Headscratchers / Friends

Ross' Pre-Show Sex Life

• In the first season, it's either implied or outright stated that Carol was the only person Ross had slept with. However, in a later episode where Ross, Monica and Chandler are all shouting each other's secrets, Ross says "In college, Chandler got drunk and slept with the lady who cleaned our room!" to which Chandler responds with "That was you!" and Ross replies "Whatever dude, you kissed a guy", which means he did sleep with the cleaning lady and therefore Carol wasn't the first or only woman he had slept with before the first season.
  • Ross seems to be one who could plausibly make such claim to his college buddy Chandler, but this doesn't mean that he was telling him the truth.
  • It may be that whatever he did with the cleaning lady wasn't enough for him to count it later as losing his virginity.

Jack Bing

• Why did Monica and Chandler name their son after Jack Geller? Naming your kid after someone you look up to but he wasn't a great father, he favored Ross, and while he didn't criticize Monica as much as Judy did, he didn't defend her either. (He pretty much ignored her, like when all her childhood boxes were ruined). The only nice thing we see is him comforting her over Richard. How did Monica think he deserved the gesture? And did Chandler mind naming his son after his father-in-law? Monica had already had a ton of baby names thought out, which you'd think the two of them would discuss. It just made them look pathetically grateful to the only halfway, almost-decent parent one of them had.
  • Monica also seems to be much closer with her father; consider when he came into the city to check on her after she broke up with Richard. The incident with the boxes in the garage aside, they seem to have a fairly good relationship, at least compared to Monica's relationship with Judy. When Monica talks about issues with her parents, it's likely she's mostly referring to Judy...when they're together as a unit, Jack kind of gets swept up in Monica's frustration.
  • Jack also makes an effort to make up for their treatment of Monica, and seems like he's sorry when Monica calls him on it. Judy meanwhile makes no such effort, which does help Jack's image in Monica's eyes.
  • Jack is also Innocently Insensitive towards both his children. While he did favour Ross over Monica, he also found Ross' effeminate (and perhaps geeky) behaviour unacceptable, (according to Ross himself in the one with the Male nanny). Unlike their mother who deliberately favoured Ross over Monica. So he was at least fair in terms of being "abusive".
  • Also, he gave her a Porsche.

The Only Condom in New York

• In "The One Where Dr. Ramoray Dies," a couple of subplots end like this: Monica is about to have sex with Richard, Rachel is about to have sex with Ross. They both run to the bathroom for the same reason, and SURPRISE, there's only one condom in the box. This leads to Monica and Rachel to bicker, bargain, and finally end up doing Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who gets it. Rachel wins, and Monica and Richard have to do without. Problem being, why did Monica just give up? First off, Chandler was right next door. Why couldn't she have asked him (Chandler probably wasn't using them, and even if he didn't have any, there's the possibility that Joey left some before he moved into his own place.) Barring that, she lives in New York! She couldn't have thrown on a pair of sweatpants long enough to go outside and find a drugstore, supermarket, or maybe even the bathroom in Central Perk? It's not like they're hard to come by.
  • Isn't that kind of a mood killer, though? Monica would have to get dressed, go down what is implied to be a lot of stairs, find a shop... and Chandler or Joey would probably make fun of her, try to get her to trade a condom for stupid favors, something like that.
  • I always envisioned Monica explaining to Richard why they wouldn't be having sex that night, Richard saying "oh, well we can fix that!" and going out to get one himself.

Rachel's Career

• How exactly did Rachel build such a successful career? She has no qualifications, no training in fashion but somehow gets a lead in the very competitive field and becomes an executive? She got her first proper job through Mark, but that was illogical, why would an intelligent, professional man employ some random woman he met in a diner? Especially one as inexperienced as Rachel. I could understand if during her time as a waitress, she did some training or placements or night classes etc. but she does nothing. She's just as unqualified as she was at the pilot episode. It's especially galling compared to the others: Ross has a PhD, Phoebe trained as a masseuse, Joey did acting classes and struggled for years, Monica attended culinary school but was still unemployed for a long time after losing her job and Chandler went to college, worked his way to executive after more than ten years but still started at the bottom of the career ladder in advertising. Yet Rachel gets to the top of her field in a short amount of time with no training at all? How?
  • How qualified do you need to be to work as an assistant? And Mark did coach her for the interview. It's pretty clear that he had a crush on her from the start and that's the main, if not the only reason he did it. And when she got her first job at RL, she was again as assistant and by that time she already had relative working experience.
  • It's not unheard of even for people without a degree to get good jobs through hard work, the right contacts and/or luck, and Rachel seemed to have at least the last two. Plus, as others have pointed out, she did start with a pretty low-level fashion job and then worked her way further up, which is realistic.
  • Rachel has been shown to be passionate and somewhat knowledgeable about fashion, at least from the perspective of a consumer who loves going out and buying new clothes. Starting out as a personal assistant, with interest and a willingness to learn as she went, it's feasible that she simply worked her way up and learned on the job.
    • Going along with the willingness to learn, we do see Rachel doing things like attending fashion seminars. Ross falling asleep at one led to one of their first arguments revolving around Rachel and Mark. While at that one, she was really trying to listen and had been taking notes.
    • Although that happens to be about the only episode in the series that shows her to be interested and attempting to improve on her work. A later episode, when asked how she overcame being new in her career and getting ahead her answer was "dressing provocativley..."

Joey and Women

• How many women in real life would fall for Joey's come on? The man is dumb as a brick (especially in later seasons), and it's obvious to anybody that he just uses and discards women left and right. But when he says, "How you doin'?", women just fall on their backs. Are beautiful women in New York just that gullible?
  • In one episode, the women are dubious and mocking Joey for his "How you doin?" He responds by using it on the skeptical Phoebe, who giggles and blushes despite herself. It's not the phrase itself that's magic, it's the delivery. They're making fun of "How you doin'?" because out of context it is ridiculous. When Joey uses it on Phoebe, he does the whole delivery... he shifts his body language, artfully tilts his head, makes sparkly bedroom eyes, gives a playful little smile, and then says it in a sultry manner. Turning "How you doin'?" into a believable come-on was half Joey being a chat-up artist and half Matt LeBlanc being a really good actor.
  • Joey is physically attractive, is in excellent shape, and is incredibly charming when he tries to be. That's more than enough for him to get his foot in the door, so to speak, with plenty of women. The question also presumes that there aren't plenty of women in NYC who don't want the occasional random hook up with a very attractive guy. Chandler being the in next room over gives descriptions that Joey's skill at lovemaking is also quite high.

Ross and Rachel's Breakup

• In the third season, when Ross and Rachel break up (after they were on a break) it's pretty clear that they were both wrong and that, while Rachel had every right to break up with Ross for what he did, it was understandable why he'd done it. Even Rachel doesn't seem that unsympathetic. So where did this eighteen-page letter about him cheating on her come from? "How dare you think we were broken up after I told you we were broken up and then my attractive and flirtatious male coworker answered the phone in my apartment!"
  • Rachel has spent most of her life being a privileged Daddy's Girl who had whatever she wanted and could get anything she wanted. So while she had two or three years in the city living independently, she probably did still have some of that old It's All About Me attitude lingering. Also her leaving Barry was later vindicated by him cheating on her with Mindy, so she never had much of a chance to feel bad about it. So at that point, she's never had to deal with a relationship ending because of her mistakes or her actions (Ross was actually as much to blame in this situation but Rachel behaved more spitefully). And Rachel was used to being the desirable popular girl, and Ross pined after her for years - so Rachel discovering that Ross slept with another woman so soon afterwards was probably a blow to her ego in addition to the hurt. So Rachel may subconsciously be trying to one-up Ross with that letter.
  • Ross's 'cheating' just gave Rachel an easy out to end the relationship. They'd were clearly struggling with her new job and his paranoia so Chloe gave her an excuse to end it. Maybe Alternative Character Interpretation but throughout the series we never see Rachel committing to a relationship. Unlike the other characters who are dumped and hurt throughout the series, she instigates all her breakups. The opening episode has her running away from Barry, later she breaks up with Paolo, Ross, Danny, Tag, Paul and Joey (sometimes for justified reasons, sometimes not), sabotages her chances with Joshua with wedding talk and rejects Gavin. She never proves she can work through relationship problems. Considering that Ross's 'betrayal' was probably something she could hide behind so she didn't have to deal with a real relationship.
    • Ross even accused Rachel of this in the fight in TOW The Morning After. He pointed out that when their relationship got tough, rather than try to work through the very real issues they were having, her choice was to suggest a (poorly-defined) break. And as we see in a later episode, Rachel admits that she "broke up with [Ross] because [she] was mad at [him], not because [she] stopped loving [him]". While infidelity is a pretty good reason to end a relationship, this shows that it wasn't as entirely the showstopper issue for her as she claimed at the time, and that given time to work at the damaged relationship, they probably could have recovered from it.

Leaving the twins alone

• At the end of season 10, just after Monica and Chandler come home with the twins, Monica goes across the hall to break apart the Foosball table. It's hard to believe that new parents of newborn twins would leave them alone in a completely separate apartment to go across the hall to do a time-consuming and noisy task. This bugs me in the same way that it bugs me that Emma is NEVER AROUND. I don't know any new mum that would be away from her baby as much as Rachel is away from Emma.
  • She went across the hallway, the distance between where the twins were and where she was was less than if they had been up in a bedroom and she downstairs in a house. Plus she had the baby monitor on her, the kids were hardly abandoned or anything.
  • As for Emma, the Watsonian explanation is that the friends are usually seen either at work or at some event to which kids are not welcome (parties, restaurants, bars). And they do have a nanny, plus family that is close enough for quick trips for visits to babysit. The Doylist is simply that it is far more difficult to work with young children in the film/television industry.

Monica and Chandler's Relationship

• Both Phoebe and Rachel have made digs at Monica about the fact that she's going out with Chandler. In the episode where Rachel moves out of the apartment, she tells Monica that she was about to go and stick a post-it note on him labeled "What Were You Thinking?" Just to be clear, Chandler is supposed to be one of her best friends.
  • Part of it is Flanderization, as Phoebe and Rachel got progressively meaner as the seasons went by. But Chandler has been repeatedly presented as a commitment-phobic neurotic mess, and being someone's friend doesn't necessarily make you think that they'd be a suitable significant other.

Rachel's Hypocrisy

• When Ross and Rachel got drunk in Vegas and got married, Rachel demanded an annulment once they sobered up. Ross wanted them to stay married since they already have a history, and Ross didn't want a third fail "marriage", but Rachel was dead against it. The two eventually divorced. Then suddenly, Chandler and Monica announce they're getting married, Rachel gets jealous and... attempts to make a pact with Ross to get married if they're both single by the age of 40. Um.... if Rachel was worried about being single, why didn't she take Ross's offer of remaining married?
  • She wouldn't have been able to get married to someone else if she had found someone before she turned 40. Neither would Ross.
  • Rachel is embarrassed by her own drunken behavior with Ross. It also brings up that she likely still has unresolved feelings for him, which she doesn't want to deal with.

Ursula

• When Ursula had sex with Phoebe's boyfriend, and he thought she was Phoebe, couldn't that be classified as rape? It certainly would be if twin brothers and a girlfriend were involved...
  • Yeah, it pretty much comes down to whether Ursula actively and knowingly pretended to Phoebe. She was up until recently his fiancée, and the sex was consensual. If no reference to Phoebe was made, she could've assumed "Great, he wants to get back together!" or something of that nature, and gone right ahead with it. It's murky, with unfortunate implications, but I don't think it was intended to suggest rape (by technicality or otherwise).
  • A plot like that in the 90s would not necessarily be considered “rape” with twin brothers. Many shows from that period aged poorly, regarding attitudes towards sex and assault.

The Central Perk Couch

• Is no one else allowed to sit in the big couch in Central Perk but the six of them? What would they do if they came in but discovered other people there?
  • It could also arguably be assumed that there are times they don't get to sit in their favorite spot. Occasionally we see those moments, but mostly, we see the times they're hanging out in a location that makes for better staging. In-universe...yeah, I'd say the fact they're regulars allows them to snatch up the couch on a regular basis. It's also possible there are a couple more couches beyond the fourth wall.
  • A few eagle-eyed bloggers have noticed it. There's a "Reserved" sign on the coffee table in front of the couch. Look closely.

