The One With the Ride Along

Thursday, 29 April 1999

Ross, Joey and Chandler ride along with Gary on patrol, where a backfiring car sends Joey diving over Ross, while Rachel erases a message from Emily asking Ross to call her before her wedding.

What happens

• Monica tells the others to keep Ross distracted, because Emily is getting married the next day.
• Phoebe mentions that Gary took her out in his patrol car, and Ross, Joey and Chandler all get themselves invited along for that night.
• Rachel knocks over the last box of Monica's unnumbered photographs, then heads to Ross's apartment to fetch his blender.
• Emily leaves a message on Ross's machine admitting she has doubts about her wedding and asking him to call her back, and Rachel hears all of it.
• Monica wants the message wiped so Ross cannot go back to Emily, Rachel refuses on principle, and then erases it herself by pressing the wrong button.
• A car backfires outside the witness's house and Joey throws himself over Ross, which Gary treats as an act of courage.
• Back home, Chandler admits he is hurt that Joey protected Ross instead of him, and Joey confesses he was really shielding his sandwich.
• Joey tells Chandler he thinks of him as a brother and hands him the sandwich, then takes it back after one bite.
• Rachel finds Ross convinced he has survived a brush with death, and tells him what Emily's erased message said.
• Ross decides he should call Emily, but Rachel persuades him the day is about escaping her rather than seizing anything, and he drops the idea.