

[Dolly Alderton]

Man who works in a similar industry to me.

[Caroline]

Yeah. But the idea that, like, the dinosaur doctor is showing me up for not being a nice enough guy. It's such a brilliant choice to, like, push on the buttons of his masculinity in just the right order.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally.

[Caroline]

The dinosaur doctor is showing me up again.

[Dolly Alderton]

Very good psychoanalysis.

[Caroline]

Yeah. It really is such good writing.

[Dolly Alderton]

Field Day. If Dr. Green went in and was like, why did this bother me so much? This weird little dinosaur guy made me feel chill. Sheep.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's like everything about that generation in terms of how they would have thought about masculinity and assertion.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And then there's that moment where one of Joey's New Year's resolutions that he wants to learn how to sail a boat. And then Rachel takes him out on her dad's boat and this. And she. She replicates how her dad was to her in that he's not doing anything properly. She's yelling at him. It took this whole side of her, Rachel, we've never seen before. And it's like she's just. You get this a lot, people. Because Joey is this childlike atmosphere. People sort of mistreat him. They kind of take out their parental sort of shit on him.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Like Ross forcing him to write a screenplay. Just like that.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's such a good episode.

[Caroline]

A handsome man enters.

Every time I write a script, I think, a handsome man enters.

[Dolly Alderton]

I'd totally forgotten that. Again, great psychoanalysis. That is such. That's such a brilliant.

Because they've planted at that point that Dr. Green is this, like, angry, imperious.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. We know him so well, even though we've only met him two or three times.

[Dolly Alderton]

And there's something about Rachel because that. I mean, there's that episode as well with Monica when she realizes that she's turning into her mother. And that is a very, very real thing about growing up. And it's. Every year you get older, you see more of it. I've started to do something. Something. I'm like. This is like completely. My. My mum does this thing when she's talking. She's telling a story and she's forgotten something. So she says. And I saw the guy who works at the thing. You know, the thing with the thing. And I started doing it. And it's obviously just because this is.

[Caroline]

What happens as you get a little.

[Dolly Alderton]

Bit older is that you start forgetting stuff.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

But it used to drive me mad that that's how, like, her syntax of every anecdote, she would use it. And I'm doing it all the time now.

[Caroline]

Oh God, it is freaky, isn't it?

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm having it every year I discover a new thing that I'm doing that is a total replication of my mum and my dad.

[Caroline]

And I think that it's horrible and.

[Dolly Alderton]

It'S like, it's how, it's how you really understand the passage of time at those moments.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. And like I think it's, I think it's kind of an understood trajectory when you're a woman that you start replicating stuff that your mom does or like you start noticing that you look a bit more like your mum. Or when you get to an age where you were a child or a, a teenager when your mum was the age you are now, if you know what I mean. And you're like, oh, my mom kind of wore stuff like this when I was about 8 or 9. You know what I mean? And that's kind of a strange thing. But, but there's a noticeable pattern because that's the emblem of femininity you had in your house. So that's kind of what you're unconsciously replicating. Yeah. But when you start acting like your dad. Yeah. Which is what happens to Rachel in that episode. It is quite frightening. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

What do you think of Rachel's mum? She's. She only in one episode. She's only in.

[Caroline]

She, she's in. No, she's in the, the, the famous like you didn't marry your, your Barry, honey. I married mine.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

When she decides that she's going to leave Dr. Green. And then the kind of follow up episode to that is the birthday party when she's, she's in Monica's apartment playing.

[Dolly Alderton]

Word games and she's wearing that jacket that is the most like rich lady, like New York suburbs jacket. It's like like that pink, bright pink silk with the high collar.

[Caroline]

It's almost like a. Yes. Oh my God, I forgot the tie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's very like Long island lady going to the town, going to the city for a big day.

[Dolly Alderton]

But it's like all those parents that are so well drawn. All their costumes as well are just so perfect.

[Caroline]

You have the vague nautical theme on Rachel's dad.

[Dolly Alderton]

Or like Judy, who's obviously so horny.

[Caroline]

Judy, always wearing metallic bodysuits is always.

[Dolly Alderton]

Wearing, wearing like a slightly sexy suburban outfit.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

That just reeks a bit of sex.

[Caroline]

That's so true. Do you want to move on to the Gellers now? We've gone chapter and verse on Rachel.

[Dolly Alderton]

Green, I think in Dr. Dolly's.

Thesis.

[Caroline]

Are you a doctor of psychology, do you think? Or a doctor of like media studies in this, in this universe?

[Dolly Alderton]

But I am a doctor.

[Caroline]

Okay, of course, of course you're a doctor.

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm actually a doctor of letters.

[Caroline]

Okay.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's my official title.

[Caroline]

Honorary doctorate from X University.

[Dolly Alderton]

A very, very prestigious university.

[Caroline]

University. Okay.

[Dolly Alderton]

They were so gutted when I received that the students. Because the person the day before me was Stormzy. Can you imagine how gutted you'd be if it's then this random. No, no one had any idea who I was. They were. I almost heard them go, oh. It's a bit like when Monica stands up to do the toast instead of Ross at Judy and Jack's 35th wedding anniversary. That's what they like when I got on stage anyway. So Dr. Dolly's analysis of this family is Monica and Ross represent what it is to come from a stable, loving family where you feel they drive you mad and there's. And your parents drive you mad and they pick on you and they're certainly flawed, but they are loyal and they are there. And through your childhood feel that you have this unabiding loving, unique. And what that means for both of them is I think there's quite a strong argument that even by the end of Friends we see Ross has kind of become Jack and Monica is well on her way to becoming Judy.

[Caroline]

Totally.

[Dolly Alderton]

They both, they, they both want to have children. Ross does have children from quite a young age. Monica wants children from a young age. They both have one boy, one girl. Monica ends up moving out to a suburb probably quite similar to the suburb that she grew up in.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

There she's. I think it's about, without knowing, absolutely replicating the template for childhood that you were given because even with all its flaws, it was pretty brilliant. And that's definitely the story of. That's definitely the story of my life when I. And you only realize it as you grow up. But when I look at where my mom was exactly in her life at 37, it is such a. So it is so similar to exactly where I am now, really. I mean, to the point, like even to the point where the flat we're sitting in right now, how far away it is from the flat I grew up in. It's like everything in my life now is kind of other than I. I don't have the kids my mum had then, but every other thing is almost exactly the same.

[Caroline]

Do you find Comfort in that.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's so, it's. I mean it's, it's. I think it's like it happens in small stages. Like, like it's. I realized that I had every flat that I lived in since I moved back to London is within a two mile radius of the flat that, you know, my Camden flat was a five minute walk from my primary school. And I realized initially I was like, that's a weird coincidence.

[Caroline]

But it's not. No, it's quite intentional choices that you're. That feel so natural. They don't even feel like choices at all.

[Dolly Alderton]

Exactly.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And then I think you get to a point with like, like the specifics of the partner that you're with. It just, it just suddenly I look around at my life, I'm like, this is not a coincidence. And I do, I think I do. It's spooky a bit, but I do find it comforting. And I think the only depth of analysis that I choose to have in that is not I'm marrying my father or I'm the. The depth of analysis that I have is this felt so good growing up that I've obviously, if that's just all it is, it just felt so good good that home. It felt so good that I've of course I have unconsciously tried to recreate what felt good.

[Caroline]

Oh, that's so nice.

[Dolly Alderton]

Do you have any of that, do you think?

[Caroline]

No, no, but I, but that makes me think so much of my sister in that like she's the eldest of us obviously and they. And her house is an 11 minute walk from my family home and she got married quite young and her first big job was in the same bank where my dad got his, his first job. You know, there's like a lot of replication there and I think you're the eldest in your family. She's the eldest in my family. I think that she very much has acted from a. Like, well, this feels good. Like why wouldn't I keep doing that? And I think the position of the youngest child in the family is to run as far away as you can kind of thing. Not, not because I had a bad time, we both had a great childhood. But I just think you are. So you resist replication in such a strident way that to the point of almost alienation, the point where you're almost like, you almost look for things to not have in common with your family because you are so when you're growing up and you have three siblings ahead of you and there's so much stuff that happened before you were born and all that kind of stuff, you just. You are so desperate to have something for yourself and nobody else gets to have a say on or an opinion of or has more information than you do that you run and then you hide. And I am actually, as a 35 year old now, I'm learning to start hiding a bit. I'm learning to share a bit more with my family and let them in on my, like, emotional states a bit more. And I actually, I'm surprised by how much of a big deal that feels for me sometimes, you know, because I just feel like when you're in that position of smallest one, all of your, like, all of your little secrets and all of your little, you know, dollies are everything. They're so. Everything that's just yours feels hard won, even to the point where my brothers are both really close with my husband, with Gav, and I have to stop myself from having these spikes of like, no, you're taking the thing that's. I only have one thing and it's Gav. And if you take him, then I'll have nothing. I get this scarcity mindset that comes from just feeling quite overcrowded, you know, and none of this is a judgment on any of my siblings or my parents. I just think it's about birth order. I think, think it's so interesting.

[Dolly Alderton]

And birth order. You know, there's obviously that meme that's so popular at the moment of like, are you okay? Or are you the eldest daughter?

[Caroline]

Right, right.

