Friends’ Emily - The Tragedy of the Runner-Up Love Interest

what is wrong with these tears it's not pants it's you those backwards emily waltham is the woman you know is never really going to be the one like so many of the love interests on friends ross's second wife is an example of the stepping stone love interest a character who serves as a transition to the otp or one true pairing in a story and emily is the most hated version of a stepping stone the first runner-up or the greatest threat to the show's main couple ross and rachel it's ross how can i watch him get married on friends emily is painted as controlling difficult and paranoid not chill enough to fit in with the other friends like rachel but if you look at the facts emily's behavior is not that unreasonable she swept off her feet by a guy who acts like he's crazy about her who pushes her into a whirlwind wedding that happens faster than she wants then he shocks and humiliates her by saying his ex-girlfriend's name at the ceremony and um invite said x on their honeymoon i mean i i have two tickets why not what human would be comfortable with her husband than hanging out constantly with that ex actually we should empathize with emily she's up against a secretly emotionally unavailable man his fairly hostile group of friends and even a team of writers and an audience fiercely predisposed to hate her let's take a closer look at emily the runner-up love interest and what we can learn from her side of this story we have to understand how humiliating it was for me up on the altar in front of my entire family all my friends if you're new here be sure to subscribe and click the bell to be notified about all of our new videos [Music] to understand emily's descent from wide-eyed joyful girlfriend to jealous fearful wife let's look at friends from her perspective london or emily is having a supremely bad visit to new york i've already been run down by one of your wiener cards i've been strip searched at john f kennedy airport her uncle's employee rachel is supposed to take her to the opera but at the last minute rachel stands her up and sends her out with some guy emily doesn't know at all she's already seeing someone back home a guy named colin but to her great surprise her immediate connection with ross leads them to a romantic bed and breakfast in vermont and she even finds herself drawn to the potential for something deeper that girl just spent the entire evening talking to your friends asking to hear stories about you i mean you don't do that if you're just doing it for two weeks ross chases emily to the airport to tell her he loves her awkwardly catching her off guard i love you thank you but the showy display of feeling gets in her head when she gets home she ends things with colin and even goes for a romantic grand gesture herself flying back to new york to tell ross she loves him back as sweet as ross acts with her in these early stages his behavior has the classic hallmarks of love bombing showering another person with attention and affection in a really short period and pushing them for a quick commitment damn i thought that was gonna be romantic as hell it was then after getting the other person hooked on this over-the-top performative love suddenly changing the love bomber may become manipulative controlling or possessive they're going to the gym together two women stretching and threaten to withdraw their attention if the person doesn't do what they want oh spawning it is not an option this is when we're getting married after only six weeks ross asks emily to move in with him don't be scared i know it sounds crazy and and people will say it's too soon but just just think think how great it would be but this is him asking her to give up her whole life in london and immigrate without any comparable sacrifices by him emily is hesitant my whole family lives there and my job so ross responds to her nervous reluctance by raising the stakes and dazzling her with an actual marriage proposal it would be different if it was way into the future and we were getting married or something why don't we he leaps from wanting to simply solve the problem of them having to travel overseas to date to declaring it's perfect for them to be together forever it's perfect i mean it's better than you just just moving here because it's us together forever ross is the one aggressively forcing this relationship forward while emily voices misgivings on multiple occasions i don't know oh leaving london if you don't understand how important this is to me well then perhaps we shouldn't be getting married at all only to give in due to the intensity of his passion when the ongoing construction on the church where they plan to marry raises the possibility of delaying the wedding ross gives her an ultimatum what are you saying it's now or never i'm saying it's now or there's no ore in mine and again he overcomes her doubts and bends her to his will by framing his demand as a romantic gesture but his motives here seem driven less by what's right for his and emily's love than by how it looks and what people will think if the event is canceled do you think my sister's teeny tiny little brain comprehends that people took time out of their lives to fly thousands of miles to be here just as in other plots he makes numerous decisions based on what people will think about his situation i just don't want my tombstone to read ross geller three divorces after all this romantic