The One with the Cop

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"The One With The Cop" is the 16th episode of season 5 of Friends.

First aired: February 25, 1999

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

In the teaser, Chandler and Monica cuddle while cooperating on a crossword puzzle, which Joey finds cute. That night, however, he dreams that he was doing the crossword puzzle with Monica, leading him to wonder if he finds her attractive. This is exacerbated when, at Central Perk the next morning, Monica is found wearing his sweatshirt (as opposed to Chandler's). A bit of honest discussion between the three of them reveals that Joey isn't really attracted to Monica, but rather to the intimacy and friendship she shares with Chandler. Equipped with this new philosophy, he first tries to get on Rachel's good side (on the grounds that they are already friends), and then goes to his acting class, where his "closeness" line turns out to be a great pick-up line, and he ends up in bed with two women. ...At the same time.

While digging beneath a Central Perk chair cushion for spare change, Phoebe uncovers a policeman's badge. Though she promises to return it, she finds using it far more entertaining, exploiting her new-found power to force a smoking bystander to apologize to a tree on which she snubbed out a cigarette. When she begins threatening her friends with arrest, she realizes she's gone too far, but before she can return it, she tries to force an illegally-parked man to move his car. He turns out to be a policeman as well, and is unimpressed when she claims to be an undercover cop from the 15th district of Manhattan. This fellow, Gary, turns out to be the owner of the badge, but when he arrives at Monica's apartment to arrest her and she turns out to be "not there," he asks her out on a date instead.

Rachel is helping Ross shop for a new couch. After he finds one he likes, he forgoes delivery charges by having her help him carry it the three blocks to his apartment. (He also fends off a condescending salesman by proclaiming that he and Rachel have had sex 298 times. Rachel, incredulous: "You kept count?!?") Getting it up a narrow stairwell proves more problematic, and after Rachel goes for help (in the form of Chandler), the three attempt to manhandle the couch up the stairs, only to get it stuck between landings. Ross later attempts to return it... After sawing it in half. He receives store credit in the amount of four dollars.

[edit] Trivia

In the blooper clip show "Friends: The Stuff You've Never Seen," David Schwimmer (Ross) claims that the filming of the couch-in-stairwell scene is "the hardest I've laughed in my life, period."
The message on the Magna Doodle says "Joey your agent called" and later is a drawing of a target.
While Phoebe is 'arresting' Gary she asks him if he knows an Officer Sipowicz whose partner has just died. Gary says that he hasn't but that he's heard good things about the kid from Silver Spoons. This is a reference to NYPD Blue, a show that David Schwimmer had a guest star role in the season before Friends started.