[Dolly Alderton]

So you studies on that eldest daughter thing. But I think there is something like when I hear about your childhood and the fact that you have three elder siblings and then they were your parents, that there were five people who were. Who could always talk about you.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And five people who had witnessed patterns before, like, oh, well, Jill went to that school and like, Rob went to that tennis club or whatever. You know, there's always something that somebody's done already.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah. And I think the. The need to feel, as you said, to feel like you have an independence and you have something that defines you away from this family of people who've already trodden.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

These paths before.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Well, I could see why. Why that would feel. That would be such a strong force within you.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah. And again, a choice so strong, it doesn't. So strong and so natural. Doesn't feel like a choice at all.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Just feels like something that has happened because that's how life's turned out, you know? But actually, everything is a sort of a cheap psychological choice born from somewhere Freudian therapy.

[Dolly Alderton]

Well you know I also think as well that that it. I know you've already done an episode on this about with a Bross apologist with Imogen. But I think there's so much of of Ross's like more patriarchal paternalistic qualities that when you dig a bit deeper you can see is a part of growing up in an unbelievably traditional household. And you can see why him being left for a woman.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Was is such a. It feels like such a failure.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Him getting divorced feels like such a failure. Monica feeling feeling like a spinster because she's like single at 30.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It was like such a huge failure for her. Not being a mother in her twenties is such a huge failure is because every time that we have any kind of insight on Judy and Jack they're like you know having asking Ross and Rachel to pretend they're married because they don't believe in babies out of wedlock. It's like of course that's produced a man with like a slightly fucky value system about of like when it comes to gender and marriage.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Verizon/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

This holiday Verizon is helping you bundle up incredible gifts and savings. You'll get the latest phone with a new line on Myplan and a brand new smartwatch and tablet. No trade in needed even on our lowest price plan. That's two gifts for your family and one for you or two for you and one for someone else or three gifts for you and only you. Either way you save big on three amazing gifts at Verizon. All on the best 5G network network. Visit Verizon today. Rankings based on root metric truth score report dated 18 2025. Your results may vary. Service plan required for watch and tablet. Additional terms apply.

[Caroline]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half. The service admit is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means of half day.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Verizon/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

Of 45 for 3 month plan equivalent to 15 per month. Required new customer offer for first 3 months only.

[Caroline]

Speed flow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra c mint.

[Dolly Alderton]

Mobile.Com.

[Caroline]

I think the truth of that Philip Larkin poem. What's it called again? The one they you up your mom and dad. They don't mean to but they do. What's that? I can't remember what's called this Be the Verse.

[Dolly Alderton]

This be the Verse.

[Caroline]

This be the Verse.

[Dolly Alderton]

Know why I know that?

[Caroline]

What?

[Dolly Alderton]

Because there was a piece in the paper a few years ago about how apparently Philip Larkin had this enormous dick. I've told you about this. No, I think I've told you about this before. And that. That's like. That, like, informed. So it was so big, his dick that he like it, like, ruined his sex life and ruined his romantic life. And it kind of informed so much of his poetry. And the title of the piece was this Be the Curse.

[Caroline]

Curse.

[Dolly Alderton]

Oh, I'm so interested in knowing about the penises of history. Like, why am I so fascinated by this Hitler micro penis thing? We'll have to talk about this after we switch the lights off.

[Caroline]

The penises of history in this Be the Verse. They fuck you up. Your mom and dad. They don't mean to, but they do. I think that is a great, sort of, like, case study for the Jack and Judy Geller of it all. Because, as you say, a comfortable, wonderful home where they love their children. They love their children so much that their children's friends come over for Thanksgiving every year. This is one of those homes that everyone wishes they could recreate in real life, which is that, like, the kind of place where waifs and strays feel comfortable during holidays like that. Surely that's the fantasy. And the parents love each other and doesn't matter because Monica and Ross are so fucked up beyond belief. People are just fucked up in different ways. Even from the most beautiful parenting one can imagine.

[Dolly Alderton]

My friend Pete said once to another friend of mine, which I think about all the time, she said to our mutual friend, I don't know why Dolly is so fucked up about men. Her dad's so nice.

Because Peach, whenever she sees my dad, they both love cricket. They're rich, he's really polite. He welcomes her in, gets her a drink. They stand and they talk about the ashes. She's just like, what did this guy ever do to make you go through all these horrendous blokes? But you know what? It still happens.

[Caroline]

It still happens because it's not like. Yeah, it's. It's not. Parenting is not a pass fail sort of exam. It is this thing that you do every day for years, and some days you are very bad at it. Yeah. And the days in which the Gellers are very bad at it are I. I. Obviously, Judy and her relationship with Monica, I. And again, the reason why Friends has been so timeless and is rewatched constantly is because people do see their family dynamics in it. So. So yes. Are we talking about the inner turmoil of made up people? Sure. But are there Judy and Monica Gellers all over the world having like terse arguments about lasagnas and nails in, in kitchens all over the world? Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And I think the way in which that pain is rendered I find very hard to watch, actually, don't you?

[Dolly Alderton]

I think the Judy Monica relationship is one of the most complicated.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Even though. So this kind of wall of love and loyalty, you know, would have come from the Gellers to their kids, you know, that those parents would have gone to every play and every match.

[Caroline]

And also they're the kind of kids who. I mean, the routine, the dance routine that Malika and Ross have. You only have that kind of relationship with your brother where you're creating these insane dancing dances. If your parents love the pants off you. Do you know what I mean? If they're just like applauding, if you're coming out from behind the curtain every night with a big routine and they're clapping and like you don't have that unless you were parented really well, you know.

[Dolly Alderton]

And yet, and yet you see with Judy, with how she interacts with Monica, that there is something of Judy's relationship to herself or to her own like younger self or how she speaks about herself that somehow even with all the will and love in the world does, does cloud her relationship and interactions with Monica with a level of toxicity. And I know so many women who have that relationship with their mum where it's like, it's so loving and it's so reliable that it is, it's hypercritical or it's, you know, the issues that their mum had with their own mother. It's then replicated again with the, you know, like, particularly with all the weight stuff.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's just so. I've just seen that with, with women over and over again, that relationship with their mum. And it's just all about the mum's own stuff.

[Caroline]

I had a real come to Jesus moment about this with the Diane Keaton episode that we did when me and Fiona Zublin read Diane Keaton's memoirs. And one of them is called, let's just say it Wasn't Pretty, where it's just Diane Keaton doing essays about essentially how she feels about her looks. Essentially. I would not recommend it. It's not a depressing read because it makes you realize that this Diane Keaton that you thought you knew, which is that like, oh, she, like, wears amazing hats and like great suits and she didn't give a fuck what everybody thought. It's like, oh, she wore scarves every day of her life because she was insecure about her neck. Yeah, she wore hats every day of her life because she was insecure about her thinning hair.

[Dolly Alderton]

And like, basically, oh, debilitating eating disorder.

[Caroline]

Yeah, exactly. And all of it came from absolute brain eating sort of insecurity and how. And how much you just don't want to hear that. Like, especially as you're going into your late 30s and you're thinking about aging in a way that you never thought about about it before. It is such a massive bummer. But the thing that Fiona said to me, she was like, this book helped me understand my mum so much better because of all the critical things that her mum might have said to her over the years. It made her far more appreciative of the things that she's thinking and not saying that are all about herself and how it is hard to break those women out of this routine of thinking of a woman. Her value is dependent on how well she decorates a room. And she wants her daughter to be as valuable as possible. So she wants to be this kind of boot camp, this kind of shrunken down version of the cruelest male eye that you look at with your own self. You know that Margaret Atwood line about the man who lives in your head, who watches you? That's how this woman looks at her daughter with the man inside her head. And that man is the cruelest man who never lived. You know? Know.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

It's so awful.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's so true. It's, it's, it's, it's like, it's so fleshed out, that relationship and also going back to their, like their traditionalism, the fact that they're so obsessed with Ross.

[Caroline]

Because he's the miracle baby. They thought she was barren.

[Dolly Alderton]

He's the miracle baby. And also he's the boy.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's that simple. He's the boy. And any person who's been in a multiple gender sibling family knows the boy always wins. And my brother would contest that, but it's like I love my parents so much and I had a wonderful childhood, but I. If you put certain, certain stories side by side of my brother and I, of what happened the first time I got drunk, what happened the first time Ben got drunk with me, it was like they, they sent me to, like a facility and with Ben, it became like the most charming and funny story. Our family had ever. The fact that my dad had to hire a power steam cleaner to clean Ben's vomit out of the grouting of our driveway when he was 15 is hilarious. But apparently, like, me drinking too much smyrna fries, leaving the door open and a trail of crisps up the stairs is like. Like enough for them to put me into rehab. Or like, how Len's girlfriend was, like, allowed to stay over the first time that.

[Caroline]

Oh, God, that. That first time that happened to me gave me a conniption when the girlfriends are allowed to stay over.

[Dolly Alderton]

I still talk about it with my mom now. I got. I spent so much money.

[Caroline]

And you're the oldest one as well.

[Dolly Alderton]

My boyfriend had to wait two years before he was granted access to my bedroom. Ben brings a girlfriend home, first night she was allowed to stay in this room.

[Caroline]

Crazy.

[Dolly Alderton]

But that's just how it is in families. I don't know what the fuck it is.

But that's like, you see that in the Ross and Monica dynamic so much, and it is maddening.

