Second Look: Friends Season 5, Episode 3 – “The One Hundredth”

Friends Season 5, Episode 3 “The One Hundredth”
Written by David Crane & Marta Kauffman
Directed by Kevin S. Bright
Aired October 8, 1998 on NBC

For its one hundredth episode, nobody would’ve faulted Friends for keeping it simple. Take a little Ross/Rachel drama, sprinkle in some Joey jokes and Chandler asides, a dash of Monica’s neuroticism – it’s a formula that has mostly worked for the show’s first 99 episodes, and hitting the century mark with a comfortable, low-stakes episode would be a nice little victory lap for the series. Surprisingly, “The One Hundredth” is almost the exact opposite, an incredibly busy, energized episode that marks the end of one of the show’s best character arcs – and the distinct beginning of another – in hilarious, emotionally resonant fashion.

Picking up where “The One with All the Kissing” ended, “The One Hundredth” opens with the gang descending on Manhattan’s Beth Israel Medical Center, setting up a quasi-bottle episode set outside of any regular Friends sets (no coffee shop, no apartment – we don’t even get the apartment building’s hallway in “The One Hundredth”). The change immediately gives Friends a very different look and feel than the majority of episodes (except perhaps “The One at the Beach”, which I’m increasingly convinced took place in a Friends alternate universe), a series of anonymous, bland hospital rooms in which the episode’s many running stories feel oddly compartmentalized and isolated from each other.

Thankfully, “The One Hundredth” leans into the odd, janky location and narrative pace as it peels back the many different layers of its script (co-written by series creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman, in their first credited script since “The One with the Morning After”). In the first two minutes alone, it introduces Phoebe’s fear of giving birth (“please don’t hurt me”, she nervously says as Joey records her with his videorecorder from “The One with Ross’s Wedding”), Monica and Chandler’s increasingly reckless rendezvous, and Joey’s kidney stones – which would be more than enough for the episode to fill 22 minutes with, but “The One Hundredth” is unsatisfied, relentless introducing new running stories throughout the first act, to the point it begins to feel a bit cluttered and distracted (albeit briefly).

Thankfully, only one of these – the strangely Fonz-obsessed doctor who helps Phoebe birth the triplets – feels completely perfunctory, and only intermittently interrupts what quickly becomes a funny, driven episode nimbly balancing its lighter and heavier elements. And it reveals its depth in unexpectedly sneaky fashion, its focus initially on Chandler’s jealousy when he misunderstands Monica’s intentions to date (or more specifically, not date) a nurse Rachel introduces her, then shifting focus to the culmination of Phoebe’s journey as a surrogate as the episode moves into its second and third acts.

How “The One Hundredth” manages to balance these different elements, one of which has much higher emotional stakes than the other, is an impressive feat, Chandler’s juvenile conflict he stirs up with Monica finding subtle commonality in Phoebe’s desire to convince Frank Jr. and Alice to let her keep one of the babies she’s about to bring into the world. At the heart of these both stories, Friends explores the idea of clinging onto safety, onto the rhythms and emotions we find safe and comfortable in the face of potential pain; Phoebe can’t bear the idea of letting go of the babies she’s carried inside her for the past nine months and being alone – and Chandler’s anxiety around experiencing happiness leads him back down the same jealous paths we’ve seen in the past (as recently as “The One with Rachel’s Crush”, in fact). When faced with existential crises – loneliness and happiness, which make for wonderful parallels – they retract into themselves, denying the obvious truths through the facade of self-effacing, regressive mistruths.

As I’ve said many times through a hundred Friends reviews, the series is often at its strongest when it uses the group as a genesis for growth; we see that with both Phoebe and Chandler in this episode, as they individually come to terms with entering new, slightly frightening phases of their lives (as aunt and boyfriend, respectively). And though it takes a bit for “The One Hundredth” to find the rhythm between these two stories, as the external conflicts begin to rise, Friends smartly turns them inwards, beginning an episode of slapstick bits and Fonzie jokes and slowly revealing it to be something more touching and reflective.

I also love how this episode brings the Phoebe/Joey pregnancy story to a close with Joey going through painfully parallel experience, passing kidney stones (with Ross holding his hand) as Phoebe gave birth to the triplets. Joey existing as Phoebe’s main source of support during the episodes since “The One with the Embryos” has been a highlight, led by him giving up meat in “The One with the Fake Party” and their phone conversations anchoring “The One with Ross’s Wedding”. Though this episode separates them physically, “The One Hundredth” (especially in the second half) often contrasts their scenes, making them spiritual partners in Phoebe’s incredibly emotional experience of giving birth to her brother’s children – which, of course, is the episode’s focal point and emotional bedrock.

