This past Friday, legendary sitcom “Friends” celebrated its 25th birthday. Yes, it’s been 25 years since Rachel Greene barged through the doors of Central Perk in that horrendous dress.

This birthday comes coincidentally on the last year the sitcom will be available for streaming on Netflix, the platform largely responsible for reinvigorating the show by introducing it to a new generation and making it one of the faces of binge-watch culture. The sitcom was initially slated to leave the platform for NBCUniversal’s new service on Jan. 1 of this year. Only after receiving enormous subscriber backlash did Netflix fork out a whopping $80 million to keep the sitcom available until 2020.

With this in mind, I proposed to my roommates that we watch as many episodes as possible this weekend. We came up with a plan to scroll through every episode, season by season, and handpick the truly unskippable ones. Our first choice was obvious—the pilot. We had to pay our respects to the birthday we were celebrating in the first place. If you’re a “Friends” fan, you can probably guess most of the episodes we chose next—“The One Where Ross Finds Out,” “The One with the Prom Video,” “The One Where No One is Ready,” “The One with the Embryos” and “The One After Ross Says Rachel,” to name just a few. (We purposefully skipped Ross and Rachel’s breakup episode, as we didn’t think we’d be able to handle it).

Even though we knew most of the scripts by heart, it felt like we laughed just as hard as when we saw the episodes for the first time. We reveled in our favorite characters’ iconic moments (my roommate in Phoebe’s and myself in Chandler’s). However, we also noticed distinct jokes that didn’t make us laugh and episodes that were much easier to skip than others.

It’s no secret that “Friends” has garnered its fair share of controversy over the last few years, particularly for some of its outdated, eye-roll-worthy humor as well as for its blatant lack of diversity throughout its nearly 10-year run. I recognize that the show was made in a different era with a different social climate. A lot can change and has changed, in 25 years. No Ross, it’s not hilarious that you can’t stand the fact that your son is playing with a Barbie. “The One with the Lesbian Wedding” placed a loving gay couple at the forefront of network television, but was also filled with cheap jokes, and the couple notably didn’t share a kiss at the altar. Monica’s consistent fat-shaming reaches cringe-worthy levels at some points, and let’s not get started on the portrayal of Chandler’s biological father, a transgender woman. It’s undeniable that the 6-person cast was magic together, but if such a non-diverse cast was announced today it would receive massive criticism, and rightfully so.

The bottom line is that “Friends” has its issues, and these warrant important discussions. We can’t hail it as an untouchable, unflawed piece of entertainment history. However, we also shouldn’t erase it from existence or deny what made it so great. The show’s title pretty much sums up what enabled it to capture the hearts of millions around the world for a quarter of a century: friends. Real people with real complexities, displaying growth and love for one another. We were welcomed into that purple apartment, onto that couch in Central Perk and we rode the rollercoaster of life alongside six people who would always be there for one another. “Friends” will continuously allow me the opportunity to laugh, cry or start a conversation.