🚨 TIME CAPSULE UNLOCKED: The lost ‘Joey’ episodes buried for 19 years just resurfaced – Matt LeBlanc’s Hollywood howler fest finally closes the book on his Friends glow-up! 😂🎬

How ya doin’? With Joey’s L.A. chaos – botched auditions, sisterly schemes, and that awkward crush on his landlord – these eight unaired gems wrap his solo saga in a bow fans never got. Fire at the villa? Dad drama? A surprise Inside the Actors’ Studio nod? X is erupting: “Finally, closure for the Tribbiani timeline!” But fair warning: they’re as cheesy as a Days of Our Lives rerun. Binge the free feast before your group chat spoils Joey’s endgame… or is it just the beginning of reboot dreams? 👉

Nearly two decades after Friends bid farewell to Central Perk with one of TV’s most-watched finales – 52.5 million viewers tuning in on May 6, 2004 – its ill-fated spinoff Joey has clawed its way back from obscurity, delivering the closure American fans never got. The official Friends YouTube channel quietly uploaded the final eight episodes of Joey‘s second season on November 19, 2025, marking the first time these installments have been available stateside since the show’s abrupt cancellation in 2006. What was once a ratings casualty – yanked mid-season after averaging just 7.1 million viewers – is now free real estate for binge-watchers, reigniting debates over why Matt LeBlanc’s lovable lothario couldn’t sustain the Friends magic. With 1.2 million views racked up in the first 48 hours across the playlist, the resurrection feels like a Thanksgiving gift to millennials: Joey Tribbiani’s Hollywood hustle, unedited and unapologetically cheesy, wrapping up arcs that lingered like a bad audition callback.

Joey, created by Friends alums Shana Goldberg-Meehan and Scott Silveri, picked up where the mothership left off: LeBlanc’s dimpled everyman ditching New York for L.A. sun and soap-opera stardom. Premiering September 22, 2004 – mere months after Friends‘ swan song – it launched to a robust 18.6 million viewers, inheriting the Thursday 8 p.m. slot and banking on Joey’s “How you doin’?” schtick to carry the load. The setup? Joey crashes with his high-strung sister Gina (Drea de Matteo) and her brainiac son Michael (Paulo Costanzo), navigating auditions gone awry, a quirky landlord crush (Andrea Anders as Alex), and cameos from Friends ghosts like a voiceover nod from Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe. Season 1 averaged 10.2 million, buoyed by LeBlanc’s charm and guest spots from Jennifer Coolidge as a loopy agent. But Season 2? A Tuesday shift opposite American Idol tanked it, leading NBC to axe the show after Episode 14 (“Joey and the Tijuana Trip”) aired on March 7, 2006. The remaining eight – scripted, shot, and shelved – aired overseas but vanished in the U.S., leaving Joey’s fate in syndication purgatory.

Fast-forward to 2025: Warner Bros. Discovery, stewards of the Friends empire, greenlit the YouTube drop as part of a 20th-anniversary push that’s already minted $1 billion in merch and streaming residuals since the show’s 2020 HBO Max exclusivity. The episodes, now bundled in a “Joey: The Complete Unaired Finale” playlist, pick up mid-Season 2 with Joey’s career flickering – think a botched Days of Our Lives reunion and a fire that torches his swanky new villa. Episode 15 (“Joey and the Dad”) reunites him with his gruff father (Robert Costanzo, reprising his Friends role), sparking a father-son fishing trip laced with LeBlanc’s signature slapstick. By Episode 18 (“Joey and the Big Move”), Joey’s movie Quest for the Goddess scores critical buzz, only for him to fumble a Inside the Actors’ Studio invite hosted by the late James Lipton in a meta gem that doubles as a love letter to soap stardom. The arc crescendos in Episodes 21-22 (“Joey and the Wedding” / “Joey and the Finale”), where Joey finally locks lips with Alex amid a chaotic nuptial bash, but true to form, it’s no fairy tale – hints of his mopey unemployment and Gina’s meddling leave the door cracked for more misadventures.

