Kermode & Mayo’s Take - CHANDLER BING: could it BE any more complicated? SHRINK THE BOX

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Ben and Nemone put Chandler from Friends on the famous Central Perk couch to talk about his phobia of commitment, his attachment patterns and how he feels about mum AND dad putting on a black dress and trying to seduce one of your best friends. Expect doses of sarcasm, celebrity cameos and Janice’s laughter peppered throughout. We want to hear about any theories we might have missed, what you’ve thought of the show so far and your character suggestions. Please drop the team an email (which may be part of the show): [e-mail] NEXT CLIENTS ON THE COUCH. Find out how to view here Sydney, The Bear (season 2) Tyrion, Game of Thrones (seasons 1&2). Alex and Bradley, The Morning Show (Season 1) Tasha, Orange is the New Black (season 2) Polly, Peaky Blinders (seasons 1&2) Reginald "Bubbles" Cousins, The Wire (Season 1) CREDITS We used clips from all seasons of Friends, available on Netflix. Starring Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing David Schwimmer as Ross Geller Courtney Cox as Monica Geller Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani Created by: David Crane and Marta Kauffman Written by: Ted Cohen and Andrew Reich, David Crane, Marta Kauffman, Scott Silveri, Shana Goldberg-Meehan et al. Directed by: Alan Myerson, Peter Bonerz, James Burrows, Kevin S. Bright Produced by: Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions and Warner Bros. Television Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts. To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, this is Simon and Mark here. Today Ben and Nimone are looking at Chandler Bin. He's the sarcastic, self-deprecating and commitment phobic one from Friends. I'm sure we all know a few people like that. A lot to dig into then. Enjoy the show. And please do set us your thoughts on the show

and suggestions for characters for Ben and Nimone to cover. To shrink the box at SonyMusic.com. I'm Susie Moss. Fourth grade, glasses. I used to carry around a box of animal crackers like a purse. Susie Moss. Fourth grade, glasses. I used to carry around a box of animal crackers like a purse. Susie Moss? Right, yeah, wow. You look...

great job growing up. Remember the class play? You pulled up my skirt and the entire auditorium saw my underpants. Ha ha ha. Yes, back then I used humor as a defense mechanism. Thank God I don't do that anymore. Ben Bailey Smith here. And I am the moment axis.

Could there be a more suitable place to put TV's most talked about characters into therapy than this? I don't know why I'm doing it in that tone. Actually I do. That's because... It's Bing-like. That's Bing delivery. And it's Bing Week. It's Bing Week. And of course, you know, shrinkers, you will know this but for any new listeners that have joined us, thank you very much for joining the gang. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, we will be psychoanalyzing the iconic characters of television and working out what makes them tick, what we can learn from it. I mean, what a great place for us to start with Chandler. Yeah, yeah. Because before we did Ross and Monica, siblings focus and I wasn't 100% sure that was going to be the depth there, but there totally was. And you know, Friends is almost twice as important in a way because it's so widely consumed. So what we learn about human behavior from Friends is actually probably more wide-reaching than a much

more deeper psychological drama that only a few people watch. I mean this Friends really has just grown and grown and grown and grown since it landed. Yes, monster. Well come on to that. I'm gonna. That's a moment of self-reflection from Chandler. In that opening clip? Yeah. Yeah. He's met this girl who obviously it doesn't sound like he recognizes initially at all. Played by Julia Roberts, Susie Moss, very old classmate of Chandler's.

And in that we can hear that he's only too aware of how he behaves. Around women, but just generally. Yeah, he's not a huge fan of himself, is he, Chandler? Not at all. But that's kind of the thing that makes him lovable. And I think, am I reaching it? I feel like he's most people's favourite character. He's my favourite character. Definitely my favourite character.

And probably because he's the funniest. And of course, when did Friends start? 1990. You ready Friends start? 1990. You ready for this? Four. So I was still a child, but old enough to get comedy, of course. You know, early teens. And I think heading into your teens, that sort of flavor of sarcasm and self-deprecation,

I think that's always going to speak to a younger audience. So maybe that's why he was my favorite. We'll ask people, tell us what you think. If he is your favorite character and if so, why? And how the others sort of fare against him. I mean, always we're keen to hear what you're thinking, what we've missed, how it's sounding, and what you think about the characters and their issues.

So please keep in touch. Shrink the box at SonyMusic.com. I think actually, let's mention before we get into Chandler, about Matthew Perry's death and the legacy of that. So, was this the only role that he was known for, Ben? I mean, I would say so. When you play iconic characters... It's very tough, isn't it?

