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The Watercooler: Thanksgiving marathon with 'Friends'

By Dawn Meade Davenport
Press TV Blogger
ddavenport@johnsoncitypress.com

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I discovered last week that TheWB.com is offering free streaming of all 10 “Friends” Thanksgiving episodes, and I’m very thankful, indeed.

“Friends” was my favorite sitcom of the 1990s, and with its reruns in syndication on several channels, I still watch an episode just about every day.

Thanksgiving was a “Friends” tradition that I looked forward to every year, and if the cast and creators ever decide to make a reunion, I think a Thanksgiving special would be the only way to go.

Here’s a rundown of the “Friends” Thanksgiving episodes, from the only one I hate to the one I love the most.

10. “The One with the Late Thanksgiving,” Season 10. I actually missed this episode when it originally aired in November 2003, and I can honestly say I didn’t miss much. In this episode, Monica and Chandler decide they have too much going on to host Thanksgiving, but their friends convince Monica that she has to try to outdo herself and fix the best Thankgsiving dinner ever. When Joey, Ross, Rachel and Phoebe show up an hour late, Chandler and Monica lock them out of the apartment. As I watched this episode yesterday, I couldn’t help but think that Monica’s competition with herself was symbolic of the show itself, trying to compete with classic Thanksgiving episodes of the previous nine years. It just didn’t live up.

9. “The One with Rachel’s Other Sister,” Season 9. In this one, Rachel’s sister Amy (Christina Applegate) spends Thanksgiving with the gang and is devastated to learn that Ross and Rachel plan to leave daughter Emma to Monica and Chandler if they die. This episode took two jokes — Amy getting Emma’s name wrong and Monica fretting over her wedding china — and stretched them too thin.

8. “The One Where Chandler Doesn’t Like Dogs,” Season 7. This episode has two things going for it: the gang’s failed attempts to name all 50 states, and Joey’s delivery of my favorite line: “It’s a moo point.” What? “It’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. It’s moo.”

7. “The One with the List,” Season 2. This one barely qualifies as a Thanksgiving episode, but it’s the closest thing we got in Season 2, before Thanksgiving episodes were an annual “Friends” tradition. In this one, Ross tries to decide between girlfriend Julie and his high school crush, Rachel, so he sits down with Chandler and Joey to compile a list. Among the things going against Rachel: She’s spoiled, she has thick ankles and she’s just a waitress. When Rachel sees the list, we know we’re going to have to wait a little while before Ross and Rachel finally get together. The subplot of the episode revolves around Monica’s efforts to create Thanksgiving-themed recipes for Mockolate — a synthetic chocolate whose makers hope to be selling it in time for Thanksgiving. Michael McKean is hilarious as Mr. Rastatter, the Mockolate exec who hires Monica.

6. “The One with the Rumor,” Season 8. Before Brangelina, there were Brad and Jen, and in November 2001, Brad Pitt played guest star to wife Jennifer Anniston as Will, a former fatty who attended high school with Monica, Ross and Rachel. Will is still bitter over how badly Rachel treated him when they were kids, so he reveals that he and Ross co-founded the I Hate Rachel Green Club in high school. The episode was cute when it first aired, but I have to admit that Brad and Jen’s divorce has kind of ruined it for me since.

5. “The One with All the Thanksgivings,” Season 5. It’s hard for me to rank these last five episodes. They are classics, and I love them all. This one takes place when Monica and Chandler are still trying to hide their relationship and Ross’ marriage to Emily has fallen apart before it’s even begun. To make Ross feel better, the gang recounts past disastrous Thanksgivings, including the day Chandler’s parents announced they were getting a divorce, the one when Monica overheard Chandler calling her “fat” and the one when Joey got a turkey stuck on his head. The worst: A newly thin Monica accidentally cuts off Chandler’s pinky toe when she tries to seduce him in her parents’ kitchen.

4. “The One with the Football,” Season 3. Hyper-competitive Monica and Ross choose teams to play football in the park between turkey bastings. The funniest bits include Rachel going long, Phoebe flashing the guys to distract them and Joey and Chandler vying for the attention of Dutch beauty Margha.

3. “The One with Chandler in a Box,” Season 4. Chandler tries to atone for kissing Joey’s girlfriend by spending the day in a wooden box. Why the box? “The meaning of the box is threefold,” Chandler explains. “One (holds up a finger through the air hole), it gives me the time to think about what I did. Two (holds two fingers), it proves how much I care about my friendship with Joey. And three (holds up three fingers), it hurts!” Meanwhile, Monica tries to date former lover Richard’s son, and Ross gives Rachel a hard time for always returning gifts.

2. “The One Where Underdog Gets Away,” Season 1. Through a series of misfortunes, all of the friends end up spending Thanksgiving with Monica, who fusses over a turkey and three different kinds of potatoes. When they leave the apartment to go up on the roof and watch a balloon that escaped the Macy’s parade, they get locked out of the apartment, dinner burns and Monica has a meltdown. I ends with one of my favorite “Friends” scenes of all time, with the six of them gathered around Monica’s table eating grilled cheese sandwiches and drinking to Chandler’s toast: “I know this isn’t the kind of Thanksgiving that all of you all planned, but for me, this has been really great, you know, I think because it didn’t involve divorce or projectile vomiting. Anyway, I was just thinking, I mean, if you’d gone to Vail, and if you guys’d been with your family, if you didn’t have syphilis and stuff, we wouldn’t be all together, you know? So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m very thankful that all of your Thanksgivings sucked.” I’ll drink to that.

1. “The One Where Ross Got High,” Season 6. The only thing funnier than putting these six friends in a room is putting them in a room with Monica and Ross’ parents, Jack and Judy Geller (Elliott Gould and Christina Pickles). In this one, Chandler learns the Gellers don’t like him, Rachel makes a trifle, Ross and Joey try to skip out early to join Joey’s roommate and her hot dancer friends, and Phoebe crushes on Jack Geller. I laughed out loud at this episode from beginning to end but never harder than when everyone’s secrets are spilled: Ross smoked pot in college! Monica broke the porch swing! Ross hasn’t worked at the museum for a year! Monica and Chandler are living together! Ross married Rachel in Vegas — and got divorced! AGAIN! Phoebe loves Jacques Cousteau! Rachel wasn’t supposed to put beef in the trifle! Joey wants to gooooo! As Judy Geller responded, “That’s a lot of information to get in in 30 seconds.”

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for how great these episodes are. Just go to www.thewb.com/shows/friends and watch them yourself.