After Phoebe gives birth, and “The One Hundredth” takes a moment to endearingly resolve Monica and Chandler’s first conflict as a couple, Friends celebrates its 100th episode by taking a moment to parallel the scene from “The One with the Embryos”, mirroring her first moment with her nieces and nephew (the infamous Frank Jr. Jr.) as she welcomes them into the world, and prepares to let them go (to Alice and Frank Jr., vigorously making out in the lobby at the time). As she did in season four’s defining scene, Kudrow is so fantastic in giving Phoebe’s journey of surrogacy a quiet poignancy, able to convey the weight of the moment, without having to lean on anything shallow or artificial.

And that’s where Friends closes its hundredth episode; not with Phoebe surrounded by her friends (though we do get that over the closing credits, where Chandler learns his name will be Frank and Alice’s daughter’s name), but with her sitting alone, crying gently as she holds the three babies that will make her brother’s family whole. It’s an unexpected way for the series to celebrate – but it undeniably works, the silence of the delivery room as the camera begins to pull away from Phoebe and the triplets; there’s an incredible weight to that silence, one that would seem to run counterpart to a series whose bread and butter is constant dialogue and movement.

In a way, though, it’s a fitting moment for the series itself, as it began to shift away from being a series about a group of people trying to ground themselves in their mid-20s, to observing how lives and people change as they get older and more comfortable in their own identities. The milestones of life in one’s 30s are different than their mid 20s, and I like how this moment, as unique as it may be to Friends (not many people surrogate children for their long-lost brothers who married a teacher they were probably groomed by, after all), explores the opportunities of a series entering a more mature phase in its life cycle, taking on more complicated questions and exploring new interpersonal dynamics within the group.

With “The One Hundredth”, Friends mostly closes the book on Phoebe’s major arcs (save for much later in the series), so in hindsight, there’s also a bit of bittersweetness watching the proverbial baton be passed from Phoebe’s journey to Monica and Chandler’s relationship, even though the latter is just as entertaining and rewarding as the former. After “The One Hundredth”, Phoebe’s character would mostly go back to who she was, save for the occasional relationship or appearance of her father in her life (for the most part, Frank Jr., Alice, and her mother won’t be seen again), as the series moved onto to other, often lesser stories of superficial professional and personal conflicts for other characters. However, “The One Hundredth” is a fantastic culmination of Phoebe’s arc, smartly married to one of the show’s most important milestones, delivering a phenomenal third act representing Friends at its quiet, contemplative best.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

• 100 reviews down, 134 to go! Appreciate everyone who has been on this (extremely long, 13 year) journey with me, and continues to in the future (which includes reviews through at least season six, and updated reviews of the first two seasons from PM’s old review format).
  
• Joey starts putting the camera up Phoebe’s maternity dress: “what, I gotta get the before shot!”
  
• Don’t worry everyone – Frank Jr. knows about all the LeMazda stuff.
  
• Phoebe: “I don’t need him telling me I’m ‘dilated-a-mundo’ or whatever”.
  
• One of the other doctors is TJ Tynes of Bones (and that one scene in What Women Want).
  
• Fun fact: the day the triplets were born (October 1, 1998) was the same day the House began its investigation into Bill Clinton. History!
  
• Joey’s reaction to learning what a urethra is (“Are you crazy?”) is one of many funny Joey moments in this episode.
  
• Chandler, trying to recover after trying to insult a male nurse who turns out to also be a war vet: “Well, thanks for doing that for us, by the way.”
  
• “How does he look?” Frank Jr.: “SO GROSS!” I hate this is one of Ribisi’s last appearances as Frank, because he’s always so goddamn good, and brings such a different comedic energy when he appears.
  
• Monica, showing how much she already knows Chandler: “Don’t do the dance!” (he was doing the dance).
  
• “Alice’s sister has a pool… but you lived in me!” Phoebe does have permanent claim to being the best aunt.
  
• Joey’s attempt to piss the bed on the doctor’s commands is such a dumb, funny moment.
  
• WHY is Monica sitting Ross’s lap? It’s always SO fucking weird when they do that. So weird.
  
• Extended thoughts: outside of Chandler briefly doing an Indian accent (and being called “Channy-Fanny” during the closing credits), “The One Hundredth” has surprisingly little extra to offer.
  
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