Spoiler Space
Spoiler Space
Spoiler Space
Spoiler Space
Spoiler Space
Episode 615: The One That Could've Been Directed by: Michael Lembeck Airdate: February 17, 2000
Ok, this is the first time I'm posting spoilers, and I don't know how specific I should be. Still I hope you get the gist of what the show was about. One more thing, I have a terrible memory, and I'm also terrible repeating jokes, so please do not think that the show was not funny, it's just "me" not knowing how to tell a joke. I hope you'll excuse me.
The teaser had already been taped and it was shown to us on the screens. Everybody is at Central Perk and they start wondering of how their lives would've been if: Monica hadn't lose weight, Chandler had decided to be a comic writer, Ross was still married to Carol, Rachel got married to Barry, Joey still worked at Days of Our Lives, and Phoebe had accepted a job at Merrill Lynch as a broker (somebody had mentioned to her that she was good at that). So this episode is about their lives as if all those things would�ve happened.
Scene 1: Ross is standing at a newsstand reading a magazine next to an older lady. The lady leaves and Ross puts back the magazine he was reading and grabs another magazine, which we suppose is a porn magazine. While trying to pay, he runs into Rachel, who doesn't recognize him at first. Ross mentions to her that Monica is around the corner and invites Rachel to go and meet her. Before leaving, Rachel asks Ross if he is planning to buy that magazine (I can't remember the name - but it was a funny one). Ross says no and returns it, saying that the magazine was not his, then he gives the money he got back to a kid out on the street saying "No porn for you today!". (They taped this scene twice. The second time around, Ross gets rid of the magazine by throwing it to the newsstand instead of returning it personally. I think the latter was funnier.)
Scene 2: Monica (looking fat as in the flashbacks episodes), Joey and another guy (I don't remember his name, but he's supposed to be Monica's boyfriend) are sitting on the sofa talking about nuts. Joey finds the conversation boring. Chandler comes in and tells them that he's not having luck getting his jokes published. Joey asks Chandler if he needs money. (You can tell that the roles have reversed, now being Chandler the one with monetary problems). Monica suggests to Joey to hire Chandler as his assistant, and Joey accepts. Joey leaves to go to the bathroom and tells Chandler that he doesn't need assistance for that. Phoebe comes in (she's dressed in a suit and a coat - very sharp and professional) and gets a call on her cellular. Before answering the phone she lights up a cigarette. In this episode, she is a chain smoker. She gets upset with the person at the end of the line and ends up firing her (I think she was her assistant). Then R&R come into the coffee shop and greet everybody. Monica and Rachel complement each other and say that they look great. Rachel then adds that it seems that Monica has lost weight, to which Monica replies: "Did you notice? I lost 3-1/2 pounds!". They start discussing how long it's been since they�ve seen each other. Ross interrupts them giving the exact date and time when he last saw Rachel. And while he is giving more details, Rachel ignores him and gets so excited when she sees "Joey Tribbiani". Monica tells her that he is a friend and introduces them. Rachel looks very shy and starts talking about the soap opera and that she is a devoted fan of Dr. Drake Ramoray. Joey thinks that Rachel is kind of crazy, but still invites her for a tour of the studios where they film his soap opera.
Scene 3: Monica and Chandler are sitting by the table at Monica's apartment. (The decoration is different because Monica lives alone, or maybe she lives with Phoebe, but that isn�t clear.) Phoebe is also there, talking on the phone. She is trying to hire a new assistant. Chandler is telling Monica that Joey is taking advantage of him, by even asking him to wear his jeans just to break them in, and other silly errands. Monica tells Chandler that she thinks that Chandler is "Joey's bitch" now. Then all of a sudden they hear Phoebe screaming. She comes out of a room saying that she just got a call that the market dipped just a bit but that meant millions of dollars in losses. She said "I can't call my boss because he'll kill me, and I can't call my clients, because they'll kill themselves". So Monica and Chandler try to calm her down, but then she says she is not feeling good, and that she�s got chest pains, difficulty breathing and pain in her left arm. Chandler and Monica try to help her and take her to the hospital. (Even though, this is nothing to joke about, the scene was very funny.)
