Rarely has a Top Chef competitor looked like such a lock to make the finale from the very beginning as Melissa King did this season. She debuted at number two in my weekly power rankings and never fell out of the top five, all while seeming insanely chill and utterly unflappable. She strolled through this competition like she was at a Sunday Farmers’ Market. In the final episode, she made a dessert so good it brought an Italian butcher to literal tears.

You could make a case that hers was the greatest Top Chef performance of all time. All the more impressive considering that this was an all-star season, in which all of her competitors were chefs who had been runners up or high finishers in their own seasons.

I nicknamed King “Valedictorian” for the air of effortless achievement she has about her. As it turns out, she was something of a prodigy — assisting in her mother’s kitchen from the age of five or six and handling whole dinners alone by 11 or 12. This in a family that had homemade stock on the stove every night and where they ate whole roasted fish multiple times a week. On the show, King managed to assert her unique perspective, growing up as an Asian kid in Southern California, even while cooking Italian food for Italian chefs in Italy — successfully combining Szechuan chilis and XO sauce with Italian ingredients for a brain trust that has long considered “fusion” a dirty word.

King also put the lie to the idea that a reality show needs big drama or divisiveness to be interesting. She was happy, healthy, confident, competent, openly queer, and content to let her food speak for itself most of the time. And it did. She’s so seemingly put together and well-adjusted that you wonder if she’s found life’s cheat code.

In an industry that’s notoriously tough on its culinary professionals, with grueling schedules, late nights, low pay, substance abuse temptations, and needle-thin profit margins, Melissa King has managed to be a name brand chef without the responsibility of running a restaurant. Instead, she owns a company focused on culinary events and experiences. Which is to say, she sets her schedule, rather than being at the mercy of the market.

Do I wish I could go to a Chef Melissa King restaurant right now? Absolutely, but if you were her, would you rather have a varied calendar of special events or a 60-hour weekly grind of making many of the same things over and over again? No contest. Of course, both business models are in jeopardy these days — as the industry rethinks what being a chef means and how they go about it. But maybe that discussion was overdue.

I spoke to Melissa by phone this week. Just like the experience of watching her on the show, it felt like a vacation from my worries. There aren’t many people with that kind of contagious chill.

—

How did you celebrate?

I watched the East Coast feed at my mom’s house, and my mom made a huge Chinese feast to celebrate, and we had just some small family members come over. It was like a handful of us, but we did that, and then at 10:00, I did a Zoom party with all my personal friends. A lot of tears and stuff.

Is that a bummer not being able to invite a bunch of people over and celebrate with friends?

I mean, a little bit, for sure. I know the first time I did Top Chef, we were in the real world, so I could have parties and cook a lot of food, and that was sort of the way I would celebrate each episode, but this time it’s been very small, intimate, just a lot of Zoom parties. But yeah, it’s really a different experience. I remember last night on the 10:00 showing with my friends, I said … because I started crying at the end, and then they are all congratulating me. So the first thing I said was, “I wish you guys were all here so I could hug you and we could do this in real life.” But we’re all looking forward to that in the future.

What did your mom make for your big winner’s feast?

So you know the Chengdu episode, where we drove around East L.A. And I went to Chengdu, and there’s that Szechuan fish dish that we ate. My mom basically made that. It’s a whole fish with Szechuan chilies, a lot of chili oil on top, and then she made the Shanghainese… they’re these pork meatballs, they’re called lion’s head meatballs, that’s what it translates to in Chinese. We had Cantonese-style braised abalone with bok choy, which is a very celebratory dish. You usually eat it at weddings or graduations.

Where’d you get the abalone? It’s kind of hard to get abalone these days, isn’t it?

Yeah. I mean, she finds them at all these Chinese places. I don’t know, and, usually, they come imported in dried form, and you have to rehydrate them.

So does winning change your career plans at all?

I mean, it certainly helped my career plan. But I think just even going on the show was something I was really proud of myself for, and I’m excited for the future. I know I have a lot of goals and ambitions and things that I still haven’t achieved that I want to do. So hopefully, winning really helps get me to that place.

And what are some of those (goals)?

Let’s see here, so many things. So I launched a small batch sauce line, that I actually just created. It was inspired by sitting in quarantine all day long, and I was like, “How can I continue to get my food out there to people even though I can’t connect with them?” And so I batched up three or four skews of sauces that I’ve actually made on the show, like a Szechuan chili sauce, an XO sauce, and the fish sauce caramel, and launched that, and literally sold out several hundred units in 25 minutes. So I started thinking, I would love this to be a bigger thing and invest some money into really building a product line. And then cookbook opportunities. I think I’ve always wanted to have a cookbook and be an author and go and have something that’s a little more concrete — something that I could hold of my work. I’m never going to say no to a restaurant. I think it’s more of I’m being cautious of the where and the when, and just trying to be smart about it and make sure that where I build it and when I do it, it’s sustainable and it’s in the financial perspective of things. I know restaurants are having a pretty difficult time, especially right now. And then I started doing a lot of these virtual cooking classes that also kind of came from COVID, like virtual cooking webinars, and I would actually really love to continue doing that. I’ve been enjoying it. It makes me feel connected to people and able to kind of bring something to your home.

