Phoebe Buffay is, hands down, the quirkiest of the Friends characters. Her unique musical sound and personal style, her beliefs on everything from auras to ghosts, and her surprising talents (fluent French, anyone) make her one of the most interesting characters on the show... but she was a whole lot more interesting in the first season.
As Friends continued, Phoebe became less quirky and more annoying, and although she was presumably meant to be 'growing up', in a lot of ways, she just got worse and worse.
10 She Sold Out
At the start of the show, Phoebe is working at an independent massage place, and is against anything corporate. By the end? She's working for a chain because of the benefits and pay, started shopping at Pottery Barn, and has seemed to give up on her original principles. To make things worse, she lies about her job, and makes Rachel pretend that she is the one demanding extra Pottery Barn pieces to justify their purchase. Choosing to accept corporate work is reasonable - lying about it? It's clear that Phoebe knows she sold out.
9 She Stopped Playing
In the early seasons of Friends, Phoebe is rarely seen without her guitar. She's always playing at the coffee shop, outside the coffee shop, outside Monica's restaurant... it's clear that she wants to make it, and that this matters to her. By the end, though, she's rarely seen playing, or even talking about it. Even when Mike is actually pursuing his dream of being a professional musician, she's given it up - and it's a huge loss for a character who was so creative at the start.
8 She Became A Hypocrite
Selling out with the spa isn't the only area where Phoebe became a hypocrite. She started wearing fur (although she eventually felt bad enough to stop), and ate meat while pregnant (although again, she did feel guilty about), she laid into her friends about not being on time for her birthday, and then left them all to meet a guy - and those are just the big ones.
Phoebe was originally charming because she was quirky, but she had integrity.. and by the end, she just seems to be a superficial 'hippy chick' without the principles to really back it up.
7 She Got Mean About Her Beliefs
Phoebe was always someone with some... alternative... viewpoints. However, at the start, this was charming, as she had no problem with others believing differently to her. As the show continued, though, she became increasingly dogmatic (despite the hypocrisy already covered), and started to take great pleasure on arguing her beliefs with her friends. When she managed to manipulate Ross into saying that perhaps he could be wrong about evolution, she crowed about it and put him down for it. That's just mean.
6 She Stopped Seeing Her Family
A huge part of Phoebe's early story is her finding her family. Not Ursula, of course, and there's no blame on her for no longer seeing a sister who was that cruel to her! However, finding her father, her birth mother, and her brother were huge - and they were an amazing part of her story. Her decision to carry her brother's triplets was huge... but by the final seasons, where were they? None of them appeared at her wedding, they rarely seemed to visit or be mentioned, and this was a loss for a character who put so much into finding them in the first place.
5 She Became Controlling
Initially, Phoebe was definitely the most laid-back of the friends, and it was all part of her hippy vibe. However, as time went on, she became more like Monica than Original Recipe Phoebe.
She was controlling, forcing her friends to go along with her preferences and beliefs, demanding Mike keep a box of rats, and generally going from 'laid back and quirky' to 'controlling with a smile'.
4 She Became Wildly Unrealistic
This may have been an attempt by the writers to lean into the kind of delightful weirdness that fans loved about Phoebe - but it really doesn't work. In the early seasons, Phoebe did some out-there things, but they were all believable... by season four, and her dead-cat-mom, however, things were out of control. Her tales of her early life, her random skills, her criminal past, it all became just a bit too much.
3 She Lifts Right Out
Another writer issue, it often seemed that the writers weren't quite sure where to go with Phoebe by the end. She didn't seem to truly fit with the Friends, yet she was with them every day - and attempts to make Rachel a roommate or force a closer friendship with Joey just seemed off-key. Initially, Phoebe's place in the gang made a certain amount of sense, but after a while, she really did lift right out.
2 She Becomes Inappropriate
There was never really a question about Phoebe being the most sexually adventurous of the crew (and the most adventurous in general), and of course she said some wild things - but as the show went on, she seemed to break this out at totally inappropriate moments. From singing to children about slaughterhouses to cursing a blue streak in front of Ben, to grabbing Rachel and kissing her, Phoebe's 'quirks' started to move from funny to inappropriate as the show went on, which was just an odd direction to go with her.
1 She Started Treating Her Friends As Lesser
Finally, Phoebe also started treating her friends badly - and that's something that just doesn't fly on a show literally called 'Friends'. Her laid-back nature faded away, and she yelled at her friends, patronized them, put them down... she literally pats Joey on the head, she calls Rachel a pushover and Monica high-maintenance, and (as mentioned previously) she delights in making Ross question his beliefs. Admittedly, they all seemed to get mean to each other over time, but this just wasn't charming at all.
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April 26, 2020 at 05:30AM