Scene 4: Chandler, Monica, Ross & Phoebe are at the hospital. Phoebe is in bed. When Chandler and Monica leave, Ross stays to talk to Phoebe. Phoebe asks Ross about his marriage and Ross tells her that he's having problems with Carol in the "sex" department. When Phoebe asks Ross how long has it been since� you know. He started answering: "Well, it's been 2-1/2 weeks�" Then Phoebe interrupts him and says that is not bad. But then, Ross continues: "� since I stop after two months of trying to convince her." (or something like that, I just can't remember the exact words.) Phoebe then suggests to him different ways of making sex interesting, like: tying each other, playing with food and eating from each other, talking dirty, threesome, etc.
Scene 5: Chandler is sitting on one of those hospital beds, outside Phoebe's room at the hospital. Monica comes in and sits on Chandler's hand. Chandler gets hurt and makes the funniest expression. Then Joey comes by and tells Chandler that he should change his jeans since they seem to be ready.
Scene 6: Joey is giving Rachel a tour of the sets and they run into Chandler. Chandler is bringing Joey his orange juice. Joey notices that the juice has pulp and tells Chandler that he should know that he doesn�t like pulp in his juice. Then he starts making comments that make Chandler feel uncomfortable. Joey realizes this and asks Chandler if he was going to throw the juice on his face, Chandler responds �yes� and that �it�s not all juice�. (I didn�t get this joke, but everybody laughed.)
Scene 7: Ross and Carol are on their apartment. Ross asks Carol if she thought that him jumping into the shower with her was funny. Carol tells him that they need a second bathroom. Then Ross starts discussing with her about their sex life, when Ben comes in running. Ross and Ben hug and then Ross asks Ben to show him how he can tie his shoes but in his room. So Ben leaves. Ross continues with his conversation about their sex life. Carol is not interested. So Ross starts suggesting to her the different ways of making sex more exciting. Ross starts with the things that Phoebe suggested, but Carol seems less and less interested with each of them, until Ross mentions �threesome�, Carol immediately tells him that she could do that.
Scene 8: Monica is alone in her apartment and Chandler comes in with good news. The publishers of Archie Comics bought one of his stories. Monica tells him that she wants to give him a present and all she can think of is a piece of chocolate. But when she tries to hand it to Chandler, she doesn�t let go and Chandler suggests to split it. Joey comes in with a glass of orange juice and asks Chandler to forgive him for his earlier behavior. They hug and then Monica tells Joey about Chandler�s good news. Joey asks what was the story about, and Chandler reluctantly tells him that it is about Archie hiring �an assis� butler� and that Archie starts bossing him around. Joey says that the story seems familiar to him, but still misses the point, and suggests that the story might have been published already because he remembers reading it somewhere.
Scene 9: Monica and Rachel are in the coffee shop and start talking about Joey. Rachel keeps referring to him as �Joey Tribbiani�. Rachel mentions that Joey has invited her to his apartment and that she doesn�t know what to do. Monica reminds her that she is married. Rachel tells Monica that it should feel great to be single and have as many affairs as she wanted. Monica tells her that it�s great but Rachel finds out she is lying and makes a loud comment that Monica is still a virgin. Rachel tries to convince Monica that she should �do it� with her boyfriend, and Monica seems convinced. Rachel keeps making comments to imply that it should be ok to go out with anybody she wants. But Monica tells her that still that doesn�t make it ok for her to go out with Joey.
Scene 10: Monica and Ross are in Phoebe�s room at the hospital. Phoebe is in the bathroom. Then smoke starts coming out from the bathroom door. Monica tells her to stop smoking and Phoebe tells her that she isn�t smoking but that it is a side effect of the medicine she�s taking and that the smoke is coming out of her body. Finally, Phoebe confesses that she is smoking and comes out of the bathroom. Then Phoebe gets a call on her cellular, and tries to answer it, but Ross stops her. Finally, after fighting over the phone, Ross answers. Phoebe asks if it was her boss and if she is fired. Ross says that it was him, that she is not fired and that he is telling her to rest. Before leaving the room, Ross tells Monica, that Phoebe has been fired.