Yeah. I guess the way to accept it is that you did such a good job that people just see you as that guy. I suppose the biggest shame is that we probably never saw his true potential because he was dealing with so many issues around his addiction outside of every day at work on Friends. So, you know, he probably never put himself in the position to go off and do something a bit more interesting or something else even funnier or more complex or whatever. It is utterly tragic. He died at 54 addicted to prescription painkillers from the age of 14, actually, after a jet skiing

accident according to his memoir. And we've since learned so much more about the devastation caused by the painkiller epidemic in the States and the UK. It is mad. He also talked about being routinely drunk and living in and out of rehab, actually filming the later episodes of Friends, which you've just alluded to. And I suppose that is testament to his skill in some way that you couldn't really tell that from watching. He was a master at masking. I mean he will be greatly missed and there is so much to talk about here. However

for this particular show we are going to focus on Chandler the character not Matthew Perry. Yeah that would be unfair for sure. But it would have felt remiss I think not to name-check the man who gave Chandler his heart. Yeah big time. Yeah great greatly missed and there we go. Rest in peace, Matthew Perry. On with the show. We're going to find out why Chandler is so down on himself and why him and Monica visit a Las Vegas drag night and why in God's name does he keep going back to Janis and that voice. If you're one of those rare people who hasn't watched most of Friends,

or at least, you know, enough Friends to know about what the deal is, then we will be giving some stuff away. No one gets murdered though, you know, there's no... No, if you're... But actually, am I wrong? I might be wrong actually. Well, none of the principal cast. No, okay. Six Friends that start and they... Huge shockers, yeah.

But there will be some level of spoilers, so look out for that. But welcome, as ever, to Shrink the Box. Alright, so for some of us, and the moment myself for sure, friends was a lifetime ago. So here's a quick look at the character arc of Mr. Bing. So we meet him as a young, awkward, sort of commitment-phobe. He's living with his best friend, Joey. He's an old classmate of Ross's, college mate, I think, of Ross's. His thing is like hanging around with his friends, awkward encounters with various women. And we see him and Monica

have a little frisson. They go from sleeping together in secret to revealing to their friends that they are in love. And Chandler chases his dream of becoming a copywriter. And they end up settling in the burbs and adopt twins. Jack and Erica. That's a spoiler-laden intro to Mr. B. I was going to say, I mean, give some away. We've given it all away.

That's it. That's everything. So we've got all that in our heads. Nimone, tell us a bit more about your client. He is a male living in New York, mid to late 20s into mid 30s, of course, because we follow friends through a decade or so. Single then married to Monica, very single to begin with. Aggressively single. And then ends up married to Monica. Now his job title

initially is statistical analysis and data reconfiguration into copywriting. That's his kind of career arc which of course Rachel and Monica can't remember when they're doing the quiz to hold on to the flat they've managed to bet the flat against Joey and Chandler as collateral. And we're gonna cover some key episodes because of course we cannot cover... Each series is something like 24 episodes. Yeah. Times that by... We've got a lot of ground to cover.

So Chandler Bing walks into your office. What are you thinking are the first sort of bells that might ring for you? Because I'm imagining he... I don't know why I imagine it. I guess because he is quite open about him being down on himself and whatnot. But I don't know how open he'd be walking into the room. I don't know how much he wants to dig into why that is. No, but I think you'd notice that wouldn't you? I think you've nailed it in terms of self-loathing, the self-deprecation, the idea that he's going to use himself humorously to kind of counteract any feelings of inferiority or...

I think you'd get a pretty clear idea of that early on, even if he doesn't want to delve deep below the surface. And we see in one of the episodes, this really writ large when he has this kind of, well, he feels a real connection with one of the neighbors to Rachel and Phoebe. I mean, this self-loathing, we hear a lot in therapy and it's time to get curious about what it means for that person. So I would definitely be interested in that with him. Do they believe that about themselves?

There are harsh critical voices in the landscape somewhere, for sure. But it's Mr. Heckels who lives below Rachel and Monica. Yeah, I was going to say Rachel and Phoebe. And he's always complaining that they're making too much noise. And Heckels dies. He gives the contents of his flat to Monica and Rachel, which initially they think, oh that's so kind, we've obviously, you know, had a real impact on this guy's life. But it becomes obvious that actually it's a task because he was a hoarder and he's kept everything. And so clearing it out though, it becomes obvious to Chandler that he and Heckles were very similar in their formative years. And it sends Chandler into a kind of spiral. Look at this. Pictures of all the women that Heckles went out with.

Look what he wrote on them. Vivian, too tall. Madge, big gums. Too loud. Too smart. Makes noise when she eats. This is me. This is what I do.

I'm going to end up alone just like he did. Chandler, Heckles was a nutcase. Our trains are on the same track, okay? Yeah, sure, I'm coming up 30 years behind him, but the stops are all the same. Bittertown, Aloneville, Hermit Junction. If we did classic Chandler and classic Bing delivery, like you said. And I think in identifying with this older, loner neighbor, it's clear that he believes his inner voices. They chime with the feelings that he has about himself.