Ben's Last Name

• Regarding Ben's last name. Ross, Carol, and Susan argue about it. Why was any hyphenate even considered? Did it not occur to Carol that both Susan and Ross would object if the other's name was present and their name wasn't? Any sane person would've just gone with Carol's last name, period. Ben Willick, no Geller or Bunch at all.
  • They originally plan for the last name to be Carol's and Susan's last names. Ross suggests a double hyphenate, and later that his name be first, but both times Carol says it's stupid, and Susan was just a Jerkass towards him from the moment they were first introduced to later in the episode after being Locked in a Room.

Ross, Emily, and the Demolished Church

• So the church that Ross and Emily intended to get married in has been demolished a few days early. Emily is incensed that Ross would suggest they get married somewhere else. Ross argues that their family and friends are devoting ungodly amounts of money and vacation time on this, and that it's incredibly insensitive of them to suggest that they just go home and attempt to do all of this again. Um, how is Ross in the wrong again? The object of this is to get married among the people that they love. The specific location should be secondary, right?
  • Although they are both in the wrong Ross is still not being that reasonable. The respective arguments are thus: Ross: "People are spending a lot of money to come here, so we should find some place that will (fit everyone and) let us have the wedding tomorrow evening, or- well, no "or". NO OR! We are HAVING this wedding!" Emily: "We're never going to get a new place by tomorrow evening, and the whole thing is kind of rushed, so couldn't we put it off until a later date and just let everyone (except your guy friends and sister, who suggested it,) see if they can avoid coming to England for nothing (and maybe get a partial refund/not buy a return ticket)? It's not stupid, you're stupid! Fine, SCREW THE WEDDING!" The parenthesized parts are the logical extension of their part, not points they brought up, but I still think that people are making Emily out to be crazier than she was pre-wedding, based on how she acted in later episodes.
    • you're downplaying Emily's irrational stance on that a bit though. She was treating it as no big deal to rearrange another time and place whereas Ross was pointing out that you cant just expect people who have come from abroad and paid a lot of money for tickets and accomodation to do that again, so it's either wedding as it was supposed now or (well no "or") but any later wedding would have been a much smaller affair which is clearly against what bith wanted. They both had a point but were also both not really seeing what the other was saying either.

Chloe the Copy Place Girl

• Is it just me, or is the "hot girl from the copy place" not really that hot?
  • A lot of it was down to her nature. She had a piercing and by the Friend’s standards, was pretty wild. Think about it - the men acted like at the age of 29, they couldn’t possibly go out partying and Rachel and Phoebe getting tattoos was considered pretty crazy.
  • It's more a case of the whole cast suffering from Generic Cuteness. Also, the copy place girl seemed to be pretty flirty, so maybe that's why Joey and Chandler were interested in her.

The Time Ross Said Rachel

• Regarding Ross saying Rachel's name at the altar. Could Emily not ask the priest to let her talk to Ross for a minute? It's not like they weren't already embarrassed enough, and the guests are already gossiping. Furthermore, why did she insist on completing the ceremony again?
  • She was probably in shock and couldn't process everything in the heat of the moment, and the only thing she could think of to do was keep going through the established motions.
  • Probably a case of Real Life Writes the Plot. The beginning of the next episode (TO After Ross Says Rachel) was clearly filmed back when they were filming the wedding episode (evidenced by the length of Ross's hair). During the hiatus, the actress playing Emily got pregnant, and wanted to go back to the UK. The writers were forced to find a way to write Emily out, and a quickie divorce was the easiest way to do it. Methinks that if the actress hadn't gotten pregnant, Ross and Emily may have worked it out, at least for a while.
    • Definitely a case of Real Life Writes the Plot. The original plan was that Ross and Emily would struggle on to the end of season 5 where part of the season cliffhanger would be Emily giving Ross the ultimatum that he choose between her and Rachel, but all of that got condensed into the first half of the season by Helen Baxendale's pregnancy. Later on the writers considered getting Emily back in season ten and attempt to reconcile with Ross to both shake things up and to properly wrap up the Emily arc which they felt had been shortchanged in season five, but Helen Baxendale declined to return, citing the unwelcome press attention her previous stint in Friends had caused.

Soundproof Air

• How am I supposed to believe that when a small group of people in a kitchen which has no doors or walls connecting it to the lounge room are not supposed to be heard by whoever they're talking about?! What, is the oxygen between them sound-proof or something?
  • It's perfectly believable. If their attention is focused elsewhere, some people are usually completely oblivious to conversations around them. Though this is addressed in the Thanksgiving episode with Brad Pitt. Monica talks about how good Will (Pitt) looks and Chandler says, from the couch, "I'm watching the game but I'm not deaf." So they're not ALWAYS oblivious to the conversations going on around them.

The Triplets' Birth

• What kind of obstetricians would think it's an okay idea to opt for vaginal birth to have freaking triplets?
  • If all the babies are healthy and aren't showing any signs of stress, vaginal birth is the best way to deliver. It's less stress on the babies in general and not to mention the mother doesn't have to undergo surgery.
  • Studies have shown that barring specific complications, a vaginal birth is not any more risky with multiple babies than a Cesarean birth.

Joey's Encyclopedia

• Why is it that in episode with the encyclopedia salesman, all the gang except Joey are shown to participate in fairly highbrow conversations about whether or not something is constitutional and are capable of understanding a joke about the Algonquin (which I've probably spelt wrong) Round Table, yet in later episodes none of the girls can remember who the US fought in World War I and Rachel thinks that NATO is a person?
  • Remember that it was only in Joey's memories that we see these scenes, apart from the one at the end, but that was mainly about Korea and how pretty it was; he may have been making the conversations more complicated than they really were.
    • Building off that, it's not impossible they were in the same situation as Joey, laughing because they didn't want to seem stupid.
  • We don't get to hear the discussion and the joke in whole - maybe Ross' argument about something being "unconstitutional" was just as stupid as their usual conversation. Also, knowing what the Algonquin Round table is doesn't mean they were experts.

Rachel Beats Ross At Poker

• In the otherwise great episode The One With The Poker, there's a scene where Rachel wins a round. Ross politely asks to see her cards, but she refuses, defensively saying "I'm not showing you!" and even taunts him about not wanting to lose. Um... don't you have to show your cards if you're claiming that you won? Who's to say Rachel wasn't lying her arse off and really only had a pair or something. Phoebe will tear into Joey about the ethics of bluffing, but doesn't bat an eye to this?
  • Ross folded. You only need to show your cards if you're proving you beat someone else's hand. If everyone else folds, no, you don't need to show your hand.
    • You don't need to if your opponent folds, but it is a courtesy. Especially as it shows if you legitimately won or were bluffing.

The Fourth Wall of The Apartments

• More of an issue with any TV show of the Fourth Wall variety, but especially obvious with friends. Every episode we see into the houses of the six Friends, and nobody seems to question that every room has a huge, seemingly blank wall, the one we are looking through. It seems irrelevant, but from the point of view of the characters doesn't a huge waste of space like a blank wall in a small apartment seem odd? I understand why they can't use the nonexistent wall, but the logical error is a Headscratcher.
  • In the episode where Chandler finds Monica's hidden closet of mystery you can see that wall of their apartment in the background. There's a picture and some fancy wall-design so there is something there, it's more of an X-Ray Camera situation than a three-walled apartment situation.
  • A bit of Fan Wank has the apartments' blueprints show the fourth wall to Chandler's place be where the computer table is. Joey mentions Chandler's computer once, and it doesn't seem like Chandler would work on it on the kitchen table. Monica's fourth wall has a small stand with two chairs, which they use on episodes where several people are over her place and need somewhere to sit.
    • Monica also mentions having a computer in one of the later seasons but we never see one in her apartment. It's either a laptop she meticulously tidies away when it's not being used (which is quite believable for Monica) or it's also on the fourth wall.

Rachel's Smoking Coworkers

• Right after Rachel joins Ralph Lauren, she gets annoyed when her new colleagues go for a cigarette and make a bunch of work decisions without her while doing so. Rachel decides the best solution is to take up smoking herself so she can join them. So it doesn't occur to her to, I don't know, tell her colleagues that she feels this is unfair treatment, resolving the issue without risking lung cancer?
  • Most people don't immediately confront their bosses (note that one of the two 'colleagues' is her immediate supervisor) about being treated unfairly in the workplace within days of getting a new job. People especially don't do that if they have a history of dealing with their problems passive-aggressively, like Rachel has always done. Chucking a tanty about being treated unfairly within the first week of a new job doesn't exactly endear you to your supervisor and co-workers.

The Failure Rate of Condoms

• How the hell did Ross not know about the failure rate of condoms? He's the most well-educated of the friends, knows random crap about random crap, and is shown to be a pretty responsible father. The whole situation just bugs me, because it would have made a lot more sense if Ross and Rachel had simply forgotten the condom due to inebriation.
  • The writers discussed this in the DVD commentary, and evidently it's a case of Truth in Television. A lot of people, even very intelligent people, don't know about the failure rates of condoms.
  • Ross doesn't seem like the type of guy who'd be too knowledgeable about sex. If anything, it's more surprising Joey didn't know.

Drake Ramoray's Return

• Was there an explanation given as to how Joey went back to playing Drake rather than Susan Sarandon's character on Days of our Lives? or are we not supposed to think about it?
  • No explanation given. Judging from the end of the episode where Drake Ramoray gets his new brain and has Susan's personality and than the next time he is seen, he is back to acting like Dr. Ramoray, it can be assumed that he simply returned to his old personality somehow.
• An episode in season 8 features a Joey recording a scene from the show, where it's explained (through laughable Techno Babble) that Drake's personality resurfaced because his body was rejecting Sarandon's character's brain, and her body had disappeared. When Rachel asks what happened to it, Joey says he has no idea and doesn't care. But that does imply that his character went back to being Drake Ramoray.

Ross and The Retiring Janitor

• When Ross moves into his new apartment around the same time the janitor is retiring after twenty-five years of working in the building. The guy organizing the money collection's welcoming words boil down to "Hi neighbor. Give us $100". Ross has never met this janitor, yet he's supposed to cough up money after just arriving? Isn't this apartment implied to be expensive? And it's also a large building, so wouldn't the couple of thousand they're giving this man be enough on its own without having to heckle the new guy?
  • People are jerks. Often entitled, clique-ish, petty jerks. Since they're in New York City, double down on all that.

Rachel Moving Out

• In season six, when Monica and Chandler decide to move in together, they have trouble telling that Rachel that she has to move out. Now why did Rachel have to move out other than to continue the "Ross & Rachel's Drunken Vegas Marriage" plot if Monica and Chandler were going to share a room?
  • Ross and Richard were just boyfriends who stayed over a lot, Chandler was going to move in. There's a big difference in the living arrangements. Monica and Chandler wanting to have the apartment to themselves, is the normal attitude to have.

Hugsy Hijinks

• Rachel borrows Joey's stuffed penguin Hugsy for Emma to play with. She guiltily asks him later if that's okay. Joey pretends that it is, then Hilarity Ensues as he tries to get Hugsy back. Why didn't he just admit that he doesn't want to give up his stuffed animal? Rachel would've been disappointed, but not angry at him. Adults with teddy bears are not exactly the most eccentric or irrational people around, okay?
  • He was embarrassed at first, then didn't want to seem mean, then wanted his penguin back and would rather bring on the hijinks to get Emma to accept a different stuffed animal than look like a jerk in front of Rachel or outright steal it from Emma.

Chandler Fakes It

• In one episode, Monica and Chandler are trying to conceive their baby, Chandler fakes that thing he has to do to make a baby. How can guys fake ejaculation? How did Monica not notice?
  • As a bloke who has faked it before, I can confirm it is possible to do so and unless the woman actually checks to see if there has been anything left behind she won't notice that all the fluids are hers.

