Second Look: Friends ‘The One With Two Parts’ – You Meant Sex, Right?

Friends had a thing for two-part episodes through the years: they had ten over the life of the series, with one appearing in every season except the third. The first of them (with the appropriate title of ‘The One With Two Parts’) is by far the best, balancing its lighter notes with some much needed character work for Ross, transcending its presence as a ‘crossover’ episode with memorable bits and meaningful moments.

If you’ve read any of these reviews through the first season, my complaints with Ross’s character (and at times, Schwimmer’s performance) are well-known. After being the best character in the pilot, the stagnation of his near-obsession with Rachel, dealing with his ex-wife, and having an annoying monkey really held back who I thought was the most interesting character on the show. ‘Two Parts’ finally starts to dig into him a bit, highlighted in an early scene in Part Two where he tells Joey and Chandler a dream he has about his baby being a football (elsewhere in the episode, he holds a fake baby at a Le Mas class and tells Susan “Go long”).

Not only is the scene hilarious – including Joey’s reactions (“he should take the sack?”) – but it reveals an insecurity Ross usually only displays around Rachel. But here, his lack of confidence isn’t juvenile: he’s having the same feeling any prospective father feels when they’re face to face with taking care of an actual human being. He shares his thoughts with his father Jack over dinner (in one of my favorite scenes in the entire series), and Jack tells him a story about the moment he knew he was Ross’s father. It’s a sentimental moment, but one the show doesn’t linger too long on – “Eat your fish” he tells Ross, smiling.

For once, Ross isn’t just anxious because of goofy awkwardness – and it makes his character infinitely more relatable, culminating in a moment reminiscent of the end of the pilot. After Marcel swallows a K tile from the Scrabble board (and an M and an O, Chandler tells the doctor; “We think he was trying to spell monkey”), Ross has a similar experience to his father’s. Sure, it’s a little too on-the-nose and involves the insufferable Marcel (who brings the worst out in Ross), but it brings full circle Ross’s journey through the first season to recapture his masculinity in the face of his unexpected and complicated divorce.

As I mentioned, this is another ‘crossover’ episode with Mad About You, bringing Phoebe’s twin sister Ursula and Riff’s Cafe from the popular sitcom, in an arc that reveals what I always believed to be the strongest relationship on the show: Joey and Phoebe. Part of the story line teases a pairing they entertained early on (Phoebe’s attraction to Joey is well-documented, even in later seasons), and thankfully one that never really goes farther the reaction to their shared kiss in the episode.

What’s really great about their story, is how its one of the times that Friends actually felt like the show it purported to be for ten years: a comedy with a huge heart, a heart so big that Phoebe would dress up as her twin sister to try and ease Joey’s pain over being emotionally shit on. It’s also important for Joey’s character – like his arc in ‘TOW The Boobies’ – to show his as more than a dumb womanizer, and seeing his growth (which would be abandoned in later seasons as he became a mindless punchline) and vulnerability in the ‘Two Parts’ is amazing to watch.

Because the other material is so great, it minimizes the massive blemish that is Rachel/Monica in this episode, which starts out as a fun identity-flipping plot when Rachel adopts Monica’s name for insurance purposes (after falling off the roof taking the Christmas lights down). Unforunately, they run into two doctors (which might as well be another crossover, starring ER hotties George Clooney and Noah Wylie), and things quickly escalate into a cat fight at Monica’s apartment, as they fling nasty insults back and forth at each other.

The two of them swooning over doctors is bad enough (not having met Rachel’s father yet, it doesn’t make sense for her to just croon over one), but their aggression and nasty demeanors in the second half of ‘Two Parts’ is Friends at it lowest, undermining important relationships to diminish female characters into gender stereotypes who are willing to throw each other under the bus in the presence of an attractive man.

There is some funny material sprinkled throughout (the ER receptionist’s reactions, the moments where Rachel and Monica try to quickly cover up each other’s mistakes), but their ‘date night’ at the apartment is still an uncomfortably bad scene to watch (“I use my breasts to get attention” “We BOTH do that”). However, it more than made up for by Ross and Joey’s material and the interesting material brought on in Phoebe and Ursula’s relationship (ahh… the episodes where Phoebe is a character).

‘Part One’: A-

‘Part Two’: A-

Other thoughts/observations:

– Marcel’s funniest moment: turning the TV to SAP, which inspires a hilarious closing tag that’s in Spanish, and will occasionally pop up through the next few episodes.

– I didn’t talk about Chandler in ‘Part One’, which is at times, hilarious (him putting a trophy on his desk before Nina walks in) to really uncomfortable (him talking about her mental problems to his boss). But there are WENUS and ANUS jokes, which are always welcome in Chandler’s workplace – which I might add, quickly ceases to be a location on the show after the first season.

– The scene with Helen Hunt confusing Phoebe for Ursula in Central Park was expertly written. Much better than the other infamous star cameo in Central Perk (Robin Williams, anyone?)

– Monica knits?

– We will hear the saying “We’ll try to keep it down” again.