Critical voices, he's not good enough for anyone. The projecting that onto the women that he meets, i.e. they're not good enough for him, and we'll come onto that later in the projection. It's too painful to confront that fear that would come from integrating the bits he hates in himself with those that he feels okay about. Commitment issues kind of coming to a head there. I think it's fascinating and I think a lot of people, myself included, can

relate. It's not necessarily straightforward just being like championing yourself is it? No, I mean there will have been incidents, there will have been things happen, there will be moments where a child makes sense of the world in a way that it's too difficult or dangerous to consider that the people around them aren't as good as they'd like them to be and therefore it's easier to make themselves bad and they kind of blame themselves really and that can be where that feeling of I'm bad I'm not good enough it's my fault can come from. And that can last a lifetime if left unaddressed. Well it

feels really real. Yeah. So it will because remember again we're talking about internal world versus IRL. And in the internal world, that is the absolute reality. I am bad. I am to blame. That's the only way that this story makes sense. And it takes quite a lot of time and careful unpeeling to sort of just to consider with someone whether that really is the case.

Chandler, he has this view of his parents' marriage, right? Which might have played into some of the way he feels about himself. I mean, it might have come from believing that he wasn't good enough to save his parents' marriage, that in some way he could have saved them, and that actually the breakdown was his fault. He might have had to make himself bad to explain their disagreements and arguments and then of course we'd be thinking about this object relations, good enough, good versus bad, good parent versus bad parent.

Those critical voices and superego form from the rules that we make in the world to keep us safe, all the ones we use to make sense of the world. When we're little, and of course we don't have as much information then, and we are the center of our own universe. So that circles back to this kind of omnipotence. Because of course when you look with an adult head, you're going, of course you're not in charge of that. Of course you can't possibly be to blame for this.

As a little child in that, you haven't got the wider lens to go, oh they're really not getting on and that is nothing to do with me. It feels like it's everything to do with you and that you in some way could... So I'm guessing back when Chandler was a kid, obviously he didn't have that way to share. He doesn't seem like he was the most popular kidders in the world. Well, we can think about that as well in terms of how he was using Schumer. Definitely. And all of these are defence mechanisms, in a way, they're ways to protect ourselves. So, and sometimes those are thought of as bad, must get rid of these defence mechanisms.

If only I could kind of break down those critical voices or lose them or the world will be different. But I mean, we often consider it's not about breaking those down at all, but understanding and bringing awareness to them and noticing that they might not be necessary anymore as a safety mechanism. We're bigger now. We can take care of ourselves, we have got a wider lens with which to view the world and understand the responsibility of whatever's happening doesn't only lie with us. And we might be able to make different choices about the way we live our lives. People aren't as scary as they first appear. And I might actually be able to get close without the fear of the other. But particularly for Chandler, he might not have been bad or responsible for his parents' marriage breakdown. And I think subsequently as been bad or responsible for his parents' marriage breakdown. And I think subsequently as we watch him be with his parents as they head towards marriage

or as he heads towards marriage with Monica, she sort of helps him to realize that he is separate from that. Whatever happened to them didn't actually have anything to do with him. What could Ross and Rachel and everybody do to help with this self-loathing, you know? The show is called Friends, right? And it's a big warm hug at the end of the day. And there is a strong message out there, this thinly veiled. In a way, the very existence of the Friends for Chandler is what helps in the end.

He has gathered a family that he didn't have when he was younger. He's surrounded himself by people that he, if he can't be vulnerable immediately, he feels like there might be a possibility of being vulnerable with, where he can be himself, where he can be accepted, where he does feel supported. And the friendship between him and Joey is just lovely and bonkers. It doesn't feel like it's going to break down necessarily and there's less chance of him feeling abandoned, which is effectively the feelings that he came out of childhood with. And I think it probably helps as well doesn't it that Joey is a bit, what's the polite way

of saying it, kind of slow on the uptake. Well they fulfill roles don't they for each other and there's no... He fulfills a specific role in that group and they love him for it and that gives him confidence. I mean, their very being, just the way they are, accepting of him, is good enough. Alright, well, after the break we're going to dig a little deeper into Chandler's childhood and how that might have influenced how we see him, how we meet him in friends, and also why he's so rubbish when it comes to women. I'm obviously thinking of Channis. Oh Channis. Amongst others. All right, so let's take a quick break. Unless you're a shrinker, one

of our special shrinker subscribers, of course, we're not going to go anywhere. Otherwise, we'll be back in just a few minutes. Before we do that, Nimone, do you know what Channis' middle name is? No. I'll tell you after the break. Go on then. In France in the 13th century a teenager ascends the throne. He seems calm, collected, and as it happens, drop dead gorgeous. But looks can be deceiving,

and no one is ready for the death, destruction, and chaos that lie ahead. Step inside the reign of one of the Middle Ages most cold-blooded rulers on This Is History Presents, The Iron King, available wherever you get your podcasts. I had an experience once with somebody who wanted to, like role play, like with relatives stuff. No. Yes.