The Father of Rachel's Baby

• Rachel is pregnant. She has on/off history with Ross. Yet nobody ever considers him a possible candidate for the father?!
  • It wasn't exactly an on again off again relationship. They only actually reconciled once, and that was 4 years before Rachel got pregnant. They did hook up and get married in Vegas, but that was drunken mistake that neither remembered in the morning. Plus there's also the fact that they never told anyone that they hooked up that night, which you would think that one of them would have said something. Since they really had no reason to keep it a secret that they did hook up, it's entirely possible that nobody would think they did hook up without telling any of them. Plus, Phoebe did ask if it was Ross, Rachel said no, Phoebe could have easily told everyone else that she asked if it was him.

Monica Can't Remember Allergies?

• In one episode Ross reminds Monica that he has an allergy to limes. Why didn't Monica warn him, or Ross check with her about what he was putting in his mouth?
  • Monica forgot. She rattles off a list of his allergies, but since there are so many, it's not entirely unreasonable that one should slip her mind. And Ross doesn't ask because he assumed she remembered.
  • He's actually allergic to kiwi—the "kiwi-lime" pie was misheard as "key-lime," which is why he ate it in the first place. And it's not like kiwis come up very frequently, unlike an allergy to something common like peanut butter or shellfish, which Ross is also allergic to and Monica remembered easily. I'm allergic to lavender and rosemary, both really uncommon allergies and things that you don't eat all that often, and my own mother forgets about them most of the time.
    • Can confirm that some people are just very bad at remembering these things even for their closest relatives. I have to deal with parents who for whatever reason haven't been able to remember my dietary requirements for decades.

Jamie and Fran at Central Perk

• Jamie and Fran (from Mad About You) enter Central Perk and see Phoebe, who they assume to be Ursula. They proceed to tell a confused Phoebs their order.
  • 1. Jamie saw Ursula at Rick's last night. She has no reason to conclude that Ursula is working a second job at Central Perk. And for that matter, is Ursula not entitled to enjoy a day off at a coffeehouse?
  • 2. Phoebe is not wearing an apron, carrying a tray, or doing anything that indicates that she is a waitress.
  • 3. At Central Perk (and I daresay a lot of other restaurants) you don't shanghai a waitress in motion and make an order. This is rude. You go to the counter or wait to be seated.
  • Slightly mitigating it is that when they see her and mistake her for Ursula, Jamie says something like "Oh, you're here too?" Which is awkwardly phrased to make the joke work, but Phoebe responds with an equally awkward "Yuh-huh?" It's kind of stupid, but Jamie asks Phoebe if she works there and thinks she gets the affirmative, she doesn't just assume she does and go from there. And hey, sometimes people work more than one job, it happens. If Phoebe had said "I'm sorry, have we met?" I doubt Jamie would have just started rattling off her order. She doesn't "shanghai" her, and it's not exactly a sprawling restaurant, it's a tiny coffee house and she thinks she's speaking to a waitress because, as far as she's concerned, she asked if she was speaking to a waitress and was told she was.
  • It's kind of inconsistent throughout the series as to whether there's table service or customers order at the counter of Central Perk, but either way, the way Jamie and Fran place their order doesn't observe proper etiquette/protocol. As pointed out above, along with the "You're here too?" phrasing, it was a bit of an awkward set-up to make the joke work.
  • I always thought it was weird that Jamie acts mystified by Central Perk, asking "What is this place???" It's a coffeehouse. In the Village. Coffeehouses have been there since the 1950s.

Charles Bing

• Chandler's Dad. Is Kathleen Turner playing a man who dresses as a woman, or a man who has surgically become a woman? Dialog would seem to suggest the former; "he is the MAN in the black dress" but the casting choice would imply the later.
  • Okay, let's end this one once and for all. Chandler's father is a gay drag queen. He is always referred to as such by everyone, including himself. That he's played by a woman is supposed to be a joke. The original intended idea was that Chandler's dad would be a celebrity impersonator so they'd cast a different female celebrity to play him with each of his appearances. Ultimately they only used him twice so they decided to use the joke but remain consistent with the actress they used. Visible cleavage is irrelevant as any drag queen who knows what they're doing can pull off decent fake cleavage. It's like when people are talking at normal volume three feet from everyone else but nobody hears anything, you just pretend things are different to make the joke work.
    • It's also been established from Word of God that this was due to not understanding the difference between drag and trans. They wrote Helena as a drag queen when being trans would be truer to the character.

The Barcaloungers

• Joey has just purchased two Barcaloungers. Chandler asks which one is his, clearly willing to defer to Joey, the guy who bought them in the first place. Joey excitedly says that Chandler can choose. When he attempts to sit in one, Joey says "Not that one." What in the heck? Chandler clearly had no preference between the two, so just say which one is yours and which is his!
  • Because sometimes Joey is kinda a Manchild. Kids do this all the time, claim things for themselves. He was just trying to be humble at first and the kid in him clicked and he had to call dibs.

Monica's New Shoes

• Monica has new boots. She claims they're comfortable, and that they go with everything and that she'll wear them all the time. Chandler insists she wear them everywhere. Why didn't Monica just refuse once in a while? It's not irrational to want to wear some other shoes once in a while.
  • One of Monica's justifications for spending so much money on the boots, was that they went with everything. The party was very soon after buying the new boots, and when Chandler suggests she wear them, Monica replies that they don't go with her dress. Chandler simply said he thought Monica had said they went with everything, so why didn't she want to wear her new boots, which go with everything, to this party. Monica didn't want to let on that the boots she had spent so much money on, and claimed were great, were hurting her feet so much. It's not like this party was months later, so the suggestion of it not being irrational to want to wear something else once in a while is a bit out of place.

Monica's "Boob Job"

• So Chandler thinks Monica wants a boob job, and isn't subtle about his feelings. Monica automatically assumes Chandler's repetition of "don't get any bigger" and "you're perfect the way you are" are his hints that he doesn't want her body to change during the pregnancy they're trying to achieve. What kind of moron does she take him for? Does she really think her husband actually wants her to get pregnant but not change? I mean, I know Monica has babies on the brain, but damn, she was holding the idiot ball in that part of the episode.
  • Chandler has long been irrational, conflicted and neurotic; see his feelings over trying to commit to a real relationship with Janice for fear of being alone for the rest of his life earlier in the season. When his voice gets high and squeaky, we really can't be expected to run anything he says through the rationality filter.
  • Monica may also be worried about gaining weight again and going back to how she looked in high school and college. It's not uncommon for those who have lost considerable amounts of weight from their youth to be paranoid about gaining it back.

The So-Called Fame of Ross and Rachel

• Ross and Rachel were only ever together as a couple in the second half of season two and the first half of season three. That's altogether one season, out of ten. How the hell are they "the most famous couple in recent television history"? because of the treatment of the exaggeratedly sensitive male character.
  • You need to factor in the "will they or won't they periods prior to and following, including Ross's wedding to Emily and Emma. They were arguably more of a focus in the show during those periods than when they were actually together and relatively happy.
  • They're famous (or infamous) because of how their breakups and failures to get together, not actual relationship. S1: Crushing on each other. S2: Break up over 'The List' S3: Break up again over the 'Ross cheated/we were on a break' mess S4: Get back together but split up again over 'the break'. S5: Feelings for each other but Ross is married. S6: Married but get divorced. S8: Have a baby but still don't get together. S10: Finally get there. They are famous because of how frustrating their storyline was, not necessarily because they're popular. In fact Monica/Chandler are loved more, just not remembered because their relationships actually worked.
  • Ross and Rachel's relationship was the main focus during the early seasons - the ones that saw the show explode in popularity. Sure, the show lasted a lot longer, but the pop culture moment was more fixated on these first three years - for instance, Rachel's trademark haircut didn't last that long, either.

Avoiding Joey's Stalker

• In the Second Season Episode where Joey and Chandler are trying to escape Joey's stalker, they can't escape to the street because the stalker is on her way up and they panic and retreat back to their apartment as their last hope, do they not think to go up the stairs to the floor or two above them?
  • Those stairs led to the roof, which was presumably locked. (The creators made a point of making the large apartments six-story walkups, which are among the cheapest in Manhattan as only buildings larger than six stories are required to have elevators.) They might have been able to hide in the stairwell, but the noise they made might also have tipped off the stalker. Hiding in the apartment was just as viable as running into another dead end. Maybe even more so, as they had weapons in the apartment.
  • Going up the stairs or to the roof also means that if your stalker follows you, you have nowhere to go to further escape.
    • It is shown in an episode that there is a floor above them(Phoebe ends up sleeping with the upstairs neighbour after going up to complain about his noisiness) so they could have escaped up there. It probably didn’t occur to them in the heat of the moment.

Breaking the Foosball Table

• Why did Chandler and Joey think they needed to break the Foosball table, possibly causing dangerous backlash to Chick II and Duck II, instead of trying to pry the pieces apart where they were glued, possibly causing (less-)dangerous backlash to Chick II and Duck II? I know why Monica wanted to, but why did they let her smash the individual components instead of prying it apart at the seams themselves, or asking her to do so?

Supposably and Supposedly

• What was with the supposable/supposably joke? Is "supposably" not a real, context-sensitive word, as the spellchecker seems to think? I was always under the impression that it meant "it could hypothetically be supposed", as opposed to "supposedly" which means "it has been supposed".
  • The joke is that while they are both legitimate words, the word "supposably" is often mistakenly used in sentences where "supposedly" is the correct word in context.

The One That Could Have Been

• Ross's subplot in The One That Could Have Been makes absolutely no sense. In the opening scene he hypothesizes, "what if I hadn't gotten divorced", so in the alternate reality he's still married — and Carol is still a lesbian. So they're pretty much at the same place, and their marriage still breaks up for the same reason. I mean, if you're gonna hypothesize, wouldn't you go for "what if Carol hadn't been a lesbian"? It would've been much more interesting to see another way their marriage could have failed.
  • There's a lot of evidence that Ross believes he could have worked over the marriage problems despite Carol being a lesbian (I recall one episode where he did try to get back together with her). Ross clearly is deeply affected by the stigma of his multiple divorces and wants to erase the first one in his memory. The episodes can serve as a sort of 'It's a Wonderful Life' for Ross saying that it would have never have worked, no matter what Ross did. (It's notable that for all the other Friends, the status quo eventually reasserts itself, Monica and Chandler still end up together, Phoebe doesn't keep her job at the Stock Exchange etc.)
  • Ross and Carol are seen to have had a great friendship/relationship, and it's been made clear that the marriage only ended because of Carol's sexuality. The subtext-question isn't "what if Carol hadn't been a lesbian," it's "what if Carol had never come out and both of them were able to stick it out despite their sexual frustrations to remain in a strong relationship with a shared child?"

Monica Doesn't Take Criticism Well

• In the season 8 episode The One With The Cooking Class, Monica is bummed that her restaurant got an awful review in the paper. None of the characters seem to remember that four years earlier, Monica herself had written an equally scathing review of that restaurant ("Will I go back to Alessandro's? Sure. But I'll need to order two plates of food: one for me, and one for the guy pointing the gun at my head.") — that's how she became the chef there. A great moment of irony, missed.
  • Maybe because Monica took the review personally since it was about her cooking, whereas the one she wrote was about an entirely different person from herself?
  • Considering that the brief description of Alessandro's before Monica makes it sound like a genuinely terrible restaurant (the waiter brought the bread sticks out in his pants, and the food was so bad that Joey refused to eat it) Monica's scathing review was also probably more deserved.

Mrs. Greene at Carol and Susan's Wedding

• Why is Rachel's mother going to her daughter's friend's ex-wife's wedding?
  • She's Rachel's plus-one

The One With The Flashback

• The episode starts off with Janice asking which of the friends have slept with which of each other. Ross responds (with Rachel sitting on his lap no less) "The answer there would be none of us." Why does he not say something more like "None of us, except obviously Rachel and I"?
  • There is a deleted line from that scene, that was cut for time, - right after Ross says "None of us." Rachel jokes "Yeah, and if you don't start putting out, we're over."

