The One With the Prom Video

Thursday, 1 February 1996

Rachel tells Ross there is no future for them, but an old home video of their prom night reveals that Ross once dressed up to take her when her own date was late.

What happens

• Joey repays Chandler the money he has borrowed over the years and adds an engraved gold bracelet, which Chandler puts on only after Joey insists.
• Monica walks out of a cooking job interview when the interviewer turns her running commentary on making a salad into something lewd.
• Ross takes a phone message from another man Rachel is seeing, and Phoebe assures him that Rachel is his lobster and they will end up together.
• Monica refuses a loan from Ross, so Ross tells her to ask their parents for the money instead.
• Chandler complains loudly at Central Perk that the bracelet is hideous, Joey walks in behind him and hears it, and Joey stops speaking to him.
• Ross interrupts Rachel's conversation with a customer by pretending to be her blind date, and Rachel tells him she does not need saving.
• Rachel tells Ross plainly that there will never be anything between them and that he has to accept it.
• Monica admits to her parents that she was fired, her father offers nothing but confidence in her savings, and Ross quietly writes her a check.
• Chandler pays four hundred dollars for a replacement bracelet, Rachel returns the lost original, and Chandler gives the spare to Joey, which ends the fight.
• The friends play an old tape and watch prom night, in which Ross puts on his father's tuxedo to escort Rachel after her date fails to arrive, only to come downstairs as she leaves with Chip.
• Watching the video, Phoebe points to Ross's gesture as proof that he is Rachel's lobster.