I dunno - haven't really been watching the season. Rachel was offered a job in Paris - she was going there.
Ah. Thanks. Sounds like Emma didn't have anything to do with this denouement? Like, was she with Rachel as she was going to Paris? Was Rachel going without her? Etc.
I'd thought that Emma would be a big part of the big reconciliation, they have a child together yadda yadda...
Okay, here are some details and observations:
* Rachel was getting on the plane, but Emma was at her mother's, who was supposed to go to Paris the following week. Rachel didn't seem to be too broken up about the fact that she and Emma (1 year old) would be apart for a week. Wouldn't most somewhat new mothers be a bit nutty about such things?
* Mike was in, briefly, and then just disappeared. Okay, fine, they want the last bit to be just with the 6 main cast members, but newlyweds aren't apart that much. So, weird. Also, if Mike was in the picture at the end, it could have better highlighted the fact (which they are using to build a whole new show around) that Joey is the only one of them who has not moved on.
* There was a whole long bit about the new chick and duck, and Monica breaking up the foosball table. Uh, so what? I suppose it was meant to give LeBlanc and Perry a chance to act together, but the premise was silly. I think there are other things they could have done.
* Erica (the teenaged mother, her baby was being adopted by Chandler and Monica) didn't know she was having twins? And was too stupid to realize they'd named the daughter (which they kept calling "the girl baby". Huh?) after her. Sorry, but folks who are that dumb can barely tie their own shoes. Didn't fly.
* Ben was mentioned briefly, but he hasn't been on all season, neither have Carol and Susan. Hello? Ross is a noncustodial parent. Ben, like Emma, is a forgotten prop.
* No word was mentioned of the allegedly fabulous job that Rachel was just trashing. Huh? Not even, oops, I should call my new boss and apologize. Totally not real.
* Chandler's jokes in the delivery room were probably meant to be at least slightly edgy (hey, they used to talk about sex a lot! Until sex automatically meant babies!), but it came off as dumb. He's had much better lines, pretty much all along; it made no sense that the writers failed him, although at least he got in the last word, which was also the last bittersweet joke. Since Monica apparently said the first words in the pilot, that makes for an interesting full circle.
* I'm not a fan of Phoebe, but at least her character was basically true at the end. None of the others seemed to have been - Chandler's smartness was dumbed down, Monica's efficiency was replaced by cooing, Ross's quiet heroism was replaced (until the very end) by too much hemming and hawing (even Gunther was more decisive), etc. Joey was somewhat removed and didn't do anything memorable, and Rachel had lost her snap.
Actually, when Ross confronted Rachel at the airport and tried to get her to stay, when she left anyway, I thought for a split second, that's good, that's more real and a twist, let it be that she's come full circle from Daddy's little spoiled dependent girl to an independent woman who's off to change her life. But no, they bring her back, because they couldn't resist handing over a happy ending to the audience's demands.
A scenario I was hoping for, actually, was for Rachel and Ross to be getting married, and for the last scene to show Rachel escaping the wedding through the bathroom window. Now THAT would have been a full circle.
When I stop to think about it, I would have written the same show but hopefully with some funnier lines (they were running out of steam on that one but what do you expect after ten years?)
