Ross and Phoebe are nearly mugged, only for them to realize a new secret. Joey auditions for a play with a prestigious actor. Chandler gets an internship at an advertising company, but feels like an outsider among his younger colleagues.
Tropes:
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After Joey leaves after giving a great performance due to holding himself from the bathroom, Leonard Hayes turns to the camera and comments, "I plant seeds. I can't explain it. I don't know."
- Call-Back: When Joey tries to do a southern accent, it comes out Jamaican. Chandler had mentioned in "The One Where Rachel is Late" that he'd paid for lessons with a dialect coach to teach Joey a southern accent and it came out Jamaican.
- Celebrity Paradox: Jeff Goldblum appears as an actor, though not himself. Ross has repeatedly mentioned Jurassic Park.
- Contrived Coincidence: As a teen, Ross was mugged by Phoebe.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the grief he got for his age and his struggles with the product, Chandler comes up with a pitch that impresses the boss and hits every bullet point for a successful ad.
- Feeling Their Age: Chandler is very aware of the fact that he's at least a decade older than the other interns. He then injures himself trying out the skates they have to sell which doesn't help matters.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: As Ross describes how he was mugged as a child, Phoebe looks increasingly uncomfortable. It turns out she was the one who mugged him.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Phoebe and Ross met each other when they were teens... as a mugger and her victim. Phoebe sees it as an important connection between them, since many of the gang go way back. Ross isn't so sure he agrees.
- Friendship Moment: Phoebe makes amends with Ross by finding and returning his old Science Boy comic that she had kept all these years. He's touched that she considered it worth saving.
- Gender-Concealing Writing: Ross uses the "they" pronoun to refer to the person who mugged him when he was a teen, because he's embarrassed to admit it was a girl (Phoebe).
- Groin Attack: Invoked when Chandler is trying out some new sneakers and jokingly suggests the slogan "So uncomfortable it's like being kicked in the nuts by your feet."
- Her Codename Was Mary Sue: As a nerdy child, Ross came up with his own comic character, Science Boy (whose sole power was "a superhuman thirst for knowledge").
- I Did What I Had to Do: Phoebe's not proud of it, but she says living on the streets meant sometimes having to rob people in order to pay for things like food.
- Noodle Incident: Rachel sheepishly admits she's no longer allowed to speak directly to Ralph Lauren at work but doesn't explain why.
- Out of Focus: Rachel is hardly in the episode.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: None of the younger interns know who Bob Hope was or what a USO show is.
- Potty Emergency: Joey goes to his audition with a prestigious director having just had a drink and needing to pee. This, evidently, makes him a better actor (since he plays a nervous man with lines like "I could go right now!") He has an even worse potty emergency when he goes for the call back, due to trying to need to pee for the audition. This unfortunate circumstance leads to him having Potty Failure whilst said famous director is hugging him...
- Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: Joey mistakes a "Long Pause" in the script for being the character's name.
- Serious Business: Leonard Hayes does not consider himself to be a sellout for doing phone commercials, saying he "almost lost a cousin due to bad cell reception."
- Sex Sells: One member of Chandler's team pitches a commercial for the sneakers which involves beautiful women making out in a hot tub. The manager rejects it because it doesn't even mention the shoes. When Chandler asks Monica for ideas she suggests using "a girl with huge knockers" in the ad.Chandler: I don't think that's what they're looking for.
Joey: Hey, that'd work on me. Why do you think I buy Mrs. Butterworth's? - Shout-Out: Ross claims he read Spider-Man comics growing up, but Monica clarifies it was Wonder Woman.
- Trauma Button:
- Joey sincerely compliments Leonard's phone commercials, but Leonard overreacts in a way that suggests others accused him of being a sellout for doing them.
- Monica suggests that the would-be mugging brought up painful memories for Ross, due to his own childhood experience. Him describing details is how Phoebe figures out she was the one who mugged him.
- Wham Line: After Ross leaves, Phoebe talks to Monica about her mugging history, capping off with "Well, there was this one kid who had a sticker on his backpack that said, 'Geology Rocks.'"
- You're Drinking Breast Milk: A slight variation, Joey tells Rachel the "eggnog" in their fridge tasted great. Rachel informs him it was formula for Emma.