No, that's a hard pass. And I said, they first said like dad, daddy. And I said- Well, that's not so bad. But so I suggested maybe like, I said daddy. And I said, um... Well, that's not so bad. But, um, so I suggested maybe, like, I said maybe the most I could do was uncle. -♪ HIP HOP MUSIC PLAYING. -♪ Okay, so that was just a snippet of an episode

with actor and podcaster Justin Long. I'm Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and I'm telling you, you need to listen to the full episode on my podcast, Dinner's on Me. Over a meal at Pine and Crane in downtown L.A., we get into his love story with Kate Bosworth, his career, and so much more. Alright, we are back. Nimone, Chandler's middle name is Muriel. What?

Muriel. Chandler Muriel Bing. Excellent. How about that? I must have known that at some point. Yeah, it's just one of the many pointless facts I have floating in the back of my useless brain. Look at that.

Excellent. Alright, so Chandler Muriel Bing's childhood. What do we know? How long have you got? Actually, we do know a substantial amount. We've got about 45 minutes, Matt. I know. I'm going to be quick.

Sony, you're very serious. All right. I'm going to be fast about this. It is apparent throughout Friends that Chandler has had what they're considering as an unusual upbringing with his parents breaking up, his mom having affairs with their house staff and a seemingly absent father who went to for a drag act. Yeah, in Vegas. And Chandler mentions variously how hard he had it as a teen.

And maybe this could allude to the issues of commitment and his incessant use of humor to cover up real life issues. And you really get that that had an impact on him. Him really feeling the difference between his parents and what might have been happening in other households around him. In season seven, episode 22, so this is the one with Chandler's dad, we learn more about the father-son relationship.

And it's Monica who really questions Chandler about, well, I haven't had an RSVP for the wedding from dad. And then Chandler reveals that he hasn't invited him with one of his usual quips. Trust me, you don't want him there either. Nobody will be staring at the bride when the father of the groom is wearing a backless dress. So he kind of lands that on us. And this gives us even more of a clue to how he might have felt upstaged by his dad in

his early years, in his shadow almost. Difficult for him to be the star in his own life. And obviously generally we know that parents can make a fuss of their children and they become the kind of center of attention, not always, but can often. And actually that some of that is really helpful and useful in terms of growth and development. And does Chandler know what it's like to take center stage? Doesn't always sound like it. When I was in high school, he used to come to all of my swim meets dressed as a different Hollywood starlet. It was hard enough to be 14. You're skinny, you're wearing speedos

that your mom promised you would grow into. And you look up into the stands and there's your dad cheering you on, dressed as Carmen Miranda. He's wearing a headdress with real fruit that he will later hand out to your friends as a healthy snack. Hey, the point is that he was at every one of your swim meets and he was there cheering you on, okay? That's a pretty great dad. He had sex with Mr. Garibaldi.

Who's Mr. Garibaldi? Does it matter? I still love that Monica is really trying to, you know, unveil this. Find the positives. Yeah, exactly. Kind of show him that he did have a really caring dad, which of course he does. But Chandler also has a lot of feelings, like he's demonstrated there, about being an awkward 14-year-old.

But unlike the other awkward 14-year-olds that he was surrounded by, his dad was handing out fruit from his Karma Miranda outfit at Swim Meet. It would have killed him at the time, as you know what boys would have been like. Oh you can hear, he's ashamed. And this is the 90s, he would be talking about school which would have been the 80s. Yes. Where, you know, it's not every day you're gonna see a dad in the bleachers cross-dressing. No. This show obviously isn't gonna deal with any of these issues in a really delicate or

nuanced way that we might do with everything that we've learnt about each other and progressiveness that we share in 2024. But what is factual I think is, is the 80s. This is the 80s. Different time. I mean I remember, my dad was so much older than me, that he would never be at these events because he was tired, you know. He never picked me up.

And when he did, people would go, is that your granddad? And the shame that I felt just at that. If you look at kind of, well, 11, 12, 13, 14, kids desperately want to be the same. Yeah, you just, you don't want anything to make you stand out. One bad haircut. Oh. Barber doesn't do your hair in the way that the rest of your friends have got your hair. My secondary school had no uniform. Killer.

They had no uniform. Yeah, so if you're poor, good luck. Well, just generally being dressed in a different way. Oh, it's the worst. I had cloth kits in the 70s. They didn't matter as much. I had no grand names, nothing. In the 90s it was, ah, suffering. So we can feel Chandler's shame.

Yeah, definitely. And how difficult it was for him to reconcile that, albeit his dad might have been there, it was beyond embarrassing. And actually he didn't feel supported in that moment. Yeah. When we actually finally meet his dad, he's played by Kathleen Turner. Quite mad, isn't it? I know.

Don't know if that would happen in 2024. I mean, I was curious about this casting. And it is never made explicit if Chandler's dad is now trans woman. I just don't think it was ever thought about that deeply, you know, because up until this point it's a comedic tool that you use. Remember when we were talking about Frasier? It's funny, even though it's quite disturbing Niles's relationship with Maris.