[Caroline]

It is maddening. You do you feel for her so much. And as I said in this podcast before, Monica is my least favorite friend. I find her the hardest to watch. Just, I think the sort of. The shrillness and the mania for me is just. It's not fun for me to watch.

[Dolly Alderton]

No. And I don't really relate to it.

[Caroline]

No. Yeah, exactly. There's kind of very little of me in her. And, like, I can kind of relate to almost every other friend apart from her. Yeah, I know many others do, but that's just where I come down. But the. In terms of, like, the small victories that Monica has over her mom, it's like she loses the fingernail in the key leashes. And there's this mental scene where she's. She's. It's like when her and Phoebe are catering together and.

She'S catering a party at Judy's house or whatever for her bridge ladies or whatever. And Judy comes in and Monica says, mom, why did you hire me? And Judy says, well, I heard the dinner at Rage at Richard's thing was lovely, but you were sleeping with him. And then I heard that lesbian wedding was fabulous and you couldn't have been sleeping with them, so I heard you were quite good. And then she left. And then Phoebe turns to Monica and. No, Monica turns to Phoebe and says, did you hear that? And Phoebe was like, yeah. And Monica goes, she hired me because she thinks I'm good. And Phoebe goes, I did not hear that.

And it's that thing when, like, when, like, a third party witnesses that level of, like, familial dysfunction and is like, how did you just take a compliment out of what just happened? Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's actually heartbreaking.

[Caroline]

It's so heartbreaking. And then, yeah. Monica loses one of her false fingernails inside of the quiche. Which I do think is irresponsible to wear false fingernails while catering. That'd be a hard line for me. I'm with Judy on that one. And they say, we bought some frozen lasagnas because we thought you might pull a Monica. So horrible. And it's. Do you know, also that's part of. As well is that like. Like, people who have, like, the narrative of who they are within their families is really strong. Like, Gav has this where for so long the whole thing in his childhood was that he was really late and really disorganized. And because of that, he has made, like, huge sort of. He's the most organized person I know because he knows he's got that natural sort of thing. And so, like, he's got filing systems for sort of every bill we've ever received or whatever. But that narrative still exists about him within his, like, core friend group from home. And he finds it so upsetting that, like, he's done all this work for nobody to revise their opinion of him. And that's the same thing with Monica. It's like, we know that Monica is obsessed with doing things perfectly. But it's like, oh, the reason that she's that way is because everyone thought she was this kind of, like, loopy klutz, you know?

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally.

[Caroline]

Really hard. It's a really sad story.

[Dolly Alderton]

Sad.

[Caroline]

Poor Monica.

[Dolly Alderton]

Every person who's been a part of a family has one of those. Poor Monica. And it drives you crazy.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Because you could never outlive them or run from them or anything.

[Dolly Alderton]

What do you think of Jack Fit. He's so someone you would fancy. He's so Elliot Gould. But particularly Jack Geller. I know is so someone. I can see you at a party, like, coming over to me and breathfully telling me how fit he is.

[Caroline]

I just love flirting with a friend's dad. It's my most toxic trait.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just love how horny him and Judy are.

[Caroline]

I know. That's such a big part of it. They're sex tape as well.

[Dolly Alderton]

The sex tape. And the line that obviously was totally lost on me when I was a child but I now love is when they turn up late to the rehearsal dinner of Ross and Emily's wedding. And she's like, oh, sorry we're late. I was riding the tube.

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah, yeah, Judy.

[Dolly Alderton]

And she's like, that's what they call the train here. I love it. And I also think it does, like, if you grow up in a household where. Where, like, a marriage is very alive, which is, again, the privilege. The household. It is a privilege.

[Caroline]

You don't realize the privilege until you, like, realize that you have friends who.

[Dolly Alderton]

Have, like, never seen their parents kiss.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you realize it's a massive privilege.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally. And that's. That's. My parents were like that. And it means. Means that you have these, like, high standards for what you think marriage should be. I've seen that a marriage can. I mean, they're in my 80s and their 70s now, my mum and dad, and they're still pinching each other's asses and slow dancing when Frank Sinatra comes on and flirting. So I just wasn't willing to accept anything other than that. And that's what you can see Monica has in that relationship with Shonda. And that's why I think she's like. She's such a. So she's so hypersexual.

[Caroline]

Monica, you said this before that apparently the creators thought of Joey and Monica as the most sexual characters. I do not find Monica sexual.

[Dolly Alderton]

It is not sexual. I feel like there are all these hints about how horny Monica is.

Like, you definitely think that.

[Caroline]

Is she, like, more horny than Rachel or Phoebe?

[Dolly Alderton]

She definitely talks about it more, I think.

[Caroline]

Oh. I mean, there's the sex advice she gives to Chandler. Like, seven, seven, seven, A one, a two, a one, two, three.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's so good, that episode. But there's also, like. You definitely know that she is demanding more sex than Chandler in that marriage.

[Caroline]

Oh, you think?

[Dolly Alderton]

Definitely.

[Caroline]

There's that really weird episode where she gets really ill and she's like a flu or whatever and she doesn't want to admit that she's ill, so she tries to force Chandler to fuck her. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And she rubs lips all over her channel. Yes.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Maybe she is hornier than the rest of them. I actually. I hadn't really thought about before stacking it up.

[Dolly Alderton]

Joey sees that Chana's had sex by his hair and he's like, what? You get on top for once?

I think Monica is, like, constantly hopping on top of Chandler Bing.

[Caroline]

Do you think Monica's eating disorder ever goes away? Do you think it's, like, the underpinning of the whole character?

[Dolly Alderton]

One of the episodes about how her food. How now that I really think about it.

[Caroline]

I do.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think that again, they're great. Psycho. You know, the way they build these characters psychologically, I think it's so telling that she needs a chef. And actually it's something that a doctor once said to me is that anorexics.

[Caroline]

Are often foodies because they're thinking about.

[Dolly Alderton]

All the time, obsessed with food.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And if there's a way that you can, you can, you can. As you heal and go into recovery, I was advised if there is a way that you can channel a kind of obsession or interest or thought in food in a way that is, you know, creative or nutritional.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rather than, you know, just about scarcity.

[Dolly Alderton]

About scarcity and deprivation. That has to be a choice. That this was a girl whose like main trauma when she was growing up was powerless to food and now her life is how she makes her money, is being in control of food.

[Caroline]

I always wonder this, especially when we did the episode on Phoebe about when these writers are sitting around doing as you and I have done in writers rooms, which is like spending nine hours talking about this incredible complicated, like making up complicated psychologies and backstories for people who don't exist because it's such a. A 23 minute episodes where there is a joke every other sentence. You know, there's never not a joke. It's always things. Everything has to earn its place. Everything is building to something. Whether it's a laugh or a gasp or whatever.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

When they're sitting around talking about Phoebe's mum having killed herself or Monica being bullied for her weight, are they doing it smiling or are they. Are they doing. Sitting there? I mean, Marta Kaufman, David Crane being like the hands on their chest being like. The thing about Monica is like, this is like really important because the way the show treats her eating and treats her way is so cruel. And I think one of the things that dates more than the gay panic stuff, I think it dates even worse, is the way people are so cruel to her over her weight and she's cruel to her sounds. I wonder, were they writing it with love in their heart, if you know what I mean? Were they writing it with a sense of. The thing about Monica is she has these control issues. She's a chef for these things. Da, da, da da. Or are we, you know, is there more. I don't know, are we seeing more there than there is, you know, are we bringing profound empathy for a creative decision that didn't have that much empathy behind it?

[Dolly Alderton]

I think it's probably A mixture of both, I think. You know, anyone who is in an intimate group of friends knows that in true, real loving, long lasting friendship. What, what is your biggest trauma? Trauma becomes one of the biggest.

[Caroline]

Yeah, that's true.

[Dolly Alderton]

In the group.

[Caroline]

Yeah, you're right.

[Dolly Alderton]

You have to. It's the only way you survive. It's such intimacy in love.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

That, you know, me having former eating disorder is often like a massive punchline when we're talking about what I'm cooking or what we're going to eat or it's the only way that you can deal with the pain of it and it's the only way that you can. Or, you know, my friend who's got a dead dad, like that will do is joke I about her bachelor dead dad. And it's like hard won that kind of. And it's yes about survival, it's about processing and it's about levity and it's about love. So I think there's a world in which they've created these characters understood and empathized with all these traumas and then like they, like these characters become their friends that they've known for many years and then they become our friends who we've known for years. So we do feel like we can laugh at about these pain. You know, the mum who killed herself or the dad who left the family to go be in a drag act in Vegas. Monica. And having been a formerly overweight person. But I also do think that there are these like punchlines in comedy that have only changed like very, very recently of what the funniest thing in the world is.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

What was the funniest thing in the world when we were growing, growing up? A man in a dress, an overweight person, someone with a foreign accent. Those were just the things that we were told.

[Caroline]

A monkey in a tiny waistcoat were.

[Dolly Alderton]

Things that were really funny. And it's only been like, yeah, fairly recently that we've dug into like, like what kind of like what is the knock on effect of those jokes? Like why do we find them funny? Are they funny? So I do think it's probably both. I think it's like a product of the cruelty of comedy of its time and also a familiarity with these characters over years and years and years. That means that we earn the right to joke about their darkest, saddest things.

[Caroline]

A very good answer.

[Dolly Alderton]

They don't call me Dr. Dodd.

