“The One Where Mr. Heckles Dies” isn’t what I’d consider a great episode of Friends – but it is a memorable one, thanks to yet another strong Chandler arc, executed to perfection from beginning to end. The other two plots of the episode aren’t quite as entertaining (or even that interesting), but Chandler’s introspective moments at the end outshine any of its shortcomings.
Often, Friends would use a simple formula for character ‘growth’: character makes mistake numerous times, learns from mistake, episode over. What’s so refreshing about “The One Where Mr. Heckles Dies” is how it frames Chandler’s emotional maturity, with him realizing how easy it would be for him to turn out like Mr. Heckles, a cranky old man who didn’t like anyone, had a messy apartment – and most of all, died alone, despite being a good-looking funny guy in high school.
That’s the weird thing about life. Some people get married, some people don’t. Some succeed, and many, many other fails. But you only turn out like Mr. Heckles if you don’t try, alienating yourself from the world over time, until you’re just that cranky, decrepit person living down the hallway. As long as Chandler keeps finding reasons not to continue dating certain women, he’s going to continue to wake up alone every day – something he realizes when he accidentally imitates Mr. Heckles’s dying motion.
So Chandler reaches out to the one women he’s connected with in his adult life – the frustrating, somehow charming Janice. Except she’s knocked up and married, reinforcing the notion that Chandler already missed a great chance. We’re never going to find the perfect person in the world – no matter how much bullshit we tell ourselves that someone is ‘perfect’ – and despite it being somewhat of an obvious truth, seeing Chandler embrace it was a nice touch, adding a bit of emotion to the final farewell when Chandler tells Heckles’s empty apartment that they’ll always try to “keep it down”.
I could take or leave the rest of the episode; Monica and Rachel’s argument over the apartment was merely an act of Monica’s domination meeting up with Rachel’s passive-aggressive tendencies to mildly amusing results. Ross and Phoebe’s argument over evolution on the other hand, is grating material. Why? Because they’re both acting like assholes and idiots: Ross is unwilling to accept that someone thinks differently about something than him (no matter how ridiculous they tried to make Phoebe, with her not believing in gravity and all), and Phoebe’s playing the idiot just to rile Ross up, with no point really except “I’m Phoebe… I do weird shit, so I’m different than you!”. It’s really just a lot of whiny Ross, which readers of my columns from first season will remember I’m not a fan of.
But the strong Chandler material combines well with the somber mood of the episode that dampens some of the broader humor, and it makes up for its numerous ancillary flaws with yet another great story about Chandler growing. There’s a distinct reasons audiences are cheering for Chandler in later seasons to succeed, reasons that become much clearer thanks to the handful of episodes like ‘Heckles Dies’ that spends a lot of time with him.
Other thoughts/observations:
- …. Joey dated a guy once. Multiple times. And had no idea it was a dude.
- Phoebe dismisses the idea of evolution because “it’s too easy.”
- Ross needed everyone to agree with him does fit his character, but when it comes to something evolution vs. creationism, there’s no pointing in arguing and trying to prove who’s right.
- “Go into the light, Mr. Heckles!!!”
- “Janice likes to have her fun.”
- Chandler tries to think of five nice things about his date: good smile, nice dresser… big head, big head, big head.
- Up next: Truths are revealed in “The One
Whenever I watch Phoebe’s Husband, it’s for this one line: “You know that’s bad for the copy machine!” That one line has to be one of the funniest in the show’s history!
I agree, though, that the rest of the episode is pretty lame. Phoebe would have some terrible plots during the next couple seasons (the stalker plot in TOW The Jam, the infamous cat plot in TOW The Cat, etc.).
Is it just me, or do you seem a bit harsher on S2 so far than you were on S1? You gave TOW Phoebe’s Husband a critique that probably would’ve suggested a C in S1 but then graded it a D instead. Is it mostly because of how detrimental Rachel’s behavior is to the episode?
The beginning of season 2 really suffers for me for a couple reasons:
– Rachel is just an awful, awful person until her and Ross finally get together. All the drama drummed up for her character stems from her being a bitch.
– because of this, Ross and Rachel’s interactions are much less interesting. Ross comes to Rachel for relationship advice, Rachel tries to passive-aggressively undermine him, or acts out in some immature fashion.
– there’s nothing else for the characters to do! Chandler’s mini-arc is the first plot that feels ‘real’ or serves an actual purpose outside of some cheap laughs.
Season 2’s been an interesting watch so far: I never remembered the first half of the season being this bad. But Ross/Rachel and Dr. Burke are right around the corner, which brings a major uptick in general quality with it.
P.S. The fact that Phoebe’s husband was never mentioned again after this episode (except in passing by Monica in TOW Chandler In A Box) is pretty indicative that it was just a throwaway plot, made for no reason other than because the writers were on a strict deadline and needed to get an episode out by Thursday afternoon. Same with plots like Joey’s fridge in S6 (his broken fridge is never replaced or even mentioned again after that episode) or Chandler not being able to smile for a photo in S7 (which had one of the stupidest outcomes I’ve ever seen on Friends).
1995… yeesh!