Ross is jealous of Rachel's new job and her working relationship with Mark. Joey tries to get a job, but his resume claims he can dance when he can't. Monica dates a guy from her restaurant.
Tropes
- 24-Hour Party People: Chandler asks Ross to come to his cousin's Stag Party. When Ross asks why he's being invited to a party for someone he's never met Chandler admits that the cousin doesn't have friends of his own and needs to make up the numbers.
- Barbershop Quartets Are Funny: Ross hires a barbershop quartet to go to Rachel's office and sing about how much he loves her. The quartet show up again during The Stinger to help Monica get some revenge
on Julio for his sexism and pretention. - Crazy Jealous Guy: Ross. He's completely paranoid about Mark's intentions towards Rachel, even though Mark has a girlfriend.
- Cultural Posturing: Julio thinks all American women are shallow and empty.
- Didn't Think This Through: Ross is going to take Ben to a playdate with the child of a stripper. Upon learning of this, an irritated Rachel gives him a passionate kiss in the hopes of keeping him loyal. Chandler points out she just got him worked up before sending him off to a gorgeous stripper.
- Dresses the Same: The woman Mark is secretly dating just happens to be wearing an outfit that's almost identical to Rachel's. This, and the way Mark is speaking to her, leads Ross to mistake her for Rachel.
- Foreshadowing: Chandler and even Joey of all people warn Ross that his intense jealousy is making Rachel run to Mark as a close friend and confidant and that Mark will use that as an opportunity to get together with her.
- From Bad to Worse: Julio assures Monica that his poem wasn't written about her specifically. Monica is relieved, but then Julio says he wrote it about all women. Specifically, all American women.
- Hidden Depths: Joey, despite being a very slow reader, immediately understands Julio's poem is an attack on Monica, calling her shallow.
- I Can't Dance: Joey's resume claims that he's a highly trained dancer. He admits to his friends that he isn't, the best he can do is swinging his arms around and bobbing his head.
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Monica dumps her misogynist Guy of the Week by sending a barbershop quartet to him, with the last message being that he's "bad in bed".
- Not So Above It All: After chastising Ross for his behavior, Rachel proves to be a Clingy Jealous Girl when she learns he's taking Ben to a playdate with a stripper's child.
- Office Romance: Ross is paranoid that Mark wants to start one of these with Rachel, unaware that Mark is already dating another woman who also works in the same office.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Mark and his girlfriend are making out in Rachel's office when Ross arrives. From outside the door he listens to Mark gushing about her and then hears Rachel saying "How romantic", which makes him think Mark is talking about Rachel. Ross then bursts in and yells at Mark, not realizing that the woman is not Rachel until Rachel speaks behind him.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the choregrapher asks Joey to demonstrate the routine for the chorus Joey, knowing he's about to get busted for his lies, opts to simply run out of the room.
- Singing Telegram: Ross sends a barbershop quartet to Rachel's office to deliver a song about how much he loves and her and how nice it is to have a boyfriend. Rachel is humiliated as it's clearly an attempt to remind Mark, who Ross believes is attracted to Rachel, that she's seeing someone. In the same episode, Monica dates Julio, who turns out to be misogynist and racist about American women. She dumps him by sending the barbershop quartet to the diner where they work to sing a special message:First Singer: Mister Pretentious, you think there's no-one finer, well your poems are unpublished, and you work in a diner.
Quartet: You're no God's gift to women, that's all in your head. You are just a buttmunch.
Second Singer: No one likes a buttmunch.
Quartet: And you're also bad in bed! - Very Fake Résumé: Joey lands a part in a Broadway musical after claiming on his resume he has years of experience in dance, trained with Twyla Tharp, and was one of the kids on Zoom. He actually can't dance at all. This backfires even more when the director asks Joey to lead the rest of the cast in rehearsing a dance number in his absence. It doesn't go well.
