2260 replies to this topic

[MelineB13]

I'll start this off...One of my most disgruntled moments is in TOW Monica's Thunder when Rachel tells Ross they never had a "bonus night". They did! Right after they got back from the beach. I don't know why that one comment from her has stuck with me for so many years and constantly bothered me.

I can ignore all the issues with rents and jobs but for some reason not this.

[Dandesun]

That wasn't a bonus night, though. They got back together for a few days. It may have only lasted an episode but I do believe it spanned a few days at least.

And I still love that break-up.

"Don't worry about me not sleeping. I still have your letter!"

[MelineB13]

I had completely blocked Vegas from my mind...Now I hate that statement even more.

Yeah the birthdays bug too. What was the purpose of at the very end changing Rachel's birthday which was one of the most consistant of any of them?

[Dandesun]

I've got to give you Vegas... although do either of them remember it? Still, I think the whole point of that was that Rachel wanted an excuse to 'steal Monica's thunder' and went for anything she could. She was jealous of Monica and acted out in that Rachel way of hers.

The birthday thing, however, dude.

[kat_may]

I thought they never slept together in Vegas... which leads me to my biggest peeve of the series - Ross' divorces. None of them were really genuine divorces, i.e. break-ups of real marriages, and only one was his fault. If anything I think all of them could have been annulled. All I know of annullment comes from the Catholic standard, which is that a marriage is invalid if something is wrong from its inception. Carol was gay and neither one of them had any control over that. He never slept with Emily after the wedding, and I think non-comsumation is kind of an automatic out, isn't it? This would go for the Rachel marriage, too, especially since they were drunk as well.

[steph86]

The one thing that bugged me the most was from Phoebe's baby shower (blanking on the episode right now.) When Rachel and Monica where planning it they said that someone should get Phoebe the leather pants she'd always wanted. That is SO out of character for Phoebe. She won't eat meat, and she didn't want the fur coat, but leather pants were ok? I didn't get that.

[Username]

I always get bothered when I see the episode where Chandler and Monica get engaged, and they remark that Ross has proposed 3 times. He didn't propose to Rachel!

[Drew T.]

The marriage jokes, on the whole, really played out quickly. I do think that they were funny at the end of season six (Rachel saying Ross would know a good engagement ring since he bought so many and he says, "You didn't get one") and beginning of season seven (Ross telling Rachel that Monica's night isn't that great since he gets married all the time), but overall, it wasn't like he was some incredible manwhore. He had one truly failed marriage, one that was ill-advised, and one that he didn't know about. I hated that of all the cool quirks Ross had, this became one of his essential characteristics. (D'oh, I wrote all that and now I see that kat_may wrote something similar...I guess I'll leave mine, too).

[sparklebunny27]

Okay, this is almost a question, but it always bugged me. When Monica is dancing around with the turkey on her head and Chandler says he loves her, that's supposedly the first time and their relationship is still a secret, right? So why in the reveal episode (to everyone but Ross) do they say it (again?) for "the first time". I thought I saw the episodes out of order at first, but that doesn't make sense. Can someone help me out?

[cinaminsweet281]

I always wondered that, too, sparklebunny27. I asked about it in the old thread and was told that, in the one with the turkey, since after Chandler said it, he acted like he didn't mean it and took it back, so it didn't count. And since he meant it in the reveal episode, they assume that was the real "first time" he said it. Something like that. That's something that bugged me a lot, too.

[megasaur]

sparklebunny - Chandler said "I love you" when Monica was dancing around with the turkey on her head, but he took it back. She didn't say it to him because she was so surprised he said it and when she questioned what he said started saying he didn't say anything.

So in "The One Where Everyone Finds Out" when she hears him tell Phoebe that he can't sleep with her because he's in love with Monica, it is the first time that he says it with the purpose of saying it, like he's not scared to say it because he knows it's true and he's really ready to admit that he's in love. I think that's why it's the "first time" and it is the first time that Monica says she loves him.