I think we see owning a restaurant as the goal of this show in some way, but when I look at it from a chef’s perspective, if you can still be a chef without having to have that stress level every day, that seems maybe a preferable lifestyle in some ways?

Certainly. I think owning a restaurant, there is so much… it is a very high risk and overhead and things you got to consider for your lifestyle. And so, certainly, yeah, I’ve managed to build my career since my first Top Chef, where I’m a chef without a restaurant, and I am able to continue to connect with people with my food. So I’m proud of that. And I actually feel … I mean, I would be happy continuing as is, but of course, I know a lot of people out there would love to try my food somewhere. Part of my goal since I was a child is like, you need to own a restaurant and like have a place for people. And that’s still part of the dream package, but there are so many things.

So what job were you doing before you got on the show?

So I own a company and it’s really focused on culinary experiences and partnerships. I love collaborating. I think that’s my strength and something I just truly enjoy doing, whether it’s collaborating with a dinner party or collaborating on a larger scale with a company and really trying to provide a way to bridge together food and whatever it is that brand represents. But I think I’ve always been so interested in connecting with, like music and food. I love going to food festivals and cooking there because I think artists, we all have a similarity of wanting to create an experience for people, so why not do it together and find a cool way to do that and put that together? So it was all very in-person facing. And then with COVID, it’s sort of, I’ve managed to adapt things to a virtual experience and bring that experience to your home.

Was there anything that you did or that happened on the show that your friends roasted you for?

Let’s see here… I mean, that salad was horrible. That sad salad from the Pali mountain challenge, I like never want to think about again. It’s the most embarrassing salad I’ve ever made in my career or my life. But really, it was just so half-assed and thrown together. So yeah, just time was ticking and all the ingredients were gone. But yeah, that salad … I think if anything, I was roasting myself about the salad more than anybody else.

How guilty do you feel about giving Bryan Voltaggio his third finale loss?

Now you’re making me feel guilty. I mean, I try not to think too much about it. In that moment, I was just like, “You know what? Whoever wins here, I’m just so proud of all of us, because we’ve worked so hard.” And everyone was making perfect food, and it was just kind of so hard for the judges to really like narrow down the finest details of why they didn’t like your dish. So I know Bryan has really worked so hard in his career. And I actually am amazed at how he was able to do this three times because it is something none of us, I don’t think, will ever want to do again. It’s so stressful. So I really commend him and respect him for having such ambition and willpower to do it again and strength.

Were there any specific points, either being there or just watching, where you disagreed strongly with something the judges said or a decision that they made?

No. I guess, keep in mind when you watch, you kind of see like a glimpse of the judges’ table, but in reality, it’s a much longer experience. So they really get through the very fine details of everything, and they see everything, they see every detail of what we did wrong and what we did right. And it’s all information that we, as professional chefs, agree with and we also know we messed up on. So everything they said to me, I always took it more as feedback rather than criticism, and I tried to really apply that to the next challenge.

Do you have a first food memory?

Let’s see here… I mean, I’ve been cooking since I was five or six, or at least like helping in the kitchen. Some early food memories are … it was always like helping my mom wash rice and then steam it. I think that’s every Asian kid’s first job in a kitchen, you’re the rice cooker. And then making Chinese bone broth was something that my mom would do nightly. She would make a big pot of bone broth with chicken bones, goji berries, jujubes, and ginseng. She would boil that for four to six hours. And then we would drink that, usually after dinner.

I would be the one responsible to grab the bones from the freezer and put them in the water and get it all sort of set up for her, so that’s always a very like fond memory. And then congee is another one that is very much ingrained in my emotions. And because every time I was sick, my mother would make congee. And I would say a lot of Asian kids, that’s usually the dish. It’s like the chicken noodle of Chinese culture is like you’re sick, this is what mom’s making you. So there are some early food memories.

Wow, and you guys would drink the broth every night?

Yeah. My mom would make the soup and then we would drink that every night. We’d also have a whole steamed fish on the table, usually a couple of times a week. A whole fish with the head and the tail. That was very normal for me to see. What else? The dumplings… anytime we had a family gathering of some sort, there would always be a table of aunties and cousins, wrapping dumplings.

I have a theory that whenever I eat a new cuisine or food I’m unfamiliar with, I always go dumplings. It seems like dumplings always have the most, I don’t know, knowledge that goes into them.

It’s a good one. I mean, I think it’s got the most love, if I were to pick one adjective because it takes so much work and effort to wrap one singular dumpling. And so, to make a whole table of them, it really takes a lot of love, and you feel that when you eat it.

What was the moment when you decided that you wanted to be a chef, as a lifestyle?

