miscommunication in Friends :TV series

 

Miscommunication occurs often between characters in TV shows and is used as entertainment for the audience. Just recently I was watching an episode of the famous comedy show Friends. A show about 6 friends living and working in New York City: Rachel Green, Monica Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing and Ross Geller. They all have unique characteristics that make them so much more enjoyable to watch. They encounter several situations in their lives that are made to look hilarious and you just can’t stop watching.

The episode that I watched was called “The One with Ross and Monica’s Cousin”, from season seven and let me tell you it was absolutely hysterical. By the title you can tell that both Ross and Monica’s (who are brother and sister) cousin Casey, who they have not seen in years, comes to visits them in New York. Casey is a very attractive young women and it’s hard for people to keep their eyes off her. Chandler (Monica’s Fiancé) is distracted by Casey’s good looks so Monica tells Ross to let Casey stay at his place. When Casey arrives at Ross’ place Ross is taken back by her beauty and feels attracted to her, which he knows is wrong. She is his cousin for god’s sake. Ross tries to control himself from not doing anything perverted and does his best to take away nasty thoughts in his head.

This is when the miscommunication between the two characters comes in. Ross thinks that Casey is giving him “signals” to tell him to make a move on her. He tells himself that what he is thinking in his head is wrong. But then he considers that, she’s the one who wanted to open a bottle of wine,  she’s the one that dimed the lights in the room and that she wanted to watch on of the sexiest movies ever. She does some a hand gesture that Ross takes the wrong way. For example, Casey puts her arm over Ross’ shoulder to get a blanket.  With that Ross decides to make a move on his own cousin. He goes in for a kiss, but Casey pushes him away asking him what he was thinking. Ross now was in a bad position and made it worse by saying “I haven’t had sex for a long time.”

Ross was being misled by his own cousin, but really she was just being nice and enjoying herslf. The communication was not clear between the two characters. The miscommunication made Ross look like a pervert making him regret his actions that he did towards his cousin. Many other TV series develop episodes that regard miscommunication between characters. Many viewers find this to be engaging .Miscommunication occurs in other places in our society too such as reading a text message or misunderstanding a song.  This is one example that I thought to be funny. You have to love Friends, it’s one of the most hilarious shows ever.