It's funny because she's never there. So you can always tell a ridiculous story about this person who doesn't really exist that we never see. Yeah. So, you can always tell a ridiculous story about this person who doesn't really exist that we never see. Yeah. You know, so it would be something, some ridiculous illness that she's got or that she's just standing in a corner facing the wall. She's been there all day.

It's actually quite disturbing, but because they're not there, it's a classic comic can see these stories are ridiculous. Oh, the other day, the other day. And it's the same with the stories of Chana's dad. Yeah. It's all for cotton. So I think by the time they got to that stage, they were like, oh shit, we actually have to come up with something. Exactly. And how are we going to represent Chandler's dad? So I'm not surprised. It was probably a little clunky or clumsy. I mean, he also says in

the episode I mentioned before, here's a question I never thought I'd have to ask. My dad just called me and asked me if he could borrow one of your pearl necklaces. Yeah, he's definitely more of a, if you've got it flaunt it kind of father. And again, this alludes to his father dressing, cross dressing, as you mentioned, not sure that definition of, yeah, maleness and enjoying dressing up in women's clothing or whether that's a particular sexuality or it just isn't made clear. And I think you're right to point out the time that this is happening in Chandler does reveal that his dad tried to get in contact with him a lot over the years, but he always said he was too busy again, underlining the fact that he is, he

doesn't know how to relate to him on lots of levels he might not want to and it wasn't properly addressed the difference perhaps the breakup and Chandler has avoided it too. It sounds like he had a dad who tried back from going to see him at sporting events to you know calling him up trying to rekindle he definitely cared. And I think that points to the level of pain that Chandler experiences not having the kind of dad that he would have desired. And of course that we talked about with Fraser in the first episode of this podcast. It's the idealized dad and

It's the idealized dad and Kathleen Turner as dad performing drag in Vegas is so far from the dad that Chandler would have loved. It's mad, isn't it? You can't, you don't get the choice. You get the parents you get. You don't get the parents you want. Regardless of what you think you want, you are the person you are, partly because of those parents that you did or didn't want. So if you can find beauty in yourself or strengthen yourself where other people can, then technically that should make it slightly easier. Isn't that what we start to see with Monica, I think, around this wedding invite, around this, I mean, making the trip to Vegas is really her move to go, come on Chandler, your dad not being at your wedding, really, do you want that? And this sort of olive branch.

And I think throughout, from then on, we see Chandler mellow towards his dad, regardless of his parents' behavior at the wedding. And that's another warm hug from friends, isn't it? All right, let's have another quick break and then we'll have a bit of a deeper dive into the connection between Chandler being avoidant with his father and his relationships with women. Avoidant full stop. So we'll see you after the break.

["Shrink the Books"] Shrink the Books is back for a brand new season. This is the podcast where we put our favourite fictional TV characters into therapy. Join me, Ben Bailey-Smith and our brand new psychotherapist Nimone Metaxas. Hi Ben, yes this season we're going to be putting the likes of Tommy from Peaky Blinders, Cersei from Game of Thrones on the couch to learn why their behaviour creates so much drama.

So make sure you press the follow button to get new episodes as soon as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Shring the Box is a Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. The Frankies were a picture-perfect influencer family, but everything wasn't as it seemed. I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here asking for help. He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs. Ruby Frankie is his mom's name. Infamous is covering Ruby Frankie, the world of Mormonism, and a secret therapy group that ruined lives. Listen to Infamous

wherever you get your podcasts. casts. And we're back. Now look, until he settles down with Monica, Chandler's success with women is, it's pretty low down there. What's behind this? It's also how we're defining success, isn't it? What does he want? Does he want a bit of fun?

Does he want... bit of fun? Yeah, weird phrase. He seems to want love and to be loved, but I think maybe the main thing is he wants it all to be this sort of picture perfect thing, which is never going to be. As we heard in the clip about Mr. Heckles, you know, the things he's listing about women, big gums. Big gums. Heckles, you know, the things he's listing about women, big gums, big gums. Big gums. I mean, anyway. So, it's interesting that we meet friends, isn't it? We meet the friends in their mid-20s, because they are moving from a stage of dating and not necessarily serious relationships

into something with more depth that perhaps would head towards having a family or settling down or moving in together. That's the period we're kind of meeting them in. And... It's just a scary period. It's... Because you're sort of a kiddo, aren't you? Like back when we were in our twenties, do you remember how many relationships suddenly ended? And it was because it's like, like if we stay together another year, then we have to talk about houses or marriage or kids

or all three. It's a tricky time. Tricky time. And we see Chandler can commit to his job, can commit to his best friends, but the relationships, romantic relationships at depth he struggles with. And like we said, he doesn't really like himself. And we see this is going to be difficult for him then to believe that someone else might like him or that it's just okay to be how he is. Yeah. I love episode seven from season one when he gets locked in the cashpoint machine hallway.

