Fifteen years after “Friends,” she is returning to TV in Apple’s “The Morning Show” as a news anchor dealing with ageism, sexism and her co-host’s misconduct.

It was just after her 50th birthday, and she’d boarded a plane for Mexico with six of her best girlfriends — most of whom have known her since her early days in Los Angeles, before Brad, before Justin, before “Friends” and before the tabloids, when they lived as neighbors on the same street in Laurel Canyon. (“We called ourselves the Hill People,” she said.) But a few minutes in, the pilot asked to speak with her. They had a tire missing, and they would have to return to Los Angeles.