Of the first five episodes of Friends, “‘The One with the East German Laundry Detergent” is easily the weakest of the bunch, burying its funniest story (Phoebe and Chandler) underneath a mess of stories about Rachel trying to be independent and Joey trying to get back an old girlfriend. Of course, many people remember this episode for one scene – the one in the laundromat- but for me, this is one of the more problematic episodes of a show that was sometimes willing to fall back on gender archetypes for no real purpose.
Rachel’s is probably the most disturbing. Her father calls her and offers her a Mercedes to come home and give up this new life. Why we really don’t know, but it gives Rachel the opportunity to make some wild assumptions about adult responsibility and what goes hand in hand with it. Seriously, she tries to equate success or failure in her adult life with her ability to succeed at doing laundry – a completely preposterous position, one you’d think a friend would try and convince you of otherwise.
Of course, she’s paired with a sniveling Ross, who’s got no advice to offer outside of some sheepish comments and poorly-acted “awkwardness.” He’s there to get her interested in him, although he possesses none of the tools to do this, being the kind of guy Rachel is never attracted to. That is, until he busts out some bullshit machismo act on a very oddly-dressed woman at the laundromat, which all of a sudden, garners the attention of Rachel. Not only is she too weak to do anything on her own, but she’s only attracted to the manly men who stand up and fight her battles for her!!! A terrible contrast with the independent-minded woman in the pilot who sounded ready to take on the world and make her own mistakes while she told her father that she didn’t want to be a “shoe.”
On the other side of the gender coin, we’ve got Joey trying to get back Angela, an old girlfriend who apparently learned how to dress well after Joey dumped her. The biggest problem here is that the whole story seems to service nothing but some incest jokes later on, when Joey drags Monica on a fake double date and tells her Angela’s new boyfriend is her brother. Instead of using it as an opportunity to add some texture to Joey’s character, he’s simply the dumb guy who thinks dick-first – which save for one episode this season, and a small plot line in season 2, is never fleshed out beyond that.
However, there is the small joy of seeing Phoebe and Chandler interact, a pairing I always enjoyed in the earlier seasons. They would of course ruin it later on with Monica playing the polar opposite to both of them in later seasons, but the contrast between Phoebe’s bohemian tendencies and Chandler’s uptight inability to do anything with conviction is one of my favorite dynamics early on. It’s all hindered a little by the introduction of Janice (I still cringe in horror every time I hear “Oh my God”) but she’s less of a caricature here in her first appearance as Chandler’s significant other – in fact, she’s kind of funny during their first of many break-ups.
But those funny moments with the worst break-up ever are relegated to the C-plot, putting a lot of focus on Rachel’s misguided mentality about growth, and a whole lot of ‘awkward Ross’, which is always slightly painful to watch. And without any context as to why Joey wants Angela back (except for one night of sex), the episode’s other story is just fundamentally unappealing, both for the characters and to the audience.
