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"The One With The Inappropriate Sister" is the tenth episode of the fifth season of Friends, which aired on December 17, 1998.

Plot[]

Joey's new roommate Ross is bored out of his mind while on sabbatical, and shows absolutely no aptitude for relaxing and pranks. Joey is exasperated: even a part for an Italian Brooklyn male actor his age is nailed by a female celebrity, so Ross makes it his mission to coach him by creating his own part by writing a script. While Joey is trying to write five pages for his script, Chandler suggests playing a self-invented and dangerous game for 30 minutes and then writing until Ross gets home. However, this gets Ross mad when Joey is unable to do any progress on his script. The next day, Chandler tries to cajole Joey into going to a hockey game with him, only to be informed that Joey is not going and is redoing his five pages. Chandler bickers with Ross over this issue and this results in Ross destroying the game tickets, ensuring that Chandler will not go to the game either. The next day, Joey tells Ross and Chandler that he finished five pages in the library and asks them to test-read aloud - they soon finds it's a script for the two of them to make up together: they quickly apologize to each other, admitting they had to have Joey's best interests at heart.

Phoebe is determined to 'spread joy' all over the city while dressed as Santa's elf collecting for charity, but then a hobo uses the bucket people are supposed to put money into just to make change for the bus instead, and then a woman passing by mistakes the bucket for a bin (the bucket Phoebe has decided to use does look a bit like a bin from the outside) and throws her trash into it, and a smoking man passing by makes the same mistake and accidentally sets the money on fire when he throws his cigarette into the bucket, thus reviving 'street Phoebe', who puts up signs discouraging non-charitable behavior. However, complaints about her attitude result in her being moved to another spot.

Tired of Rachel's hopelessly procrastinating 'plan' Monica plainly asks Danny 'who ignored her on purpose' to date Rachel, and he immediately accepts, much to her delight. However, she gets suspicious when she later sees him with his arms around a girl in the subway, but at his apartment finds that it's just his sister Krista, who is visiting him in town for Christmas. Yet instead of relieved she is rather appalled at how physically close and childish the adult siblings still are, and the other friends concur. Though the relationship between Danny and Krista does not really appear to be incestuous, as they do not really appear to be sexually attracted to each other, their relationship apparently hasn't changed in any way at all since they were children-Krista still feeds Danny cake off of her fingers, and still wipes stains off of his clothes for him, even when the stains in question are on the crotch area of his jeans (which Rachel, Monica, Joey and Chandler discover much to their shock and disbelief after witnessing her accidentally drop the cake onto his lap) and Danny still playfully chases his sister around and tickles her, even when she's half naked. It appears as though the siblings have bizarrely not developed any physical intimacy issues upon growing up at all, causing Rachel, Monica, Chandler and Joey to find their relationship disturbing. Rachel goes to Danny's apartment and tells him she wants to break up with him. He tries to persuade her to change her mind, seemingly not understanding how she could find anything wrong with his relationship with his sister, but when Krista reveals that they also still take baths together, Rachel fearfully runs out of the room.

In the final scene, Joey has written another script for Monica and Rachel; however, they find it disgusting and walk out, much to Joey's dismay, who replied that "the handsome man was just about to enter".

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[]

June Gable - Estelle Leonard
Julie Lauren - Krista
George Newbern - Danny
Tom Bailey - Bob
Lee Arenberg - The Man
Robyn Pedretti - Ginger
James Michael Tyler - Gunther

Jeanette Miller - old woman donator (uncredited)

Crew[]

Directed By:
Dana DeValley Piazza

Written By:
Shana Goldberg-Meehan

Trivia[]

  • Phoebe's bucket signs: - We are not a Urinal! Happy Holidays - I have no Macy's info. - We are not a bank! - Please don't invade my personal space! - Respect the bell. No loud music!
  • The Magna-doodle has a drawing of a desert island.
  • Rachel mentions that she has two sisters, one of which is fairly masculine. It's not known which sister she's referring to. We meet Jill next season in "The One With Rachel's Sister", while her other sister Amy is introduced in "The One With Rachel's Other Sister".
  • Although not mentioned, Huggsy can be seen on the shelf in Joey's apartment. In "The One Where Everybody Finds Out", Joey reveals this is his bedtime penguin pal.
  • The old woman who Phoebe chases is the same one who plays the lurker in "The One In Vegas, Part 2" and also briefly appears in "The One In Vegas, Part 1".

Goofs / Continuity[]

  • When Phoebe is being replaced at her bucket spot, she tears down a sign. When the camera angle changes, she has two signs in her hand.
  • In "The One With The Yeti", Danny answers the door to his apartment several times and there is a wall directly behind him. However, in this episode, the door opens directly in to the apartment.
  • The hallway outside Danny's apartment is completely different from past episodes, which were virtually identical to the friends' hallway.
  • When Phoebe comes into Central Perk after telling the gang about her Christmas charity, she sits down and starts to take off her coat and the camera cuts away. However, when the camera turns back to her, it is still on and she takes it off later.
  • At the very start of the scene where Chandler talks about going to the hockey game, you can see a piece of equipment at the top left of screen.
  • When Ross is reading what Joey has written in his tablet and Joey is leaning on the counter, the burnt tennis ball (fireball) shifts positions in between shots.
  • When Chandler and Joey are talking about "hammer darts" Joey punches a hole through the wall. Later, when Ross comes home the hole is gone.
    • Ironically the hole is one of the few places Monica didn't make a hole when she and Rachel lived there and she was trying to sort out what the switch did.
  • After Phoebe admonishes the elderly lady for trying to put a Canadian coin in the bucket, she throws the coin in anyway.
  • In the shot where Phoebe says "Look out for that bitch," the elderly woman's head can be seen looking toward Phoebe. After the angle changes, the elderly woman has to turn completely around again to look back.
  • The shots of Phoebe supposedly standing outside Macy's, New York show the street number 634. However Macy's is located at 1001 34th Street.
Phoebe-Santa-Hat

Phoebe in Santa hat

  • When Phoebe is first shown with the bucket and a guy uses it to make change for the bus, he says, "Bite me, blondie!" but Phoebe's hair in this scene is completely tucked under her Santa hat. Although a strand of blond hair on her left side, and her blond eyebrows are visible and he may have correctly guessed that her other hair was also blond.

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 Ross' Sandwich"
"The One With The Inappropriate Sister" Followed by
"The One With All The Resolutions"
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