Critics are split on the unearthed treasure. Variety‘s Jack Dunn called the batch a “time capsule of early-aughts awkwardness,” praising LeBlanc’s “undeniable warmth” but docking points for “deconstructing Joey into a punchline machine” that stripped his Friends reliability. Entertainment Weekly echoed the sentiment, noting the episodes “wrap Joey’s arc with unceremonious fizz – he gets the girl, but not the glow-up,” while hailing guest turns from Neil Flynn (The Middle) as a sleazy producer and Julia Sweeney (SNL) as a neurotic therapist. On Rotten Tomatoes, Joey Season 2 hovers at 45% critics/72% audience – the unaired haul hasn’t budged it, but fan forums buzz with “so bad it’s good” redemption. LeBlanc himself, in a 2014 Hollywood Reporter reflection, owned the pressure: “It couldn’t perform like Friends – I took six years off after.” Co-creator Silveri, speaking to Radio Times post-drop, defended the scripts: “We always saw Joey as the nice guy who finishes… eventually.”

The upload’s timing is no accident. Friends streams on Max, but YouTube’s free access – ad-supported, naturally – democratizes the dive, especially post the cast’s 2021 HBO Max reunion that drew 104 million viewers. Netflix and Hulu hold syndication clips, but this is the full, unedited Joey: 46 episodes total, with the finale playlist surging to 2.5 million views by November 24. X (formerly Twitter) is a nostalgia nuke: #JoeyFinale trended with 150k posts, fans memeing “Joey got canceled before TikTok existed – now he’s viral,” alongside edits syncing his villa fire to The Office blooper reels (1.8 million views). One viral thread: “Unaired Joey = peak 2000s cheese – Alex and Joey’s kiss? Worth the wait,” racking 28k likes. Reddit’s r/friendsTV exploded to 50k upvote discussions on “Does this redeem the spinoff?” – consensus: It’s no Frasier, but closure beats cliffhangers.

Behind the resurrection: Warner Bros. Television, which produced Joey for $2.5 million per episode, sat on the masters amid rights wrangles – DVDs launched internationally in 2007 but skipped U.S. shelves due to tepid sales. The YouTube push, starting with Seasons 1-2 Episodes 1-14 in March 2025, was a low-risk test: Two eps weekly built to the unaired payoff, boosting Friends channel subs by 40% to 12 million. LeBlanc, 58 and fresh off Episodes acclaim, hasn’t commented yet – he’s promoting his directorial debut – but de Matteo tweeted a Gina throwback: “L.A. was wild – glad y’all finally see the end.” Costanzo, now a tech entrepreneur, joked in a Deadline Q&A: “Michael’s genius? Ahead of its time – like streaming these now.”

Globally, the drop taps Friends‘ $4 billion empire: In the UK, where Joey aired fully on Channel 4, it’s sparked BBC panels on “spinoff curses.” Australia’s 7plus streams clips, fueling 200k searches for “Joey ending explained.” Stateside, it’s a salve for Friends purists – the mothership’s 2025 reunion special rumors (starring all but Matthew Perry, honored in a tribute segment) gain steam, with LeBlanc hinting at a “Tribbiani table read.” Merch spikes too: “How You Doin’ in L.A.?” tees and unaired-episode mugs sold 50k units on WB Shop, while TikTok’s #JoeyUnaired challenges – recreating Alex’s party foul – hit 300 million views.

Yet, the fanfare underscores Joey‘s bittersweet legacy: A spinoff that dared to solo a sidekick, only to fizzle. Kevin S. Bright, Friends‘ director, told The Age in 2006: “Joey became pathetic – we lost the solid friend.” These episodes don’t rewrite history – Joey lands middling success, a half-baked romance, and vague horizons – but they humanize the flop: LeBlanc’s earnest goofiness shines, a reminder that even duds deliver dimples.

Nineteen years later, Joey‘s unaired end isn’t resurrection so much as reckoning. In a streaming age of endless reboots (And Just Like That…, Frasier), it whispers: Some stories wrap quietly, and that’s okay. Pivot to YouTube, hit play, and let Joey remind you – nice guys don’t always finish last; sometimes, they just get a late encore. How you doin’ with that?