[MarySparkles]

sparklebunny27, I'm bothered by that turkey scene for another reason. The whole episode takes place after everyone has eaten Thanksgiving dinner and they are really full. Why does Monica have an entire raw turkey that she can put on her head? Who makes Thanksgiving dinner and then has a second thawed raw turkey on hand for dancing in?

[LizDC]

When Rachel and Monica where planning it they said that someone should get Phoebe the leather pants she'd always wanted. That is SO out of character for Phoebe. She won't eat meat, and she didn't want the fur coat, but leather pants were ok? I didn't get that.

And vegetarian Pheobe was the only one who could identify the Salami Buddy wedding present that the Tribbianis gave to Monica and Chandler.

[tamarai]

I'm bothered by that turkey scene for another reason. The whole episode takes place after everyone has eaten Thanksgiving dinner and they are really full. Why does Monica have an entire raw turkey that she can put on her head? Who makes Thanksgiving dinner and then has a second thawed raw turkey on hand for dancing in?

Not to mention - a raw turkey on your head? That's just begging for salmonella poisoning.

[Imogen]

In The One With Ross' Tan (which I hated. It was like the writers had eaten too many donuts), why did Ross just stand there like an imbecile while he was spray-tanned on the same side again and again? It is just so out of character for him to be so moronic.

[SteveJRogers]

The true mother of all Friends inconsistancies, IMO, is "When did Rachel first meet Chandler?"

Lets see shall we:

1st one is the very first episode where it is made absolutely crystal clear that Rachel is meeting Phoebe, Chandler and Joey for the very first time, as Monica introduces her to everyone in a manner that says "these are clearly people she has never met". Okay, not a problem, but then we start getting into murkiness in the same season.

2nd one comes in an epsiode where I forget the title off hand, but Rachel says when she first met Chandler she thought he was gay, but then when Chandler spent Phoebe's birthday talking to her (Rachel's) breasts she figured out that he wasn't. This naturally would put Phoebe's birthday sometime between the piolt (assuming the piolt shares the same time frame as the rest of the season, which in other seasons the first episode doesn't normally) and that particular episode. Well fast forward a few months and we are celebrating Phoebe's birthday in the same season, and we assume that the entire season has been running in real time so did Rachel know at least Phoebe and Chandler before her wedding day?

3rd one is in TOW The Flashbacks where we see an engaged Rachel wander into the bar that will become Central Perk with her girls from Long Island. Chandler, playing pool, overhears Rachel wanting to have one more "stupid fling" before getting married tries to make a play and fails miserably, leading Monica to reconize her old HS friend. While that Rachel probably would be that shallow to not reconize Chandler (and even a year later when he doesn't have a goatee and had whatever that hair do Matthew Perry was doing back in Season 1) it appears that she has never seen this man in her life.

4th, and the final time, the one that they kept for the rest of the rung is TOW All The Thanksgivings where Rachel meets Chandler when Ross brings him to Thanksgiving.

Again, granted Rachel was shallow enough to not remember people she met once or twice, it is still a major inconsistancy with the show, and is a prime example of the show's writers, especially in later years, to let facts in past shows be damned and write whats funny to them.

[lulu519]

And what about the flashback episode in Season 10 when Rachel & Monica went to a party at Ross & Chandler's college? She had a conversation with him, just the two of them!

The whole Rachel/Chandler thing just doesn't make any sense. Unfortunately, continuity is not one of the Friends' writers strong suits, which is highly irritating for us fans.

[SteveJRogers]

And what about the flashback episode in Season 10 when Rachel & Monica went to a party at Ross & Chandler's college? She had a conversation with him, just the two of them!

Thats what I meant by the fact that the Thanksgiving episode would ultimatly be the final "first meeting" point. The flashback that you are referring to happens after that episode, both Monica and Rachel refer back to the incidents shown in the first Geller Thanksgiving flashback.

