The One With The Dollhouse

"The One With The Dollhouse" is the twentieth episode of the third season of Friends, which aired on April 10, 1997. In it, Joey falls in love with a coworker thats dating his director, Chandler dates Rachel's boss, and Monica and Phoebe fight over a dollhouse.

Plot[]

Joey meets Kate, the first woman who didn't like him back. They still have scenes to rehearse, which involve deep, passionate kissing, but something's missing according to the director. After being refused by Kate, who it turns out is involved with the director, Joey hooks up with Kate's understudy, Lauren. Some days later, the director is still unhappy with the scenes and storms out in the middle of rehearsals. Lauren wants to take Joey out, but Joey stays to work on his stuff with Kate. The two agree that there's missing chemistry on stage between the two, and they start to list things they could do to each other to find that missing chemistry. The list culminates in the two of them sleeping together. However, while he breaks up with Lauren to get with Kate, his fellow actress doesn't make a big deal out of it and stays with the director. The regret Joey feels is such that he starts calling ex-girlfriends he dated before just to apologize to them for being negligent in their relationship.

Monica and Ross' Aunt Sylvia dies. Monica starts screaming with joy, stating that she was a "cranky old bitch", and is overjoyed to inherit her dollhouse with which she was never allowed to play. Phoebe, who never had a dollhouse to play with, is invited to play with Monica and the dollhouse, but Monica stops her when she brings over inappropriate toys like ghost handkerchiefs, gigantic, life-size dogs and dinosaur dolls. Phoebe is irritated and leaves to make her own dollhouse, which everyone admires more than Monica's perfect dollhouse mansion. Unfortunately, Phoebe doesn't get to enjoy her new dollhouse much as it catches fire; Ross is the one who's there when it happens, and he extinguishes it in Monica's shower, surprising Monica, who happens to be in the shower too.

Rachel fixes up her boss Joanna with Chandler. The date goes well - for Joanna, who thinks that Chandler is amazing. Chandler, on the other hand, can only describe Joanna as a "big, dull dud", and that he's not going to call her for a second date. But as he promised Joanna to do so, Rachel's boss freaks out when he doesn't call her and keeps nagging Rachel to the point where Chandler has to go out with Joanna. Unfortunately for him, the last words to come out of his mouth are still "I'll give you a call, we should do it again sometime!" Even when he tells her that he's not, in fact, going out with her anymore, those are the last words out of his mouth.

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[]

Alison La Placa - Joanna
Dina Meyer - Kate Miller
Reg Rogers - The Director
Jennifer Milmore - Lauren
Laura Dean - Sophie
James Michael Tyler - Gunther

Crew[]

Directed By:
Terry Hughes

Written By:
Wil Calhoun

Trivia[]

The giant dog that Phoebe brings to play with in Monica's dollhouse had decorated the shelf by the kitchen counter in Joey and Chandler's apartment during Seasons 1 and 2. It also resembles the real dog owned by Frank Jr's mother.
Continuity: Chandler asks Joey if Kate is the only woman he's ever wanted who didn't want him back, and he says yes. However, in "The One With The Flashback" it was shown that Monica rejected Joey when he made a pass at her naked. Counterargument: Monica did want him at one point. However, it wasn't until he stripped down that she get turned off.
First appearance of Allison LaPlaca as Joanna, although she was first mentioned in "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister".
The props department made several models of Phoebe's dollhouse in case they were needed for reshoots.
The Lucille Lortel Theatre where Joey's play is staged, is located in West Village.
Aunt Sylvia is almost certainly Aunt Syl for whom Monica made the lasagnas in "The One With The Dozen Lasagnas" (S1E12) and who Ross and Monica say Chandler reminds them of in "The One Where Old Yeller Dies" (S2E20) when he tries to grow a moustache like Richard Burke.
Chandler talks about Joanna "checking out the Chan-Chan man". Chandler says a similar thing to Monica in the season finale, "The One At The Beach", when he says "I saw you checking me out at the game last night".
It's likely Phoebe's dollhouse caught fire because she did happen to light the strips inside the aroma room.
When Ross carries the dollhouse inside the bathroom to extinguish the fire, he already knew that Monica was taking a shower, indicating he must have seen her completely stark naked masturbating with the shower massager.

Goofs[]

At the very beginning, when Ross announces Aunt Sylvia's death, Monica shouts "Yes!" and stands up, then the angle changes and she stands up again.
When Chandler says "Checking out the Chan Chan Man!" the position of Rachel's hands changes between shots.
While Rachel and Joanna are talking in the office after her date with Chandler, Rachel's hands change position with no time to do so.
When Chandler's in Rachel's office, she tells him the lingerie isn't kept there. He says, "Yes I realize that", and starts reaching for the catalog she's about to give him. Camera cuts, and he's now standing with his hands in his pockets, reaching out again when she gives him the catalog.
During the Central Perk scene where Rachel tells Chandler he has to call Joanna, there's an awkward edit overlap of the footage between the camera angles: Chandler delivers his line ending with "she gets that mascara goop thing in the corner of her eye !" and the edit cuts to Rachel's next line while we can see Matthew Perry from the back, delivering the last 5 or 6 words of his line silently.
In the same scene, Rachel's bag strap goes from over her shoulder to over her arm between shots. Also the strap changes from a wide to a thin strap.
When Monica and Phoebe are looking at the dollhouse, Monica says "I don't want a ghost for the house." When she says this, the camera is behind Phoebe whose right hand is up in the air. The shot then changes to Phoebe from the front, and her hand has instantly gone to her lap.
When Ross first enters the apartment, there's no smoke coming from Phoebe's dollhouse but when he turns from the fridge, smoke is pouring from the house.
When Ross enters the apartment, before the Dollhouse catches fire, he calls Monica's name, and she both hears and responds to him from the shower. However she does not respond or react in any way when Ross is yelling about the fire.

External links[]

Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
"The One with the Dollhouse" at the Internet Movie Database

Episode Navigation[]

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Preceded by "The One With The Tiny T-Shirt"	Series Three Episodes	Followed by "The One With A Chick And A Duck"


<< Season 2		Season 3				Season 4 >>
#01	"The One With The Princess Leia Fantasy"		#10	"The One Where Rachel Quits"	#19	"The One With The Tiny T-Shirt"
#02	"The One Where No One's Ready"		#11	"The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister"	#20	"The One With The Dollhouse"
#03	"The One With The Jam"		#12	"The One With All The Jealousy"	#21	"The One With A Chick And A Duck"
#04	"The One With The Metaphorical Tunnel"		#13	"The One Where Monica And Richard Are Friends"	#22	"The One With The Screamer"
#05	"The One With Frank Jr."		#14	"The One With Phoebe's Ex-Partner"	#23	"The One With Ross' Thing"
#06	"The One With The Flashback"		#15	"The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break"	#24	"The One With The Ultimate Fighting Champion"
#07	"The One With The Race Car Bed"		#16	"The One With The Morning After"	#25	"The One At The Beach"
#08	"The One With The Giant Poking Device"		#17	"The One Without The Ski Trip"
#09	"The One With The Football"		#18	"The One With The Hypnosis Tape"