The One Where Rachel Finds Out

Thursday, 18 May 1995

Chandler lets slip that Ross is in love with Rachel, Rachel decides she wants him back, and Ross returns from China with a new girlfriend on his arm.

What happens

• Joey admits he is earning seven hundred dollars from a medical school fertility study whose rules bar him from sleeping with Melanie until it ends.
• Ross tells the others he is flying to China for a week to fetch a bone for the museum, and asks Monica to show Ben his photograph.
• Ross hears that Rachel is out with Carl, Joey and Chandler tell him to give up on her, and Ross leaves her birthday present with Chandler.
• Rachel opens Ross's gift, an antique pin she once admired, and Chandler blurts out that Ross has been in love with her.
• Rachel decides she cannot wait a week to speak to Ross and leaves for the airport without knowing what she will say.
• An attendant refuses to let Rachel onto the jetway and delivers her message to a stranger instead, so Ross flies to China knowing nothing.
• Joey spends the night attending only to Melanie, and Melanie tells him he is the most generous man she has met.
• A week later Rachel tells Monica she has decided against Ross because the group would be dating him too, then buzzes Carl up.
• While Carl talks at her on the balcony, Rachel imagines Ross arguing that they are right for each other, and she admits she cannot stop thinking about him.
• Rachel abandons her date and waits at the gate with flowers, and Ross comes off the plane with a new girlfriend, Julie.