The One With the Monkey

Thursday, 15 December 1994

Ross adopts a monkey named Marcel, the six friends make a no-date pact for New Year's Eve and every one of them breaks it, and Phoebe sends her scientist boyfriend David off to a three-year post in Minsk.

What happens

• Ross brings home a monkey called Marcel, rescued from a lab, because his apartment has been empty since Carol left.
• Joey loses the department store Santa job to another actor and is demoted to playing one of the elves.
• Chandler proposes that the six of them spend New Year's Eve together with no dates, and everyone agrees to the pact.
• A physicist named David interrupts Phoebe's set to tell her she is the most beautiful woman he has seen, and she abandons the song to go and talk to him.
• Chandler admits he has already broken his own pact by inviting Janice, his worst ex, to the party.
• Phoebe asks David outright why he has never kissed her, and he clears his desk and kisses her on it.
• Monica, Joey and Rachel all turn out to have dates for the party too, leaving Ross as the only one facing midnight alone.
• David's lab partner Max tells Phoebe they have won a three-year funded position in Minsk that starts on the first of January.
• David refuses to choose between the grant and Phoebe and asks her to decide for him, and she tells him to stay.
• Max leaves for Minsk without him, so Phoebe talks David into going after all and walks him through their goodbye line by line.