Ross vs Chandler

• Okay, so, this comes under the "the writers can't keep anything straight" umbrella, but in "The One With Monica and Chandler's Wedding (Part 1)", everybody laughs at Ross because he warns Chandler not to hurt Monica or he will kick Chandler's ass (which in and of itself is quite mean, as all Ross was doing was trying to look out for his little sister). This clearly means that nobody thinks that Ross could do such a thing. However, in "The One With The Halloween Party", Chandler is made fun of because nobody thinks he can beat up Ross. So, which is it, writers?
  • Perhaps the laughter was not because Ross would be a weaker opponent of the two, but because it would be completely unnecessary. Monica (about whom has been pointed out is 'freakishly strong') would not need someone to look out after her (younger sister or not) because she is perfectly capable of looking out for herself. Of the two Geller siblings, in a fight, personally my money would be on Monica (strong, ruthless, and having a bit of an inferiority complex).
  • What's being made fun of is not the actual possibility of an attack, or even Ross' goofiness, but the fact that he was just trying to pass as a tough person and create a dramatic moment. He had no reason to defend Monica, who 1) is fully capable of kicking Chandler's ass by herself, and 2) is with Chandler, who'd probably jump in a pool of acid before he'd willingly harm her.

Ross hates ice cream

• In the episode where Phoebe keeps a dog in Monica and Chandler's apartment we learn that Ross hates ice cream. Yet, earlier in the series when he's dating his (former) student Elizabeth they are seen walking down the street and he's eating ice cream. Of course he could have developed this hatred of ice cream in between but it still always bugged me.

  • The reason Ross gives for hating ice cream is that it hurts his teeth. Sensitive teeth is something which develops over time. And if he likes the taste of ice cream but not its coldness, he could 'hate' the frustrating urge to eat something which he can't.

Fat Monica

• So, the teenage Monica lost about half of her weight within only one year and became excessively thin. Is this physically possible? Can you remain healthy while doing something so absurd? Did she have an eating disorder? And if so, how come there were no side effects? This plot point is a bit offensive towards people who actually try to lose weight and can't: dieting is not that easy in real life.
  • It's perfectly plausible. The fatter you are, the easier it is to lose large amounts of body fat at the start of your diet.
  • It's stated that she lost about 80lbs, going from 200lbs to 120lbs or so in a year. That works out to just over a pound and a half a week, which is quite healthy and realistic.
  • Monica also says "my heart's not in trouble anymore," indicating that her heavier weight was also dangerous to her health, and the weight loss may well have been physician-supervised.
  • There has also been some speculation that she got some plastic surgery to deal with the excess skin left over from the weight loss.

Joey and Phoebe

• In the first season, they planted seeds for a Joey/Phoebe pairing with the Joey/Ursula stuff. Later, once the show had the Ross/Rachel and Chandler/Monica couplings, it seemed like a forgone conclusion that eventually Joey and Phoebe would get together, especially since they were the other's opposite-sex counterpart, but it never happened. I always found that weirdly annoying for some reason even though I don't really care about who's shipped with who on TV shows. Did the writers decide it was too contrived to pair up the remaining main characters once they put Chandler and Monica together?
  • Pretty much. Having all the friends hook up kind of defeats the premise of the show. But even the actors liked to think Phoebe and Joey had a little something going on behind everyone's backs when they were both single.
    • Lisa Kudrow and Matt Le Blanc have said in interviews that they believed Phoebe and Joey had a long-standing Friends With Benefits situation going on, but the writers didn't want to pair everybody up so they shot it down immediately.

Rachel's Trifle Recipe Screw-up

• In The One Where Ross Got High, Rachel attempts to make an English trifle unsupervised, but gets the recipe mixed up with a shepherd's pie recipe because the pages of the magazine containing the recipe get stuck together. She ends up making something that's half an English trifle, half a shepherd’s pie. Hilarity Ensues. While obviously this joke setup wouldn't work with a regular printed recipe book (normally organized into chapters, with both recipes in separate sections so that even a stuck page couldn't result in this), but don't food magazines contain plenty of gratuitous photos? Even if the pages stuck together, there'd be a huge illustration of what the end result of the trifle should look like, so how does she still not get it right, even with a photo there? And where does she get the sautéed ground beef (with peas and onions) from? Did Monica just happen to have that especially un-Thanksgivingy dish cooking on the side, or was Rachel able to prepare this despite not knowing how to make the relatively simple dessert (and having previously been shown to have little aptitude in the kitchen) and without Monica noticing?
  • Maybe Rachel just knew a trifle was meant to have three layers, so she amended the recipe. She did the lower layer of trifle from the first page, flipped to the shepherds pie and then wondered why the recipe didn't tell her to put custard on top and did it anyway.
  • Cooking magazines don't contain photos of every recipe, and often even if there is a picture it isn't on the same page as the recipe. Sometimes most of the magazine will be between the picture and the actual recipe, if the recipes are all collected in plain pages at the end of the magazine and the earlier section is all articles about the chefs who provided them.
  • The two pages that were glued together were the ones with the pictures. Maybe the page layout had the ingredients in one column, the preparation in another, then the other page had a picture of the trifle, a picture of the pie, and the ingredients for the pie in the other column, in a visible page. Of course, contrived stupidity still applies.

Monica's Giant Turkey

• From a different Thanksgiving episode, one of the subplots involved Monica not wanting to go through the effort of making a turkey that year (since Phoebe was vegetarian, Rachel recently had Emma and poultry made her queasy, Chandler doesn't eat Thanksgiving food, and Brad Pitt's character was still dieting, only three of seven people would have eaten it.) Joey whines that it's not Thanksgiving without turkey, and promises to eat the whole thing to avoid leftovers if she makes it. This leads to Joey spending the whole time trying to systematically eat an entire giant turkey all by himself. However, not every Thanksgiving turkey is big enough to require a saddle to bring it home. In any supermarket, the size of turkey's ranges from anywhere between 10 pounds to over 25. Additionally, they sell turkey breasts by themselves for situations like this. Couldn't she have gotten one of these smaller options (which usually are easier and faster to cook, mind) instead of forcing poor Joey to try and swallow an entire pterodactyl by himself?
  • Monica didn't make him eat it. When Joey was struggling, she told him it was ok to stop and have leftovers later. Joey wanted a 'proper' Turkey (i.e. a big, full size one) so it was a 'real' Thanksgiving and he was the one determined to eat it. Joey isn't exactly mature when it comes to these things.
  • If anyone in the gang has the means to get a thanksgiving turkey on such short notice, it's the professional chef.

Naïve Phoebe vs. Street-smart Phoebe

• Doesn't it seem like a bit of a contradiction for Phoebs to be street smart, but the gang feels the need to keep her from seeing the end of 'Old Yeller?' Also, she writes a note that is so over-the-top that it helps get Ross fired. The show seemed to alternate between child-like Phoebe and Been-Around-The-Block Phoebe.
  • What it comes down to is that Phoebe's obviously had a pretty tough life so she's developed ways of escaping from/dealing with that. E.g. the naïve worldview in her songs that shows joy in simple things, "happy" movies, the environment, etc. For what it's worth, Lisa Kudrow says she saw Phoebe as someone who was naturally The Pollyanna and had a positive attitude to anything that came her way - and "ploughing through it anyway".
  • And the gang don't keep her from seeing the end of Old Yeller. They're watching it and she comes in at the time, not knowing about the ending, and they don't seem to know that she thinks it's a happy ending.

Erica and the twins

• How come Erica was able to go an entire term without once suspecting she was carrying twins? Okay, the writers tried to handwave it with 'I thought when they said both heartbeats it meant mine and the baby's?' But it surely stretches belief that after the first scan no-one told her that she had two embryos, that there were no references made to 'both babies' or that Erica was too stupid to miss a reference like 'We are going to have to give you a steroid injection so that your twins' lungs are fully formed'
  • Erica was basically told she was having twins, she just misinterpreted what she was told until she had to push them out.
• Real life example - the Bella Twins' mother didn't know she was having twins until the second one came out (admittedly because she couldn't afford an ultrasound). They do establish that Erica's a bit ditzy so maybe through pure coincidence she misunderstood every reference the doctors made.

Table service at Central Perk

• Does Central Park ever serve meals? It's a pretty standard coffeehouse — how many places like this really have table service and real wait staff? Even within the show it's inconsistent as to whether orders are placed at the counter or not.
  • As far as the table service, it's not impossible to think that they don't officially offer table service, they might take a table order from somebody who's a regular or a good friend of the owner or waiter.
  • Perhaps they just order at the counter if they want their coffee or food to go and then just sit and wait if they want to stay in. Or they could order at the counter and then sit down while they wait for their order.

Rachel Moving to France

• Ross wants Rachel to stay so they can be together. Why doesn't he offer to go with her? Either way he'll be on a different continent from one his children, so why doesn't he even think of moving to France with Rachel? Better yet, why doesn't anyone else since they always seem to know everything? And why doesn't Rachel suggest it?
  • Rachel doesn't suggest it because she doesn't think Ross wants her to stay until she's literally boarding the plane. Ross probably might be thinking of his family - as he's quite close with his parents and Monica, and maybe he's thinking of Ben too. Rachel hates both her sisters and isn't that fond of her parents, so that might be less of an issue for her. Rachel is also moving for a job, and Ross would have to leave his to find another. If maybe they'd sat down and talked about it, Ross might have come round to the idea of moving, but they don't get together until Rachel has already decided to stay.

Vikram

• So Phoebe has invented a former boyfriend named Vikram to show Mike that she has in fact had a serious relationship before. Um, what about David the Scientist Guy? He was a serious relationship, and if he hadn't moved to Russia Phoebe probably would've married him back in Season Two. And you can't even say that the writers forgot about David, because they deliberately bring him back to provide conflict with Mike. Why invent Vikram?
  • It was actually Ross who invented Vikram, not Phoebe. In terms of why he invented Vikram instead of bringing up one of her ex boyfriends, it wasn't like he was in the position of having a lot of time to come up with a good example. He had JUST told Mike that Phoebe hadn't had a serious relationship and, to avoid freaking him out, was trying to come up MID-SENTENCE with a way to make it not seem such a big deal, "She hasn't had a serious relationship...since...her super serious relationship...with...Vikram." It's completely plausible that he wouldn't have had time to think of David. However, even if he did, that doesn't mean he would use David as an example. Phoebe loved David but "serious relationship" in this context didn't seem to mean "had serious feelings for someone", it seemed to mean never having been with someone on a long term basis (she specifically mentions never even having celebrated an anniversary), which she and David never did (they only got to date briefly) which means he wouldn't be a good example. As for Gary, yes they moved in together but that was only because they did so after getting to know each other for a brief period (and then broke up pretty much immediately); comparing the dates of first and last episodes he was in they were only together for about 10 weeks. So Phoebe, at this stage, really hadn't had an actual serious relationship which Ross could have easily thought of and certainly not one he could have been expected to think of in a split second.

Strip poker

• Three guys and three girls playing strip poker. The girls want to get Joey naked, which is understandable as he's the most "hunk" of the three. But I find it extremely hard to believe that the other two guys would want the same thing. Ok, Ross might have been squicked at the idea of seeing Monica naked, and maybe he was too shy to choose Rachel, but Phoebe's fair game, and Chandler would have had no such problems with anyone.
  • They only agreed to play strip poker (actually strip Happy Days Game) because Joey kept bugging them about it. So since he was so insistent on getting his way, they decided to give him what he asked for.

