Joey Tribbiani (Matt LeBlanc) is the only Friends character who got a spinoff TV series, but the best continuation of his story is actually this 24-year-old action movie that made $264.1 million at the box office. The 1990s and early 2000s saw the rise of some of the greatest TV shows of all time. Among them is Friends, which, even though it ended 20 years ago, continues to be very popular among older and newer generations, even if it hasn’t aged that well in some areas.
Friends gave closure to the stories of its main characters except for one: Joey, the “womanizer” of the group. While the rest of his friends got married or reconciled with their “lobsters” and formed families, Joey’s story continued in the spinoff series simply titled Joey. The series only lasted two seasons and ended up giving rushed closure to Joey, with the once-womanizer finally finding his partner and his career beginning to improve – however, there’s an action movie released 24 years ago that serves as a better continuation and ending for Joey.
Matt LeBlanc’s Character In Charlie’s Angels Is Very Similar To Friends’ Joey
Matt LeBlanc Essentially Played The Same Character In Friends & Charlie’s Angels
Four years before Friends ended, Matt LeBlanc joined the cast of the action comedy Charlie’s Angels, a continuation of the 1970s/1980s TV show of the same name. Directed by McG in his feature directorial debut, Charlie’s Angels introduced Cameron Diaz as Natalie Cook, Drew Barrymore as Dylan Sanders, and Lucy Liu as Alex Munday, all of them with different personalities but with a very strong friendship. LeBlanc played Jason Gibbons, Alex’s boyfriend, who was also an actor – and very much like Joey, he got roles in movies that weren’t exactly award-winning projects.
Unlike Joey, however, Jason was committed to Alex and wasn’t a womanizer.Jason was also very much like Joey in terms of personality, as even though he eventually learned what Alex did for a living, he didn’t notice all the wild stuff happening around him when he was with Alex. Unlike Joey, however, Jason was committed to Alex and wasn’t a womanizer – or, at least, he wasn’t during the events of both Charlie’s Angels movies. To add to the similarities between Jason and Joey, the latter met Alex Garrett (Andrea Anders), with whom he ended up in a committed relationship at the of Joey, so both Matt LeBlanc characters found their partners in women named Alex.
Jason’s story also feels like an extension of Joey’s story in his spinoff show, despite happening much earlier. At the end of Joey, in addition to his relationship with Alex, Joey was fired from the TV show Deep Powder and, after some trouble with a director, he landed a starring role in a big-budget action film named Captured. The movie was a hit, and Joey got a three-movie studio contract as well as creative control. In Charlie’s Angels, Jason starred in an action movie, and he starred in the sequel to it in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Why Charlie’s Angels Is A Better Ending For Joey Than His Spinoff Show
Charlie’s Angels Did Joey Justice Much Better Than His Own TV Show
Despite Charlie’s Angels coming out years before Friends’ ending and Joey and the similarities between Jason’s story and Joey’s ending, Charlie’s Angels is a better ending for Joey than his spinoff show. Joey didn’t come near to the success of Friends and was panned by critics, ultimately becoming forgettable. Joey’s ending – in his professional and love lives – felt rushed and left more questions than answers. Surely, Charlie’s Angels also leaves more questions about how Jason and Alex met, but their relationship makes a lot more sense.
Jason’s career mirrors that of Joey at the end of his show, but even if his movies aren’t the critics’ favorites, they are clearly box-office hits that have led him to become an actual action star, while Joey’s sudden success isn’t entirely believable. While many Friends viewers might opt to forget Joey happened and give their own ending to the character, Charlie’s Angels gave a good alternate ending to Joey through Jason.