It was such it was just a hobby, as I mentioned, from like age five or six, and I was putting dinner on the table by 11 or 12 and kind of doing that by myself. I mean, I wanted to be a chef since I could remember, honestly. It wasn’t until maybe high school where I started recognizing that this could actually be a career. I tried to push to go to culinary school right after high school, but my family and my parents were basically discouraging me and saying you need to get a quote-unquote real degree and go to college and get your undergrad degree. I think secretly they were hoping that going to college would switch my direction of life, because there was some resistance on being a chef professionally. And there were a lot of talks of like, “Why don’t we just keep this as a hobby?”

But I think once I stepped foot in my first kitchen, which was at the Getty Museum, that was my first job when I was 17. I was like, “You know what? I want to just pick up a job in a real kitchen, just to see what it feels like, to see if this is something I really want to do with my life.”

And of course, family resisted, but I did it anyways and fell in love with it, with the environment and the camaraderie that you find in a kitchen. You get to play with food all day long. So yeah, I was like 17, thinking, “This is the best job in the world! Why are people telling me not to do this?”

In retrospect, are you happy that you didn’t go to culinary school right out of high school? Or do you wish you had?

In retrospect, I’m very grateful that I listened to my family and then I went to a traditional college. I think there’s so much value to that and life experience that I gained from going to college. So I did my undergrad at UC Irvine. I did two years at UC Santa Barbara, transferred to UC Irvine, and finished my degree in cognitive science. But of course, I didn’t pursue cognitive science and literally never use it in my normal life, but I am very grateful that I made that decision, and then I went to CIA.

I don’t know, you do seem very mentally, even keel and stable…

So you guys have to live with each other on this show. Was there anybody who had strange personal habits that stand out in your mind?

Let’s see here. Well, Malarkey, he wakes up… say we have a 5:00 AM call time or something. He’ll wake up at 3:00 AM. And I’m like, “what are you doing? Get as much sleep as you can.” But the guy is just like the Energizer bunny. He doesn’t stop, and he has so much energy. So he would wake up two hours before everybody else, jump on a treadmill for an hour. And then he would jump on the elliptical for another hour. And I’m like, “This guy’s a beast.” So that was funny to see. Who else? I mean, I stayed in the room. My roommate was Gregory as you guys know. And we roomed together in the Boston seasons and we just got along so well. And our personalities are very similar in the way that we like kind of like a zen, quiet space. And we like to wake up and stretch and do yoga in the mornings. And so I’d wake up in the morning, and he’d be on the floor, like a little frog, laying there doing frog poses and yoga poses, so that was kind of his routine.

Do you still live in San Francisco? What keeps you there?

Oh, so many things. The people, I think is one thing. There’s such a sense of community there and the people are so … I don’t know. People are just very unpretentious. And Northern California is a beautiful place, and I always joke that the produce keeps me there because it kind of does. I’m obsessed with beautiful produce and having access to the local farmers. And it’s just different than… I live in Los Angeles too, parts of the time, and it’s just different. I don’t know. Like it sounds beautiful and fresh.

—
Vince Mancini is on Twitter. Read more of his cooking commentary in UPROXX’s Cooking Battles and Viral Cooking. For past Top Chef Power Rankings, go here.

As the NBA nears moving players into the Orlando bubble early next month, players must make a decision by Wednesday regarding whether they will opt out of participating and alert teams ahead of the transaction window the league is allotting for teams to fill roster spots and make additions via free agency.

Davis Bertans was the first player to opt out, as the Wizards sharp-shooter didn’t want to risk injury heading into a big free agency summer for the 9th seeded Wizards who are a long-shot to catch the 8-seed in the East. In the West, another team on the outside looking in for a playoff spot in the 8-game race to the postseason will be without a contributor as Trevor Ariza will reportedly not join the Blazers, but for a very personal reason, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

Ariza’s court-mandated visitation window with his son falls during the league’s restart, and he, very understandably, chose spending time with his son. Ariza’s situation illustrates the kinds of things going on off the court that players must contend with in making this decision, as there are family situations and needs, particularly in a time that is typically the offseason, that must be factored in on top of health concerns — both with injury risk and the unknowns of the complications that could arise long-term from the coronavirus — and questions about distracting from the Black Lives Matter movement. On the WNBA side, Jonquel Jones became the biggest star to announce she would be sitting out the season due to concerns about long-term effects of COVID-19, as the MVP candidate and Connecticut Sun star will choose to wait to return in 2021 instead.

The Blazers will be able to sign a substitute player from the free agent market, but Ariza’s absence is significant, as he had started 21 games for Portland this season since joining the Blazers, averaging 11 points and 4.8 rebounds per game in nearly 34 minutes a night.

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At today’s 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple finally unveiled its latest computer-based operating system, “Big Sur,” which continues Apple’s recent tradition of naming its operating systems after regions in California. Big Sur is a follow up to macOS Catalina, and offers the biggest visual update to the Apple operating system since OS X’s initial launch almost 20 years ago, giving Apple users a completely overhauled user interface, a new update to the Messages app, and a much-needed refresh to Safari that brings the web browser to Google Chrome levels of functionality.