You know those cashpoints that are inside you have to take the door. So they've gone in, him and a famous model, Victoria's Secrets model. And within the first few minutes we hear Chandler's inner monologue telling himself off and he cannot imagine being successful with her. Oh my god. I am trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre. Is it a vestibule? Maybe it's an atrium.

Oh yeah, that is the part to focus on you idiot. Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just stuck at the bank. At an ATM, vestibule. Jill says vestibule? I'm going with vestibule. You see, already, he's... Already, the power is completely with Jill,

even though she doesn't know it. And he starts to second-guess himself. The level of anxiety is really rising for him. And we return to Chandler and Jill being locked throughout that episode, and everything he does, he criticises himself for it, as we hear his inner monologue. Which again, I'm guessing is a great tool as a writer. Absolutely is the best. You know, it's been used and abused over the years, but occasionally it's...

I mean, it's always useful, because you can just move really quickly with plot and with character development. But occasionally it's used in a genius way. So I'm thinking probably the godfather of it is the early scene in Annie Hall when they first meet Artie and Annie and they're on that balcony. And the conversation starts to dwindle. And then you see subtitles come up for what they're really thinking. And I think that is really the godfather of so many great comic situations just like this one. And so he's going for women.

This is a Victoria's Secret model in his head, of course, way out of his league. Unavailable seems to be his go-to. I mean, that definitely gives him an out, doesn't it? For why it's worked out. Because he actively dislikes availability. Yeah, absolutely. And this again, sort of tangled up with this idea of projection. He's outsourcing his self-hatred to others, women in this case. He's projecting the parts of himself that he doesn't like onto them, into them.

They can hold the bad and that allows him to momentarily believe that he's, oh no, I'm kind of, I'm okay in this situation. It's just that I don't like that about them. That's why it can't work. Yeah. But of course we see this doesn't last. Yeah, of course, Janice. You mentioned her earlier. I mean, everyone.

I'd forgotten about Janice. Yeah, it's hard to forget. I'd forgotten the laugh. Once you hear that voice, you know, everybody knows she's not right for him. Chandler seems to know, but he keeps going back and she doesn't treat him very well. Well, the way she talks about him, like he's a sort of baby that she kind of owns or pet or something. Well, she might have nailed it actually, because some of his behavior is coming from quite a young place. That's true. And in Janice's eyes, I'm going to mother you, I'm going to be the person who you're

looking for to validate and allow you this to feel more comfortable. And in some ways she can and she does. But I also think this back and forth for Chandler is his romantic ambivalence. Right. And we see it throughout his on-off relationship with Janice. Well, I'm divorced. Wow. Yeah, I'm riding the alimony pony.

And there it is. I just came up to say hi. Hi. And you, sweetie, I'll see you later. Okay. I'll see you tonight. Okay, bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. I can't stand the woman. What?

I thought you were crazy about her. I know, but you know all those little annoying things that she did before we fell in love, you know? Like her voice and her laugh and her personality. They're all back, you know all those little annoying things that she did before we fell in love? You know, like her voice and her laugh and her personality. They're all back, you know? And she's picked up like nine new ones. So what are you doing bringing her here? There's people here!

Don't worry about it. I'm taking care of it tonight. You are not. You have never been able to break up with her. There's even one point where he gets back with her and pretends that he's got a job in Yemen. All the way to the airport he goes. Well it doesn't stop there, Ben. I mean he cannot be the bad object in this moment. And we see frequently that he can't bear for Janice to cry. So the thought that he could inflict the kind of pain which is all too familiar to him in someone else is unconscionable. So he will deliver something, then the tears come and then he kind of backtracks

to make it better because to sit with Janice's pain and his own pain is too difficult. I know it's a knockabout comedy but that's such a real situation. There's so many countless relationships around the world where someone's staying in it because they don't want to hurt the other person. And look at the responsibility he's taking on himself there. I am responsible for her happiness, again from quite a young place,

which takes us full circle back to, if I'm responsible for my parents' happiness and they're breaking up, I must have messed up monumentally, therefore I'm bad. So this chimes again with his inner world. Even as we move forward deeper into the series, you know, him and Monica, it looks like it's actually going to happen. But he still has huge doubts, even though this is a person that he can 100% count on as a friend, she's one of the core group of friends.

It's a great start really for a relationship. They know so much about each other's ups and downs and foibles and vulnerabilities and strengths. But yet he's still more than once, numerous times, he's not sure about this. It's not linear, this development, is it? I mean, how annoying is that? But that's what we see is this ambivalence again and this tentative putting a foot forward into commitment or an area that might end up with some deeper commitment to Monica. I mean, again, season seven, episode 23 says, yep, from now on, it's going to be the four of us, you guys,

me and the missus, the little woman and the old ball and chain, the young hot ball and chain. Maybe there's more pressure. Maybe it's even more pressure for it to be a really good friend. There's huge risk in Chandler in this relationship, as well as huge reward. And that's what we'll often find. He's really struggling at this point with the commitment. And it gives us even more insight into the struggle to commit and finally trying to relate at depth in this case with Monica. Because part of him does not believe it's possible. And that's the superego again, which will get stronger the more we dare ourselves

to behave differently. That superego will snap back stronger to protect us from the feeling of shame or the idea that we can destroy things or from any of the feelings we'll fantasize behave differently. That separego will snap back stronger to protect us from the feeling of shame or the idea that we can destroy things or from any of the feelings we'll fantasize that will come from this kind of commitment. You know, we see it again to the, you know, I thought we screwed you up so badly, his parents say, and this day would never come and soon just to think... In terms of them getting married. Yeah. And soon there will be lots of little bings And you can see Chandler, I mean, he's terrified in this moment.

