The One With the Soap Opera Party

Thursday, 24 April 2003

Joey's secret annual party for his soap opera castmates is exposed, Rachel resolves to make a move on him, and Ross meets Charlie, a new colleague whose past boyfriends have all won Nobel Prizes.

What happens

• Joey hands the group six tickets to a one-woman play and excuses himself by claiming he has an early start at work the next day.
• Rachel admits to Monica that a dream has left her wanting to fool around with Joey, and Monica tells her friends who do that always end up in a mess.
• Ross expects the visiting professor he must show around campus to be a bore, and instead meets Charlie, who has read and admired his published work.
• Rachel plays back a message that exposes Joey's party, and Joey confesses that he has been shipping the group off to invented outings every year to keep them away from his soap opera friends.
• Charlie talks Ross into abandoning the slow-talking Professor Spafford in the restaurant while he is in the bathroom.
• Rachel turns up in a bathrobe pretending to be ill so she can stay behind, and when Monica calls her bluff she blurts out the secret party to everyone.
• Charlie tells Ross on the roof that she has dated a string of Nobel Prize winners, and Ross concludes he cannot compete with them.
• Joey throws away every phone number Rachel has collected at the party, telling her none of those men are good enough for her.
• Chandler, left alone through the whole play, tells Monica he was moved by it, then lures Monica and Phoebe into the theatre and runs out on them.
• Rachel tells Monica she has changed her mind and is going to kiss Joey, and Monica concedes she cannot stop her.