Both “The One with All the Poker” and “The One Where the Monkey Gets Away” were co-written by Jeff Astrof and Mike Sikowitz, so it makes sense both are heavy on Rachel and Ross. But unlike its companion, “The One Where the Monkey Gets Away” does a major turnaround halfway through the episode, setting up arcs to conclude in next week’s ‘The One With The Evil Orthodontist” – and more importantly, is a Friends episode finally giving us a reason to be interested in the Ross/Rachel dynamic.
The most troublesome part of the episode’s first half is Rachel: she’s dressed like a 14-year old mentally challenged school girl, and acts in such a fashion throughout. We know she’s a bad waitress – a reminder we get in the short cold open – and her rampant irresponsibility leads her to lose Marcel because she’s too interested in soap operas to pay attention. It’s one thing to poke at the immaturity she’s trying to grow out of, but it manifests itself in a really uncomfortable way, in combination with her clothing and behavior early on.
What ‘The Monkey Gets Away’ right was my biggest complaint in ‘All The Poker’: Ross doesn’t pander to Rachel’s emotions after she finds out what she did. He calls her out as irresponsible, claims her behavior is “vintage Rachel”, continuing to live in her Rachel Land bubble. It’s the first time Ross challenges Rachel’s perception of herself, the first time his timid facade dissipates and he reveals the frustrations he has with her.
It gives their relationship a new layer, something it desperately needed to establish before playing out their season end game (signaled every season by whatever Ross/Rachel tease is being dangled). And although Ross is never able to express his feelings for her, there’s a major change in his ability to approach her. He’s hesitant, and the show plays it up for dramatic effect, but he’s finally picking up that spoon he’s had in his pocket all season. It’s an important gesture for him: as an audience, we can finally start to believe in Ross a little now that he’s taking himself off the sidelines.
Everything hovers around the search for Marcel, but smartly keeps it from being the sole focus of the episode. A bitter Animal Control officer turns out to be a former classmate at Lincoln High, which reminds us that Monica was fat and Rachel was Ms. Mean Girl (Ross: “why did you have to be a bitch in high school?”). I just wish we would’ve spent a little more time going door to door with Joey and Chandler: their one scene at the apartment with the ‘hot’ girls was hilarious, an effortless display of the chemistry that made the Joey and Chandler dynamic so good through the show’s life (it helps they consistently had great story lines together, even in the show’s later years when it became a rare thing). ‘The Monkey Gets Away’ might get off to a rough start, but once Marcel gets away, it does an about face and becomes integral to the season’s arc.
Other thoughts/observations:
- Phoebe is a waste in this episode, except when she takes a dart for Marcel. Every other scene, she is a place card for “airhead female joke”.
- the end of the episode turns it into a two-parter when Barry interrupts Ross’s conversation with Rachel. Barry, of course, is banging Rachel’s former best friend, and is now running away from marrying her, to get back with Rachel. Not the greatest character in the world.
- all of a sudden, Rachel wants a relationship. Bit of a contrivance, but we’ll allow it.
- Rachel’s “penis embargo” isn’t quite over yet.
- Joe G’s Pizza never became a regular location for Friends, but it’s good for a Ross/Joey/Chandler scene here. Most of the episode is spent in tight hallways or close-ups of Ross and Rachel, and it gives the episode some life.
- Up next: Chandler and Rachel seek unhappy lives in “The One with the Evil Orthodontist”.