Generally, when Apple rehauls their user interface, it comes with changes big enough to make even your most outdated piece of technology feel brand new — unless of course your old device doesn’t meet the system requirements — and Big Sur is no different. Here are all the changes you can expect from the new operating system, which is set to launch as a free update for Apple users in the Fall.

The Interface

The biggest and most obvious change to Apple’s OS is the visual overhaul enjoyed by Big Sur which sports a spacious new design meant to make the navigation process easier and more transparent. Everything from the curvature of window corners to the palette of colors used for icons has been rethought to deliver a more visually consistent experience across the dock. Certain buttons, controls, and icons now appear when needed and recede when not, allowing you to better focus on whatever creative project you’re currently working on.

Apple has also added the Control Center functionality enjoyed by users of their iOS to Big Sur, allowing you a better degree of control for your brightness, volume, and whatever other functions you see fit — streamlining the interface with functionality in mind, aside from just a pretty coat of new paint.

Safari Gets A Refresh (And Extensions!)

Even hardcore Mac heads use Chrome. It’s just all-around a better web browser than Safari… at least, until now. With Big Sur comes a whole new Safari experience that Apple claims will load websites 50% faster than Chrome, and delivers some long-overdue features. To make the navigation process easier, Safari will now feature tabs that contain the website’s favicon, a much needed a long-overdue change that for the tab-heavy, makes the previous versions of Safari DOA.

The new Safari will also detect and translate entire webpages from seven different languages with the click of one button, and boasts a new extensions feature that will allow you to choose which websites Safari extensions work with. A new browser toolbar called Primary Report will also give you some visibility and control to how Safari is actively protecting your browsing activity, and offer insight into which websites are tracking you and how.

In addition, Apple will also be adding new information to its App Store which will allow users to better understand the privacy practices of apps before they download them, with useful information like which apps collect data, contact information, or location information — a system Apple likens to the nutritional labels on food.

Messages Will Be More Personalized

The reason the Apple ecosystem creates so many more diehards than Android is because of how interconnected it is, and now Apple is taking their Messages app — which works inter connectedly on your iPhone and computer — and adding more levels of personalization and control to enhance the experience. Users can now pin their favorite conversations to the top of their messages list, ensuring your need-to-read messages are always visible and don’t get buried by whatever new conversation you’ve got going on, which is perfect for balancing your work and personal contacts.

Messages search function has also been revamped, allowing you to easily locate links, photos, gifs, and whatever else you need to find much easier — by dropping them in their own respective categories. Users can also further personalize their messages by adding stickers of their own Memojis, and allowing more flexibility within group chats so you can directly respond to specific messages within your chat, which is a godsend for anyone who has a long-running group chat going. You can also now set a photo to your group chat, which is nice. Not needed, but nice!

Maps Gets A Revamp

Like Safari, Apple’s Maps app suffers because Google has a better version out there. We don’t know if this new revamp will cause us to reach for Apple Maps over Google, but some of the features sound pretty solid.

The new Maps app will feature guides from trusted resources and publications and give users the ability to create custom guides of their favorite restaurants, parks, and vacation spots that can be instantly shared with friends and family, which is a literal game-changer for travel writers everywhere. The Maps app will also feature detailed maps of major airports and shopping centers, as well as allow you to plan out electric vehicle or cycling trips that can be instantly transferred to your phone.

A developer beta version of Big Sur is already available via Apple’s Developer Program, and a public beta is set to open next month, with the full version dropping sometime this fall. Because new OSs often have bugs that need to be worked out, if you use a lot of third-party apps, it might be adviseable to wait to upgrade until Big Sur 1.1 hits.

The NBA will open up a transaction window for teams heading into the bubble to sign free agents and make roster moves. The Dallas Mavericks will apparently be among the teams that will be actively looking to add to their roster prior to heading to Orlando, after a calf injury suffered by guard Courtney Lee will require surgery and keep him out of the proceedings, per Marc Stein of the New York Times.

Lee wasn’t a major contributor to the Mavs this season, averaging just 4.5 points per game in 14.4 minutes off the bench, but his near 45 percent shooting figured to prove valuable as a spacing option and potential spark off the bench in the postseason. Now, one would expect the Mavs to look at some of the guard talent available on the free agent market, such as Tyler Johnson or J.R. Smith, as a replacement to add depth to their backcourt rotation — something that may be more desperately needed after such a long layoff than is typical in the postseason.

For Lee, this likely ends his tenure with the Mavs as he hits free agency this offseason, as Dallas will need to waive him to open up a roster spot to sign someone else. Lee’s focus will be on getting healthy and landing a deal this offseason to prove he remains a valuable asset to a team thanks to that tremendous three-point shooting ability.

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The Office is a sitcom that sits firmly in the past, which means that as time goes on and social mores change, there may be some particularly cringeworthy moments in your rewatch you may not have remembered. “Diversity Day,” the show’s second episode in its uneven first season, is a very strong example of some kinds of humor that might ring more as gross than funny here in the present.

