Second Look: Friends Season 5, Episode 6 – “The One with the Yeti”

Friends Season 5, Episode 6 “The One with the Yeti”
Written by Alexa Junge
Directed by Garvy Halvorson
Aired November 5, 1998 on NBC

Since Emily’s introduction into the Friends-iverse in “The One with Joey’s Dirty Day”, it has always kind of felt like the series wasn’t sure what to do with her – or more importantly, really cared to understand who she was. Was she the flippant, rude woman who showed up in “The One with Joey’s Dirty Day”, the flirty socialite of “The One with the Rugby”, or was she an infatuated woman trying to escape the cycle of her broken family (seen all throughout “The One with Ross’s Wedding”)? As Friends shifted Emily from one role to another – from Ross’s romantic interest to his romantic roadblock – the series never offered her as anything but an enigma for the rest of the group to wrap their head around, rather than a character of consequence and depth, whose intrusion on the presumed narrative of Ross and Rachel offered the series a new, exciting dynamic to explore.

“The One with the Yeti” unfortunately brings that underdevelopment full circle, in what makes for one of the more uncomfortable, obnoxious subplots of recent vintage, reducing Emily to a shrill bitch who insists on Ross throwing away his entire life as deserved penance for his disastrous slip-up at their wedding. Most of this episode features Ross bending over backwards for an off-screen Emily, frustrating Joey to no end and turning Ross into a shriveled, weak version of himself; it’s not really a good look for anyone involved – especially when Joey turns to the other group members for support and they all shrug their shoulders at him.

It’s really kind of sad to see Ross bargaining with himself that if he can just “get her to NY”, then everything would somehow be ok, even as he says farewell to the living room when Ben took his first steps (also the room where he hid his affair from Rachel, but we’ll leave “The One with the Morning After” out of this one). And it only gets more pathetic, when Ross lies to Emily on the phone about Rachel’s presence, shriveling when she tells everyone on speakerphone that “Ross knows better than that by now” – which, thankfully, turns out to be the moment Friends Old Yellers the whole Emily story, in the most unceremonious, humorless way imaginable (on a phone call mostly taking place off-screen). To call it a clumsy resolution would be kind – trying to unwind Ross from this whole story has taken a toll on both Ross and Rachel’s characters in the past dozen episodes of the series, unmooring two well-defined personalities for a third party whom the series itself never really seems to understand (or really even care to).

“The One with the Yeti” might’ve been able to make this a bit of a softer (if not less awkward) landing, if the only other plot of the episode wasn’t one where Rachel and Monica bug bomb some dude named Danny (George Newbern, aka voice of Superman in the Injustice video games) in their basement, and spend the rest of the episode trying to put themselves back into his good graces. Though one can see what Friends is trying to do here – Danny exudes a lot of detached late 90’s comedy energy, with his disinterested attitude and nonchalant line delivery – none of it works in the slightest, making their awkward interactions an incredibly flat interlude between some painfully awkward scenes of Ross groveling and bargaining with his invisible wife. In the first of his three appearances, Danny leaves little impression on the narrative – which is basically, “how shallow are Monica and Rachel (but specifically Rachel)?”, a story Friends explores in much better episodes, with much funnier jokes and resolutions that don’t involve Rachel going on a date with a guy that exclusively engages with her by negging her.

Quite frankly, “The One with the Yeti” is a strange, miscalibrated episode of Friends – and did I mention there’s an entire third plot, where a fur coat sends Phoebe down an existential spiral? It’s as a strange a pairing with the other two plots of the episode as it sounds, three stories with no sense of consequence (outside of Ross’s marriage, the failure of which was a foregone conclusion five episodes ago) or meaning, held thinly together by Joey’s pleas for the group to regain consciousness and be honest with their friend. In another episode, there might be some intriguing paths for Friends to take some of these premises – like Rachel challenging her perceived superficial, consumerist behavior – but “The One with the Yeti” just seems distanced and disinterested in its own material, forcing itself through the motions for a few quirky Phoebe moments, some cheap laughs at Ross’s expense, and then whatever the Danny plot is supposed to be (which unfortunately will continue for a few more episodes, never finding a reason for its own existence).

“The One with the Yeti” will forever be notable for it marking the end of Friends‘ Emily Era – but in rewatching it, what really remains striking is how little a character Emily actually is in her brief run on the series, despite having such a lasting impact on Ross (who is now twice-divorced, a plot point that will definitely come up at the end of this season) and his life. They certainly do her no favors out the door, either, reducing her to the very stereotypes she presumably subverted in her first appearance – no matter how you try to crack it, the Emily experiment was a resounding failure for the series, unable to push Ross or Rachel forward as characters (oddly enough, that growth was reserved for Monica and Chandler) or generate any kind of short-term excitement or drama for this episode to really take advantage of. Their story just kind of ends, and “The One with the Yeti” just kind of happens, an episode whose only real value comes in examining how it undersold one of its most prominent guest characters, and wasted two-thirds of a season’s worth of storytelling on a narrative dead end. Not exactly a desirable position to be in – and to its detriment, “The One with the Yeti” does nothing to try and distract from its empty center, rendering it one of season five’s earliest, and biggest, misfires.

Grade: D

Other thoughts/observations:

• Joey went to the wrong audition: “I’m sorry if I’m not a middle-aged black woman!” (side note: thank God Friends never indulged in blackface).
  
• What’s more surprising – Ross leaving the group to be with Emily, or Joey saying the word “hence”?
  
• “I’ve been given the gift of time!” Chandler: “I’ve been given the gift of space… we should get them together and make a continuum.”
  
• Danny’s fake beard is hilariously terrible.
  
• Ross admonishes everyone for having “no idea what it takes to make a marriage work”, which… he doesn’t exactly know how to do either?
  
• The coat does feel good on Phoebe: “The best thing I’ve ever had wrapped around me, including Phil Huntley.”
  
• Love that Gunther buys all of Ross’s furniture, though I wish we could’ve gotten a scene of the two negotiating for their return.
  
• Ross and Emily breaking up while Joey does his “Smile, Frown, Smile, Frown” routine is this episode’s one big, much-needed laugh.
  
• Ugly Naked Guy makes his first offscreen appearance since “The One with the Giant Poking Device”, which some have called the best episode of season three.
  
• Extended thoughts: Not a lot here, except Chandler joking about a feather boa he got from his dad, and the bit where Joey picks up the phone in the middle of Ross’s call with Emily.
  
• Up next: Phoebe and Rachel pursue odd romances in “The One Where Ross Moves In”.