The One with Game of Thrones
"Got the beer!" Joey proclaimed, a little out of breath and somewhat overexcited. "We ready for this?"
"Dude, what took so long! Did you go to Spain for it?" Chandler asked.
"Sorry. Apparently, every other guy in downtown New York has the same idea for Monday night now. And let me tell you, they all assume everyone has seen it. I looked like an idiot cause I had to cover my ears to avoid spoilers."
"Well, you are an idiot. Come on, let's see what all the hype's about already."
"All the hype about what?" Rachel asked as she, Phoebe and Monika came back with pink bags on their arms and bringing the smell of acetone into the apartment.
"This new HBO show called Game of Thrones," Joey answered. "The guys at work won't shut up about how awesome and hot it is."
"Oh my god!" Monika exclaimed, going over to the couch. "Joey, give me one of those beers. The girls at work were saying the same thing. Sounded good. I'm in!"
The guys looked nervously at each. "I don't know, Mon." Chandler said. "It's all… medieval and and you…wouldn't like it."
Monika shot Chandler a look. "I thought you said you hadn't seen it. So how would you know?"
"Yea!" Joey agreed and accusingly looked at him, "You didn't already watch the pilot without me, did you?"
"No!" Chandler said. "I was just….oh whatever. Monika, you want to watch, be our guest."
"Hey, no, we should all watch it," Monika suggested, looking around. "I mean, this could fun! We've never had a show we all watched together. We could all be crazy at the same time for once!"
Phoebe and Rachel frowned, unsure.
"Uh, I just can't get behind HBO." Phoebe said. "They're just another corporate group trying to sell shows with sex and violence. I mean, we've got to be more than that right?"
"I did hear it was kind of explicit." Rachel agreed.
Monika gave the girls one of those smiles that said she wasn't giving up that easily. She pulled out the computer and Googled something and went over to the girls.
"Oh!" Rachel exclaimed, blushing with a smile.
"Oh, well…" Phoebe tried to protest, looking at a shot of three well toned guys with their shirts off looking as if they were getting ready for an event. "that doesn't…..disprove my point…but, damn. Yeah, okay."
Rachel made eyes at the screen and the girls, "Oh come on, one episode won't hurt."
Phoebe looked at the screen again, "Oh hell, why not?"
"OH MY GOD!" Rachel and Phoebe exclaimed together, almost jumping off the couch as Bran fell from the tower.
The guys looked over, surprised. Rachel looked at them. "What are you looking at us for?! Where's the remote! Get the next episode, now!"
Chandler, Joey, Monika, Rachel and Phoebe were all staring at the screen, but not for the same reasons. The girls were smiling, sort of in awe. "Now that's how you do a finale!" Phoebe admitted. "I can't even be mad that…" then she saw the guys. Joey and Chandler were staring at the screen as if they were transfixed and expected the only ash covered Daenerys to walk out of the screen.
"Really?!" Phoebe demanded.
The guys broke their gaze on the screen, trying to be abashed. Joey tried to defend, "Dragons, Phoebe."
"Dragons!" Chandler nodded.
"Dragons and… you can't tell me that's not…impressive." Joey attempted.
"Oh come on, girls," Monika said. "So what? They're right. That was," she dropped the small frown to Chandler she'd been trying to maintain and smiled excitedly, "freaking awesome!"
"And, Phoebe, I mean, it's not like we didn't think Drogo was kind of hot." Rachel admitted.
"Well, yea…" Phoebe bobbed her head, unable to dispute that. "Alright fine."
"What? What?" Chandler was making a very confused face at the screen, tilting his head. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to think about this. "What is even happening?!"
"I don't know…" Joey agreed, but was still focused on the red haired lady taking her clothes off to lay on the ground. "But, I think she's pretty hooo… I take it back! WHAT THE HELL?!" Some shadow was coming out of her.
"Oh that's not right." Rachel made a face.
Monika was laughing, but she wasn't sure if it was at the show or her friends.
"Oh my holy hot springs!" Phoebe exclaimed excitedly. "I want to go to hot springs."
She was shushed by everyone in the room. "You know nothing…"
Monika grabbed the remote and hit pause at the end of the scene, causing Joey and Chandler to essentially leap from their seats. "What the hell is wrong with you?!"
"I think that was actually a happy scene in Game of Thrones," Monika marveled. I want to enjoy that for a moment.
They boys nodded their heads, not able to disagree, when Chandler spotted Rachel. "Ha!" He pointed a finger at her. "You are no longer allowed a word about Joey and I "oogling" the female characters. You're drooling!"