A deleted scene from a Halloween episode of The Office is another example of something that, even in the moment, they thought would be a bit too dark. And according to Screen Rant, another potential scene was cut before it ever got shot because it would be a bit too offensive to some.

According to some excerpts of The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s (a new oral history of the show), via Entertainment Weekly, the idea came from Aaron Schure, who wrote on Seasons 5 through 8 and wanted Michael Scott to have a “Christlike” awakening following an incident where he sort of gets crucified on a garage door:

The episode would have focused on Michael playing basketball at his house with Jim and presumably other coworkers. At some point, the garage door was supposed to open as Michael’s shirt got caught, pulling him up. Michael would have been left hanging from the door directly under the basketball hoop, which served as the crown of thorns worn by Jesus ahead of his crucifixion. None of Michael’s friends would have noticed, leaving him hanging there overnight. The next day, Michael would go to work “feeling Christlike” due to the fact that he was crucified by the garage door.

The storyline never went anywhere, but it is a good example of how Michael Scott as a character was always on the very edge of what would be acceptable and still funny. Some ideas, however, were simply too much for some.

[via EW]

There’s no doubt people expecting Irresistible, the new film directed by Jon Stewart, to be the scathing kick in the ass America needs right now will surely be disappointed. And there are a couple different things going on here. While I was watching Irresistible, I found myself surprised that after all this we’ve collectively gone through since Stewart left The Daily Show in 2015, that his movie would be a kind of inoffensive, somewhat slight political comedy that felt like in the same vein as watchable yet forgettable movies like My Fellow Americans; or Welcome to Mooseport; or Jay Roach’s Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis vehicle, The Campaign. It just seemed a little weird Stewart wasn’t trying to make something profound.

But, then I accepted that, for whatever reason, this is what Stewart wanted to make. I mean, who am I to judge the type of movie a directors wants to make? If Jon Stewart wants to make Welcome to Mooseport, well then he can make Welcome to Mooseport. Fair enough! And maybe it’s a good version of Welcome to Mooseport? That’s what I’m here to judge. And for most of Irresistible, that’s what this is.

Oh, but then the ending. I don’t want to get into specific plot points for spoiler reasons, but the movie gives us a baffling twist that seems to be there just so we can all be lectured about what dopes we all are. Then we get some text at the end about how money rules the world. Then the title of the movie appears, but a number of letters fade away so that all we see is “resist.” And then to top it all off, during the end credits Stewart conducts an interview with some sort of expert who tells us the plot of Stewart’s movie is actually plausible. Then it all hit me: oh, Jon Stewart thinks this is profound. (Or, at least he sure seems like he did at one point in time. Though, in an interview with the New York Times, he compares his movie to a chocolate bar.)

In Irresistible Steve Carell plays Gary Zimmer, a Democratic campaign strategist who, having worked on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, is looking for something to galvanize the country that can speak to middle America. A video of Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper), a small-town Wisconsin farmer, defending the rights of local immigrants goes viral. Carrell’s Gary seizes on the viral moment, flies to Wisconsin, convinces Jack to run for mayor as a Democrat, then pumps a large amount of money into Jack’s campaign in an effort to make this mayoral run national news.

Rose Byrne plays Faith Brewster, a Republican strategist who worked on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. She gets wind of this mayoral race and sends her team into Wisconsin and dumps a lot of money into the Republican incumbent. Again, for most of the movie it’s just this low stakes, mildly interesting comedy filled with jokes about small-town life. (Jokes that always seem to make coastal people angrier about the way Midwesterners are treated than actual Midwesterners. As someone who grew up in the Midwest, usually we either don’t care or, sometimes, nod along.)

Again, the problem comes at the end when we find out the joke is on us for trying to even be invested in this story in the first place. It’s almost like Stewart realized he wasn’t making something important enough, so he throws in a whole twist that invalidates the whole movie, and almost every character, and almost every character’s motivation, and in the process alienates the viewer.

Look, maybe it is because this is from Jon Stewart we expected more. It’s kind of annoying when he downplays his role in politics and activism and labels himself just a comedian. I don’t see Gallagher in front of congress fighting for health benefits for the 9/11 first responders. Look, the guy is an actual hero for doing that. Which is why I wonder if I’d have the same reaction if, say, Jay Roach had directed the movie? Would I have just rolled my eyes, said, “that was fine,” and moved on? Then I came to the conclusion that for the most part Jay Roach makes fairly satisfying movies without giving a finger to the viewer.

