The One With Ross's Thing

Thursday, 1 May 1997

Ross tries to get an unidentifiable growth removed from his backside, Phoebe secretly dates two men at once, and Monica mistakes Pete's news for a marriage proposal.

What happens

• Ross drops his trousers in Chandler and Joey's apartment and asks them to identify a growth he found in the shower.
• Phoebe brings her fireman boyfriend Vince to the coffee house and then admits to the others that she is also seeing a kindergarten teacher named Jason, and that neither man knows about the other.
• Ross reports that his doctor calls the growth harmless but refuses to cut it off, because he cannot say what it is.
• Monica finds a message from Pete saying they need to talk when he returns from Atlanta, and decides he is ending the relationship.
• A room full of doctors is assembled to examine Ross, and the one treating him admits that twenty-three years of practice have left him with no answer.
• Pete tells Monica over his video-phone that his news is good, and Joey then finds a fifty thousand dollar cheque made out to a ring designer, which convinces the group that Pete intends to propose.
• Phoebe chooses Jason and goes to the fire house to end things with Vince, but Vince weeps and mentions his journal, so she does not go through with it.
• Monica looks at a bridal magazine with Rachel and admits that she has already imagined saying yes and that the idea makes her happy.
• Phoebe's herbalist fails with a salve, then removes the growth by accident when it snags on his watch.
• Pete finally explains his news, which is that he wants to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion and had the ring designer build him a training octagon.
• Jason turns up while Phoebe is performing, Vince confronts him, Phoebe confesses to dating both, and each man walks out on her.