[imagesource: Terence Patrick / HBO MAX]

WARNING: This post contains spoilers…

Friends finished with its final season 17 years ago, but the show is never that far away, with constant repeat episodes on TV or logo tees from Cotton On.

Now with Friends: The Reunion having just aired in the US, the cast of six – Monica (Courteney Cox), Chandler (Matthew Perry), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), Joey (Matt LeBlanc), Ross (David Schwimmer), and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) – along with some very cool A-list celebs in the mix, are giving fans all over that sweet nostalgic feeling again.

The trailer revealed a decent amount, and here in South Africa, it will be aired on May 30 on M-Net (DStv channel 101) at 8PM, or on Showmax from May 31.

In the meantime, we have the top five moments from the special, so this is your official warning that there are spoilers coming up.

Alright, let us proceed.

Some members thought that “everything seems smaller”

The cast members followed David Schwimmer, rather emotionally, as they all arrived at the Warner Bros. studio to visit the reconstructed Friends sets.

It wasn’t long before their classic banter started, as per the BBC:

“It all seems small to me, the whole stage,” notes Matt LeBlanc.

“That’s impossible though because we haven’t grown,” replies Aniston. An awkward moment passes before LeBlanc jokes, with perfect timing: “Speak for yourself.” (He is admittedly quite a bit bigger now.)

Perry’s need for laughs “wasn’t healthy”

Perry has been under a bit of scrutiny from fans who were worried about his slurring in a promo video for the Friends reunion (but an explanation has now been offered via an anonymous source), so some might wonder why, in the full episode, he gets the least amount of screen time.

But he does have the chance to reveal how deeply affected he was by some parts of the job, which is rather moving:

“I felt like I was going to die if they didn’t laugh,” he says. “And it’s not healthy, for sure. But I would sometimes say a line and they wouldn’t laugh and I would sweat, and go into convulsions. If I didn’t get the laugh I was supposed to get, I would freak out. I felt like that every single night.”

He later recalls how he interrupted the filming of one scene after LeBlanc accidentally tripped over the carpet, much to the audience’s delight. “I was like, somebody’s getting a laugh, I can’t handle it, I need to get a laugh too,” Perry said.

There was a medical emergency that we didn’t know about

Fans might remember the storyline where Chandler and Joey are fighting over an armchair in series three’s The One Where No-One’s Ready.

The episode shows Chandler and Joey dive for the couch at the same time, with Joey being the first to make it there after hurling himself over the furniture.

The crew apparently shot the scene three times, and by the fourth, things got a little scary:

“I went to jump over the coffee table, somehow tripped, my legs went up in the air, and my shoulder came out of its socket,” said LeBlanc.

While LeBlanc has told this story before on Jimmy Kimmel, we get to see the original footage in the reunion:

“In come all the paramedics, they’ve got to take him to the hospital, and that was the end of filming,” says co-creator David Crane.

His arm did look like it was almost separated from his body.

Ross and Rachel almost made it in real life

This juicy bit of gossip hasn’t been released before, but the reunion episode let slip that Aniston and Schwimmer were “crushing hard” on each other during the early days of Friends, Sky News reports.

But that the timing was never quite right, it seems.

Anyway, it’s a cute image for fans as Aniston and Schwimmer share details of sofa cuddles during filming breaks, and the tension building up to their first on-screen kiss.

Lady Gaga sings ‘Smelly Cat’ duet with Phoebe Buffay (Lisa Kudrow)

Via Mercury News, Kudrow first sang the ‘Smelly Cat’ song on the second season of Friends, in an episode entitled The One With the Baby on the Bush.

This time, Lady Gaga joined her, thanking Kudrow for always “being the person for all of us on Friends that was the different one, or the one that was really herself.”

This part of the special is so good that it can stand on its own:

And that’s a wrap, folks.

Unless you want to head over to the BBC, Sky News or Rolling Stone for more standout moments from the reunion episode.

[sources:mercurynews&bbc&skynews]