The Friends Couple Fans Agree Have No Chemistry

Over the course of 10 smash-hit seasons, the six main characters of "Friends" hooked up, dated, married, and sometimes held dormant feelings for one another. Ross (David Schwimmer) carried a torch for Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) since high school, igniting an on-again, off-again affair so famous that a "Ross and Rachel relationship" has become a term to describe a rollercoaster relationship (via Bolde).

Another long-term couple on "Friends" was Chandler (Matthew Perry) and Monica (Courtney Cox). The pair spend the night together in the Season 4 finale after Ross' rehearsal dinner, and then try to keep the relationship secret from the rest of the crew. Everyone finds out anyway as the two of them fall deeper in love over time. Eventually, Chandler and Monica marry and, in the final season, adopt twins.

While most of the romances on the show were met with positive reception, even years later, there is one pairing that many fans agree simply didn't work together. This is the one couple on "Friends" that made no sense to the fans that they also feel lacked chemistry.

A 2015 thread posted by u/ManofCin in the r/television subreddit asked Redditors, "Who is the worst TV couple?" ManofCin went on to lay out the parameters for judging the worst TV couple, writing, "Whether it be just a mismatch or a generally horrible couple, who is the worst? Also, what's the worst couple that people generally like, but there's just something you don't like?"

Redditor u/exophrine commented simply, "Joey and Rachel weren't really good at all." This is a common take from fans of "Friends," as many viewers truly hated Joey (Matt LeBlanc) unexpectedly developing feelings for Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in Season 8. The cast even protested the decision with the show's writers when the show was still on the air, an event detailed in Saul Austerlitz's book "Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a TV Era" (via InStyle).

Elsewhere, u/GeorgeLovesBOSCO concurred with the fellow fans on Reddit. They commented on the relationship, writing, "They build up to Joey-Rachel for, like, two seasons, and then they break up and are never mentioned as having dated after three episodes." U/sofingclever pointed out that "no man in his 30s just randomly develops uncontrollable feelings for someone he's known for 10 years." More importantly, they noted, "[Joey and Rachel] were just a terrible couple." But, as one commenter observed in the r/howyoudoin subreddit, "Oh, God, they [Rachel and Joey] had such platonic chemistry. Once it got romantic it was so intensely awkward."

You can stream all 10 seasons of "Friends" on HBO Max.