Second Look: Friends Season 5, Episode 17 – “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss”

Rewatching the second acts of Friends‘ middle seasons makes for an interesting study in creative reflexivity, as it begins to make the underlying construction and thought process of each episode and season arc so much clearer. “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” is a perfect conflation of everything that represents a mid-series, mid-season Friends episode, where a pair of forgettable, incremental plotlines – one of which usually involves Rachel’s career, a mid-season Friends staple – are met with a somewhat heartfelt Monica/Chandler storyline, which is the backbone of the series emotionally (and narratively, outside of Ross and Joey dating random women) from season five forward. This formula often leads to a lot of memorable moments tucked away into largely forgettable episodes – which “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” embodies to a T, with a pair of filler Rachel and Joey plotlines, though ones that nonetheless give way for another moment of endearing growth between Monica and Chandler in its closing moments.

“The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” does distinguish itself a bit from its counterparts by being an incredibly busy episode, but it is a cascading montage of incredibly short scenes (some only 20-30 seconds long, just enough for a setup and a punchline) whose construction feels like an explicit way to make a rather static episode feel a lot busier and energetic. Unfortunately, it’s three plots that are inherently unexciting; Rachel applying for a job at Ralph Lauren and treating it like every interaction she ever had with Joshua, Monica trying to convince herself that her and Chandler are still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship (because Phoebe’s fucking her cop boyfriend a lot) – and Joey trying to find a woman in Ross’s building that he’s never able to find, a plotline that mostly serves as an apt metaphor for the pointlessness of 90% of this episode.

Rachel’s story is easily the worst of the three: even though this is essentially the start of her most memorable professional endeavor, Rachel’s initial interview relies completely on the lesser of Jennifer Aniston’s comedic talents, as she becomes the same neurotic, awkward over compensator we saw during her first attempts at flirting with Joshua (and what her character often defaults to when in uncomfortable situations). As such a good reactionary character, Rachel always feels a bit out of place when her character is asked to be the comedic vehicle of an entire plot, often reducing her to plotlines around her sexuality (wearing a nightgown in front of her boyfriend’s parents – or in this case, kissing the man who interviewed her, then freaking out on him about it) or her awkwardness, neither of which play into the absolute strengths of the performer, or the series built around it. It just makes for unfunny awkwardness, one that highlights the laziest, most reductive version of her character, a flaw that only becomes more obvious as the episode makes her interactions with Mr. Zelner the epicenter of the episode’s comedy.

At least with Joey and Ross, Friends adheres a bit closer to the comedic strengths of their characters – even if those are, respectively, “dumb” and “nerdy”. Again, it is Friends at its most reductive, with Ross dancing around like a child in front of the window facing Monica’s apartment, while Joey spends the entire episode looking for a hot girl (played by Supernatural‘s Samantha Smith) on the wrong floor of Ross’s building. When its just these doofuses being doofuses, “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” is better able to capture the feeling of a laid back mid-season episode, in a way that Rachel’s titular plot is too tinny and uncomfortable (given half the episode is her wondering if she’s willing to be sexually harassed at work to have her dream job) to ever achieve. Is there anything to gain from the resolving irony, where Joey finally finds the right apartment, only to find Ross already in it, getting a date with the aforementioned “hot woman”? Of course not – but there’s a slapstick energy to their plots that give the episode a bit of life, which make it an interesting, if unfavorable, comparative point to the much larger, prominent Rachel story at the heart of the episode.

Off in their own little corner of the Friends-iverse are Phoebe and Monica, the latter of which gets locked into a one-way competition to see who can fuck their boyfriends the most – and in the most public places possible, tapping into the light voyeurism that drives a lot of Gen X sex jokes, while also providing a pretty stealthy little avenue for Friends to continue building Monica and Chandler’s relationship. The problem is, it pairs Monica and Chandler’s enriched relationship with Phoebe and Gary, whose supposed physical compatibility is expressed in dialogue only, never translating into a meaningful (or even just amusing) horn-fest between Phoebe and Monica as they competed over who could be the “hottest” couple in the group.

It really feels like a plot headed to nowhere, especially when it reaches the point where Monica is trying to convince Chandler to have sex in a restaurant bathroom. But that’s where “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” hides its best moment; after Monica expresses frustration that the most exciting part of their relationship might be over, Chandler points out to her that for him, the most exciting parts of their relationship are those yet to come, subtly shifting the dynamic in their relationship, while giving Chandler another deserved Good Boy moment (it helps Perry plays the bathroom scene perfectly, letting his incredulity immediately melt into something more emotional, without ever feeling cheap or perfunctory). Again, it’s a moment that ultimately reflects poorly on the other couple presented in the episode – but with Monica and Chandler’s arc firmly established as the big arc of season five, it makes for a strange creative decision, especially with a pair of actors with such little on-screen chemistry as Kudrow and Rappaport.

While “The One with Rachel’s Inadvertent Kiss” is a middling episode for much of its running time, another strong Chandler moment (in a season absolutely chock full of them) is an unexpected, if slight, saving grace for Friends. It’s certainly not enough to allow the episode to shed its preconceptions as a forgettable, cheesy midseason episode, it is another reminder of how capable Friends still was at building and managing a season-long arc when it was willing to put in the legwork.

Other thoughts/observations:

• Joey: not a fan of Ralph Lauren’s underwear.
  
• Rachel responds to Monica’s aggressive handshake: “Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not Chandler.”
  
• Chandler asks to hold Gary’s gun, and proceeds to fling coffee out of his cup onto the Central Perk floor.
  
• Joey: “I can’t believe I almost lost another girl because of counting.”
  
• Rachel compounds her HR issues at her new job when she goes in for a handshake and accidentally grabs her new boss’s dick. Whoopsies!
  
• Phoebe is… fucking cops in the park now? Oof magoof.
  
• “Now I’ve got to go, Officer Bing’s got a 12-100…. that’s pee-pee.”
  
• Extended thoughts: Couple really good jokes get cut out, including Joey trying to figure out why Rachel didn’t go farther in her interview (“Well, that explains why you didn’t do the other stuff”), a woman ready to put out for the Ralph Lauren job, and Chandler referring to a man using one of the bathroom stalls when Monica tries to initiate sex in the bathroom.
  
• Up next: Joey shows Ben the ropes of show business in “The One Where Rachel Smokes”.