[Caroline]

I was rewatching some episodes with Ella the other day and we sort of did realize that like, because they are always on about how neurotic Chandler is and what a pain in the fucking arse he is to deal. Therefore, because he's a pain in the eyes and because he's the character who's obsessed with making things funny and obsessed with getting a laugh, his trauma is the most often joked about because he almost gets there first with all the jokes. But actually, when you really lay it out, it is quite upsetting.

[Dolly Alderton]

Well, I think what's more upsetting about Chandler than the dad who runs away with Mr. Garibaldi is the opposite novelist.

[Caroline]

This mug. Yeah. Who sold a hundred million copies of her book.

She's one of the most successful novelists of all time, according to France.

[Dolly Alderton]

But I feel like she's so overlooked in the psychological context of Chandler Bing.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

There's such an obsession with Chandler's dad, as she's always called, that's got to do something to a young man having such a hypersexualized famous mom who goes on Lenox.

[Caroline]

And that never comes up. It comes up in the early seasons a bit. And the obviously, you know, quote unquote, Chandler's dad comes up a lot because as you said in the funniest thing in the world in the 90s was a man in a dress.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

But if you really think about, like, what is the bigger trauma is starts with complete negligence because there is a. The episode where. The one where Chandler can't cry. There's the whole thing about how they find a photograph of parents evening at Chandler's school and the janitor or something stands in for the picture because neither one of Chandler's parents wanted to be there. It's a lot more about negligence and wealth than it is about having a trans parent.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally.

[Caroline]

And the way I sort of picture it, because they have these flashbacks to his family Christmases, which is one of the few flashbacks you ever get where. Where you see one of them, one of the friends as a child actor. It's very rare. Yeah. And it's. It's like them on this big, long, horrible table and, like the mum on one end and the dad on the other and then the pool boy sort of making weird eyes. And it's just like. Oh, like, this is obviously funny in the context of this, but, like, this is really sad when you think about it. Yeah. And now he literally can't stomach Thanksgiving food. Like he has. The thing we forget about Chandler is like he has an eating disorder. And he also married a woman with an eating disorder. And they're just two eating disorders together.

[Dolly Alderton]

Realize Charlie must come from obscene wealth.

[Caroline]

He pays for Joey's whole life the first few years. Like. Like he's a trust fund baby.

[Dolly Alderton]

Baby.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

He wears maybe those sweater vests.

[Caroline]

Is that what that. Also, he's weirdly coded Californian. Do you remember, like, the whole thing about the pool boy and the sort of Danielle Steele, Jackie Collins mother and the like the gay dad, like all that gay and then trans or whatever. Like, it feels very Californian. Even though they called him as being sort of from Long island or. I don't know. It's very strange. Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

He's very like, he comes from a hyper, glam, hyper celebi, probably quite preppy.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Like, he probably went to like a private school. He didn't touch a title.

[Caroline]

He was 19.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah. It's so interesting, like, when you intersect what that would be, who the character would. Would be with the class system of England, that would be like an Etonian. You know, he's got that, like a corporate job.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

If you put him in England, that would be a repressed Etonian with absent parents, who was raised by nannies who can't emotionally connect with women and who works in the city.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Quite a recognizable character in that way. And then so it's kind of weird that he's ended up in this sort of like loving, codependent sort of group of friends from sort of mixed class background. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Because it's through Ross is his entry.

[Caroline]

Point to that kind of group. It's like, I think we'll talk about this more in Emma's episode. But like, the thing of, like, he has been his kind of introduction to all of them is him being brought home for that Thanksgiving. And he is so rude. He's like. He, like, Judy comes up to him and is like, oh, hope you're hungry. And he's like, no, I don't eat Thanksgiving food. And he's just so, like, completely raised by wolves. No idea how to relate to these people. Is insulting to everyone. Everyone. The Gellers hate him because he just sucks. He doesn't eat Thanksgiving food and he sucks and is rude. Calls Monica fat in like a really mean way. Not. Not in the joke way that the. The show approves of, but in the mean way. That is mean. Yeah. And that is like a character who's learned to be nice through the Gellers.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, the Gellers kind of treat him.

[Caroline]

They sort of tame him, teach him.

[Dolly Alderton]

How to have a family and then he marries one of them.

[Caroline]

He's like a Brady. Sinead's character. He's like something from Less Than Zero. He's like, should be on cocaine. Which is really, when you think about what actually the fate of Matthew Perry is sort of like. Imagine a poor little rich boy who never meets a Geller and he just spirals down further and further into the trail of addiction. Like, it's a very dark thing to bring up. But like, that's the kind of the two sides of Chandler is the real life of Matthew Perry.

[Dolly Alderton]

You know, there is definitely like, maybe even more than Phoebe, like a true darkness in Chandler, I think.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And because they talk about it so often, you kind of forget when you're like, oh, yeah, that is bad. That is horrible. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And I think you see it play out over and over again before he meets Monica and how dysfunctional he is in his romantic relationship.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's like the story of this guy is like what happens when it's like you are. You're so damaged in your younger life by the template of family that you're given. You are just completely unable to form romantic attachment.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And unable to have arguments with people. Unable to emote in any way that isn't a one liner.

[Dolly Alderton]

Unable to. Unable to have sex. Sometimes it seems like he's really weird about sex. Unable to commit.

Unable to kind of approach women full stop.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's that other thing of everyone thinks he's gay. Which that comes up a lot in the thing of like, oh, we all thought he was gay kind of thing. Which also has never made sense to me because he does not scan as gay and at all. He's. He scans as incredibly repressed heterosexual man.

[Dolly Alderton]

Maybe.

[Caroline]

Because it's just.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, he's bad with women.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And he's. Yeah, he's. It's. It's like this is what happens when someone is not shown any kind of healthy way of how men and women connect.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Tragic.

[Dolly Alderton]

Really. Quite tragic. But you know what makes me cry every time?

[Caroline]

What?

[Dolly Alderton]

When he surprises his dad in Venice.

[Caroline]

Vegas. Oh, really?

[Dolly Alderton]

I find it so moving. I just love that actress so much.

[Caroline]

Kathleen Turner.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just love her.

[Caroline]

She is brilliant.

[Dolly Alderton]

She shouldn't have been cast in that part.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I fucking love her. I saw her play Martha in who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[Caroline]

And I was like.

That'S amazing.

[Dolly Alderton]

It was incredible.

What? And get that casting was huge. That's the thing.

[Caroline]

It's so. I get so torn about it because it's so. She is brilliant. Like, she is obviously brilliant. But it is meant. It is not an insult to play a trans Woman. But it is meant as an insult to Kathleen Turner because she was this obviously incredible bombshell of the 80s. And then she sort of put on where she had medical problems. And I think there was a. A lot of very cruel tabloids around about her at the time about like, you know, Kathleen Turner unrecognizable kind of thing. And then to cast her in this kind of very, very, quite, quite mean comedy role. And the kind of. The inference is, look what's happened to Kathleen Turner. You might think she was a man now. Like, it's like. But then like some of the. It's really complicated because it's so transphobe, but it's also so misogynistic.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

But then also, as you say, she plays it with aplomb, like she does. She's brilliant. She is brilliant.

[Dolly Alderton]

That would have been her way of getting the last laugh. And it was knowing what Winnie should have done is cast her as Chana's mum because she would have been a brilliant romance novelist.

[Caroline]

Yeah, novelist, Yeah. I kind of forget about that episode in Vegas. Talk me through it again.

[Dolly Alderton]

Monica and Chana get engaged and Monica says, family's really important to me. I really want to meet your dad and I want your dad to come to the wedding here for you and invited your dad. And Chana says, no, we haven't spoken in a long time. I don't want him there. And then they go to Vegas to.

Chandler's dad show and to. With the plan of asking him her to come to the wedding and.

Chana gets cold feet and he says, I actually haven't told you this, but my dad's tried to reach out to me a lot in the city. Yeah, when he's in the city to. I'm gonna call him him because that's what they refer to him in the show in a very weird way.

And then Chana sans to leave because he finds it all too difficult and too much to process. And also I suppose you have to remember, remember like that would have during. If you think that he would have been growing up in the 70s.

[Caroline]

If he's 25 in 1995.

He would have.

[Dolly Alderton]

Been growing up in the east of 80s.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Late 70s, early 80s, a hugely, hugely, hugely transphobic time. And that's like, you can see that this is someone that's like still really like hasn't ever had a proper conversation with anyone about this or who says to any of this. So you thought finds it too hard, stands up to leave. His dad says in this kind of flirty Way. Turn around, darling. Let me see your face. Chana turns around and then just Kathleen Turner's face is just heartbreaking.

[Caroline]

Yeah, I do. Oh, God.

[Dolly Alderton]

So beautiful.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And then they have this, like, back and forth patter where Kathleen Turner's doing it so well, of that kind of showgirl pattern with an audience member. But obviously she knows that it's her son. And then he invites her to the wedding and you can see how moved she is.

It's really beautiful.

[Caroline]

It actually is. I should have rewatched it for this episode and I didn't.

[Dolly Alderton]

I also love to go back to the best dressos of all time. I love Chandler mum and Chandler's dad coming together for the wedding. Oh, sorry, that actually wasn't. Let me do that again.

Going back to the worst wedding of all time or Friends. One of the highlights is Chalmer's mom and Chalmer's dad coming together.

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They are great together. They're so good.

[Dolly Alderton]

They're so bitchy. Deliciously bitchy.