I think the major problem with Irresistible is at some point Jon Stewart realized that he was indeed making Welcome to Mooseport, then decided it needed to be more important than Welcome to Mooseport, and by doing so made something kind of worse than Welcome to Mooseport. Irresistible could have been something that was just a pleasant enough, throwaway comedy – and it feels like that for most of its running time. If only Stewart read his own word, “resist,” and resisted that ending – that urge to try to turn this movie into something it just isn’t.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

The final episode of NBC’s hugely popular sitcom Friends aired more than a decade and a half ago, but its popularity hasn’t waned one bit for one simple reason: there’s just no replacing a good Friends rewatch. Between Ross and Rachel’s seasons-long will-they-or-won’t-they dynamic and Monica and Chandler’s surprisingly sweet coupling, to Joey and Chandler’s hilarious misadventures as roommates and Phoebe’s explorations of New York eclecticism, Friends had (and still has) plenty to offer. Too much, in fact, which is why we’re trying to whittle it down to the best episodes to watch again now that you can stream the show on HBO Max.

17. The One with the Rumor (Season 8, Episode 9)

The Story: It’s the annual Thanksgiving episode, but with a twist: Their guest is Will, who went to school with Ross, Rachael, and Monica, and who, like Monica, also used to be fat. Oh, and he’s played by Aniston’s then-husband, one Brad Pitt.

Why It’s On This List: When it aired in 2001, this was still a controversial statement: Brad Pitt is hilarious. He may be one of the weirdest funny guys on the planet. He’d been funny plenty of times before, from 12 Monkeys to True Romance to Snatch. But films like Burn After Reading and (you could argue) Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood — where he really let his freak flag fly — were still a ways off, and he was mostly playing solemn studs. This is, if nothing else, a sneak peek of what was to come in his only on-screen performance opposite Anniston.

16. The One with the Umagi (Season 6, Episode 17)

The Story: Monica and Chandler give each other awful Valentine gifts, but much more importantly Rachel and Phoebe start a self-defense class, prompting Ross to show off the skills he doesn’t actually have.

Why It’s On This List: Ross began Friends as the mopey sad guy whose puppy-dog love for Rachel was very emo. But as the show went on, we got to see Ross in a less flattering light. By Season 6, here he was, saying he was an expert in a made-up school of karate called “umagi,” which he claims translated into “a state of total awareness” but which is actually the Japanese word for eel. Watching three people who aren’t good at martial arts fail at what turns into a game of revenge is something else.

15. The One with the Proposal (Part 2) (Season 6, Episode 25)

The Story: Chandler decides to finally pop the question to Monica, but perhaps her mightiest old flame — Tom Selleck’s Richard — decides to return at the most inopportune time.

Why It’s On the List: Monica and Chandler’s relationship isn’t as wild as Ross and Rachel’s; when they realized they loved each other, it didn’t take long for it to get serious, and they were rarely about drama. Still, when Richard returns, it takes two episodes for things to calm down, culminating in one of the most heartfelt scenes in the series, with the ever-sarcastic Chandler delivering a straight-faced proposal to the one he loves. Friends rarely got this serious, which is why the tonal shift works so well.

14. The One After Vegas (Season 6, Episode 1)

The Story: So, Ross and Rachel got drunkenly married! Now what? Ross doesn’t want another divorce, so he hatches a hare-brained scheme to pretend to get an annulment.

Why It’s On the List: The Season 5 cliffhanger is one of the era’s better ones — a case where the writers wrote themselves into a wall and had to try and write their way out. Watching Ross and Rachel panic is always good fun, but perhaps funnier is the rest of the gang awkwardly dealing with yet another hairpin turn in their rollercoaster ride of a relationship. The MVPs are Phoebe and Joey, who ditch the drama and head off on a road trip that’s very Phoebe and Joey, complete with some good old “Space Oddity.”

13. The One Where Ross Finds Out (Season 2, Episode 7)

The Story: Rachel knows Ross loves her but Ross, who’s still dating Julie (Lauren Tom), doesn’t know that she knows. Rachel leaves a drunken phone message in which she confesses her feelings, and when Ross finds out, at first he’s furious with her. But he can’t stay mad for long.

Why It’s On the List: It took a whole season of Cheers for Sam and Diane to first hook up, but Ross and Rachel’s “will they or won’t they?” stretched over a season and a third. Their first kiss was like a pressure cooker expelling all its air at once…and of course, thanks to some melodramatic turns, it would take them a bit longer to make things official. But not only is it a relief, but the build-up in the episode is hilarious; Rachel’s leaping atop Ross’ shoulder, trying to prevent him from listening to her soused recording, is top-shelf physical comedy. The b-plot, in which Chandler quickly regrets enlisting Monica as his personal trainer, is good stuff, too.

12. The One With The Stoned Guy (Season 1, Episode 15)

The Story: Rachel and Phoebe try to help as Monica tries to impress a prospective new boss while Ross struggles with a romantic request and with asking Joey for advice.

Why It’s On The List: Jon Lovitz is hilarious as Steve, a restaurant owner who drops by the apartment to get a cooking demonstration from Monica. Unfortunately, Steve goes from Lovitz’s prickly brand to stoned out of his mind, foraging for snacks in the kitchen after a brief fascination with the word “tartlet.”

