Every main character in Friends had their own complicated backstory, but Phoebe’s stands out as the most dramatic. Phoebe spent a big part of the series looking for information on her family, and discovered that she has a half-brother – but as it turns out, she met him in earlier in season 2, but neither them nor viewers knew they were related. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, Friends made its debut on NBC in 1994 and came to an end in 2004 after ten successful seasons, becoming one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
The series followed the lives of a group of six friends – Phoebe, Monica, Rachel, Joey, Chandler, and Ross – in New York City as they navigated through adulthood and did their best to balance their social, professional, and personal lives. Over the course of ten seasons, viewers got to know the main characters quite well, and even got to see what their family lives were like. Phoebe’s family background was by far the toughest one, as her father abandoned her (and her twin sister, Ursula), her adoptive mother killed herself, her stepfather went to jail, and she didn’t know that she was adopted until much later, with her real mother being a close friend of her father and adoptive mom.
During the process of looking for answers about her family, Phoebe learned that her father had another family, so she has a half-brother, Frank Jr (Giovanni Ribisi). The two got along quite well from the very beginning, and Phoebe ended up being the surrogate mother to his and his wife’s children. However, these two actually met before their formal introduction outside Frank’s house, and it was a very awkward meeting.
Friends: Phoebe Met Frank Jr Twice
In season 2’s sixth episode “The One With The Baby On The Bus”, Phoebe and Rachel were sitting outside Central Perk, where Phoebe had been playing her songs as the coffee house hired a professional singer. A young man suddenly appeared, asking for a condom he accidentally dropped in Phoebe’s guitar case as it was “an emergency”. This man, now referred to by Friends viewers as “condom guy”, was played by Giovanni Ribisi, who was formally introduced a few episodes later as Frank Jr.
Phoebe and Frank officially met in season 2’s 21st episode “The One With The Bullies”, where Phoebe decided to visit her biological father, only to find out that he also abandoned his other family. Frank Jr approached her and the two agreed to spend time together now that they knew they are siblings. While it hasn’t been confirmed by the writers, it’s assumed that Frank Jr and “condom guy” are the same, and he’s even listed as such in Ribisi’s IMDb page. Both characters share the same naive and clueless behavior as well as some mannerisms, so it fits that Frank Jr was the one who accidentally dropped a condom on Phoebe’s guitar case. Luckily, none of them seemed to remember that first encounter, allowing them to have a fresh and proper first meeting as siblings, but it’s a detail that Friends fans will always remember.