Jill Greene's Friends Timeline Explained
When viewers first met Rachel Greene (Jennifer Aniston) in the pilot episode of "Friends," she was spoiled, condescending, and had little understanding of how to make it on her own. But over the course of the show's 10 seasons that all changed. After calling off her wedding and deciding to live independently of her family's wealth, she becomes a generous friend, successful career woman, and devoted mother. Anyone wondering what her life might have looked like had she never gone down that path needn't look any further than the character of Jill Greene (Reese Witherspoon, who is slated to make an appearance on "Friends: The Reunion"), Rachel's youngest sister.
Like Rachel, Jill was spoiled by her parents to the point where she has little understanding of a life in which she doesn't have access to a credit card that someone else is picking up the bill for. Yet unlike her older sister, Jill shows little appetite for changing the circumstances of her situation. She only appears in two total episodes of "Friends," but she is referenced a number of times throughout the run of the series, giving us the opportunity to piece together a snapshot of her life.
Here is everything we know about Jill Greene.
Jill Greene had a privileged early life
Jill is the youngest of the Greene daughters and despite her family's reputation for overindulgence, she's referred to as "the spoiled one" in the episode "The One With Rachel's Sister." Along with Rachel and Amy (Christina Applegate), she was raised on Long Island by Leonard (Ron Leibman) and Sandra Greene (Marlo Thomas) in relatively affluent circumstances. Other than her self-admitted lactose intolerance (revealed in the episode "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry"), Jill's early life was marked more by her family's ski trips to Vail rather than by personal strife.
However, in the Season 2 episode "The One With The Two Parties," Rachel does reveal that Jill is prone to seasickness. While reminiscing about the family boat trips the Greene's used to take, she says, "My sister Jill would be throwing up over the side and my dad would be upset because nobody was helping and then when we did help he would scream at us for doing it wrong." Still, that particular hardship falls in the category of champagne problems.
Other than that, not much else is known about Jill's early life. Like her sister Rachel, she has a fondness for shopping and entered adulthood without any experience fending for herself, which viewers learn first hand when she appears on the scene in Season 6.
In Season 6, Jill takes a stab at independence
Witherspoon guest stars as Jill on the Season 6 episodes "The One With Rachel's Sister" and "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry." She arrives at Monica's (Courteney Cox) apartment unexpectedly after having been cut off by her father because she used his money to buy a boat, an action she defends by noting, "It wasn't for me, it was for a friend." She tells the group she wants to follow in Rachel's footsteps by becoming independent. This, however, ends up being a short-lived endeavor.
Much like her sister before her, Jill's first act as an independent woman is to use her dad's credit cards (although he took them from her she still remembers the numbers) to buy new clothes for her new life. Rachel confiscates her purchases to try and teach Jill a lesson and in turn, Jill sets her sights on Rachel's ex-boyfriend, Ross (David Schwimmer). After getting Rachel's begrudging blessing, the two go on a date.
In "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry," Rachel reveals that she's actually deeply uncomfortable with Ross dating her sister. He ends things with Jill, prompting her to speculate that Ross broke up with her because she can't keep up with him intellectually. She bemoans, "I'm just like this incredibly pretty stupid girl."
Although Jill makes an attempt to get back at Rachel for her interference by seducing Ross, her plan doesn't work. By the end of the episode, she's decided to give up on being independent and weasel her way back into her father's good graces. As she leaves, she announces, "I'm not gonna spend one more day with someone who's out to sabotage my every move. That's you, Rachel."
What we know about Jill Greene after her final appearance on Friends
Following her very brief stint living in New York City, little is known about Jill's personal or professional life. In the Season 8 episode "The One with the Baby Shower," Monica informs Rachel that neither of her sisters will be in attendance at her eponymous baby shower. Rachel responds, "What? You mean they're not coming to a social event where there's no men and there's no booze? That's shocking." This implies that it's unlikely that Jill has changed much in the years since viewers saw her last.
In the Season 9 episode "The One With Rachel's Other Sister," Amy Greene very unkindly tells Rachel that Jill "has gotten fat, by the way." Amy's cruelty and fatphobia are likely two of the many reasons that she is Rachel's second favorite sister, a fact we learn in the Season 10 episode "The One Where Rachel's Sister Babysits." At the beginning of the episode, Amy knocks on the door of Ross' apartment unannounced. When Rachel asks who it is, Amy says, "It's your favorite sister," to which Rachel responds, "Jill?"
Despite their differences and the fact that they don't seem to particularly like each other very much, the years have not robbed Jill of her status as Rachel's favorite sibling, even though it does seem to be a title earned by default. What Jill is up to these days is anyone's guess, but perhaps we'll get some more insight during "Friends: The Reunion."