It took four negative COVID tests in five days, three rescheduled shoot dates and 18 months of planning to get me onto Stage 24 at Warner Bros. in April 2021. I was the only journalist allowed on the set of Friends: The Reunion. I was editor-in-chief of PEOPLE, we had the exclusive cover, and I had promised myself I would stay out of the way (editors who elbow their own staff aside to meet their heroes are a menace). I lasted about four minutes before handing myself the assignment.

Matthew Perry died two and a half years later. Now The One About Matthew Perry, the new three-part docuseries made with his family and his oldest friends, is out on Netflix, and it says on camera what everyone in that room knew and nobody said at the time. For five years I kept my notes to myself, because telling it felt like an intrusion. The people who loved him most have now told it themselves. So here is what I saw on that set, and what I chose not to write, alongside a review of the series you should watch.

You have to picture it. Central Perk rebuilt from props hauled out of storage, somehow smaller in person, like your childhood bedroom. Everyone in N95s and face shields except the six stars. Take a sip of water indoors and someone sent you outside. Publicists who nudged their shields up for air got told off like schoolchildren.

And the cast? Giddy. Jen wanted the music turned up and spent half the day shouting at the boys to shut up because their laughing was wrecking the girls' interviews. Lisa had brought her own apples (a variety called Envy, she informed Jen, who demanded to know). Courteney was lower key and lovely. Matt LeBlanc remembered everything from the old days. It was joyous. Honestly, properly joyous. And then there was Matthew...

He came in slowly, clutching an enormous Starbucks like a life raft. I never spoke to him directly because the interviews were done remotely for COVID safety, so I watched from the edges, which is where you see the most anyway. Matthew said less than anyone. Between set-ups for our cover shoot I heard him mutter that he was going to "go smoke it up," and out he went. (He was a famously heavy smoker) At one point he leaned over and told David his suit was "a cool color." Small, kind, very Matthew.

But he looked so much older. That was the shock. Most of us had not seen him properly in years, and the gap between him and the other five was stark. Nobody said anything obviously. The cast, the crew, the producers, the publicists, everyone closed ranks around him, gently, without a word of instruction. It was a celebration, and nobody wanted him to be the story.

Here is my confession.

This is where it gets personal. Become a paid subscriber to read the two words I wrote in my notebook that day, what I filed instead, and my full review of The One About Matthew Perry.