Scene 11: Rachel is sitting on her bed watching TV. She is watching Days of Our Lives, and Joey (or Dr. Ramoray) is kissing a girl. This makes Rachel call Joey and tells him that she accepts his invitation to his apartment. Joey then asks her to bring sandwiches on her way.
To be continued...
End of Part I
And that�s where they stop. There were only 11 scenes on this taping. The show was very funny, but if you can�t tell that from what I told you, it�s just my fault.
In between all these scenes, they taped six other short scenes, that I believe will be used for the new introduction that they will have during these episodes. They mentioned that after the taping they were going to go to the WB fountain to film the new introduction of them dancing with their new looks.
The short scenes were as follows: 1) Rachel is walking outside Central Perk carrying a lot of shopping bags, when one of them falls, and she tries to pick it up with her foot, without any luck. 2) Joey is outside Central Perk signing autographs, but instead of people coming to him, he seems to be offering his autograph. 3) Ross and Carol are sitting watching TV and Ross tries to make out with Carol, but she isn�t interested. Ross tries to undress her and after so much insistence Carol throws her jacket to him. 4) Monica is in her apartment eating a donut and she starts dancing to the rhythm of �Shake it, Shake it�. (This was hilarious!) 5) Phoebe is smoking a cigarette, using her electronic calendar and answering a call on her cellular, all at once. Then she gets frustrated for some reason and throws the electronic calendar, then her cellular and finally the cigarette. 6) Chandler is sitting on a bench writing something and he gets �poo�d� on by a bird. They taped this three times, once he gets it on the head, and the other two times on the shoulder.
Now, if you are not interested in my comments, you can stop reading now. I just want to share with you my observations of the taping.
It lasted only five hours� I�ve heard that sometimes it lasts more than that. There was not introduction of the actors at the beginning of the show, because they wanted to keep the surprise of their new looks. Most of the scenes were done twice and sometimes three times. And most of the times they did them because they wanted to try a different joke. It was amazing, but they hardly made mistakes. They are all very professional and they are all very good looking. Unfortunately, I couldn�t tell how great Courtney Cox looks, because she was wearing the body suit all the time� poor one, she was very hot. Even though, Monica is not my favorite character. This time, Monica was the best, IMHO. I believe, she was the funniest. I forgot to mention that in all the scenes, she was always eating something, and in no moment she was competitive or a control freak. Matthew Perry doesn�t look as heavy as he appears to be on TV, on the contrary he looks gooood! The only problem was that most of the time he was wearing a cap and glasses. Jennifer Aniston didn�t look too skinny. At the end of the taping, she came out in a T-shirt and some baggy pants, she looked very cute... she�s got a tiny body. Her character in this episode was back to the spoil rich girl.
Claire, if you are still reading, I just wanted to let you know that during this episode the "old-Ross" is back and that David Schwimmer looks YUMMY in person -- he looks slim and has a great body -- well that�s my opinion.
Something that impressed me the most, was the amount of people hanging around on the set. I imagine some were the writers, but I can�t figure out who were the others. Lisa�s kid and another baby were there as well (very cute). Lisa was carrying her son for a while and when it was time to go back to the taping, she gave her baby to someone else and he started to cry (ahhh!). Among all the people hanging in the studio was the actress Jennifer Milmore, who plays the blonde girlfriend of Jesse (Carrie)... she's petite and very cute. At the end of the taping David Arquette showed up, dressed in the funniest outfit.
Well, I better stop rambling now. I�m sorry if I bored you. If any of you wants more details, I'll be happy to tell you, so just send me an e- mail. Finally, if you have difficulty understanding my description of the episode or if you find horrible grammatical mistakes, hope you'll excuse me, but English is my second language.
Ohmigato