Monica's balcony

• To get out onto the balcony of Monica's apartment, one has to climb through a window. What's the deal with that? Why no door? The last one to live in that apartment was Monica's grandmother, and I can't picture her climbing through that window. When Chandler moves in with Monica, Joey gives him the big white dog. Later on, we see that he and Monica keep it out on the balcony (it can be seen in the background of several shots). However, we also see in other episodes that the only way to get out onto the balcony is by crawling through the little window next to Monica's secret closet. The main window has a panel that can be tilted open, but we only see it open when they used the giant poking device and Pat the Dog wouldn't have fit through it. How did they manage to fit it onto the balcony?
  • Such arrangements do exist. I've seen them elsewhere, and I've always taken them as a legally grey way of giving an apartment a balcony without having to bother with things like railings, high walls, and in general safety. Family member leans too much and falls to his death? Well he was never meant to be there, there's no door, don't you know that's not a balcony? *inserts lawsuit into paper shredder*

Phoebe's Job

• By the end of the series, what is Phoebe actually doing? We see Monica, Joey, Rachel and Ross becoming a head chef and a movie star, working at a major fashion house and getting tenure but in the last episode that Phoebe mentioned her job showed her at that big chain spa she hated. Even though she married Mike, it still seems like a questionable happy ending. Mike quit his job as a lawyer to chase his own dream and says "I'm not rich, my parents are" so even though the two of them obviously wanted to have children but it seems doubtful that Phoebe could become a stay-at-home mother even if she wanted to. Is she still working at a job where she has to compromise her morals and do degrading things to hide it from her friends like those stupid accents. Also, what happened to the Relaxi Taxi idea and the painted van?
  • The Relaxi Taxi fell apart because it seemed like a bad idea (I don't think it's possible to relax in the back of a van that has to make sharp turns, sudden stops, and occasionally run over potholes.) As far as her job, she had been seen working in massage salons before, so it's not totally impossible that she was able to find a job in a more mid-sized place that she was more comfortable with but was still able to give her the benefits she took the corporate job for. Aside from that, Mike spent a long time working as a lawyer, and probably has some financial security (savings, stocks, investments,) not to mention that it probably isn't all that difficult for a piano player to find work in New York (nightclubs where singers perform, music and dance schools that require accompaniment, theaters.)
  • Phoebe was just overreacting about the big chain spa being so horrible. She did say the pay was great and she had benefits, after all.

Making Fun of Ross's Job

• Why does everyone make fun of Ross being a paleontologist? Okay, he does tend to share scientific information a bit much, but do they remember he has a doctorate? Last I checked the only ones in the group that even went to college was Chandler (explicitly stated to have been Ross's roommate and how they met, so obvious), Monica (culinary school), and maybe Rachel (which doesn't seem likely, since any sort of degree should be able to find her a better job than waitressing, as this was pre-recession). Phoebe has also stated she never finished high school and Joey is Joey. So why don't they respect Ross a bit more or at least lay off the rude comments?
  • He might get a bit more respect if he ever shut up about his job. He's established as droning on and on and on about every science thing he finds interesting and they're all just sick of it. To make it worse he's completely oblivious to their disinterest and assumes they want to hear everything he has to talk about, which makes him even more annoying to them. They do get excited and happy for him when he actually accomplishes something (getting a promotion, teach an advanced class, getting tenure) it's just the subject matter they don't care about.
  • Put simply: Ross is a geek. In addition, he's a stuck up geek of the type where he feels he must constantly correct people, even his closest friends. Hard to not make fun of someone like that.

Phoebe's grandmother after Lily's suicide

• Why didn't Phoebe and Ursula's grandmother take care of them after her daughter killed herself? Why couldn't the girls live with her? Was she ill or something? She seemed fairly healthy and strong later in her life when Phoebe was living with her. Not particularly down-to-earth or terribly practical, but she surely wasn't as messed up as their run-away dad or their step-dad who was in prison. The least she could do was to see that the girls were sent to a good foster home if she hadn't wanted the custody. Instead of living in her flat, Phoebe and Ursula had to experience an awful homeless life as teenagers.
  • It's never established that Ursula lived on the streets. It's possible she had somewhere to go when Phoebe didn't. It's also possible Ursula lived with the grandmother and Phoebe just couldn't take it. We've seen how bad their relationship is.
  • From what we've learned about Phoebe's grandmother, it would actually not have been out of the question for her to have been in prison at that time too. Phoebe does not that "she's in hell for sure."

Is Central Perk right below the apartments?

• In a few episodes the characters saying something like "Let's go upstairs" while they're in the coffee shop, and then the next scene shows them in Monica's apartment. Inversely, They've referred to Central Perk as "downstairs" before.
  • Central Perk may not be literally the bottom floor of the apartment building, but is instead next door, or a few doors down, or one street over, or otherwise close enough geographically that they think relatively little of the distance. Besides, "let's go upstairs" is shorter and easier to say than "Let's go back to our building, upstairs, and to one of our apartments" or whatever. As long as everyone relevant knows what they mean when they say it, no need to clarify.
  • In "TOW George Stephanopolous", Joey counts 97 steps between their third floor apartment and Central Perk. It seems like the shop would either have to be in the building, or perhaps right next door.

Susan and Carol's case: Same-sex marriage in the USA in the 90's

• This one might need an explanation from somebody who has first-hand experience living in the States or being an expert on gay rights and history of the same-sex marriage. ^note I'm not an American and my knowledge of the issue consists of reading an article on The Other Wiki and watching Six Feet Under. As far as I know, the same-sex marriage was not legally possible back then. Was Carol and Susan's wedding merely a symbolic thing that they wanted to go through with no legal validity, which they would later confirm, say, by making each other their inheritors? Or was there any alternative for gay couples to make a legal bond?
  • It's most likely the former; a ceremony that's meaningful to the participants but lacks legal status. Note that Seinfeld did a plotline involving a lesbian wedding some years earlier.

Ordering a green salad then eating the other person's food

• In one of the later episodes, Joey gets mad when his date eats some of his fries, which is meant to be seen as ridiculous. When they go out again he orders a basket of fries to share, but then she tries to eat stuffed clams off his plate, even though he keeps moving his plate around in an obvious way to show that he doesn't want to share. Both times she orders a green salad. I get taking a few fries, but if she wanted something more substantial why wouldn't she order something else instead of being rude, or at least ask if she could have some of his food instead of just taking some?
  • The scene could be interpreted differently. She might not have been that hungry and wouldn't want to eat anything substantial by herself. Perhaps she just wanted to do cute romantic stuff, Sickeningly Sweethearts style — sharing food from one plate is close to Romantic Spoonfeeding. Another thing is that she should have noticed Joey isn't into it and for him, it feels like Enemy Eats Your Lunch.

Rachel's job in Paris

• Rachel's job offer from Louis Vuitton seemed a little strange. How likely was it that she would be offered a job in Paris despite having not ever being shown to speak or understand the French language? Are there enough English speakers in Paris that it wouldn't be much of an issue? It would seem like a risky venture financially since she might not be able to pick up the language and might become more of a financial liability trying to work in a country where she doesn't understand any other employees and none of them might understand her?

  • Most people in Europe speak their first language (in this case French) and a second language (usually English) by the time they're finished middle school, then they take a third and sometimes a fourth language in high school. (I heard this from a friend who was Romanian but grew up in France. Although she spoke fluent Romanian, French, German, and some Latin, she didn't study English until she moved to North America). That said, most Europeans who operate as business higher-ups speak English so they may be competitive in the world market, since English is considered the language of commerce. There's also no reason Rachel can't study French when she gets there. Besides, she's probably picked up at least a few French fashion terms watching shows about Paris Fashion Week and so on.

  • The Emily in Paris writer says that she was sent to work in France without knowing any French, so it happens.

Phoebe phasing Monica out

• In 'TOW Ross's Tan' Phoebe admits that after moving out of Monica's apartment she tried to 'phase her out' of her life and the friend group. How exactly was she planning to stay friends with the rest of the gang without seeing Monica? Ross was Monica's brother, Chandler lived across the hall and was much closer to Monica than he'd ever been to Phoebe, and Joey had just moved in. There's no way any of them would pick Phoebe over Monica. Not to mention Monica's apartment was the main hang out for the gang. There was no way Phoebe could exclude Monica from that group, she'd only end up outing herself. Phoebe's ditzy and all, but that plan seems utterly stupid, especially as she's supposed to be a master manipulator. Was she planning to ditch all of them? What was she thinking?
  • It was a weird problem that contradicted what had been established earlier. In the episode/flashback where Phoebe moved out, she said very tenderly (and it seemed to be honest) that she loved Monica and wanted to stay close friends, but living with her made that impossible because Monica's obsessions were driving her crazy. That seemed more true to their characters and was even logical. Phasing Monica out would mean losing them all, and they were already more like Phoebe's family.
  • Plus the episode was inconsistent in other ways: It said Phoebe moved out in 1992 before Chandler arrived when flashbacks show Phoebe moved out in 1993 when Chandler had been living across the hall for ages. (The flashback showed him looking for a new roommate so presumably Kip had already come and gone, meaning he might have been there even longer than Phoebe, we don't know how long she lived with Monica). So basically a inconsistent episode all round.
  • Well that's why it didn't work. Phoebe was so annoyed by Monica's behavior that she wanted to be away from her without realizing she'd be losing out on her main social circle. Phoebe eventually realized she was probably being very unreasonable and gave Monica another chance.
  • And Phoebe didn't know any of the others beforehand, only knowing Monica from living with her. So she may have not been as close with the gang yet and thought she'd find new friends.

Phoebe and Animals

• So Phoebe is a vegetarian and pro-animal-rights, when she gets a coat made of mink fur she eventually can't handle the guilt and throws it away, and yet on TOW The Worst Best Man Ever she wants leather pants? What?
  • There's also the lingering possibility that the pants were some type of synthetic fabric and everybody called them leather pants for the sake of simplicity. This is also an easy handwave for the odd occasion where it appears she's wearing something (usually shoes) that looks like it was made from leather or suede.
  • Some vegetarians literally just don't eat meat and don't really mind about other animal products. Phoebe might not care about leather, or she might know of a store that sells responsibly-sourced leather, if that's a thing.
  • She does mention that, even though she doesn't eat meat, she enjoys playing with their carcass. It might be a Depending on the Writer issue, but a lot of people object to the fur business but have no trouble wearing leather.
  • Possibly just a bit of Phoebe being caught up in Pretty in Mink, as a woman getting her first mink coat and being in love with it is a common trope itself.

Ross's Inconsistent Birth

• So it's been implied that Ross is the favorite child because Judy and Jack thought she was barren and unable to conceive until he came along. In the one where Monica's childhood stuff gets ruined from a flood (which isn't ''literally'' the title of the epsiode), Jack repeatedly commends how Ross was a 'Medical Marvel' which he admits may have been why they favored him over Monica. Okay, so, now... how does this match up in 'The One With Rachael's Book' where, while discussing Monica and Chandler's engagement over dinner, Jack brings up the story of how they got engaged because Judy became pregnant out of wedlock (due to a dog chewing up her Diaphragm)... Am I missing something here? So, what, were they trying to have a kid before they even got engaged, thought she was barren and then gave up some time before? But if they thought she was barren at the time, why did she even have a Diaphragm? Is one of these two stories a lie they're telling their kids? .
  • In Season 8, Ross' parents celebrate their 35th anniversary in 2002. Ross is believed to have been born in 1967, though there is some inconsistency there. This would make Ross born the same year his parents got married, implying he was the child they were pregnant with at the time. I guess they were trying to conceive before they were married.
  • It's possible that the confusion stems from a difference between what Ross/Monica were told happened and something that actually happened. A birth out of wedlock at that time would still have been considered highly inappropriate and shameful, so coming up with a story doesn't seem out of the question.

Phoebe's Education

• Has Phoebe gone to high school or hasn't she? Because there seems to be an inconclusive canon about it.
  • It's stated repeatedly that Phoebe started living on the streets when she was 14, just after her mother died. With that time frame, she attended high school for a few months at the most, but probably not at all. I also can't remember any suggestion that she attended high school properly.

The Marriage Annulment

• When Rachel and Ross visit a judge to get their marriage annulled, Rachel comes up with various, increasingly preposterous reasons for the annulment. The judge then finds out Rachel isn't telling the truth, and refuses to annul the marriage, after which Rachel and Ross are forced to get a divorce. The question is, why don't Ross and Rachel at this point explain the real reason they want to annul the marriage: that they had gotten married in Vegas while extremely drunk, and didn't even remember what had happened the next morning? This should be a valid reason for annulment, and Ross and Rachel can even provide witnesses (Monica and Chandler) to corroborate their story, if the judge is still skeptical.
  • They lied to a judge, repeatedly, not only is that technically perjury but it also means their credibility is totally shot. It doesn't matter if they follow it up by pleading that they are telling the truth now, because how can anyone trust them to be telling the truth? You are meant to tell the truth in the first instance, not just when your lies have been busted. They go to another judge with alleged witnesses to this new story (which the judge would have no way of verifying as they are not privy to the events as we the viewers are) and it just looks like they have cooked up a new story and brought some sketchy friends too. Friends who happen to be Ross's sister and brother-in-law, hardly credible and impartial. Add that into Ross and Rachel having admitted a pre-existing relationship, and you've got what looks like a clear case of regretted impulsive, but consensual, marriage which is something for the divorce courts not annulments. Fairly certain, also, that when asking for an annulment, you've got to disclose whether or not you've already had a previous application refused. You can't just shop around until you get a lazy judge who likes you enough to let you skate by.
  • And they did explain that they got married in Vegas—although they were not able to add the "drunk and had writing all over their faces" detail—but the judge denies the annulment after they admit that they had a previous relationship. She says that they don't qualify for an annulment because they were previously dating, not that she won't give one because of Rachel's lying (although that can't have helped).