So that's all I've got to say about the Binks, I think.

[Caroline]

Yeah. It's interesting how the. The jokes are relentless with that family, but the actual material we're given to work with is quite thin. There's not a lot of information there. I don't think.

[Dolly Alderton]

They don't come into the orbit that often.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And then finally. No, not finally. We haven't done. Phoebe, go on. Joy. The buffets or the tribalis first.

[Dolly Alderton]

Let's do the tribalis first. Because the buffets are so complicated. Let's end the trivialis. I think that the. The story that we're being offered here of like a family story is what it is to come from a gang of people who. A huge family who know who they are. There's a culture within their family that's very kind of specific to them.

And they have a lot of fun together and they love each other and they're hugely loyal to each other and. And how that gives a person like Joey a confidence in the world. Absolutely know who he is and what he's about and not really need to romantically attach like other people do because he's got these million relatives down the road who love and adore him, who he sees all the time.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

He doesn't have this desperate need to form a unit.

[Caroline]

Beyond that, I love the private life of Joey Tribbiani. I love that line when Chan Chandler goes and knocks on the door of Joey's grandma's house because he wants to figure out which sister he got off with. And Joey's just there because his nana is doing his laundry. Yeah, it's just like, oh, yeah, Joey. It's a bit like, oh, yeah. Ross is going off to privately, you know, Father Ben when we don't see him. We only see the friends when they're together, really. And meanwhile, Joey's been going off to his nana's house get his laundry done. It's so sweet.

[Dolly Alderton]

Do you recognize anything of your kind of the big fat family.

Characteristic that you talk about so well of what it is to come from a big family and have that big family identity?

[Caroline]

I think so much of it is not so much big family. I think there aren't that many references to sort of like being dragged up in a big family within Joey's whole schema. But I do think that there's a lot of being the only boy of many sisters I think is a fascinating dynamic because I think you are, are. You are the little prince inside. Like a friend of mine, Lee. He's got three daughters and a little boy at the end. And it's like so exciting to watch a little Joey Tribbiani come into the world because he's this beautiful little boy. He's only two now. And all of his sisters, they just want to take turns holding him and take turns dressing him up and take turn, you know, being like he's like a living baby doll to them. And I think I find that such a gorgeous energy. And like, I just never, I've never known a man with a load of sisters who I didn't adore, you know?

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, me neither, actually.

[Caroline]

And it's just like, I think it makes it work so much better, the Joey storyline that like, I remember listening to a very clever interview with Joey with brother Matt LeBlanc saying he was afraid that he was going to be written out of the show early door because he thought that his character was the thinnest written and that what was going to happen was that they would write a storyline where he shagged one of the girls and then he would get written out because that would sort of like the, the possibilities would have come to their natural conclusion. And so he sort of pitched early on, the joke is this guy shags every woman in New York City except these three girls because they're his sisters.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And I think that's so nice and like, also just really clever as an actor to like, you would think as an actor what you would want is the big romance scenes because that makes you the center of attention. But like, to be like, no, no, no. I'll come to the end of the road possibilities wise. And to be like, no, these are my. These are my girls.

[Dolly Alderton]

What do you think about the Phoebe, Joey?

[Caroline]

I love it. It's my favorite relationship in the show.

[Dolly Alderton]

What do you think about that alternative friends world where they got together?

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Because I remember that being such a frustration of mine when I was a teenager.

[Caroline]

That you wanted them to get together.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, I really did.

[Caroline]

And the fact that he has this sexual obsession with Ursula I think is very interesting because he dates Ursula very briefly and then Ursula breaks his heart. And there's this beautiful moment where.

He gives Ursula a cardigan for her birthday. And then Ursula doesn't like it, so she re gifts it to Phoebe. Phoebe's wearing it. He thinks he's having a conversation. It's such sitcom, silly. Of course you would know. But, like, he thinks he's having a conversation with Ursula. He's really having it with Phoebe. And then she lets him down gently because, like, he. Ursula has totally broken his heart. And she just lets him down gently. And then they kiss and it's this beautiful kiss. One of, like, two kisses they've have. Yeah. And then he realizes that it's Phoebe. And there's this, like, kind of moment. It's really well done. And it's only season one, I think.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, it's really early. It's so tender.

[Caroline]

It's so tight. You really feel for them. And. And, like, she's so. The way. She's so heartbroken that Ursula has taken everything from her and now he's gonna take. She's gonna take Joey as well. I find, like, oh.

I find their relationship so moving because the whole thing of, like, as I'm sure we're about to talk about, Phoebe's whole story is about trying to, like, fill in the gaps of this life where she's had to bring herself up and the way in which she's cobbled together family, like Joey is such a huge centerpiece of it. It's so moving. I'm very emotional now. It's come out of nowhere.

[Dolly Alderton]

I find it new.

[Caroline]

I was.

[Dolly Alderton]

I was reminded of how moving it is at Phoebe's wedding. That whole story. When I listen to you and Kate talking about, yeah, you know, Joey giving her away. And.

I don't know why I so wanted. I suppose you just want the symmetry of all three of them being coupled.

[Caroline]

Shuffled up.

John. I realized I was rewatching last night. Paul Rudd is not that good in this. Like, Paul Rudd Is good. And we all think we love Mike, but when I was actually watching him back, I was like, oh, I think I thought I liked Port Rudd more than I think I do.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think she should have ended up with Mike. You think she should end up with David the geeky. The bug guy?

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting, because when I was talking to Alex last week, I was sure I loved Paul Rudd. Now I'm sure I prefer to.

[Dolly Alderton]

David always thought she should have ended up with David.

[Caroline]

Do you know who I liked?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Who?

[Caroline]

The car pushed a bird.

[Dolly Alderton]

He's so you. I know your type so well, which is so weird because you've been with the same man for 100 years.

[Caroline]

Wait, it's not type, it's types.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just know. I just.

[Caroline]

Elliot Ghoul is a very different type to the copper sharp.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's types.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

If you had asked me to pick out any of the really fancied of all their boyfriends, I would.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

It was the guy who shot the bird.

[Caroline]

Cuz my favorite type of man is a man's man who's also just a member of the Muppets at the same time. Do you know what I mean? He's like, he can. It's time to light the music. It's time to make the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time for the Muppet show tonight with a big old workingclass man. Do you know what I mean?

[Dolly Alderton]

So that you live with one.

[Caroline]

It's so nice. Nice.

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm so pleased for you.

[Caroline]

I don't know if it was always my dream or the dream I've manufactured the dream through. It's like some. I always think about that during that book Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. There's a bit where one of the characters, Mark, buys a house and in the garden is a peach tree and he's like. Or something. Or a persimmon tree or something. He was like, wow, I can't believe I bought a house and it has my favorite fruit on in the garden. And then the kind of narrator Sadie says she knew that he was the kind of person that whatever fruit was growing out there, it would have been his favorite fruit and he wouldn't be able to believe. And like, that is just the kind of energy I always want to be around, you know, I'm not saying the guy who shoots the bird is like that, but he kind of has that about him.

[Dolly Alderton]

So on that track, would you have wanted to go out with the boyfriend that Phoebe has played by Alec Baldwin.

Who tenants the Plate dispenser on the buffet. Marvel of modern machinery. He's so good, that character.

[Caroline]

I completely forgot. Does he wear a hat at some point? Does it as well? He was insane, huh?

[Dolly Alderton]

Alec Baldwin was so good. Why did he go so weird?

[Verizon/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

It.

[Dolly Alderton]

Just watching that, I was just reminded, like, what a sparkling comic talent he was.

[Caroline]

He's so funny. And I mean, 30 rock. He's unbelievable. He is the funniest man alive. He is so funny.

[Dolly Alderton]

The twinkle and the mischief that he had.

[Caroline]

I think Alec Baldwin did Girl Boss too Close to the Sun. I think he, like, really thought he was going to be a sex senator. Do you know what I mean? And he wants to be like. He. He wanted to be a political guy, and he wanted to seem like he's dead. He's not dead. He also wanted to be. Remember that podcast he had? Here's the thing. Was that, like, bald?

[Dolly Alderton]

I interviewed him about it. Did you? Yeah, for a BBC program about podcasts.

[Caroline]

What did he say?

[Dolly Alderton]

I did it down the line, and I was just shaking. I was thinking I was in my 20s when I did it. I was just shaking with nerves.

[Caroline]

That voice down the line would have done me in. But, you know, I mean. I mean, I love that podcast, too, but I think his whole vibe was like, I've been to the Algonquin Round, people. It was like, there's something very Becky Sharp about Alec Baldwin, isn't there? He wants to sort of prove he can be in the class above at all times.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, he tried to really brown nose Julie Andrews. And she wasn't having any.

[Caroline]

She wasn't having it full circle. That Kathleen Turner interview on here's the Thing. On here's the Thing, he was like. He was like, oh, you know, when I first came to Hollywood, I worked with you, and I probably didn't behave very well. And she goes, honey, you are a schmuck.

[Dolly Alderton]

Oh, my God, I'm gonna listen to that. So, guys, so, you know your thing is the. Is the Muppet Show.

[Caroline]

Yeah, big. A big old man who wants to be a Muppet Show.

[Dolly Alderton]

Mine is. It's the camp Dom thing.

[Caroline]

So mine is like a camp dominant.

[Dolly Alderton]

Mine is a camp dominant with a face like a Disney preacher.

