This Character Departure Was the Moment Friends Drifted Apart

The only good thing about the show ending in 2004 is that we never got to see the group fall apart after Joey left for Hollywood.

In 2004, Matt LeBlanc got his second shot at stardom when Joey, the spinoff series, debuted.

Fortunately, the horribly inconsistent show was canceled after two seasons due to low ratings. The real question is – what are the rest of the friends up to now that Joey is gone?

We don't know as he rarely even mentions them (that's a whole other problem), but fans seem to believe they might have drifted apart without Joey because he was the glue that held the gang together.

Joey has the closest bonds with everyone in the group.

Chandler is his best friend (they might even be more of soulmates than Mondler), and Monica is the girl Joey covered for at his expense and lent a hefty sum to when things got tough.

Rachel is the girl who he first fell in love with and later managed to still stay friends with, and Ross is his other best friend – after all, he is the guy Joey gave up the only girl he ever loved for.

Probably, the most special relationship in Joey's life is with Phoebe.

He made sacrifices for her time and time again – he stopped eating meat while Phoebe was pregnant, and he proposed to her when he thought she was pregnant instead of Rachel.

Those two should have been the endgame… Besides all that, Joey is always there when his friends need him.

He has time to hang out with all of them, he makes them laugh, he makes sure they have interesting experiences (with his acting-related events), and he provides his fair share of the show's storylines.

If Friends had gone on without Joey, it wouldn't have lasted even two seasons – the group dynamic would have just been completely different.

That might be true of any of the other main six, but Joey is the one who has always truly been there for them, and the impact of his absence would have been much, much greater.