strong-arming to make the wedding happen he then who could forget says his ex's name at the altar i ross take thee rachel it's literally any brides or person's worst nightmare afterwards ross attempts to make a joke out of it that was pretty funny and is still trying to keep up appearances it's like a nightmare my friends and family are out there how can i face them no no you take your time sweetie i'll be right out here fixing her makeup after this emily decides to give ross another chance only to see him leaving for their honeymoon with the woman whose name he said now emily just wants space to process this whole trauma so of course ross bombards her with generic love gestures no one will tell me where emily is so i'm going to send 72 long-stemmed red roses to her parents house one for each day that i've known and loved her she tries to enforce clear boundaries after he calls members of her family and insults them when they won't put him in touch with her but ross just tells her he'll persist after taking the time to think emily does want to work on the marriage but instead of sending a few roses she needs ross to take some actions that actually demonstrate his commitment through some measure of sacrifice like she's done for him she asks him to move to london when he refuses for the valid reason that he can't leave his son she wants him to start over with her in a new place and stop hanging out with the ex whose name he said frankly it's the bare minimum most partners would expect it drives me mad just thinking of you being in the same room as her she's been offered no satisfying explanation as to why ross said his ex's name at the altar and was about to take her on their honeymoon and she has an accurate instinct that there is still a connection between these two she's isolated away from her husband and he lies to her telling her he won't see his ex then actually still does how could you do this to me i thought i'd made my feelings about rachel perfectly clear you obviously can't keep away from her at this point emily is portrayed as controlling unreasonable and paranoid that's ridiculous but even if she is starting to behave in a possessive insecure even slightly vindictive way when it comes to things like making him sell his furniture look emily thinks ross's furniture's got rachel cooties it's entirely understandable who wouldn't with a partner who's behaving like ross has after ross points out the flaws in her thinking i'll feel better when i'm there and i can know where you are all the time you can't know where i am all the time emily does the mature thing and acknowledges that their relationships trust is too damaged to recover this marriage is never gonna work if you don't trust me you're right so can you trust me no but while emily's lack of trust ends up being given as their relationship's final cause of death in fact emily does initially trust him until she has reasons not to it's ross who baselessly mistrusts emily earlier in the relationship emily is just crazy about susan yeah they're going to the theater together they're going to dinner my girlfriend's a lesbian ross is never really honest with emily actually to him that's part of the appeal of their relationship that he can be something else when he's with her oh blimey i still can't believe you've got an earring huh i know i know who am i david bowie in the scene when he plays rugby with her guy friends he goes to lengths to pretend to enjoy it and prove his masculinity even though emily shows no signs of caring about this more centrally he blindsides her by not communicating about how weighty and recent his emotional history with rachel really is even if it's been a minute since he and rachel broke up it's not that long since they considered getting back together if anything it's hard to understand why emily doesn't pull the plug sooner but this is a testament to just how effective love bombing can be at making the recipient struggle to detach from all that intense amorous attention look you're you're my wife we're we're married you know i i love you i i really miss you i miss you too well at least i think i do the friends team did want emily to be in the show for a little longer actress helen vaxendale got pregnant after season four which is why during season five's phone calls we see her in bed and vaccinedale didn't like the tabloid attention she was receiving but it was obvious emily was never meant to be around when the show finished as friends co-creator marta kaufman put it the show is about that time in your life when you're friends or your family because once you have your own family things change if ross ended up with emily the show was well over it's not all laughing happy candy in the sky drinking coffee at central park all the time it's real life okay it's what grown-ups do this seems to be why it's only at the end of the series that phoebe gets married monica and chandler have kids and ross and rachel at last unite while joey the only character without a family got his spin-off the ross rachel relationship is the show's ultimate storyline and emily isn't the first or last disposable love interest to be rolled out to come between them it's been happening since monica and rachel's prom even joey has a turn in the position of rachel's disposable love interest shows like friends feature a long series of stepping stone love interests but there's usually the big one the first runner-up who represents the biggest obstacle to the