[Caroline]

Captain Von Trapp.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, exactly. Captain Von Trapp. Or nothing for me. Did you see that montage that I posted on Instagram yesterday?

[Caroline]

No.

[Dolly Alderton]

Some account keeps targeting me on my algo, and it's so good. It's just the same montage every time of Captain Von Trapp twinkling and winking. But this Time. The montage was set with Wood by Taylor Swift.

[Caroline]

I'm really glad that I have you on the podcast. Talk about about Wood by Taylor Swift. Can we pause the friends discussion for a minute?

[Dolly Alderton]

I'm so sick of everyone's fucking back chat about that song.

[Caroline]

So sick of their back chat. It's her Candy.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's a phenomenal pop song.

[Caroline]

Yeah, it's incredible.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's gonna be in my Spotify on that. Absolutely.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah. And. And the reason why it's so good is the same reason why Candy by Robbie Williams is so good is that it sounds like the most annoying children's nursery rhyme ever. Also being a perfect, glistening bop.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, it's exactly that. You know what? People don't like her talking about opening her thighs. But do you know what? Wise up. It happens. She's opening her thighs on the daily for that man. If you've got a problem with it, you shouldn't be listening to her music. I think.

[Caroline]

What's your problem with her? Let her.

[Dolly Alderton]

They don't like saying thighs. They don't like her.

[Caroline]

They don't like her saying thighs.

[Dolly Alderton]

They don't like her saying that she gets wet from Charlie Xing. Yeah. Into her. They don't like when she's too explicitly sexual.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. It has to be sort of like, sort of raindrops falling down her back on the shower and sort of. It has to be whispering sighs. It cannot be thighs.

[Dolly Alderton]

Is it cringe? Yeah. Yeah, but I don't mind that.

[Caroline]

No, I like it. I like it. I think it is way more cringe to be talking about, like, I don't know, euphemistically talking about pillows and sheets than it is to be like, I am getting ran. I'm getting run through every day by this huge man.

[Dolly Alderton]

My favorite thing you said on that podcast you did with Jen. Yeah. You're talking about how wood is, obviously. About how reliable this man is and how sturdy this man is emotionally, but sexually and physically as well. Good for you.

That's how I feel every time I listen to it.

[Caroline]

Good for you.

[Dolly Alderton]

Good for you, bitch. Because you know what? You've been with some flaky ass men. Yeah. Who stay up all night taking cocaine and talking shit. Talking shit. Who cannot fuck you but also won't commit to you.

[Caroline]

I think she spent years of her life thinking she was probably too clever to get laid.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Isn't that sad? Yeah. And now she is getting laid.

[Dolly Alderton]

Good for you, bitch.

[Caroline]

Good for you, bitch. Anyway, the buffets.

[Dolly Alderton]

No Tribune is because I Want to know about that thing that the fan fiction of Joey's mom and Mr. Big? Because I can't stop thinking about it.

[Caroline]

Yes.

So in that season one episode where Joey's dad is staying with him and he's a delight. And one thing I love about Joey's dad is that everyone seems to have a pre existing relationship with him. It's never like with many of the other family members that come. He's like, here's my sister Jill. Jill, you know, Monica, da da, da. Or whatever with, with Mr. Tribbiani. He says oh hello dear to everybody. He's like so in with everyone and he's the only parent who sits on the couch. Oh yeah, he's right in. And like it really furnishes my whole ethos of him. It's like, yeah, his family live in Queens and his dad is every now and then he's in the city for a construction job and he might like meet Ross for a scone in the museum and fuck off again. Do you know what I mean? I just feel like he has private coffees with all of them whenever he's in town.

[Dolly Alderton]

Just remember, doesn't he get Rachel a job? Does he? Doesn't Joey say, oh, my dad knows this guy who owns a shop.

[Caroline]

Is that when she has the job separating hangers?

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, but it would so make sense that Mr. Giuliani would like read the room wrong and get her the wrong job. But try to be so helpful.

[Caroline]

Yeah, he's so nice. He's got like a Danny DeVito sort of energy for him. And we see him in the shower and he like stays with the ladies dads. There's something very recognizable about him. When I've like, you know, certain, certain friends just do weirdly have their parents in the sphere. Like Alex Haddow is one of this. Her dad. Her dad Jeff will just sort of see him at one of her comedy shows or whatever. He'll just sort of pop up. I love people who are so comfortable with their parents that like when I have a parent visiting, it's like my parents are coming for three days. Here are the activities I'll be doing with them. But other people have these energies with these parents where they just kind of weave them in. Yeah, it's like bizarre to me. And they can really mix it and.

[Dolly Alderton]

It'S so nice because when you don't meet as children, you don't spend much time with your friends, parents. And as we've said over and over again in this podcast, the thing I'm always Just so interested when I meet someone in adulthood was like, what was your family home like? What were your parents like? What was your marriage like? It is one of the defining contexts that creates who we are and it's so weird that we can become best, best friends.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

With adults like. You've never met my mum and dad.

[Caroline]

No, no.

[Dolly Alderton]

And why would you?

[Caroline]

I'll only probably meet them if you have a wedding.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

You also just reminded me when I broke up with my ex boyfriend, I had to go live at home with my parents for about six months. My flat was being done up, it was newly broken up with. I was writing a book about heartbreak. It was like a pretty low time for me. And actually weirdly during that time time, do you know what saved me? I watched Friends from start to finish. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely saved me. Every night I watched an episode and I remember my dad and I going for a drive and he said he wanted to give me some life advice and he said, look, I know that you know you've gone for this guy, this like younger, handsome, fun guy, but I just want to tell you that I've never seen you, I know you quite well and I've never, never seen you ending up with someone like that. There's someone like really specific who I can see that you would end up with. I was like, who's that? Danny DeVito.

To this day it was the weirdest conversation I've ever had with my dad. What did he mean?

[Caroline]

Did he mean literally Danny DeVito?

[Dolly Alderton]

Someone like Danny DeVito?

[Caroline]

Just a small middle aged man of.

[Dolly Alderton]

Small not attractive lady man who no one is saying like oh wow, she's done well to get him. But she, but he said, but boy does he have a big personality. Meaning just sort of loud and obnoxious, I think.

[Caroline]

I did not think that the sentence would fit me.

[Dolly Alderton]

He positioned it like real pearl of wisdom he was giving me that I would think of like went beyond the grave of my father. Just like I would remember this beautiful piece of advice about, about life. And it was basically, I think you should go out with someone like Danny DeVito.

[Caroline]

That is wonderful. Anyway, I am obsessed with that.

[Dolly Alderton]

So Mr. Tribbiani is staying at the house. Oh yes.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. And it turns out he's having an affair. He's been having an affair for many years with a poodle stuffer, like a poodle taxidermist. It's fantastic. And Joey finds out he's disgraced. He forces his dad to come clean to his mum. We then find we see Joey's mum for the first time. She is played by Rita Perlman. Now, Rita Perlman is a very famous American actress who is like loads of credits for really iconic things that I've never seen.

[Dolly Alderton]

She's so famous.

[Caroline]

She's so famous. But one of the things she's most recently famous for is that she played Gloria. And then just like that. What's that? You don't remember who Gloria was? Well, Gloria was a big secretary who was weirdly prominent in the first two episodes about just like that and then was never seen again.

[Dolly Alderton]

But it felt like she was going to hold the key for the whole series.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. That she would have some piece of information that would get unlocked and then would start the story engine of like maybe there's some hole in Big's finances or something like that. No, she never reappears. She's just oddly attention seeking at his funeral. Then we never see her again. But it's like, oh, she's the last of the old girls. Like the last of the classic secretaries.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And the fact that she's Joey's mom is delicious to me.

[Dolly Alderton]

Okay, so here's the Friends episode that incorporates Mr. B. Oh my God.

[Caroline]

Oh my God.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think it's like Joey needs funding.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Oh.

[Dolly Alderton]

For a film. And he's like, my mom works for this really rich finance guy on Wall Street.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And then there's some sort of caper where he involves Chandler and he like.

[Caroline]

Or one of the girls to go out with them. So Rachel to go. Because Rachel is the Carrie Bradshaw of the Friends universe.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

So it's like forcing Rachel to go on a date with Mr. Big.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yes.

[Caroline]

And Ross gets jealous. I don't know. That would be the obvious thing.

[Dolly Alderton]

And Joey gate crashes the day and. And then tries to pitch the film to him.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Dolly Alderton]

Why do I just know this has been filmed? Why do I know there is footage of this of Chris in the. I could see guest starring Kristen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Caroline]

In the Friends font.

[Dolly Alderton]

I can see that. So perfect.

[Caroline]

And what do you think about, you know, Mr. Big's quirks are then exacerbated by the Friends universe. If you take Mr. Big and you put him through the Friends sort of Friends O vision, they'd be like, why.

[Dolly Alderton]

Is he always wearing that big coat?

You know, like that. His big double breasted black coat.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. A big coat.

[Dolly Alderton]

It would be his low voice and his big coat and his cigars.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd be complete, like figure of fun in that world. He would not be the serious Sexual man.

[Dolly Alderton]

No.

[Caroline]

Who like Rachel is obsessed with at first because he represents, like money and power.

[Dolly Alderton]

And her dad would really like.