How did they meet Phoebe?

• Rachel knew Ross and Monica in high school, Chandler was Ross's college roommate, and Joey answered an ad to become Chandler's roommate. How does Phoebe fit into this? I don't recall them saying on the show, but maybe they did and I forgot.
  • The specifics of how they met Phoebe are never explained. We know that she used to be Monica's roommate, but it remains unclear whether she already knew the others before moving in with Monica, or whether she was just a random person who answered an ad for a roommate, just like Joey was.
    • Judging from the complete lack of any mention of prior connections it is pretty clear that Phoebe just answered an ad. The show was pretty good at establishing character relationship histories (if not at keeping them consistent) so if there was any history it would have been mentioned

Ross' reasons for hating Sandy

• In the episode where Rachel gets a male nanny (named Sandy) to take care of Emma, Ross gets inexplicably angry and uncomfortable with his admittedly feminine-associated behavior (crying easily, childcare, skincare, baking desserts, etc). More than any other character in the episode, in fact (Monica and Rachel love him, Joey quickly bonds with the guy, Phoebe is preoccupied with boyfriend trouble and Chandler cares more about his subplot with Monica). Eventually at the end, he discusses it with Sandy and reveals that his father put a lot of pressure on him to be manly during his childhood, often putting him down for being so un-masculine. Except in an earlier episode it's shown they have home movies of Ross dressing up in his mother's clothes, and by Monica's comments this is suggested to have been a regular occurrence. So where did this pressure to not be sensitive come from, if his parents were okay enough with him cross-dressing as a child to make and keep movies of it? Did it just happen later? And why, if it wasn't a problem during his more formative years?
  • Jack was shown to be quite critical of what he considered feminine behavior (such as Ross wearing a tank top, and saying he wasn't a "real boy"), so perhaps his parents really did take issue with him dressing up like a girl and drilled into him that that wasn't OK? He may have overcompensated by irrationally hating "feminine" men.

Phoebe's "roommate" Denise

• What was with the Denise storyline? It didn't work as a joke because it didn't go anywhere. She just randomly made up a roommate for...what reason? Phoebe's oddness always had a humorous payoff, but in this instance she just shrieked a lot about how she just couldn't believe that none of them didn't know about a roommate that she didn't actually have. And then they never mentioned it again.
  • It was just a throwaway joke. The writers have openly admitted that Denise was just a figment of Phoebe's imagination and never actually existed.
  • As for what reason? This is probably giving it a lot more thought than anything about the show warrants, but my theory is that Phoebe was feeling insecure and jealous. Monica, Rachel, Joey and Chandler all live together. Ross is also an odd man out, but as Monica's brother and Chandler's best (or at least oldest) friend, his position is pretty secure. Phoebe is the weakest link in the chain, and she probably knows it. On that occasion, it got the best of her and she decided to try to make the others think she had at least one other close friend.

Emily's discomfort over Rachel

• While it is understandable that Emily didn't like that Ross and Rachel had a history, and thus didn't want her at the wedding, but how come Ross never once brought up the fact that she wasn't simply his ex, but the woman responsible for introducing them in the first place?
  • Well, let's not forget why Rachel introduced them. She wasn't trying to play "matchmaker." Rachel just wanted to get out of taking her boss's niece (Emily) to the opera, so that she could go to a nightclub with Joshua. It was basically the equivalent of asking a friend to type up a report for you so that you wouldn't miss out on a date night. In fact, Rachel was pissed when she found out that Ross and Emily wound up at a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont together, although Ross might not have known that. But Ross certainly did know what Rachel's motivations were for getting him to take Emily to the opera. That may have been why he didn't place much weight on the fact that she had introduced them.
  • I'm not sure when Ross was supposed to make this argument to Emily. We may be thinking of different episodes, but what I recall from "The One with The Invitation" had Emily say that she didn't think she would be comfortable with any of her old lovers there, and that it might be awkward for him, that but that it was ultimately Ross' decision if he wanted to invite her. In that situation, I don't think he needed to make any arguments about the relative merit of Rachel attending; merely to make the decision to invite her himself (which he did).

Susan's Profile

• What is Susan's job ? I know in one of the earlier seasons, for Valentine's, Ross brought a date to this hibachi place and to his surprise, Susan and Carol enter and sit down right across from him and his date. Susan gets a call in the middle of the meal and you hear Carol say," I thought they said they could do the shoot without you." In a later season, Susan has a shoot that is happening in England which prompts Emily to say that she will take Susan around and this sets up the whole episode with Ross' paranoia of having another one of his lovers become lesbian.

In the end we still don't know what Susan's job title is, though we know she does shoots... Is she a PA, AD, Crew, Actress, model, etc????

Phoebe's incestuous practical jokes

• Okay, so I watched the episode where Phoebe is going to give birth to his triplets, and she tells the nurse that neither Joey or Chandler (who stood next to her) is the father, but her brother is. To which the nurse is, obviously, squicked. Afterwards, Rachel says she's going to miss the times when Phoebe scare people with that statement. ^note  For you who don't know, Phoebe is not the mother, but Frank Jr.'s sperm and his wife's Alice egg were mixed and then put into Phoebe's uterus ("I'm just the oven, it's totally their bun!"), because Alice is unable to conceive children in her own body. No incest is committed. I don't live in the US and don't know the laws there, so I researched specifically for incest laws in New York, where Friends take place, and I wonder something. How come the nurse didn't think of calling the police, or anyone else they scared for that matter? Incestuous intercourse and marriages are prohibited there. And while we know that no incest has been committed, the people Phoebe scares don't. For that matter, why isn't Phoebe and her friends cautious about saying such things? They could risk themselves ending up in prison, especially since her brother is merely 18.
  • Prison? Why, exactly? Lying about committing incest isn't a crime, committing incest is. Say somebody calls the cops, the cops show up and say, "you're under arrest for incest." They tell the cops what's going on, and even if that fails, they have ironclad proof that the baby isn't Phoebe's, because, the baby isn't Phoebe's. This sort of criminal case, even if you got a crazy person who called the cops and a crazy cop who arrested and a crazy da who charged even over their specific explanation that this is a surrogacy situation...it would be dismissed by a judge probably before they got around to a DNA test because there'd be a paper trail regarding the surrogacy.
  • Basically, Phoebe gets the initial freak out, gets a laugh and then explains. If you hear something like that dropped casually wouldn't you ask for clarification before trying to call the cops?

Ursula/"Phoebe" as a porn star

• In season 6, Ursula is revealed to be working as a porn actress under Phoebe's name. The Friends all react surprised...but given how sex/porn-obsessed Chandler and especially Joey are, wouldn't they likely have come across her movies before? She's apparently famous enough that random guys at the coffeehouse recognize her, and even Gunther is shown knowing about her "career".
  • And, to be fair, there is a LOT of porn out there. It could very well be that they just never came across it. If they have favorite actresses that they look out for and go directly to their films, it would never occur to them to search for their friend's name.

Joey's acting ability

• Is Joey supposed to be a good actor or not? There are frequent references to him lying on his resume, he doesn't do accents very well, he apparently sometimes waves to his friends while on stage, he sometimes behaves oddly at auditions and yet he books work and even manages to get a recurring role in a TV series as well as several films.
  • Doesn't this change over the course of the series? I got the impression Joey improved as an actor (in-universe) substantially, progressing from crappy stage plays to a major motion picture and recurring (starring?) role on a soap opera.
  • This might be a case of Truth in Television, as many actors improve on the job. If you compare an actor's early work to their latest movie, you probably wouldn't even recognise them. The confusion may stem from the fact that Joey is not a trained actor, as revealed in TOW Phoebe's Rats. As far as I'm aware, we never even hear why Joey decided to become an actor in the first place, whether he has a passion for it or thought he couldn't do anything else.
  • It’s not like we see him get Oscar-caliber work, it’s mostly crappy shows and movies (like Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. and even Days of Our Lives, which looks pretty lame from the clips we see of it; the only possible exception being the World War I movie). Also, looks and charisma can go a long way in show business and I always figured that helped him somewhat.
  • At the end of the day, it seems he's just good enough to pass in mediocre plays, television and movies (although the WWI movie he was in seemed like a big deal). Besides, his work ethic isn't the best. Like the first commenter said, he lies on his resume and doesn't seem too committed to his roles, one time he even, in response to Phoebe saying "You're going to go up there having nothing prepared?" says "Hey, I do it every week with several cameras pointing to me.". Not to mention being late for work. Then again, it's also been suggested that Estelle isn't the best agent. In response to another commenter, I would say that Joey fell into acting without thinking too much about it, given that he doesn't even know that most actors study the craft beforehand.

Joey's lewd comments

• How are none of the women ever creeped out by Joey's various comments and the fact that he always seems up for having sex with them at the drop of a hat?
  • Matt LaBlanc talked about this in an interview, that Joey's just harmless and charming enough that they're mostly okay with it.
  • You've seen how kinky Phoebe is. She's clearly not bothered by a few jokes. They only show annoyance if Joey looks like he's mistreating a woman.

Chandler and Janice not knowing it was each other they were chatting to online

• Wouldn't they have told each other their names beforehand, especially if it was serious to the point of meeting in real life?
  • Back in the early days of the internet, people generally didn't give out their real names online. They probably knew one another via their online handles and planned to keep it that way until they met face to face. Internet Safety was a little overcautious back then, especially for two twenty-somethings who didn't grow up using the internet.

The marker on Rachel's face in Vegas

• In the episodes that take place in Vegas, Ross draws on Rachel's face with permanent marker. She can't wash it off, and after trying a few things they call the company, who says that nothing they do will get the marker off. Yet, in the episode after Rachel and Ross get married and they sit down to breakfast, the marker is no longer on her face. How?
  • There's plenty of things that stain your skin but also fade away over time. It's a marker, not make up, and thus not made for application on the face. It's feasible that with vigorous cleansing and scrubbing the marker would've faded. It probably wouldn't have disappeared by the next day like they show, but it wouldn't be as visible.
  • It's probably a combination of vigorous scrubbing and heavier than normal makeup on Rachel's part.
  • In the season 5 BTS special, the writers and producers actually debated this point pretty heavily. In the production meeting, they decide that when they wake up, the marker should be visible, but faint: they've scrubbed it enough that it has faded, and thus is now light enough for the makeup to cover it when they go down to breakfast. They couldn't have it be the same pronounced black ink as the day before, because the actors had to film the rest of the episode the same day and had to be able to get it off.

Ross wearing a woman's shirt

• In the episode where Ross wears a woman's shirt, the explanation is that Rachel picked out some clothes for him but left him the wrong bag and he ended up with clothes she picked out for herself instead of him. The problem with this is that Ross is straight out ripped and much taller than Rachel. So how exactly can Ross not only fit into it but wear it comfortably without any tightness at all, if it was really designed for a woman Rachel's size? An earlier episode even showed when Ross was taking back his things after the breakup that a shirt that was very small on him was perfect for her.
  • It's perhaps possible that Ross saw the shirt Rachel supposedly picked out for him, realized it was too small for him, and exchanged it for a larger size? Although that would require him not questioning why it was Rachel's size to begin with.
  • Perhaps Rachel had wanted to wear the shirt oversized or thought it looked better on her with a looser fit (or something, idk), meaning she bought it in a bigger size that also wound up fitting Ross.
  • Or, Rachel accidentally bought the wrong size for herself—dressing-room mixup, tried on two sizes and bought the wrong one, sales clerk accidentally swapped them at the register, what have you—resulting in it being the right size for Ross.