"Am not!" Rachel protested, wiping her mouth to prove a point and suddenly trying to hide the small bit of spit, "Oh god."
Monika was smiling. "You know what? Look at us. I was right, wasn't I? We've all had a pretty great time with this. But, I feel like Ross is being left out. We should get him into it."
"Ross decided he was too good for us." Chandler argued, obviously still annoyed about his former friend moving out.
"Hey, but think about it for a second," Joey consider. "We'd get see a newbie's reactions to everything and experience it all for the first time again."
Phoebe laughed. "When you think about, it's kind of perfect if you're still mad at him."
Chandler's hand froze over the popcorn he'd been about to go for. "No," he disbelieved.
"No!" Joey joined in with him, bringing his legs together. Both of the guys winced at the curved blade as much as the girls had been twenty minutes earlier.
"What did he do to deserve that?" Chandler choked.
"He burned two orphan boys and destroyed Winterfell!" Rachel answered.
"So you're okay with this?" Chandler demanded.
"I…didn't say that." Rachel defended.
"Remind me to never piss you off." Joey replied.
"Oh no." "No." "NO!" "NO!" Came the collective, horrified comments. For a moment all of them had the same horrified expression, but the damn music didn't stop. Rachel pulled a hand over her face and turned her head.
"NOT THE DOG, YOU EVIL BASTARDS! WHAT DID IT EVER DO TO YOU!" Phoebe cried. Monika pulled her face into Chandler's shirt. The final notes of the cursed song finally stopped. For a second, it seemed quiet. The guys mirrored the same bug eyed gaze at the television. Then, they could hear Rachel sobbing. Phoebe and Rachel had pulled each other into a hug. Phoebe was trying to calm Rachel down with little success. Her eyes were puffy, too.
Rachel peeked her head up at Monika. "This is your fault!"
Monika sniffed and shook her head a few times before finding words, pointing at Chandler, before finally accusing. "Chandler was the one who decided to check out the stupid show everyone was talking about!"
"YES!" Chandler cheered!
Monika laughed. "He looks like he's freaking out over someone's outfit!"
"That's right, you're dead! You're DEAD!" Joey cheered, pulling in a yes.
Rachel could even see Phoebe with a big grin, quietly cheering, "DIE, die, you evil turd!"
But, Rachel wasn't sure she agreed as she watched the blonde boy turning purple in his mother's arms. She did have a smile on her face and she wasn't necessarily upset, but still something bothered her about it. "Phoebe, really? Even you?"
"What?" Phoebe was confused.
"What?" Joey asked. "Rachel, you're not happy about this?"
"He was literally an evil little bastard!" Chandler grinned, "who just choked at his own wedding. I mean, it's perf…" He stopped when he saw she clearly still didn't completely agree.
"Rachel?" Joey prompted.
"I mean, I know." Rachel agreed. "He was evil, undeniably and I guess I'm glad he's dead, but… he's still a child that just died in his mother's arms."
"Oh, well, there you have it." Phoebe said. "I don't like kids to begin with."
At that, Rachel smiled and had to relent. "He's dead!"
"He's dead!" They all cheered, apparently a little too loudly. There was a knock at the door as a rather concerned young man with a red cross on his jacket and black bag in his hand ran in the door they'd forgotten to lock. "Who's dead? I might be able to still help!"
"YOU BASTARDS!" Ross came barging in, somewhat red eyed, flushed and some combination of furious/annoyed/almost amused.
Rachel, Phoebe, Monika, Chandler and Joey exchanged looks. The girls were trying to look ashamed, but also trying to not to laugh.
Joey and Chandler were just confused. Chandler asked the question. "Sorry? What did we do?"
"You." Ross pointed a finger a Joey. "You." He moved to Monika and kept glancing at each of people in the apartment. "Which one of you was it? Which one of you suggested I watch it?"
Monika started laughing, as did Joey and Chandler before Rachel and Phoebe joined in.
"Sorry, Ross." Monika tried not to laugh through the less than sincere apology.
"But…you like it," Joey dared.
Ross took a few deliberate breaths. "I don't know that I can say that."
"You like it." Monika, Joey, Chandler, Phoebe and Rachel all agreed.
"Oh, and you should probably find a better insult where this show's concerned." Joey realized.
Rachel shot him a look, but went over to Ross, adding, "You wouldn't be this frustrated if you really hated it." She put an arm around him and patted him on the back. "Welcome to the club. It'll be okay. What happened? Where are you?"
"Wh.." He breathed. "What happened? Where do I even start?!"
"Hey, Rachel! Ready for the new season?" Ross called.
