Friends Central
Advertisement

"The One With Rachel's Book" is the second episode of the seventh season of Friends, which aired on NBC on October 12, 2000. In it, Monica learns that her parents spent her wedding fund on a beach house, Phoebe moves in with Ross to give Chandler and Monica alone time but ends up working at his apartment instead, and Joey finds a smutty novel that Rachel's been reading, causing Rachel to get revenge.

Plot[]

The wedding planning starts and Monica already has a whole book full of information on everything you need for a wedding. Joey takes a nap in Rachel's bed and finds out that she reads dirty books and doesn't stop teasing Rachel about it. Rachel scares the jokes out of Joey when she tells him that she wants rough sex with him.

To give Monica and Chandler a little time on their own, Phoebe moves in with Ross for a couple of days. Ross freaks out when Phoebe does her massages at Ross' place and asks her to see her clients elsewhere. An attractive woman calls on Phoebe while she isn't there and Ross tells her that he's the one who performs the massages... only for this to backfire when it turns out the woman is just accompanying her elderly father. Ross can barely bring himself to touch the old man so ends up using a variety of household instruments to massage him instead. Obviously this leads to a lousy massage causing Phoebe to lose her client, leaving her fuming.

It turns out that Ross and Monica's parents spent the money for Monica's wedding on a beach house- having temporarily started the fund again when she dated Richard (which ended up being spent on remodeling their kitchen after the break-up) and never bothering to save money for her current relationship as they never believed that Chandler would actually propose - so there is no money for the wedding. All is seemingly not lost, as Chandler has saved exactly the amount they need for Monica's dream wedding but Chandler won't spend all of his savings on one day instead wanting to save it for their future together. After a bit of thinking, Chandler decides making Monica happy is what is important to him and is willing to spend all the money to give her the perfect wedding. When Monica asks about the future, Chandler says they'll probably have only two kids and describes his idea of what their lives would be like together. After hearing his description, Monica decides not to spend the money, agreeing that they should save it for the future stating she doesn't just want a wedding, she wants a marriage.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

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

Supporting Cast[]

Elliott Gould - Jack Geller
Christina Pickles - Judy Geller
Suzanne Lanza - Woman
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
Elizabeth Talbot-Adams - Scarlett (uncredited)

Crew[]

Directed By:
Michael Lembeck

Written By:
Andrew Reich & Ted Cohen

Trivia[]

  • The Magna Doodle has two hands holding a heart, which is wearing a crown. This symbol is known as a Claddagh Ring, which is a traditional Irish ring. The heart represents love, the crown stands for loyalty, and two clasped hands symbolize friendship.
  • Ross tells Chandler that he should "just turn up and say the right name." This is a reference to Rachel running away from her wedding to Barry and Ross saying Rachel at his wedding to Emily.
  • Chandler reveals that his mother has married for a fourth time but is saving up for her divorce. She will appear at the wedding at the end of the season.
  • This is the last time the duck is referred to as still being alive and living in Joey's apartment, even though it isn't seen on screen. In "The Last One, Part 1", it's revealed that the duck died somewhere between that episode and this one.
  • In the uncut version, Phoebe blackmails Ross into letting her massage him for $100 a week in retribution for losing her $80 a week from her client, threatening to destroy his puzzles if he refuses. In an alternate epilogue, Phoebe gives Ross a massage in his apartment then hits him with a phone book and sarcastically asks him if he wanted a traditional hand massage. When Ross responds in the positive, Phoebe grabs his Smilodon skull to make it worse.
  • Chandler says he and Monica will have twins and two boys, will live outside the city and have a place for Joey to grow old. In "The One Where Chandler Gets Caught", Chandler is followed to Westchester prompting Monica and Chandler to reveal they're moving out of the apartment. Furthermore they adopt twins whom they name Jack and Erica and their new house has a room for Joey.
  • In the final scene with Rachel and Joey, Rachel pretends that she wants to have sex with him. However when they try to actually have sex when they're dating later in the series, it proves disastrous and causes them to break up.
  • Phoebe is the second and last member of the gang to move in with Ross. Rachel will move back in next season in "The One With The Secret Closet".
  • Joey doesn't know the word "vicar", but he never bothered to look it up in the Encyclopedia volume "V" he bought 3 years earlier. Ironically later in the season Joey gets ordained so as to conduct Monica and Chandler's wedding, a vicar being a type of ordained priest.
  • Rachel's enjoyment of erotic was previously referenced in "The One With Mrs. Bing".
  • The TBS U.S. version has the scene where Joey thinks he is a vicar at the tag scene and a different scene is at said scene's original place.

Goofs[]

  • In this episode, Monica says "When you said cat, you meant dog right?" but in "The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs" (S7E8), Monica thinks that Chandler is allergic (Although it may be that Chandler accepted her 'correction' for the moment and then told her that he was allergic later).
  • In this episode when Joey and Rachel are talking about Rachel's book in Joey's apartment, Rachel's handbag behind Joey keeps changing from a bag to a coat.
  • When Rachel says "What, the duck?" in this shot, there is nothing on her hands. In the next shot, when she says "What the hell did the damn duck do now?" she holds a blue paper on her right hand.
  • When Chandler says "Do I get to look in this book" the position of his left arm changes between this and the next shot.
  • During dinner at the restaurant with Chandler and Monica, Jack and Judy Geller start to tell the story of how they got engaged. Jack says that he had just gotten Judy pregnant, but has no idea how. Judy says it was because the dog thought her diaphragm was a chew toy. However, in "The One Where Rosita Dies", it is mentioned several times that the Gellers never thought they could even have children and that Ross was a "medical marvel."
  • At the same dinner, the amount of wine in Monica's glass increases between the start of the scene and the end. In the same scene, the amount of drink in Chandler's glass remains the same despite him drinking from it.
  • During the dinner scene, there's a wide shot of Chandler and Monica reacting to the news that her parents have spent her wedding fund in which Monica can been seen mouthing the line "what about when I started dating Chandler?" The audio does not play that line until a close shot a moment later. However it's conceivable that Monica wasn't in shot when the episode was originally screened.
  • When Monica and Chandler enter the apartment after dinner with Monica's parents and Chandler says "any extra cash my father has, he saves for his yearly trips to...Dollywood" The next shot shows Monica and her purse on the counter and her purse straps are facing the camera. The next shot shows her purse with the bottom facing the camera.
  • When Rachel, Ross and Joey are at Central Perk and are talking about Rachel's loins, her purse moves positions.
  • Joey says he doesn't want to take a nap at his apartment because the duck vomited on the sofa. But when he goes back to the apartment immediately after this, the sofa is completely clean (he may have cleaned the vomit off the sofa but unable to remove the smell).
  • Why Joey went in Rachel's bed to take a nap with his shoes on?
  • Chandler talks about he and Monica having a cat in their new house but he already knows that Monica is allergic to cats as she was affected by Rachel's cat in "The One With The Ball".
  • In the scene where Ross and Phoebe are talking outside his apartment, it can be seen that it's a dead end hallway which ends at his apartment. However when Ross finds Rachel sitting outside his apartment waiting for him in "The One Where Rachel Tells...", Ross approaches Rachel from the direction where the end wall is in this episode.

External links[]

Episode Navigation[]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Preceded by
"The One With Monica's Thunder"
Series Seven Episodes Followed by
"The One With Phoebe's Cookies"
Advertisement