[Caroline]

And her dad would really like him. But then, so then she thinks, oh, Joey, I could seriously want to go out with this guy. I can't have you pitching your stupid movie at dinner. And then there's some kind of Twitter turn that happens where she realizes that she hates him and then she's on Joey's side trying to get him money.

[Dolly Alderton]

What would be the thing? Would it be that he just never takes his coat off?

It would be so funny if it's.

[Caroline]

Because he never takes his coat off.

[Dolly Alderton]

Always wearing that massive coat.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And she thinks he's like hiding something. Yeah, it'll be something really weird and frenzy. Like she thinks he might have no arm.

And he's got a fake hand.

[Dolly Alderton]

Done. Signed off.

[Caroline]

Sign off. Sign that. I set it to script. So if I was writing a spec script, you know, in the old days when they would do like a spec script, I would do that.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

It was so good.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's so good.

[Caroline]

A fake act.

[Dolly Alderton]

I can see that episode.

[Verizon/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

This holiday, Verizon is helping you bundle up incredible gifts and savings. You'll get the link. Latest phone with a new line on my plan and a brand new smartwatch and tablet. No trade in needed even on our lowest price plan. That's two gifts for your family and one for you. Or two for you and one for someone else. Or three gifts for you and only you. Either way, you save big on three amazing gifts at Verizon. All on the best 5G network. Visit Verizon today. Rankings based on rootmetric truth score report dated 1 each 2025. Your results may vary. Service plan required for watch and tablet. Additional terms apply.

[Sarah Gibson Tuttle]

Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect. All the best the time. Me too. I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle, the founder of Olive and June. And this is exactly why we created the Gel Mani system. We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home with our tools and our gel polish that lasts up to 21 days. Each manicure with our system comes out to just $2. That's right, $2. No more. 60, 70, $80 salon chips that take hours. Now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than than ever. And by the way, when people ask you where you got your nails done, you're going to proudly brag that you did them yourself. And here's a little something extra. Head over to oliveandjune.com and get 20% off your first gel mani system with code DIY GEL20. That's code DIY GEL20 for 20% off your first mani system at oliveandjune.com DIY GEL20.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's what's amazing about Friends is the mix of these incredible fleshed out characters with these like deep rooted psychological stories. And then there'll just be like a whole episode where the main drama is like, oh, Phoebe's boyfriend doesn't wear pants.

[Caroline]

Guy who's ball bag is always on show.

[Dolly Alderton]

Kazoo face. This is a story that shows us what happens to a person where as you alluded to earlier, they have no family connections, they have no family context, they have no upbringing really, which leaves a question mark in their heart and a kind of yearning forever for this thing that the rest of us completely take for granted and think is the most mundane thing in the world, which is a family identity and a family unit.

[Caroline]

And so much of her journey in the mid seasons is all about trying to fill out this family picture.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's so. It's really beautiful.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And very sophisticated. Sophisticated, like kind of stories from a drama rather than a sitcom.

[Caroline]

Yeah. And I think that it's sort of the joke of her, right, is that like this, this sort of backstory she has is so unbelievably compelling and nobody, which everyone just kind of glances past it really, because that is the world of like having deep friends that you know, all this stuff about their mom who killed themselves, followed by a stepfather who went to prison, a father who abandoned her, and also another mother figure who was her actual mother and she was given up for, you know, I mean, it's all this kind of. It's sort of intentionally complex because I think if every, if every friend represents a friend in one's own circle, everybody has that person who has a needlessly complex backstory that you just can't be fucked to get into right now. So I think, I think the complexity is the. Almost the joke of it in a weird way.

[Dolly Alderton]

Exactly, exactly. But it's so complex. Complex. Then you add in the brother stuff.

[Caroline]

Oh my God, Frank Jr. I love Frank Jr. So much.

[Dolly Alderton]

I relate so much to Frank Jr. In terms of the universal experience of.

[Caroline]

Having a little brother go, I never had one, so.

[Dolly Alderton]

So having a little brother is, I think as a woman, the most unnatural sibling dynamic in that you would never. There's a world in which I think girls would be friends with a boy a bit older than them.

And I think that there's a world in which you've been friends with a girl older than you or younger than you. There is just like no world outside of a sibling relationship where as a 16 year old girl you would want to be friends with a 12 year old boy or a 13 year old boy. I think it's the hardest sibling dynamic in which to find an effortless friendship. I'm really lucky with my brother. We definitely got there, but we definitely struggled in our teens and we had to just find, you know, that episode where she's so desperate it to make memories with him and all he wants to do is melt things.

[Caroline]

My favorite bit of that. And she's like, what do you like to do? He says, melt stuff. And then she's like, what, like art? Meaning is it. Do you make art out of melted things? And he goes, yeah, you can melt ours.

[Dolly Alderton]

But it's like just finding these. And then I think at the end they're like trying to find these tiny things that they connect on.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And that's what me and my mom brother had that for years. It was like we would just have these certain programs or these certain things we like to eat or these certain in jokes where like as long as we have those, we could find something to talk about.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And she kind of despairs and worries that he's had a really bad time with her over the course of his stay. And then at the end he says, well, this was like the best weekend of my life. And we had such great chats and we came deeply and which again, I think that I was a bit like that when I was, when we were younger, I think he was like after much less than I was. I think I wanted this like epic bomb totally that he just like didn't need that from me. He was happy to like just watch Friends and get a delivery and I'm yearning for something else.

[Caroline]

It's really interesting that I think like not to be so gendered about it, but we are only ever gendered on this podcast. But I do think that there's a like certain when people talk about getting comfort from their family and like wanting to hang out with their family. I think chattering, chittering oddballs like you and I, we just want to like talk about our entire childhoods and be like, what was that back there? And like really deconstruct every other member of the family and the aunties and the uncles and really talk about the shit all the as the big epic, as you say, and really understand how both of us Are, you know, or how many of us are going through life with the burdens we hold from the life that we led, even though with the burdens are literally zero. But then there's another type of familial bonding where it's like a primate thing. It's like I get comfort from being near you and sort of touching you a bit and, like, sort of having my leg near your leg. Yeah. Two weird little monkeys just getting a. Kind of a. Sort of a strange physiological comfort from just being in the same space as each other in a way that almost replicates childhood. So you're, like, watching telly or sort of eating sweets kind of thing, you know, it's quite lovely. Lovely, really. Like, I had this feeling a few. I don't know what. It was about a year ago, having a visit home and, like, I had a pack of fags in my bag and me and my sister and my brother were just smoking a pack of fags in the back garden. And I just had this feeling that even though we were talking about nothing, that it was the happiest I had been in a year. Like, it was like. It wasn't that the conversation was very elevated or there was any, like, things we were breaking through to. It was like a fill. Physiological, deep pleasure just from smoking sags with my siblings.

[Dolly Alderton]

That's kind of inexplicable.

[Caroline]

Yeah, it is sort of explicit. I finally sort of got it, what people are talking about when they. When you meet these families who are super tight and super close and they spend every Sunday together. And it's, like, hard for me to understand sometimes why people would do that. And then I. Feet get that reverberation. I'm like, oh, I. I do get it now.

[Dolly Alderton]

Well, it's just intense familiarity, isn't it?

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I just think that as you get older, you just. Childhood, if you had a happy childhood, which I know is very privileged position to be in childhood, and those memories of childhood, it gets further and further away, obviously, but it just starts to feel like the land before time. Like, I can't believe how far away sometimes it feels when I think about my house in Stanwell that we grew up in, and my brother and I hanging out in the garden or, you know, know, it's just. And I think having someone who was a witness and who. It's just your passport back to this, that becomes this place. You can barely.

[Caroline]

You're so right. It's almost like remembering a country before a war. You're like, do we have vending machines that Only had milk in them. Yes. It was the custom. Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And it becomes like. It becomes so precious. Do you don't watch. Of course you don't watch. Wyllo. Noticed.

[Caroline]

Are you.

[Dolly Alderton]

I know.

[Caroline]

I watched the first two seasons. I didn't watch the most recent season.

[Dolly Alderton]

Okay. Well, I did the opposite. I didn't watch one or two.

[Caroline]

Oh, right. Okay.

[Dolly Alderton]

Flight. And I watched all of three. And there's this bit at the end where they're these three girlfriends that. And the kind of drama of their story over the.

[Caroline]

Oh, yes. I have seen clips of this. Yes.

[Dolly Alderton]

It was so well written. It's like they seem like best friends, but as they've moved into their 40s, actually, all they do is hang out and take turns to bitch about each other. Like, why are they friends? And then one of them at the end gives this speech that is so profound where she was like, what gives meaning to these friendships? And what gives meaning to. Is time. Have you seen the clip?

[Caroline]

Yeah, I have. Yeah. It's beautiful.

[Dolly Alderton]

And it's, like, so indescribable about certain relationships that you have about why they're so sacred is that there's just this quality that's assigned to them through history that cannot be assigned to any other relationship. Relationship that begins in the recent past. And that's what I think that sickness feeling is.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Time gives life meaning.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

It is kind of one of the most profound things I've heard in years. And it's from the White Lotus.

[Dolly Alderton]

I know.

[Caroline]

From a season that I did not watch.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, it was. It's so good. And time gives those relationships meaning. What do you think about Phoebe having friends? Frank's baby?

[Caroline]

Oh, yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I remember when I was a teenager feeling so squeamish about that story. I really hated it. Really? Yeah. I was grossed out by. It was very.

