Second Look: Friends Season 5, Episode 12 – “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh”

Friends Season 5, Episode 12 “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh”
Written by Alicia Sky Varinatis
Directed by Kevin S. Bright
Aired January 21, 1999 on NBC

Forever the show’s most interesting character, Chandler embodies the heart of Friends, as a slightly cynical series about the transitional period of young adult life, that time where you find yourself as a person (sometimes more than once), fall in love (often more than once), and experience all shades of personal and professional disillusionment as you try and find your way in the world. Through the singularly unique Bing lens, Friends often uses Chandler, especially in its middle seasons, to push the series into different directions – as a romantic comedy, as a buddy comedy, as a reflection of early Gen X-isms. Perhaps the oddest of these different identities and sub-genres it utilizes Chandler for is workplace comedy; though everyone (except Phoebe, unless you count when she banged a married customer) has short arcs about their careers at various points in the series, it is only through the Chan-Chan Man does Friends cosplay at being a 1990’s workplace comedy. And though “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh” is arguably more interesting for how well it continues to handle the buildup of Monica and Chandler (and for a particularly… unique Janice appearance), I’m forever fascinated whenever the show turns its attention to Chandler’s work life, and briefly becomes a completely different, almost unrecognizable series.

Before it even approaches its eponymous Chandler subplot (bringing back his boss from “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion”), though, “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh” opens by picking up both of the threads still lingering from “The One with Ross’s Wedding”; Rachel discovering Chandler and Monica’s relationship at the end of “The One with All the Resolutions”, and Ross breaking the news that Emily is already getting married again (perhaps to one of her old chaps from “The One with All the Rugby”?). While the latter of these just predictably sends Ross into another hilarious spiral, the former of these continues to display a level of care with the Monica/Chandler plot, that has kind of been missing from the haphazard, inconsistent Rachel/Ross romance that dominated the first four seasons of the show.

Rachel’s discovery, and subsequent decision to keep Monica’s secret instead of confronting her, is such a beautiful little arc, one that allows Friends to have a bit of farcical fun with Monica and Rachel, especially when Rachel accidentally catches Monica coming out of Chandler’s room half-dressed near the episode’s close. As Rachel’s frustration, which builds up over the episode as she tries to force Monica into confessing her secret relationship, bleeds into understanding, it shows how carefully Friends is building this relationship into the fabric of the show – which stands in direct contrast to Ross and Rachel, which was drawn out for two seasons, only to be scrapped unceremoniously midseason while leading the show down the darkest, most cynically unsatisfying creative path of perhaps the entire series (save for maybe the end of season nine… but we’ll get there. Eventually.).

Letting Rachel spend the episode reflecting on their hidden relationship frees up Monica and Chandler for a much lighter plot in “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh”, and where the series shifts into a slapstick workplace comedy for the better part of the first and second act, when Monica learns how Chandler appeases the very unfunny co-workers and superiors in his workplace. Now, this could easily just be a disappointing sequel to “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion”, since it shows Chandler really hasn’t changed at all professionally in the past few years – but by revealing it to Monica, it gives the series a whole new angle to explore the facade he plays up, particularly when Monica begins breaking it down, chastising him for laughing at bad jokes, and refusing to lose when they’re embarrassing Chandler’s boss and his wife at a game of tennis.

“Chandler in the Office” plots are always an avenue into more ridiculous, almost satirical look at office life in the 1990’s – and though this one doesn’t spend any time there during office hours, embody those values of nihilistic goofiness that are trademarks of the era. And like any great Friends plot, it taps into something incredibly human through Chandler, in observing how we present ourselves to each other and the world around us, and how offices, positions, and power can twist those dynamics into something incredibly strange and antithetical to normal human behavior and thought processing. Adding Monica into the mix just makes it even more energetic and silly – and even the conflict it briefly draws between Monica and Chandler doesn’t amount to anything, it still makes for a fun, light mid-season story, one of those brief moments where Friends steps into a different world for a few minutes, switching up its usual narrative and comedic rhythms in engaging ways.

… and then there’s the Ross of it all, as his post-divorce depression continues, and he ends up randomly hooking up with, and briefly dating, good ol’ Janice (who still thinks Chandler is in Yemen, after the events of “The One with All the Rugby”). To some degree, this is a disappointing return for the show’s most consistent recurring character (which, unfortunately, would not improve as the seasons continued) – but in giving Ross a good mirror in which to observe the depressive state he’s put himself into, her presence ends up being a surprisingly effective one. It’s not particularly complex – after they start hooking up, Ross trauma dumps on her until she runs away – but it works in reminding the audience that Ross’s descent is really only beginning, and he’s become a whiny bitch at a surprisingly rapid pace. And perhaps her presence is really only satisfying because the episode avoids the much more obvious Janice/Monica conflict it could engage for some quick laughs, in order for something a bit more nuanced and considered with Ross – it doesn’t quite follow through on it, but even just seeing Janice force Ross to contend with his current dourness is encouraging – and offers Janice a bit of a redemptive moment, before her character is largely ruined with each subsequent cameo.

Although the emotional effect of its three stories are incredibly scattered (especially when considered in context with each other), “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh” is a surprisingly versatile episode, able to shift from the hilarity of Chandler’s office comedy, to the irony of Janice’s latest conquest, and back to Rachel’s surprisingly emotional decision to protect Monica and Chandler’s secret without ever really missing a beat. It’s not a perfect episode, of course – Joey and Phoebe, as they often do, are left with the short end of the stick, left to race the chick and duck and do nothing else – but for a mid-season episode trying to kick the tires between major arcs of the season, Friends could (and has, and would later) do a lot worse than “The One with Chandler’s Work Laugh”.

Grade: B+

Other thoughts/observations:

• “Are you still mad about the Louisiana Purchase?… Exactly, because it’s in the past.” – Phoebe, being questionable yet again this season.
  
• Dickem, Stickem, and Run is a terrible fake law firm name, even for a frat boy joke from the 1990’s.
  
• I always laugh at Doug’s wife casually slapping Chandler’s ass.
  
• Joey took a tennis racket to hit rocks at… bigger rocks? The enstupid-ification of Joey continues; in this episode, he talks about falling into trash chutes, eats a scone Ross has crushed into a table, and reads comic books like a child.
  
• “Work Chandler is a suck up.” “Just for that – I’m not putting out tonight!”
  
• Chandler “accepts” Ross’s apology about Janice, in the hopes of keeping one in his back pocket when Ross finds out about him and Monica. “I want you to remember that I gave you $27, no strings attached. Let’s write it down!”
  
• Extended thoughts: Besides the aforementioned law firm joke, there’s really no extra meat on the bone for this episode, continuing a disappoting streak of extended versions in season five.
  
• Up next: Phoebe has an important meeting in “The One with Joey’s New Bag”.