Despite Lovitz’s top-shelf cameo, however, the episode’s best moment may be Chandler walking in on Joey somewhat forcefully teaching Ross the art of dirty talk after an embarrassing whiff he had on a date. It’s not how Chandler comes out of his room after Joey demands Ross tell him he wants to caress his but; it’s seeing Chandler’s joy over this sudden walk-in as Ross and Joey realize that they are not alone. The laugh was there in the set-up but the patience to let it develop and have Chandler bask in the awkwardness elevates the moment.

11. The One With Chandler In A Box (Season 4, Episode 8)

The Story: Monica gets a reminder about a past relationship and Chandler goes to extremes to repair his friendship with Joey.

Why It’s On The List: Thanksgiving gets awkwardness as the gang judges Monica for her romantic interest in her (much older) ex-boyfriend’s son (which prompts a fantastic takedown of everyone else’s romantic and life missteps by Monica). Meanwhile, Chandler puts himself in a box to try and atone for kissing Joey’s then-girlfriend, Kathy.

The long play with Chandler in the box yields a lot of laughs, but the emotional cusp of the whole episode finds Kathy (Paget Brewster) deciding she can’t break up Joey and Chandler’s friendship, forcing Joey to move past his anger and free Chandler from the box so he can go after the girl he loves. It’s a nice reminder of the deep affection these characters have for each other and the dimension it adds to the show.

10. The One With Ross’ Wedding (Season 4, Episodes 23 & 24)

The Story: The final two episodes of the fourth season find Ross and Emily nervously preparing to get married in London. It’s a wreck of a story that comes to define the show’s story for many seasons after.

Why It’s On The List: Technically, this is a cheat, as “The One With Ross’ Wedding” is actually a two-parter. (Spoilers: so is the next entry.) But that’s okay because to truly appreciate the scope of the story’s brilliance, you have to watch both episodes. Even if you don’t really know the Rachel/Ross backstory, there is plenty here to understand how sad and moving their complex pairing is in these episodes. Phoebe and Joey get plenty of laughs on the sidelines, but the other gem is Monica and Chandler’s fling — which will blossom into something more in later seasons.

9. The One With Monica And Chandler’s Wedding (Season 7, Episodes 23 & 24)

The Story: Speaking of nervous weddings and the flings that precede them, three seasons later, the two-part finale finds Monica and Chandler tying the knot with Joey serving as minister and Rachel, Phoebe and Ross looking on.

Why It’s On The List: While the previous entry’s one caveat would be that what makes it great comes at Emily’s expense, these two episodes manage to pull just as many successful comedic punches without any unnecessary bruising. From Ross’ attempts to seem like a physically domineering older brother to a touching moment with Chandler staring at a baby onesie in a gift shop, these episodes have got it all. They’re especially a good representation of a “faking” plot, in which some of the characters must distract one or two others from some possibly damning bit of information. In this case, it’s the fact that Chandler has suddenly gotten cold feet about marrying Monica.

8. The One With The Football (Season 3, Episode 9)

The Story: While watching a Thanksgiving Day football game together, everyone decides to play a game of their own — despite Monica and Ross’ reluctance due to a mishap at the sixth annual Geller Cup.

Why It’s On The List: More than anything, this episode is a perfect example of something that Friends (and many other pre-bingable shows) is well known for: “bottle” episodes. That is to say, it’s a self-contained story that, while it does make occasional references to larger themes and arcs running through the series, stands perfectly on its own two feet. Or, at least it does while it’s not getting tackled. There are plenty of fun throwaway gags to go around (like Chandler and Joey’s mutually failed attempts to woo a random passerby), but Monica and Ross’ intense competitiveness takes the title.

7. The One With All The Resolutions (Season 5, Episode 11)

The Story: For New Year’s Eve 1999, the gang shares their resolutions with each other and decides to support them as best as they can.

Why It’s On The List: Of course, most of these resolutions are only as good as the support that’s been promised. Case in point: Ross’ ridiculous leather pants. Since he wants to try something new every day, he decides to try wearing said pants, and since Chandler has given up making fun of everyone for a week, he can’t say the obvious. So Ross learns the hard way on a date, during which he calls Joey for (some terribly bad) advice about how to de-shrink his sweat-soaked pants. This saga isn’t the entire the episode, but it remains one of its hallmarks and one of the series’ best Ross gags.

6. The One With The Cop (Season 5, Episode 16)

The Story: Phoebe discovers a forgotten wallet with a police badge at Central Perk and uses it to scare people into behaving themselves in public, including the cop who lost it in the first place.

Why It’s On The List: Phoebe’s run-in with the cop whose badge she’s been brandishing results not in her arrest, but in a first date. The sweetness of this, and Rachel’s attempts to help Joey make more female friends, notwithstanding, the real meat of this episode is Ross’ new couch. He decides to deliver it himself to save money and tries to enlist his friends’ help, resulting in the iconic “pivot” scene and its subsequent meme. On the one hand, it’s yet another example of how mind-numbingly frustrating Ross can be. On the other hand, the schadenfreude that comes from watching his couch crumble is pure bliss.