[Caroline]

Everything about it is weird, obviously. It's fucking weird that Frank is sort of 20 years old and marrying his home ec teacher.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

But I also just love Frank and Alice. Like, they're. They. Them as recurring characters and, like, checking in with them every. Every few years as this, like, young guy with his young family and his slightly aging wife or whatever. But they're kind of obsessed with each other and they never seem like they have enough money to make ends meet. And they. They. Both of them seem sort of, like, vaguely malnourished. Do you know what I mean? There's, in a way that, like, could be tragic in a different setting, but actually they're just a bit zany in a way that Is not scripted, but feels true to real people I meet who are zany. Yes.

[Dolly Alderton]

And also, again, nothing is accidental. Why did Frank end up with this, like, homely, safe, maternal woman? Because he had the same childhood as Phoebe.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Yeah. Why is the. Remind me the familiar connection again? It's that her father started again with a new family. And Frank. Yeah. Frank Jr. Is the product of that.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah. But he didn't have. I don't think he had parents.

[Caroline]

Yeah. So he's not the stepfather's kid. He is Frank Buffay's son.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And then I think Frank Buffay ran out again. And then Frank Buffay became, like, a pharmacist, which is, like, a difficult job to get.

[Dolly Alderton]

He's really well caused, that actor. For Frank Buffay.

[Caroline]

It's so mad that, like, that we've been building for so long with, like, who would be this man who would have twin girls with a suicidal woman and then leave as soon as they were born? And then that woman gets remarried and then shortly afterwards she commits suicide. And then those girls are just on the wind forever. And they're, like, raised themselves separately in New York City. And you kind of think as you're going through and you learn more by piecemeal about Phoebe's life what kind of monster would this man be?

[Dolly Alderton]

And then he's just pathetic.

[Caroline]

He's. He's just a weak guy who just couldn't get it together. Yeah. And that is sadder than anything.

[Dolly Alderton]

Totally. And that is so true to life. That is so Peru to the girls, the people that I know who had an absent parent like that.

[Caroline]

They're not. They're often not demonic. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are abusive and terrible. And when you meet those people, they're like. And sure, I'm glad that motherfucker's out of my life because he hung around and he hit my mom and now he's gone. And I couldn't be more pleased. But those people who have those question marks in their life, it's not because those people are demonic. It's because those people just didn't have it in them. And they hate themselves so much more from that than their kids could ever hate themselves. Themselves.

[Dolly Alderton]

Exactly, though.

[Caroline]

And he. And the way that they meet where it's just like she's arranging the funeral for her grandmother who is her only family in the world. Which always makes me think, where was Phoebe's grandmother when she was homeless?

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah.

[Caroline]

And then he comes to the funeral. He's this little bald, balding man with, like, horrible cocker Spaniel ears, you know what I mean? He's got, like, the hair. You know what I mean? And the round little specks. And he's, like, wearing the big coat. He's like, yeah, I didn't know her, but I knew her daughter Lily. And then Phoebe freaks out. And then as she connects to them again later in the episode, it's revealed that he had no idea Lily was dead. Oh, it's so tragic the way it's acted because he just looks at his. Into his lap for a second and he goes, well, what about the girls? And he just thought he was living this life where he thought, I'm a piece of. I'm pathetic. The best thing I could ever do for those little girls is to be out of their lives. And she's probably fine with Lily and Lily's father, family. And Meanwhile, there's been 25 years of free fall for those children. It is the saddest thing I can think of.

[Dolly Alderton]

It is so, so painful, that episode.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

Beautifully acted by that actor.

[Caroline]

Yeah. Like, really profoundly done. Oh, I love Lisa Kudrow so much.

[Dolly Alderton]

I love her.

[Caroline]

Sometimes I just want to cry about how much I love Lisa Kudrow.

[Dolly Alderton]

I love her talent.

[Caroline]

He's so talented.

[Dolly Alderton]

And how she plays. Phoebe's journey is so beautiful. Phoebe does go on such a journey in that the more information she gathers and the more questions she has answered, the more you see her growing in fortitude. This knowledge of identity and this knowledge of community that all everyone else has in life and takes for granted until she gets to a point where she has. Has enough security in knowing who she is and where she comes from and why her childhood transpired as it did, that she's then free and she's ready to start her own.

[Caroline]

You.

[Dolly Alderton]

Yeah, you're right.

[Caroline]

It is like a scrapbooking journey for her. It's just her gathering information to try and explain herself. And it's never explicit because she is such a strong personality. She's just like, oh, yeah, I just, you know, want to meet my mom. Or, you know, and it's like.

[Dolly Alderton]

And that's why I now just love those episodes where she has Frank's. Where she's the surrogate for Frank.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

I think also time as I've got older, particularly because Frank's wife is so much older, I wouldn't have understood that when I watched that. I wouldn't have understood the implicit story about declining fertility or whatever.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

But, you know, I remember the last time I did my huge rewatch when I was in my mid-30s, and I've just had a breakup. It was during this time where I was thinking about having a baby of my own.

[Caroline]

Yeah.

[Dolly Alderton]

And was, like, kind of planning it. And I had a very, very, very close friend of mine offer to help.

[Caroline]

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do remember that.

[Dolly Alderton]

And obviously, I. I politely declined. But it was, to this day, one of the kindest and most generous things. Things that anyone has ever offered me. And I will remember it forever, and I will love him forever for offering it, because he realizes, you get older, how precious this stuff is. It's like the most precious and generous thing that this woman could say to her brother because she wants family so much, and she wants him to have family.

[Caroline]

Oh, God. And she says goodbye to the triplets as well.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's so beautiful, that story. And she does it as an act of kindness and generosity for this woman because biology hasn't allowed her to have a.

[Caroline]

Have, like, a nuclear family.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's. It's.

[Caroline]

It's such brilliant writing because it's so mental. It's like they get a whole season of, like, I'm having my brother's babies or whatever. Am I on the radio?

[Dolly Alderton]

That was another reference to Waltham Interiors.

[Caroline]

You know, there's a whole season of I'm having my brother's baby. And they have all the jokes about that, and they have. They. They wring the rag dry on jokes about that. And then you finally. And obviously they have made this plot point at all because Lisa Kudrow was pregnant in real life, and they wanted to find the best and funniest explanation for that within the show. And then you lead her all the way up to this, where she says to Rachel in the living room, I want to keep one.

And then when she finally says goodbye to them, and you realize it really hits you, like, oh, for anyone to sort of give away their child, like, this is the most profound. Not their child. But to give away our child they've given birth to is the most profound act of grace and generosity. And it's so beautiful.

[Dolly Alderton]

It's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing you can do for Frank. It's the most beautiful thing she can do for. Yeah, I just. I just love that story now. It's like the most profound family story.

[Caroline]

Yes.

[Dolly Alderton]

That whole story.

[Caroline]

Yeah. I think we use the phrase some of my book bears lately in that. The book world, that people are just obsessed with the phrase found family. Well, I've never even heard that it is an obsession. Well, I can't believe you haven't heard this before.

[Dolly Alderton]

Urban Family.

[Caroline]

Yeah, yeah. And in TV they use it a lot too. The Found family. Urban family. And what they mean by that is two people who meet and we don't know much about their family or like people who have a gang of friends and whatever. And like, it's become such an overused trope. And it's sort of one of the few instances where it's really applicable is like, oh, this person really has cobbled together this thing piecemeal and earned every relationship they're in. And it's also that thing of like, unlike the other friends, she doesn't have this history the way that like the other friends are so sewn in together with Monica is best friends with Rachel. Ross is Monica's older brother. Chandler is Ross's flatmate from college. And then that's. I think that's why you have Joey and Phoebe at the other end because they are kind of the blow ins in a weird way. And so like, for Phoebe to have such a lack of connection and to really tightly sew everyone in herself and earn every speck of family that she gets is so beautiful. I love this show.

[Dolly Alderton]

I love this show.

[Caroline]

I've loved doing this miniseries so, so much because I just feel like, yes, it's made me understand how good Friends is so much more. But every time I sit down and talk to somebody about it, I feel like I learn how they feel about relationships. More like family relationships and friend relationships and, you know, love and, and everything. Like, I feel like I have learned so much more about the friends in my life through this. You know, even though I get wrong all the time, you people write in with all the things I've got gotten wrong about friends.

[Dolly Alderton]

People know so much about friends.

[Caroline]

Know so much. This is really. I don't know the most about friends. I don't even feel the most about friends. I just have some feelings about friends.

I have some feelings about friends. And this is what you've been getting this season.

[Dolly Alderton]

I've loved it and I will continue to love it.

[Caroline]

Thank you. Are we done now, do you think?

[Dolly Alderton]

I think we are. But I just have one more thing to say. Okay, she's in hiding.

[Caroline]

Bye, everybody.

[Dolly Alderton]

Bye.

[Verizon/Mint Mobile Advertiser]

This holiday, Verizon is helping you bundle up incredible gifts and savings. You'll get the latest phone with the new line on my plan and a brand new smartwatch and tablet. No trade in needed even on our lowest price plan. That's two gifts for your family and one for you. Or two for you and one for someone. Else or three gifts for you and only you. Either way, you save big on three amazing gifts at Verizon, all on the best 5G network. Visit Verizon today. Rankings based on Root Metric Truth score report dated 1 each 2025. Your results may vary. Service plan required for watch and tablet. Additional terms apply.