[poster child]

And why did Rachel spend those Thanksgivings with the Gellers anyway? She had her own family in town.

[SteveJRogers]

And why did Rachel spend those Thanksgivings with the Gellers anyway? She had her own family in town.

You know what, EXCELLENT POINT!

In fact, didn't her family go to Vail, Colorado every Thanksgiving? (Shoop, shoop, shoop)

[Ro]

It always bugged me that in "TOW Ross and Rachel...You Know", Rachel tells Ross that she didn't want to wear her glasses on their first date (at a subtitled movie). But to my recollection we never once see Rachel wearing glasses in the entire series either before or after that episode, and we know that she has an issue with things being put in her eyes so she doesn't have contacts either.

[SteveJRogers]

It always bugged me that in "TOW Ross and Rachel...You Know", Rachel tells Ross that she didn't want to wear her glasses on their first date (at a subtitled movie). But to my recollection we never once see Rachel wearing glasses in the entire series either before or after that episode, and we know that she has an issue with things being put in her eyes so she doesn't have contacts either.

Eh, have we ever seen Rachel do anything that would require glasses for far-sightedness? Which is what you'd wear glasses to a movie with subtitiles for. For the most part, she never drives, and the majority of her things are close to her.

No harm, no foul.

[Figaro1]

SteveJRogers, I think you mean near-sighted - speaking as one who wore glasses to see far away . . . I never needed them until I started driving.

I agree with the heart of your post, though, if she could see fine close-up, she might not have worn them very often.

[Drew T.]

TOW Rachel Smokes...

Joey and the one kid are up against Ben and the other guy for the commercial. And they're the only people left. Joey doesn't get it and then Ross says Ben didn't either. So no one got the commercial?

Is that normal for a commercial like that? For no one to get it.

[megasaur]

Joey got the commercial, but he kept screwing up the lines so he was fired. I think the actor that was paired with Ben was then hired to play the dad in the commercial.

[Drew T.]

I thought that Joey didn't get the commercial, but that he was screwing up his final audition. Hmm, I must have missed something. Thanks.

[Cione]

why did Ross just stand there like an imbecile while he was spray-tanned on the same side again and again? It is just so out of character for him to be so moronic.

Not when it comes to grooming matters (think of his teeth in the Missy Pyle episode, or his hair... well, anytime).

The when-did-Rachel-meet-Chandler thing doesn't bother me. They could have met at Thanksgiving twice and made out at college once and not remembered one another. At the Thanksgivings, they were each there with their own friend and hardly noticed each other. At college, it was dark and they were probably drunk. (I don't remember everyone I made out with in situations like that!) When they met in the one with the bar, I think they probably remembered one another later (in the pilot) but it didn't occur to them to say so since they hardly knew one another when being introduced. They'd intersected several times but never really met.

But then, I'm great at justifying these things for humor's sake.

[Cress]

At the Thanksgivings, they were each there with their own friend and hardly noticed each other.

No, Rachel knew from Monica that Chandler had called her fat, and that was why Monica lost all the weight. That was a major lifestyle change, and Rachel knew that Monica really wanted to get back at him. If that weren't memorable enough, Monica then sliced Chandler's toe off, requiring a trip to the hospital. Why on earth wouldn't Rachel remember THAT years later? It's also a good point that Rachel should have been with her family in Vail, not spending Thanskgiving with Mon two years in a row.

Chandler doesn't exactly have a forgettable John Smith name either. Rachel's a damned idiot if she can't recall that Thanksgiving, and Chandler's a damned fool not to have tried jogging her memory in the Flashback when he dropped his pool ball. "Hey, you remember me? We had Thanksgiving together once, until Mon sliced my toe off." Only, you know, funnier and Chandler-esque. It's just screwed up. Instead of this crap, couldn't the writers have spent any one of the flashbacks showing us what Joey and Phoebe were doing back in the 80s, huh?