Carol and Susan own a worn out Jeep Wagoneer?

• In The One Without The Ski Trip, Everybody but Ross gets stranded by the side of the road in Phoebe's cab. Ross gets called to come find them, and Carol gives him the keys to her car to go pick them up. When he shows up, he's driving a worn out Jeep Wagoneer with a crooked license plate. It seems like an odd choice for a woman who lives in Manhattan. A vehicle like that would be much more at home on Duck Dynasty...
  • A Jeep is considered a somewhat masculine vehicle, so it's probably just a mild lesbian joke.

Ross doesn't know much about Carol's family?

• In the 2nd episode "TOW the Sonogram at the End", there's a throwaway joke where Carol says her and Susan were considering "Minnie" for a name if their child is a girl. Ross says, "As in mouse?" Carol says, annoyed, "No, as in my aunt." Ross then adds, "Still, you hear mouse." This is kind of a strange moment if you stop and think about it. Ross had been married to Carol for a few years, and surely he would have known or remembered that Carol has an aunt named Minnie, so shouldn't he have known that's where she's getting the name from?
  • The answer is right there in your question, he hears 'Minnie' he thinks 'Minnie Mouse'.

Joey and The Shining

• During the episode when Joey and Rachel swap their books, Joey is suggested to have read The Shining several times. Yet when he's spoiling the book, all of the spoilers he refers to are from the movie, not the book. This could be excused by the writers not being familiar with the differences between the book and the movie, yet when he spoils the ending for Rachel he references the fact that the boiler explodes, which is the ending of the book and not the movie. So...why is he talking about the movie plot when discussing the book?
  • Far more people have seen the movie than the book, so to make sure the audience understood the joke they used plot points from the film.
  • Joey himself doesn't seem to be too sure about what's exclusive to the book, and what's exclusive to the movie - Chandler says Little Women is the only book Joey enjoys that "doesn't star Jack Nicholson". So he might be mixing things up.

Why didn't they call 911 in "The One with the Giant Poking Device"?

• In the episode, they notice that Ugly Naked Guy has been lying still for a long time, so they device a long poking device out of unused chopsticks. However, it clearly takes an hour or more for them to build it, enough time for Chandler to meet up with Janice in Central Perk and break up with her. If Ugly Naked Guy had really had a seizure or something, by the time the device is ready he could be dead already. So why couldn't they just call 911 as soon as they noticed UNG's condition? I doubt the 911 operator would really care about them spying on him, and they could simply explain that they happen to see inside UNG's apartment through their window, and that they've noticed he wasn't moving. Or if it was somehow too shameful for them to call 911, why don't they just go to UNG's building, buzz the neighbors until one of them answers, and either ask him to let them inside so they can ring UNG's doorbell, or ask the neighbor to do that, if he doesn't want to let them in?
  • They specifically point out that they wouldn't be taken seriously if they did call 911.

Why was Janice so surprised to find out that Chandler was the guy she'd been chatting with online?

• Wouldn't she have at least suspected it was him as soon as he (I assume) suggested meeting at Central Perk?
  • Chandler's not the only person who goes to Central Perk, and a coffee house is a natural meeting place. There's no reason for her to think it's definitely Chandler just because of that.

"I'm Monica. I'm disgusting. I stalk guys and keep their underpants."

• Why didn't anyone make a bigger deal out of this? Everyone was SHOCKED when they found out that Monica and Chandler were sleeping together, but everyone just forgot that she'd apparently slept with Joey?
  • Sleeping together versus slept together. Once was a bit of a shock, but considering that it didn't really lead to any alteration of the group dynamic, it was probably shrugged off. Two good friends who are both hot hooking up casually isn't that unusual - Janice even remarks that she can't believe it hasn't happened at all. But finding out that they had been regularly sleeping together and were clearly in a relationship (whatever they themselves might have protested to the contrary) was a way bigger game-changer.
    • Or once the actual truth came out, they realized that the two of them sleeping together was just a cover story to hide the Chandler-Monica relationship.

How and when did Phoebe get off the streets?

• Is it ever explained how Phoebe went from being homeless to...well being not? It not really something you can just decide not to do anymore. Someone or some organization must have helped her.
  • In the early seasons she lived with her grandmother Frances (at least, they thought Frances' daughter Lily was Phoebe's mother when it was really Phoebe Sr., it's a long story). It's entirely possible that it took awhile for Frances to find Phoebe living on the streets after Lily died (in fact, maybe Frances happened to be driving by in her cab and saw the resemblance).
  • Phoebe ended up on the streets after her mother died and stepfather went to prison. From the sounds of things, she ran away on her own. Maybe she was avoiding her family but eventually came around?
  • Statistically most homeless people are only homeless for a few months. New York City also has a lot of homeless shelters and services compared to places like California due to its right-to-shelter law.

The power of writers?

• In TOW Dr. Ramoray Dies, it’s shown that Joey is fired from Days of Our Lives because he states in an interview that he writes a lot of his own lines and thus, the writers are offended and have his character die. How is that possible? A big decision like killing off a main character would need to be discussed with and approved by the producers of the show too, and yet they are never shown to have a problem with Joey. Additionally, from the way Joey describes it, Dr. Ramoray is involved in some upcoming plot lines, it would be silly to have him suddenly leave unless there was a massive problem with the actor, which there doesn’t seem to be.
  • It's a 90s soap opera. They're infamous for being sloppily written (or at least written as it goes along) and largely influenced by Real Life Writes the Plot, which in this case includes a belligerent and offended head writer.

Bonnie

• In "The One At The Beach", was Ross really questioning Bonnie's suitability as a girlfriend all because she shaved her head?
  • When was Ross ever questioning Bonnie's suitability as a girlfriend in that episode? He was unhappy that she was bald now, because it made her less attractive. Um, yeah, does that really surprise you? If a man decided to do something weird with his appearance, like dying his hair green or something, would you blame his girlfriend for not liking it? That was the whole reason that Rachel talked Bonnie into shaving her head in the first place, because Rachel was hurt and angry that Ross had moved on to dating somebody new and wanted to punish him. Anyway, Ross never said that he was going to break up with Bonnie over it. As was pointed out above, when he did break up with Bonnie, it was because of his feelings for Rachel, not because of anything that Bonnie did.

Joey moves out

• In the episode where Joey moves into a nicer apartment, why didn't Joey and Chandler entertain the thought of both of them moving into the new place together? Heck, why didn't they move in together after he lost his job and then Crazy Eddie could've just had the other apartment to himself?
  • The point was Joey wanting to get his own place now that he was making enough money to afford it. He didn't need a roommate, so there's no point to Chandler leaving the apartment he's already signed a lease on to go live with him.
  • Also, Chandler & Joey like being across the hall from Monica & Rachel. So much that the two apartments are practically one big apartment they all live in. Chandler wouldn't want to be away from that setup, just like Joey realizes he doesn't really like being alone away from them.

Ross the Brown Bird

• In the episode where Ross breaks a little girl's leg and sells cookies for her so she can go to space camp, why didn't he just pay for her to go to space camp when he lost instead of building a fake one in Chandler and Joey's apartment? It's never even brought up as an option.
  • The space camp thing was a prize for the one who sold the most candy bars, it wasn't something that could be bought (and it would be unfair to the winner if it was.) Otherwise, it probably would have been way too expensive considering how many candy bars he had to sell.

"If you'd just done that after the last contest . . ."

• In "The One with All the Haste", after Rachel and Monica get their apartment back by kissing for one minute in front of Joey and Chandler, Phoebe comments that, "If you'd just done that after the last contest, no one would have had to move it all." But the "last contest", as seen earlier in the episode, is a failed attempt by Rachel and Monica to win their apartment back; had they then immediately resorted to the make out strategy, they would've still had to move all their stuff from one apartment to the other. So I'm not quite sure what's being suggested here.
  • "Last" contest means the contest previous to the "latest" contest, the latest contest being the one in this episode that you're referring to. (Monica and Rachel kissing does not count as a contest.) The last contest was the one where they lost their apartment.

Rachel's reasons for hating Julie

• At the end of Season 1, Rachel found out, for the first time ever, that Ross had been in love with her for nearly a decade. Then, for the first half of Season 2, Ross had a relationship with Julie, much to the chagrin of Rachel, who took every opportunity she had to put her down behind their backs; lie to Phoebe to give her the wrong haircut, put Monica down just for shopping with her, etc. Since Ross and Rachel had never been together before that, why would Rachel make such a big deal out of it all?
  • Rachel realized she returned Ross's feelings and was already in love with him (or as in love with someone as you can be without being a romantic couple with them yet.) She wasn't mad at Julie for stealing her man, she was mad at Julie for stealing her potential future with Ross, a future that she was clearly looking forward to and was crushed to realize wasn't possible.
  • Let's not forget that, while Rachel was going through Character Development and maturing, she had still spent most of her life as a pampered Daddy's Girl who'd gotten anything she wanted. Rachel had found out that Ross had feelings for her, started considering whether it might be a good idea to pursue him and come to a resounding yes that she did love him as well...and then suddenly it was all taken away and she was humiliated right as she was about to declare her feelings for him. So Rachel regressed slightly to her spoiled persona, and had to take her frustrations out on Julie. To her credit, Rachel never really puts Julie down herself; she grumbles about it and does one or two petty things, but she seems to at least try to treat Julie with some courtesy and accept that Ross was with her now (the phone call that revealed her feelings was a drunken mistake).

Erika (Joey’s Stalker)

• How did she find Joey’s apartment? Does some part of her mind know that Drake Ramoray is played by Joey Tribbiani and thus look him up?
  • People like that can often have a Self-Serving Memory and choose to ignore facts or details that will distort the fantasy they've envisioned. She could have come up with any elaborate story as to why Joey might be living in an apartment under that name - or possibly even hidden and followed him home to find out where he lived.
  • She could have simply followed him home one day, either after leaving the set or merely spotting him on the street by chance.

Chandler being offensive to Phoebe

• In TOW Joey Tells Rachel, Phoebe is dating Don, who she says is Monica's 'soulmate' because they have so much in common and he's her 'type'. Chandler being Chandler, he worries irrationally that Monica is going to leave him at the drop of a hat. He also insinuates to Phoebe that something might happen between Monica and Don, and at no point is she at all offended by this. Granted, Phoebe, before meeting Mike, seems to have a very casual approach to dating, but if it were me, I'd be supremely offended that someone thought something might happen between the guy I'm dating and another woman, just because they have a lot in common, as if I mean nothing to the guy.
  • Phoebe already told Chandler that she thought she'd found Monica's soulmate, implying to his face—as she has done before multiple times, as well as behind his back—that Chandler's not good enough for Monica and that she just settled for him instead of finding someone better. That's already an incredibly mean and insensitive thing to do, especially since Chandler's supposed to have been her friend for years and she knows how insecure he is about feeling unworthy of love. Then she brings the guy to meet Monica, and with Chandler sitting right there? If she's offended by Chandler getting upset, she'd have no one to blame but herself. That aside, Chandler actually brings up the issue of why she'd go out with this guy if she thinks he's destined for someone else, to which Phoebe flippantly responds "he may not be my soulmate, but a girl's gotta eat". Doesn't sound like he means a whole lot to her.