main couple and friends does this through ross and emily's wedding it's over you know what no it's not over until someone says i do it's a structural setup that unfairly turns the runner up into an antagonist even a villain just because they were naive were unfortunate enough to fall for someone whose heart had already been called dibs on by another we're encouraged to dislike the runner-up precisely for what's great about them whatever tempts the main person away from their soulmate and i like finn he's perfect for me and often the runner-up love interest displays opposing characteristics to the endgame love in a way that might illuminate why the true love pair are really a perfect match in sex and the city aiden is the ready to commit sweetheart that carries primary love interest big is not so carrie has to confront if easy commitment is really what she wants or if she actually likes big's unattainable nature the irony is aidan's acting exactly the way i wish big would have behaved and i'm behaving just like big maybe you don't believe it's for real unless somebody's playing hard to get meanwhile for big natasha is the young model-esque trophy wife he thinks he should have but ultimately life with natasha doesn't make him happy the way his relationship with less conventionally perfect carrie does everything in my apartment is now beige beige is i thought you wanted beige in france as a quintessential english rose emily is the polar opposite of all-american rachel greene and through this opposition the writing affirms why ultimately ross is supposed to choose rachel whereas rachel is fun and chill the kind of girl you want to hang out with emily is proper and uptight not one of the friends emily is cultured and foreign offering ross a blank slate and the chance to be someone different but down to earth rachel is from ross's hometown and has known him for his whole life so it's implied she brings out the real hymn it's a similar situation with ross's other major stepping stone girlfriends julie and charlie both scientists in ross's field who are highly emotionally controlled proper and professional whereas we often see rachel acting impulsive instinctive and unfiltered i mean doesn't that just kick you in the crotch spit on your neck fantastic on the surface rachel isn't as well suited to ross as any of these women when it comes to interests temperament or values all we care about is that it's happy and healthy oh yep happy and healthy and cute and smart popular yet while perhaps his other love interests better reflect the person he thinks he is rachel mirrors something more ineffable and basic about what he wants okay let's do julie what's wrong with her she's not rachel on the other end of the spectrum ross's girlfriends mona and elizabeth are a little too chill mona even largely supports ross having a baby with rachel while they're together but this makes them poor matches for ross who needs elaborate drama like he gets with rachel i gave her a key to my apartment and then i had the locks changed and then i lied to her about rachel moving in with me in a way i i actually judge her for not breaking up with me sooner but perhaps what's most non-racial about ross's runner-up love emily is that her relationship with ross is at first easy straightforward and fast they fall for each other right away and don't have trouble expressing it rachel and ross's drawn out on again off again friend zoned romance is as far as you can get from simple and easy rachel and ross that's been one heck of a seesaw hasn't it so it's in this that emily represents a more existential threat to the love story if she and ross really do get happily married they'll disprove the idea that the one true love is supposed to be arrived at over time through a long winding road of friends eventually growing together alongside all ross's behavior emily's plot also reveals that the friends themselves are a pretty tough crowd for an outsider to enter into a group of six so impenetrable and codependent that four of them end up with each other the friends rarely seem to like each other's outside partners i hear you hate me i never said hate i was very careful about that when emily makes a final phone appearance in season five rachel and monica control russ's involvement with her even further we have to erase that is that what you want frost back with that controlling neurotic crazy emily but as monica accuses emily of being controlling neurotic and crazy while vouching to delete emily's voicemail the joke is that monica's embodying these attributes herself she then runs through scenarios of disrupting the wedding both of which rachel has actually done what's it gonna do like ross is gonna run over there on the wedding day and break up the marriage who would do that so emily is really a lens on how insular these six friends can be and in the end we should feel happy for emily that at least she gets out of a situation where her husband is in love with his ex-girlfriend and will unilaterally put his friends over their marriage [Music] in the end by nixing the idea that ross and emily's whirlwind romance could be the real thing friends doubles down instead on the very different philosophy of love that ross and rachel represent because she's your lobster it's a known fact that lobsters fall in love and mate for life in her 2005 book the new single woman sociologist ellen k trimberger writes that the idea of a bond that seems predestined is attractive