Friends’ Creator Wants Matthew Perry Remembered for Legacy Not Death

For some reason, it’s always stuck with me that Chandler gets the last line in the series, when Rachel, who didn’t get on the plane, suggests they all go for coffee. In his signature sarcastic tone, Chandler asks, “Where?”

What made that simple but effective moment land even harder was knowing that Perry himself requested being the friend to have the last word. (Could he be any more of a Chandler?)

“Before that final episode, I’d taken [co-creator/EP] Marta Kauffman to one side,” Perry wrote in his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. “‘Nobody else will care about this except me,’ I said. ‘So, may I please have the last line?’ That’s why as we all troop out of the apartment, and Rachel has suggested one last coffee, I got to bring the curtain down on Friends.”

If that didn’t hit you right in the feels, Perry’s next observation is sure to do so. 

“I love the look on Schwimmer’s face as I deliver that line— it’s the perfect mixture of affection and amusement,” Perry shared, “exactly what the show Friends had always given to the world.”—Tierney Bricker