Ross does it to him again with the toast. To the bings! I mean, this idea of the bings, you can see Chandler flinch at. And I think that... It's interesting. You know, he comes from the bings and the bings didn't work for him. Well, the bings, we see the bings. Create new bings.

Well, that's it. Is it possible to break out this pattern? I mean, Chandler's massively freaked out when he hears Monica's voicemail. That's where he first encounters the bings. Because she says, if you're phoning at this point, we're still Monica and Chandler with their surnames. If you're phoning after a certain date, you've reached the bings. Which point, up until now, he's going,

Mon, I thought I'd be freaking out at this point and I'm not. And that's what does it. Because of what that represents and how awful his parents were to each other, as we later hear, so he kind of regresses to this old framework for protection. It's safer. He's terrified by the prospect of commitment and marrying and potentially breaking up this group of friends. And in this, he's not actually trying to save himself, but both of them from becoming his parents.

It's a hugely protective move, even though that's not what it looks like at all. Much safer to exit from this situation and save everybody a lot of pain. Or as we find out when Joey and Phoebe track him down, to find out he's related to Monica so he can't actually marry her, than to go through with this. We get the real sense of fear and how terrifying it is in that moment. It's close to the annihilation of self. If I go further down this road, it will be destructive, it will be painful. I won't recover from it and I don't think anybody else will.

Or I don't believe that's possible. Like, I mean, we see it later in episode 24. Okay, now come on. We're going home. No, no, no. I can't do that. Why not? Because if I go home, we're going to become the Bings. I can't be the Bings. What's wrong with being the Bings?

The Bings have horrible marriages. They yell, they fight, and they use the pool boy as a pawn in their sexual games. Taylor, have you ever put on a black cocktail dress and asked me up to your hotel room? No. Then you are neither of your parents. He's a genius. And you are neither of your parents. He's a genius. That's really well done considering it's, you know, quite a dark moment.

It's this proper tragic comedy, isn't it? Because you really feel the pathos of it, but equally Ross brings this lightness to it. He's so fearful of repeating the patterns of his parents Chandler is, because he lived the fallout he will protect at all costs. And that makes finding a new pattern or finding a new way of relating really difficult and in some ways really dangerous. And that's what it feels like, dangerous in the system, in our nervous system, in our

bodies. And sometimes you have to dare yourself to try. It's so painful. In the internal world it feels really dangerous, but if we try these things IRL, it can be liberating because it's never as bad as we feared or felt it might be. Yeah, I think that works with most things, I would say. Apart from jumping out of a plane, I did that once

to try and confront my fear of heights. It didn't work at all. But most things we. Apart from jumping out of a plane, I did that once to try and confront my fear of heights. It didn't work at all. But most things we're not facing jumping out of a plane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think most times that works. And deflecting with humour, like I just did from my own shortcomings. What can we conclude about that? Chandler makes everything into a joke.

Interestingly, even more so, especially with those closest to him, when there's a chance of an authentic exchange or a risk of feeling vulnerable. And I got curious about whether he tried to deflect the pain of his parents relationship breaking down by trying to make everyone laugh. You know it was painful in the moment but actually what he was able to do was bring the humor that lightened the mood. That might have been a real tool for him and that's something he's carried through his life. I also am curious about his suppressed anger and about the shame that kicks in from perhaps not feeling like he belongs to a group, like we alluded to earlier, so you know, most 14 year olds' parents aren't going to turn up and dress as Carmen Miranda. He would feel a real sense of shame and not belonging to the group that he would desperately want to belong to.

And projection, one of the reasons he might be avoidant with women is just an inability to risk that intimacy and vulnerability. If we think about Chandler's dad as he's presented and mum, who we meet at the wedding as well, it doesn't feel like there might have been much room for his emotional vulnerability as a child. And also, in risking vulnerability, you have to go through disappointment because it doesn't always go your way. And if that's not landed in you, it can be terrifying or the prospect of disappointment can also be terrifying. If you're not used to sitting with your feelings, it can be much safer to avoid those situations that might activate them or that you might realize, oh yeah, I really wanted

that, but I'm not going to get it. But if you're the funniest person in the room, if you're constantly using humor to deflect these complex feelings, it invites attention of a different kind, isn't it? Like, is there anything surprising? I don't know in the fact that he's got so many of these things he's shame for, he feels shame about, that make him want to hide in real terms and in, you know, emotional terms. And yet, he'll be the funniest person in the room, which is going to bring a spotlight upon him. It's going to have everybody looking at him. It's a kind of momentary release for him, isn't it? Because he's not gone on to, he's not taken that onto the stage.