particularly in the us as trimburger puts it in america people work longer hours than anywhere else in the world and are similarly encouraged to work on their relationships so it's a relief to be told you could find the perfect person without any effort and even according to friends that you'll be brought back together however many mistakes you make to drive each other away because this is where i want to be okay no more the fated end game relationship appears regularly on screen and never so often as in the late 90s and early 2000s after decades of women being told they could have it all but struggling to actually find time for it all but in an interview with women's health clinical psychologist sabrina romanov says that the idea that you'll meet a soulmate paves the way for significant disappointment instead replace the idea of finding your soulmate with creating one through years of learning about them navigating challenges creating a family and loving each other through all the happy and hard times monica's relationship with chandler and even rachel's relationship with joey fit this redefinition of the soul mate better they develop feelings after years of friendship based on seeing each other for what they are underneath how long have we known each other um seven eight years i think i'm falling in love with you by contrast ross is so invested in the pre-destined soul mate myth that it's like he sees this imaginary endgame woman everywhere he goes he follows initial sparks to excessive ends but ross doesn't ever seem interested in putting in the work it would take to create a long lasting soul mate he'll make extreme gestures and chase emily elizabeth and rachel to the airport in lieu of having real sit-down conversations about how he feels he doesn't show much desire to listen to or learn about his partners seeing their bids to explain their perspective to him as an attack or something boring we know that ever since divorcing carol all ross has wanted is another wife i just want to be married again it's telling that he starts shoehorning emily into this role right after rachel tells him she's ready to move on with her crush joshua i thought we'd gotten to a place where we could be happy for each other was that just me all right i'll do it ross is actively seeking something new with whoever shows up at that moment ross makes emily feel she's bringing out a new spontaneous side of him our first date we ended up spending the whole weekend in vermont i mean last night i got my ear pierced me but their intense early romance is actually in keeping with him being a relationship collector who impulsively jumps into serious relationships not unlike ted on how i met your mother ross believes so strongly in his myth of the one that he can end up acting pretty insensitive and thoughtless to anyone he decides isn't that one he callously compares women's merits as if they're candidates for the role of his perfect wife the one from poughkeepsie even though she's a two-hour train right away is really pretty really smart and a lot of fun but this other girl well she lives right up town oh and like julie and i we have a lot in common because we're both paleontologists right but rachel's just a waitress and it's all really about him what he loves most about emily is how great she makes him look and act when i'm with you i'm i'm like this this whole other guy i love that guy i mean i love you too a lot but but that guy he's chasing a feeling and idea of himself but framing appearing as the true love isn't an excuse for treating someone else badly the fact that this often happens in ross and rachel's love lives reveals an underlying self-centeredness even childishness to believing that the universe is set up to deliver you and your soulmate to each other no matter how many disposable hearts are strewn along that path you say you love this man and yet you're about to ruin the happiest day of his life you are a horrible horrible person ultimately no person is disposable and if we're upfront honest and committed we can make a soulmate out of just about anyone we have that initial spark with i don't think that you and i were destined to end up together i think that we fell in love and we work hard at our relationship if ross had made more of an effort to get to know emily rather than molding her into his desired wife if he'd allowed the relationship to develop at its natural pace instead of pushing it along faster than he was ready for and if he'd not been so set on the idea of destiny the show's trajectory could have been different as much as our culture makes it sound sweet to leap before you look emily's story reminds us that when entering and exiting relationships it's important to proceed with caution and handle people with care i mean why not because you've only known her six weeks okay i've got a carton of milk in my refrigerator i've had a longer relationship with this is the take on your favorite movie shows and culture subscribe so you can watch all of our videos [Music] you

Channel: The Take

Views: 418,255

Keywords: friends, emily, ross, rachel, monica, joey, chandler, one true love, OTP, One true pairing, stepping stone love interest, runner-up love interest, disposable love interest, aiden, sex and the city, natasha satc, helen, normal people, karen, the office, aj, abigail, lovesick, grey's anatomy, pam

Id: q3QNjcXAoT0

Length: 20min 37sec (1237 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022