5. The One With The Blackout (Season 1, Episode 7)

The Story: A city-wide blackout strands most of the group in Monica’s apartment, while Chandler finds himself trapped in an ATM with Victoria’s Secret model Jill Goodacre.

Why It’s On The List: Most of the first season sees Ross realizing that he never got over Rachel from their high school days, and this almost comes to a head in this episode. As his bad luck would have it, of course, a series of unfortunate events plague his plans to confess his feelings to her. These include a neighbor’s lost cat, which latches onto Ross, and the cat’s owner Paolo, a muscular Italian man who subsequently woos Rachel. As for Chandler’s time with Jill, what starts as a serendipitous meeting turns into a sweet conversation and a kiss. That, and a joke about bank security cameras.

4. The One Where No One’s Ready (Season 3, Episode 2)

The Story: No one is ready to attend a function on time.

Why It’s On The List: Another one of Friends‘ fantastic “bottle” episodes, this one is rife with plenty of the show’s trademark silliness. From Chandler and Joey’s escalating prank war that results in Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes at the same time, to Monica’s repeated attempts to answer, erase and revise what she believes to be an ex-boyfriend’s old message, it’s a goofball of a half-hour sitcom entry. The more Monica tries to fix (or forget) things with Richard, the worse it gets for her — and the funnier it gets for everyone around her.

3. The One With The Prom Video (Season 2, Episode 14)

The Story: When Ross and Monica’s parents drop off some of the latter’s things, she finds an old videotape of her and Rachel getting ready for their senior prom.

Why It’s On The List: Anytime a television comedy has an excuse to go retro and reveal what its characters looked like in a previous decade, it should do it. So cue the perms and bad mustaches, because this one’s got it all. Or, rather, a younger, lovelorn Ross has got it all. Despite the fact that Ross and Rachel are fighting throughout much of this episode, the initially embarrassing tape reveals just how much in love he is, and has always been, with her. Also, it ends with Monica discovering what amounts to a sex tape her parents recorded, so that’s hilarious.

2. The One With The Embryos (Season 4, Episode 12)

The Story: Phoebe agrees to be a surrogate mother while everyone else gets into a highly competitive game of friendly trivia.

Why It’s On The List: Never underestimate the competitiveness of Monica Geller. She refused to let go of the football from her brother Ross in the above Thanksgiving episode, and she’s not going to back down from some fun wagers with the boys — despite Rachel’s timidity about it all. Then again, between their pet duck and their chick-turned-rooster, Chandler and Joey have a lot to lose on this one. They also have a lot to gain, as Monica happily agrees that, should they win, they’ll get to take the girls’ apartment. None of this is meant to undermine the far more serious nature of Phoebe’s story, which has plenty of its own silly elements, but it’s all quite memorable nonetheless.

1. The One Where Everybody Finds Out (Season 5, Episode 14)

The Story: Everyone ultimately learns that Monica and Chandler are secretly in a relationship.

Why It’s On The List: There are many Friends episodes, including the ones listed above, that hardcore fans of the show will point to and go, “That one!” As in, “Start with that one. It best represents it.” But more often than not, they will namedrop this fifth season gem in which everyone (even Ross) finally finds out that Monica and Chandler are an item. The pair have been keeping it secret ever since Ross’ disastrous London wedding at the end of season four, but we all know the secrecy would last. First Joey found out, then Rachel, and now Phoebe knows. Ross ultimately discovers it by the episode’s end when he’s trying to get to the Ugly Naked Guy’s apartment amidst a bout of crippling anger issues.

Updated 6/22/20 – Jason Tabrys also contributed to this article

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

I May Destroy You (HBO, 9:00 p.m.) — Three months before the blank-spot in Arabella’s memory happened, Terry visits Arabella in Italy, and the two have a wild night of partying and drug use, all on her agent’s dime. Michaela Coel is killing it with this series, which is both brutally honest about the ripple effects of sexual assault and, at times, darkly funny.

The Politician (Netflix) — Again, not much is happening on cable TV right now, so your best bet is still streaming, and Netflix gave us plenty to watch over the weekend. Ryan Murphy’s dark political comedy is back for more, but this time, Payton Hobart has graduated from rigging high school elections to unseating New York Senator Dede Standish (Judith Light). And he’s doing it in some morally sticky ways. Like exposing some conspiracy cover-ups and scandalous throuples to get ahead in the polls.

Wasp Network (Netflix) — Olivier Assayas directs this star-studded spy drama. It’s a who’s-who cast-wise — think Ana de Armas, Penelope Cruz, Edgar Ramirez, and Gael García Bernal — and the story centers on a Cuban airplane pilot (Ramirez) who leaves his wife (Cruz) and daughter behind to infiltrate an anti-Castro organization in Miami.

The Bachelor: The Greatest Seasons – Ever! (ABC, 8:00 p.m.) — It’s that time. The show looks back at Ben Higgins’ Bachelor season, which started with heartbreak and ended with two surprising love confessions.