The One with the Rumor

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Friends season eight September 2001 - May 2002 List of Friends episodes
Episodes: The One After "I Do" The One with the Red Sweater The One Where Rachel Tells... The One with the Videotape The One with Rachel's Date The One with the Halloween Party The One with the Stain The One with the Stripper The One with the Rumor The One with Monica's Boots The One with Ross's Step Forward (a.k.a. The One With the Creepy Holiday Card) The One Where Joey Dates Rachel The One Where Chandler Takes a Bath The One with the Secret Closet The One with the Birthing Video The One Where Joey Tells Rachel The One with the Tea Leaves The One in Massapequa (a.k.a. The One With the Zesty Guy) The One with Joey's Interview The One with the Baby Shower The One with the Cooking Class The One Where Rachel is Late The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part One The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part Two

"The One With the Rumor" is the ninth episode of the eighth season of the sitcom Friends.

First aired: November 22, 2001

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Synopsis

Monica, bustling around in the kitchen of her apartment, is doing her best to prepare the gang's Thanksgiving dinner. She announces that she isn't going to make a turkey, as Phoebe, Chandler and Rachel won't eat it, and there'll be tons of leftovers. Joey protests, and announces that he will eat the entire turkey himself if necessary. Monica agrees, and Joey, miraculously, manages nineteen pounds of turkey—and still has a taste for pumpkin pie at the end of the episode.

Phoebe and Chandler both watch American football on television throughout most of the episode. Neither of them has any idea how it's played, but it's a smarter alternative than helping Monica in the kitchen. To add to the veracity of their viewership, they occasionally yell things at the television: "Yeah, Anderson just scored again!! There's no Anderson." Monica eventually figures them out, but not before everyone sits down to eat.

Finally, the majority of the episode is given over to Monica's and Ross's high school friend Will (Brad Pitt), who has been invited over for Thanksgiving. Though he was once quite fat ("I mean, I was his thin friend"), he has lost a lot of weight, and today is extremely hunky (Chandler: "I’d shake your hand but, uh, I’m really into the game. Plus, I think it’d be better for my ego if we didn’t stand right next to each other"). Unexpectedly, he reacts with total aversion when he finds out Rachel will be in the area; evidently, she made his high school life a living hell.

Throughout dinner, Will is hostile to Rachel, and eventually reveals that during high school, he and Ross formed the "I Hate Rachel" club (Will out of spite, and Ross out of lovesickness). They also initiated the episode's titular rumor: that Rachel has both male and female reproductive parts—a hermaphrodite, in other words. "We said your parents flipped a coin, decided to raise you as a girl," Will boasts, "but you still had a hint of a penis." It is also revealed that the rumor had spread throughout New York (Chandler: "You're the hermaphrodite cheerleader from Long Island?!") Afterwards, Joey constantly checks to see if the story was true. Rachel reacts tearfully, claiming she never hurt Ross in high school, until Monica reminds her that she started a rumor of her own: that Ross made out with Mrs. Altman, the 50-year-old librarian. Ross is quite distraught to finally find out where that story came from; Monica is quite distraught to learn that it was true ("If you must know," Ross says, "Anita was very gentle and tender"). Finally, Monica knocks some sense into both of them with the reminder that they are about to have a baby together, and that some things are more important than high school.