Rachel’s Criminal Capers

• In the series 7 episode where Ross and Rachel go for a drive in Monica’s Porsche, I was confused by the lack of reaction to this. Ross tries to stop her only because she’s allegedly a bad driver. He makes no mention of the fact that Monica - the legal owner of the car - has expressly forbidden Rachel from driving the car. Surely Ross, a stickler for the rules, would take issue with the fact that what Rachel is doing is illegal and, not to mention, a huge violation of Monica’s trust. In addition to this why didn’t either of the cops that pulled them over, note that the car wasn’t registered to them and ask if they had the owners consent to drive it. A Porsche is, I imagine, a highly sought after car and therefore more likely than other models to be stolen so you’d think they would have at least mentioned it?
  • The writers probably didn't think it was that deep; the whole setup was just to make a "Ross tries to flirt with a male cop" joke and it would have been too much time to show Rachel and Ross getting arrested for car theft. Rachel borrows Monica's things without permission all the time, the car is just the latest thing Monica owns that she does this for, hence the lack of serious reaction from the gang. As for the cops, the first one was being flirty with Rachel and probably didn't even notice the car wasn't hers. The second one, we didn't see the end of his encounter with Ross so he might have questioned them about it later.
  • The police would know that people borrow other people's cars all the time. If he had any reason to suspect they had stolen it, he would have contacted Monica, the person the car was registered to. Monica, while not being happy about Rachel driving it, wouldn't hesitate to say that she knew that Ross and Rachel had the car so they wouldn't be arrested. Being furious with them is one thing, letting her brother and her best friend be arrested for stealing her car is another.

Problems with Rachel dating Tag?

• So why, when it looks like Rachel's boss has found out about her and Tag, are the consequences for doing this him having to consult with the legal team and her potentially being fired? Maybe it's because I'm not American but is dating a co-worker really a sackable offence like that?
  • Rachel is Tag’s boss, not colleague. I imagine that Rachel’s boss, Mr. Zellner, is worried about the potential for Tag to file a sexual harassment suit against the firm which is why he is consulting the legal department. And as for Rachel potentially being fired, a lot of companies world wide have policies against superiors dating their subordinates, for precisely that reason. Mr. Zellner’s thinking is probably that It’s unlikely Tag would file suit when he and Rachel are together but maybe if he and Rachel were to have an acrimonious break up he might change his mind and look for a payout either out of greed or revenge.
  • Tag is also a new employee who was hired and then started dating Rachel almost immediately. Mr. Zellner knows Rachel well enough after years working together, but he doesn't know Tag that well at all, so he possibly was seeing danger signs if what looked like an office fling came to an end very badly.

The Big White Dog

• This is pretty minor, but I was watching season 6 again the other day and it just occurred to me. When Chandler moves in with Monica, Joey gives him the big white dog. Later on, we see that he and Monica keep it out on the balcony (it can be seen in the background of several shots). However, we also see in other episodes that the only way to get out onto the balcony is by crawling through the little window next to Monica's secret closet. There's a bigger window that we can use to see out onto the balcony, but we never see it open and there's nothing to suggest that it can. How did they manage to fit the big white dog onto the balcony?
  • Maybe the big window does open, we just never see it onscreen (except for when the gang uses the giant poking device, but it's only a small section of the window that gets opened).

Ross and Rachel, the real main characters?

• So the naming convention of the episodes comes from the idea that each episode would be named for what people were most likely to be discussing after it aired. All the Friends are supposed to be equally important to the show, there is no main character among the six, and in the early seasons the characters' names appeared fairly evenly in the titles. However after a while the number of times each character's name appears in the titles become very uneven. It's reasonable to presume that the titles reflect what the show-runners and/or writers believed the audience would find most interesting about each episode, which in turn speaks volumes about how much importance they appear to have assigned to each character. I had enough time on my hands to go over the titles and if you look at episodes where only one name features in the title Rachel wins with 20 episodes, Ross comes in second with 18, then there's a bit of a gap down to Joey who clocks in at 13, Phoebe then follows with 10, Chandler at 9, and Monica with a measly 5 (6 if you count the pilot's alternate title). Five episodes with Monica's name in the title, 20 with Rachel's. That's a huge difference. Monica's name is in a title every other season, Rachel's is twice each season (on average). Looking at episodes with two character's names in the title Ross and Rachel win with four, Joey and Rachel follow close behind with three, then Ross/Monica and Chandler/Monica each have one (add these to the above numbers and you get Rachel 27, Ross 23, Joey 16, Chandler & Phoebe 10, Monica 6/7). Chandler and Monica were together for six seasons, got married, had children, and only one episode is titled for them while Joey and Rachel, a plotline the audience was vocally against (as were Matt Le Blanc and Jennifer Anniston) have three episodes. All of this might seem like nitpicking, and it probably is, but I can't figure out why there's such a huge difference in episode titles. If all six characters are equally important than the titles should reflect that. I can understand to a degree that Rachel had her name in many titles, she was popular, but Ross has more than three times as many titles as his sister and Ross seems to be the least popular Friend. Adding to all that, some of the titles with character names are just plain ridiculous. Say TOW Phoebe's Rats and most people will know what episode that refers to. Say TOW Ross Hugs Rachel and most casual viewers won't know which episode that is since they hug in many episodes. Are we supposed to deduce from all this that Rachel and Ross became the main characters while Monica faded to a supporting character? Why such a huge difference with the titles?
  • The number of times a character's name shows up doesn't necessarily mirror the number of episodes where they had the most memorable plot, however. Several Monica/Chandler episodes don't feature their name at all, such as TOW the Ring, TOW the Proposal, TOW in Vegas, TOW the Truth About London, and so on. Even TOW Ross' Wedding is a Chandler and Monica-heavy episode. I'm not too sure if the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming is based on the most memorable part of the episode, either - at least not for later episodes, since some episodes were named after minor scenes or plots.

The One Where Everyone finds out

• Why is Monica so surprised in this episode to find out that Rachel knows about her and Chandler? Only an episode or two previously Rachel had flat out said to her that she knew she was with him?
  • She thought she'd successfully thrown Rachel off the scent?
    • I get that at the end of the other episode we're supposed to think that Monica think's she's successfully thrown Rachel off the scent. However in tge one where everyone finds out Monica acts so surprised that Rachel knows it just doesnt match with Rachel having said "I know about you and Chandler" an eoisode or so ago. There is no way she can be that surprised given what Rachel has already said.

Lightning Round

• Monica and Rachel lose the bet and their apartment because they couldn’t answer a question on what Chandler's job is during the lightning round. Then why didn't they just pass on that question or give a random guess? A lightning round means they could answer as many questions as possible in the allotted time limit. If they got the question wrong, Ross would’ve just moved on to the next one, which they might have a better chance at answering correctly. Based on how much time they spent trying to figure out what Chandler’s job is, they definitely had time for more questions. So why did they waste it trying to figure out an answer that neither of them knew? For that matter, why did Ross say “you need this or you lose the game” when that absolutely wasn’t true, or start reading the next question when Rachel said “transponster”?
  • The boys had only gotten one question wrong in their round. The girls had gotten a question wrong earlier so if they answered this question wrong, they would have lost and couldn't just keep going. Not to mention they were running out of time anyway. Rachel answered transsponster about five seconds after Ross said they had ten seconds left.
    • They could’ve kept going if they had just blurted a guess or passed immediately rather than waste so much time trying to answer that question. Again, there’s no limit to the number of questions you can attempt in a lightning round as long as you do so within a set amount of time. Also, prior to the lightning round, they were tied with the guys, who then got four questions right during their lightning round. Ross even states that the girls needed five correct questions to win the game. Rachel and Monica got three correct before the question about Chandler’s job. If they’d skipped that one and got one more correct in the remaining time, which is very likely given how quickly they went through their first four questions in the lightning round, they would’ve at least ended the game with a tie. They might’ve even had enough time to answer two questions correctly, which would result in them winning the game. Also, they were only running out of time because they wasted almost half the round trying to remember what Chandler's job is. The question is why Rachel and Monica didn't just pass or give a random guess immediately after realizing neither of them knew the answer, which would have given them a better chance at winning or at least tying the game?
    • Leaving aside whether technically the option to pass was allowed, as no one mentioned it and the guys never passed on their questions even when they were having trouble with how many towels Monica had. The girls didn't pass because Rachel thought she knew the answer and it was just on the tip of her tongue. When she finally got the word out and Monica realized how stupid and incorrect that answer was, there was no time left to ask another. If you need one more to win and think you know the answer you're much more likely to try and remember that answer than randomly say something to just move on.
    • Actually, Monica and Rachel needed two more points to win. They were tied before the lightning round, the guys got four questions correct in their lightning round, and the girls had three correct questions when they got to the one about Chandler's job. So why would they spend so much time on that one question if they still needed at least one other question to win?
  • My read on the ending of the game was that it was a combination of ego and panic. Keep in mind the whole reason the trivia game was happening in the first place was because Monica and Rachel wanted to prove they knew Chandler and Joey better than they knew them. The questions mostly consisted of incredibly obscure and nuanced trivia that could only be answered by someone who knew the person in question very well and Monica and Rachel just about aced it (the only time we ever saw them get anything wrong was a ballpark guess regarding how old Chandler was when he got his first kiss and Rachel blurting out the wrong answer to a question that Monica knew). With all that in mind, a question like "What is Chandler Bing's job?" should be incredibly easy to answer and yet the girls draw a blank (in fact, Chandler had an incredulous expression on his face as they fail to come up with the answer). So them blanking on what should be a "gimme" question plus the fact that they're now 10 seconds away from losing their apartment probably caused both Monica and Rachel to panic and not even consider asking for another question. So when you think about it, it actually makes sense that Monica and Rachel panicked and never once thought about trying another question with the time they had left.

Ross’s Red Jumper

• The gang figure out that Ross is Rachel’s baby daddy because it was his red sweater that was left behind after their tryst. In the flashback scenes, Ross is only wearing a sweater with no jacket and no hint of anything underneath. Did Ross leave the apartment and go home topless?
  • People don't tend to keep sweaters on during sex, and Ross was SO horny he probably didn't care where the sweater was going when it came off. Most likely after the sex he simply couldn't find the sweater, gave up, and just took one of Joey's shirts to go home.

Monica and Chandler Adopting Rachel's Baby

• Rachel has a child and is obviously not ready for motherhood. Meanwhile, Monica and Chandler desperately want children but have trouble conceiving. Why, then, did Rachel never consider giving her baby up for Monica and Chandler to adopt?
  • Because while Rachel might not have been ready for Motherhood, she also didn't want to not be the mother once she got over the shock of being pregnant. Id say a more meta view is that this plot point of having a kid was to be the catalyst for Rachel's character to mature, but she really didn't.
  • At that point, Chandler and Monica just have trouble conceiving and they don't know they're infertile. Rachel wants to have her baby, even if the pregnancy was unplanned.
  • Easy to wonder this if you haven't ever had your own kids and haven't ever been pregnant when you didn't want to be. On paper it seems like a nice tying-up of loose ends, but it's not how this works in reality. If you do want your own kids some day, and you get pregnant, giving your kid to someone else to raise is going to be a heartwrenching choice that you'd be unlikely to make unless you felt you had no other decent option. Rachel originally wanted to wait to have kids until she was married, but she did have a good job and the support of friends and family, and when she got unexpectedly pregnant, she felt she was in a position where she could go ahead and have the baby.

Ross Being Treated As The "Only" Divorced Friend

• In the second half of the series, Ross is constantly mocked for his three divorces. But RACHEL was also divorced at this point (from Ross, ironically enough). However, after she and Ross divorce, everybody seems to act as if Ross is the only one of the friends who has ever been divorced. Which is obviously not true. Plus, wasn't Phoebe also divorced (from Duncan the "gay" ice dancer)?
  • Because Ross is the only one who cared. Rachel wasn't even aware there was a marriage and when she did find out she demanded he end it. Phoebe's marriage was just a legal thing to let her friend stay in the country. Neither was a real marriage. Ross likes to pretend he's a perfect, flawless man so having three divorces, even if they were mostly out of his control, really gets to him.

The One With The Fake Party

• Since when is Rachel so awkward? Her trying to impress that painfully aloof guy gave me real nerd-chasing-hot-chick vibes.
  • Judging by later episodes it's because she's not really all that into him and is subconsciously trying to use him to distract herself from her feelings for Ross. As such she's got a lot of cognitive dissonance going on.

The One With All The Resolutions

• Does Ross clearly suffer from depression? His suffering facial expressions, moaning speech and low pain tolerance make me feel so sorry for him. He's clearly not in a healthy place, yet it's Played for Laughs.
  • Hard to diagnose a fictional character but really its more that David Schwimmer is something of a Large Ham when they give him the slapstick stuff and he was so good at it that the writers kept making Ross miserable to let him keep doing it.

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