Who Is the Worst Character on ‘Friends’?

Even on TV shows you love — especially on TV shows you love — there are always going to be the characters you hate. The villains that aren’t fun but rather frustrating. The goody-two-shoes who all the other characters are constantly praising but who actually suck. The boring wastes of precious frame space. The dumb teens. Here at Decider, we’re making it our mission to determine the absolute worst character on each and every TV show. Our research will be rigorous. Our determinations will be official. Our recommendations to the networks and showrunners will be direct and to the point. Please let us know if you disagree. All dissent will be included in the official file. 

Today’s case:

Who is the worst character on Friends?

The Contenders

 

Chandler

Worstness: Chandler wears his sarcasm like a defense mechanism. It can get exhausting. Early-seasons Chandler was very gay-panicky in his humor. All that “could this be any more something” stuff got annoying.

Mitigating Factors: Chandler could be very funny! And once he and Monica got together, he kind of took over as the male lead of the series.

Janice

Worstness: That voice! And that clinginess! And remember that one time she got back together with Chandler even though she was married? Bad form. Plus Joey definitely thinks she’s the worst.

Mitigating Factors: That voice! And that clinginess! And remember the time that Chandler had to move to Yemen to escape from her?

Kathy

Worstness: Kathy was Joey’s girlfriend who then kissed Chandler and caused a whole mess of conflict between the two best friends. Which might have ended up being forgivable if she and Chandler had stayed together, but they didn’t. Because she then cheated on him. Ugh, Kathy.

Mitigating Factors: Paget Brewster is a fantastic comedic actress, and Friends could have made a lot better use of her.

Monica

Worstness: Monica’s control-freakiness manifests itself in obnoxiousness as often as it does in hilarity. The ever-more-frequent flashbacks to Monica’s portly youth are some of Friends‘ meanest, least funny diversions.

Mitigating Factors: Courteney Cox is brilliant in a role that’s not always easy to love, but she makes it work at a stunningly high percentage. She’s an unselfish performer who really lets her castmates shine. Look at how she works magic from the margins during Chandler and Phoebe’s romantic game of chicken.

Rachel

Worstness: Better known for a haircut than for having a character who made sense. She loves Ross, then she doesn’t love Ross, then she loves Ross, then she doesn’t love Ross, then she’s pregnant, then she might love Joey, then she loves Ross again probably there’s no time to think about it because the series is over.

Mitigating Factors: Rachel’s kind of the best? Her character certainly grows the most of any of the Freinds over the course of the series. She was probably in the right about how Ross shouldn’t have cheated on her even though they were on a break. And the way she shouts “TRANSPONSTER!” is utter perfection.

Ross

Worstness: Ugh, Ross. The way that whininess is baked into his character is infuriating. His efforts to Nice Guy his way into Rachel’s heart look worse and worse every time we look back at them. Being “on a break” doesn’t mean that jumping into bed with a girl you barely know less than 12 hours removed from declaring said break is in any way cool. He really fucked over Emily at the altar. He let Chandler take the rap for his smoking pot in college.

Mitigating Factors: Ross has his moments. Almost all of them are super dorky, but that’s fine. Dorky is his lane, and when he stays in it, the comedy really pays off.

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The Finalists

It doesn’t seem sporting to hang the Worst mantle on either Janice or Kathy, as they’re such comparatively small parts of the Friends universe. Monica and Chandler can both be very annoying, but their getting together was the jolt that powered the show through its back half. Of course, that back half was decidedly inferior to Friends‘s first four seasons. Rachel, as mentioned above, is kind of the best, which more than cancels out the ways in which she’s the worst. Plus, her worstness is almost all to do with Ross-and-Rachel as an entity. Which really only bolsters Ross’ case for Worst. Which means the worst character on Friends is …

Ross!