The One With Phoebe's Rats

"The One With Phoebe's Rats" is the twelfth episode of the ninth season of Friends, which aired on January 16, 2003. In it, Phoebe finds rats in her apartment and decides to make them her pets, Joey has a crush on Rachel and Ross' new nanny and Ross and Chandler try to stop him, and Rachel invites her new colleague to her birthday party.

Plot[]

Rachel and Ross hire Molly, a very hot nanny. Joey's natural instincts go crazy when he sees her, and wants to have sex with her, but Ross and Chandler don't want him to. The two have a hard time driving Joey off Molly, but she does pretty well by herself when she introduces them to Tabitha, her girlfriend, some days later.

Mike is disgusted to find a rat in Phoebe's apartment. He sets up traps all over the place, managing to kill Bob. Phoebe finds out how Bob, actually a female rat, has had babies, and to make up for her death, she and Mike take care of the babies, even taking them to Rachel's birthday party in Monica's apartment.

Joey and Molly — Joey talks to Molly, the hot nanny.

Rachel still finds her new colleague Gavin immature and a big jerk, but invites him to her birthday party nonetheless. The party is not really going well, as everyone's home by 9:30, but Gavin still shows up. When he does at the balcony, he brings Rachel a scarf, and he explains how he has feelings for her. Rachel's about to start criticizing him all over again, but he surprises her by kissing her. Not thinking that it would bring really tragic consequences, Rachel returns the passionate kiss. Little does she know that Ross is watching everything from his apartment, saddening him, breaking his heart.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast[]

Paul Rudd - Mike Hannigan
Dermot Mulroney - Gavin Mitchell
Melissa George - Molly
Carly Thomas - Tabitha
Cheryl Kennard - Heather

Crew[]

Directed By:
Ben Weiss

Written By:
Dana Klein Borkow, Brian Buckner & Sebastian Jones

Trivia[]

General[]

This is the fifth and final time the gang celebrate Rachel's birthday, following "The One Where Rachel Finds Out" (S1E24), "The One With The Two Parties" (S2E22), "The One Where Rachel Smokes" (S5E18) and "The One Where They All Turn Thirty" (S7E14).
They are having a birthday party for Rachel in this episode, which is set in the winter. In "The One With Chandler's Dad" (S7E22), the cop guesses that Rachel's an Aquarius. Her 30th birthday party is held on February 8th, which would make her actual birthday around three weeks after this episode.
When Phoebe is discussing Bob the rat with Mike in her apartment, Phoebe is wearing the same necklace that Monica wore to her birthday dinner in "The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner" (S9E05).
In the uncut DVD version, Chandler says that Molly is the most beautiful woman in the world. Monica then replies with, "I can hear you!" from inside the apartment, and he replies with, "Can you set my pillow and blanket on the couch for me, please?"
When Mike and Phoebe hear Bob being killed by the trap, the audience slightly gasp, and you can hear someone saying "Oh no".
Rachel kisses Gavin back after he kisses her first. This nearly marks the start of a relationship between Rachel and Gavin until they realize it is too complicated to progress past this due to her history with Ross in the next episode.
When Phoebe realizes that her rats will mate with each other, despite being siblings, she worries that each of them will have seven babies and then each of those will have seven more, then exclaims "That's math I can't even do!" If this scenario were to actually happen, she would have 343 rats altogether.

Goofs[]

When Joey and Chandler sing 'happy birthday' to Rachel, she tells them to be quiet because Gunther is going to want to hug her. However, he already knows her birthday as he asked Rachel in "The One With Joey's New Girlfriend" (S4E5).
The big white plastic dog which Joey gave to Chandler had drawn-up black eyes and a red mouth (since "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister"). However, in the scene with Rachel and Gavin in the balcony at the end of the episode, the dog is completely white and bears no evidence of ever being drawn upon.
When Rachel opens the box with Phoebe's rats, which she thought was shoes, Monica gets up from the couch, scared. In the next take, she's sitting.
When Rachel first enters the office and goes to apologize to Gavin, Dermot Mulroney has his wedding ring on. When the camera zooms back to him in the middle of the conversation, the wedding ring is gone.
When Ross runs out of Monica's apartment to stop Joey from hitting on the nanny, Chandler follows and says "right behind you big guy" in a helium voice, then noticeably mouths another line afterwards for which there is no voice audio.
When Ross is talking about "obvious beauty" to Monica, Monica looks down at her book then in the next cut is looking at Ross with no time to do so.

Screenshots[]

External links[]

Transcript of the episode
"The One With Phoebe's Rats" at the Internet Movie Database

Episode Navigation[]

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Preceded by "The One Where Rachel Goes Back To Work"	Season Nine Episodes	Followed by "The One Where Monica Sings"


<< Season 8		Season 9				Season 10 >>
#01	"The One Where No One Proposes"		#09	"The One With Rachel's Phone Number"	#17	"The One With The Memorial Service"
#02	"The One Where Emma Cries"		#10	"The One With Christmas In Tulsa"	#18	"The One With The Lottery"
#03	"The One With The Pediatrician"		#11	"The One Where Rachel Goes Back To Work"	#19	"The One With Rachel's Dream"
#04	"The One With The Sharks"		#12	"The One With Phoebe's Rats"	#20	"The One With The Soap Opera Party"
#05	"The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner"		#13	"The One Where Monica Sings"	#21	"The One With The Fertility Test"
#06	"The One With The Male Nanny"		#14	"The One With The Blind Dates"	#22	"The One With The Donor"
#07	"The One With Ross' Inappropriate Song"		#15	"The One With The Mugging"	#23	"The One In Barbados, Part 1"
#08	"The One With Rachel's Other Sister"		#16	"The One With The Boob Job"	#24	"The One In Barbados, Part 2"