The One with the Videotape
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Friends season eight |
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"The One With The Videotape" is the fourth episode of the eighth season of Friends.
First aired: October 18, 2001
[edit] Plot
Monica and Chandler return from their honeymoon, excited about a couple they made friends with on the flight home. Greg and Jenny were also newlyweds and returning from their honeymoon. When Monica tries to call them, however, she discovers that the number they gave her leads to a deli instead. They begin to question whether they made a good impression or not, Monica criticizing Chandler's incessant wisecracks and Chandler pointing to Monica's incessant questions. Phoebe and Joey maintain that people give out fake names and numbers all the time, introducing themselves as "Dr. Regina Phalange" and "Ken Adams," respectively. Over the closing credits, Monica manages to hunt down Greg and Jenny's real number, and cows them into hanging out with her and Chandler.
Everyone is curious as to what happened the night Rachel got pregnant with Ross's child, but when Rachel claims Ross hit on her first, they get into an argument about it, with Rachel claiming that Ross practically begged her for it (which no one has any trouble believing). Ross says that he can lay the argument to rest once and for all: the episode's titular videotape is of himself and Rachel having sex. Ignoring cries of indecency (Rachel: "Oh, and there he is now, the father of my child, the Porn King of the West Village"), he explains that he was rehearsing something on camera (Joey's idea) when Rachel walked in, and didn't have a chance to turn the camcorder off before things started happening. The greater part of the episode is related via flashback as Ross explains the situation and, eventually, the Friends watch the videotape.
Ross, at the time (somewhere around "The One with the Vows"), was going through a "dry spell": six months without sex. In desperation he asked Joey for advice to help him get some action on his date that night. Joey related a "magic story" he'd invented, about backpacking through western Europe, which was supposedly a guaranteed turn-on. Unfortunately, Ross's date took it a bit too literally, and it failed to have any effect. Joey, in despair, gave Ross his camcorder: when Joey practices for auditions, he sometimes tapes himself and studies his performance. Ross had just settled in to try this when Rachel arrived with boxes of Chandler and Monica's wedding invitations, which she had been supposed to fill out and mail some time ago (Monica, in the present day, is not amused). Ross and Rachel discussed the night Chandler proposed to Monica, and the aftermath, in which the two of them almost had sex (see "The One with Monica's Thunder"), and discovered that they both regretted backing down that night. Then, to everyone's surprise, Rachel started relating the backpacking-through-Western-Europe story, and Ross stops the tape, secure in the knowledge that Rachel made the first move. Rachel is surprised that everyone knows about the magic story, until she relates who invented it: "Ken Adams."
Finally, at the end of the episode, Ross and Rachel watch the rest of the videotape, hoping to relive their magic night together... only to discover that some things aren't very magic on film.
[edit] Trivia
- The Magna Doodle on the door has "I [heart] New York" written on it.
| Preceded by "The One Where Rachel Tells..." |
List of Friends episodes | Followed by "The One With Rachel's Date" |