He's not become a stand-up comedian. I mean, we could kind of... He's doing this in his personal life. If we get a fictional stand-up comedian, perhaps we can think about what's actually coming from the sustained attention that might come from using humour as a defence. But for Chandler, it really is momentary. That laughter is his, I think it probably, in a roundabout way, calms his nervous system for a moment.

And I suppose it's ironic that with all this insecurity around relationships and the nature of relationships, he's got this incredible support network. He's surrounded by five people who genuinely love and care for him. And they show that in different ways. That is demonstrative of how important your support network is to him. It can be to us when we don't believe in ourselves. And we might need to see others believe in us to start to believe in ourselves.

We kind of hear that he didn't have that from his parents. And he's gathered a family and friends that can do that for him in adult life. Where he perhaps couldn't always accept the support of his own folks because of the shame. Right, so we're back to reciprocity again. Because in so many of our programmes we see characters building their own family. Back to connection, aren't we? And how that feels.

So we've kind of been in isolation with Chandler and now we're coming back to, you know, the relationships that he desperately tries to avoid because he fears breaking them or that it's going to be too difficult, he desperately wants as well. And trying to either build what he didn't have or building the same and expecting a different result. I mean, that can be painful, but can be hugely rewarding. It can be very validating and life-affirming to gather the people around us who allow us to foster some of the resilience in a kind of redevelopment way. You know, that we didn't get the first time around or that there wasn't enough bandwidth

surrounding the people that we were with growing up in primary care. It's for all kinds of reasons. I mean, there's no blame attached to this. I guess we're just looking, bringing awareness to what that first environment might have been like, what might have been missing. So he may not have been mirrored. Our anger might not have been welcome, digested or dissipated, might not have been allowed or recognized as a force for good. You know, oh, you feel angry. It means you don't like it, what are you going to do about it? And we might meet robust characters in life who can allow the space for a different kind of relating. And with Chandler, he's got that with his friends.

Yeah, no one told him life was going to be this way. Alright, who's going to be on the show next week? Nemone, who's our next client? I'm glad you don't know. I'm ashamed of that joke. No one told you life was going to be this way. I probably do. Your job's a joke. You're broke.

No. Love life's DOA. Oh yes. It's like we're always stuck in second gear. Honestly. Sometimes my brain is... I feel like it hasn't been your day, your week, your month or... Even your year!

Even your year! Who have we got next week? This is the sort of show where everyone says you have to watch this. It's only had two seasons and this year it cleaned up at the Grammys. We need them to approve all of our new business paperwork and then they'll send a rep and that rep will sign off on another rep who will come and look at stuff and then sign off on a different rep. How many reps is that? Many. A lot. A lot of reps. Yeah. But it's gonna be okay, you know? All we have to do is just stay calm and make sure...

Stop! Sydney! Fuck! What was that? Oh, I fell through a wall. Good morning. The bear! We're actually gonna do season two, right? Yeah, yeah.

So who are we gonna focus on? Sydney. Yes! Alright. Season two, right? Yeah, yeah. So who are we going to focus on? Sydney. Yes! Alright. Season two this time, Sydney is such a brilliant character. Loads going on and so many of you have asked us to do a whole episode on her. We will look at why Sydney thrives on this high octane lifestyle. What's powering her?

Is it the grief of her mother dying or trying to prove something to her father who we see much more in season two? Sydney's low self-esteem, how she overcomes it and of course the possible codependent relationship with Carmy and Sydney. Because of course there's a kind of freeze-on between them-ish. Jason Vale Yeah and we've been alluding to season three of The Bear. It is in fact dropping on 27th of June. It might have dropped already if you listen to this a few days after we publish it. There will be 10 half-hour episodes in total and they will all be available to watch on Disney Plus if you have access to that. And I've heard Will Porter's back as well as Chef Luca, which is exciting.

I am there. Excellent. Thanks Ben, it's like we planned it. We would be so chuffed if you could follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Music. Wherever you get your pods to get new EPs, join the team, tell your friends. It's massively appreciated. To all our new listeners this week and beyond, thank you for joining us. And to our shrinkers, our esteemed shrinkers who have subscribed to Extra Takes. Now that is, that's a path that I would highly recommend because you're going to get the show ad free and ad free episodes of Kermode and Mayo's Take

as well as access to their weekly bonus episodes. So you can try it out with a free trial. Click try free at the top of the Shrink the Box show page on Apple Podcasts or by visiting extra takes dot com. Production management is Lily Hambly, the assistant producer, Scarlett O'Malley. Studio engineer is Matthias Taurus-Solos, senior producer, Selena Ream and executive producer, Simon Paul.