Rachel smiled, but then placed a hand on her belly and frowned. "Oh, guys, I don't know that the baby should be part of that."
"The baby won't know what it's watching!" Chandler exclaimed.
Monika hit him, "That's not the point." She turned to Rachel, "I get it and you shouldn't watch it if you're uncomfortable with him seeing it. But, honey, it's not like he's going to know. And I mean, don't you want to know if they're all still alive?"
Rachel bit her lip. "I mean, you could just tell me…ooh, but I want to…but no, a good mother would not expose her children to this at such an early age!"
"Unbo…" Joey started to mouth before Monika elbowed him in the stomach and she told her, "Rach, it's up to you. Of course, we'll just tell you later."
Rachel started biting her lip as the opening notes of the theme song came on. "I…" She placed her hand back on her stomach. "Oh, I'm being ridiculous!" And grabbed a handful of popcorn as she sat down on the couch.
"NO! I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY A GAME, PSYCHOTIC JIGSAW!" Ross screamed.
"HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF A FUCKING ZIG ZAG!" Phoebe screamed.
"No," Monika pleaded.
"Don't," Rachel begged of Jon, the producers, George R.R. Fucking Martin and all the powers that be. "Please don't."
"Idiot!" a few them dismayed together as Jon took off.
It said something about the show and how much they'd had gotten used to that not even the girls shed much of a tear for Rickon.
"Sh. Shh" Joey amped as the rest of the forces took off after Jon.
"What are you doing!?" Phoebe asked as Jon took off his sword belt. The Bolton forces came full force at him. And the TV went black as the lights flicked off.
"NO!" The entire gang screamed, Monika's voice rising about the rest of them.
Joey jumped on the remote before Monika could, frantically pressing at the power button in vain.
"This can't be happening!" Chandler pulled at his hair. "Joey, keep trying." He pulled out his phone. "Hello, yes. I need to report an urgent power outage. And we're in the middle of an emergency here. I need to know exactly how long it's going to take to get it back on. Okay, okay, can you make it happen any faster than that? She hung up on me."
"Did she give you a time?" Monika demanded.
"Maybe 20 minutes."
"Oh, Joey, give it a rest," Phoebe pulled the remote away from him.
They all spent a few minutes just staring at the black television.
"They killed Rickon." Rachel lamented.
"I know, honey. But, you knew it would happen." Monika said.
"Yeah," Rachel sighed.
"Oo! We can light candles for him! It's perfect!" Phoebe said.
"Did they go crazy and I missed the memo?" Joey whispered to Chandler.
"I think we all hopped on that boat a long time ago." Chandler whispered back.
"Not the boat Gendry's in" Ross huffed. "Oh, god. I am crazy. Monika this is your fault!"
"I said it before. I'll say it again. Chandler started this!" Monika defended.
"We did get kind of loud. Think the neighbors' ever get concerned about us?" Rachel asked.
"No," Phoebe laughed. "I think I overhead that cute medic a few years back telling a few concerned tenants we were crazy, but watching a show. Think the message has gotten out."
"Hey, we should leave the candles on and lights off when the power comes back on." Rachel said. "Kind of fits."
"Just as long as Joey doesn't try to knock it over this time…or any of you!" Monika accused.
"Hey, that was one…"
"Guys," Chandler interjected, suddenly worried as he started back at the screen, now reflecting candlelight. "You don't think he's gonna win, do you?"
"What?! No," Monika rebuked instantly, but suddenly wavered as she finished. "Of course not."
"It is Thrones…" Rachel suddenly worried. "They wouldn't."
Monika jumped on the remote and started hitting the power button several times. "Oh, it worked!"
"No! NO, pause it!" "Rewind!"
"YES!" "DIE, DIE, DIE!" "HA! HA!" "HE'S DEAD!" "HE'S DEAD! HE'S REALLY MOST SINCERELY DEAD!" For once, they could all agree on the same reaction.
AN: If anyone has suggestions for alternative/additional character reactions or scenes, please comment and let me know. I may consider adding it!
If you need clarification, the scenes in order of presented reactions are as follows:
Season 1, Episode 1: Jon, Robb and Theon getting ready for banquet
Season 1, Episode 10: Dany emerges from the fire with baby dragons.
Season 2, Episode 4: Melisandre's shadow baby
Season 3, Episode 5: Jon and Ygritte and the cave
Season 3, Episode 8: Theon loses his thing.
Season 3, Episode 9: The Red Wedding
Season 4: Episode 2: Joffrey's death
Take your pick.
Season 6, Episode 9: Battle of the Bastards, just after Rickon's death, as Jon charges into battle.