Friends was never known to be a subtle show throughout its run, so “The One With George Stephanopoulos” is always an episode that sticks out in my head. Not only is this the first time the group splits up in male/female pairings, but it also quietly pulls at a common thread between Ross and Rachel that’s been on the surface for the first few episodes. It’s not a particularly special episode in any sense, but it’s definitely an example of how different the show was when people gave a shit.
The parallel I’m talking about between Ross and Rachel is their inabilities to let go of their past, stories which smartly play out completely separate from each other. In fact, the only scene the six main cast members is the opening scenes, splitting up the group to dig a little bit deeper into why Ross and Rachel are in such similar emotional states.
For Rachel, it’s the appearance of her old crew, who’ve all managed to get pregnant and married in the three episodes since Rachel moved into the city and started working at Central Perk. Pregnant, engaged, getting promoted… all the successes in life that would’ve been handed to her by Barry or her father are laid right out in front of her, and what does she have to combat it? The Central Perk specials board? Once again, Rachel’s face to face with the biggest decision she ever made in her life, and coming right on the heels of finding out Barry and her maid of honor went on their honeymoon, she’s about ready to drown herself in margaritas.
It puts Rachel in a familiar position to anyone in their mid-20s; can we just count on it all “working out” somehow in the end? By the time we’ve all reached that age, we’ve dealt with enough failure and false visions for ourselves to wonder the same thing. It’s really a moment of Friends at its most existential, a rare example of the show really digging into its characters. They don’t really have anything significant to say about it (Phoebe: “I don’t like this question”) but it gives their half of the episode less of a ‘girls having a fun slumber party talking about sex’ feel that would’ve just felt cliched and pointless.
Now the other half of this episode is a lot more problematic. The idea of Ross getting sappy over the anniversary of when he lost his virginity really just strikes me as an empty idea. I don’t mind him pining over Carol (it’s still a fresh wound, and obviously there’s a lot of comedy to be played out with that), but the one-noted depression he experiences over having sex for the first time with the lone partner he’s had to this date is just stupid. In typical ‘male’ fashion, Chandler and Joey think the way to solve this is to do manly things like go to a hockey game, but that just makes Ross even more selfishly depressed, sighing on every street corner and discussing unnecessary details from his first night with Carol.
I’m not saying I need Ross to be an impenetrable wall of emotion, but the way its done here is so corny and overplayed by Schwimmer (as he does a lot in the first season, like I noted last week), and feels like a complete regression since the end of the pilot (when he grabbed a spoon) all for some “life event” that most of us can’t even remember the date of (much less one our sister knows)? It’s an over the top plot that falls flat on its face, which is disappointing because like I said, this is one of the show’s few examples of drawing parallels between its A and B plots. Ross is struggling with letting go as well, but the way he does it is handled with a lot less subtlety and care than Rachel’s.
Other thoughts/observations:
- Joey, it’s ok to be omnipotent.
- Phoebe is just a set of random dialogue here, with no real center; she worked in a mine, a Dairy Queen, can sleep anywhere, and wears striped pajamas.
- I’d like to see the percentage of people who see this episode on Nick at Nite and say “who the fuck is George Stephanopoulos”?
- Friends is never great at the large-scale physical comedy stunts (not involving Chandler, anyway): the two hockey puck scenes are very goofy, and feel a lot like filler. Why do ER people get such a bad rap? Sheesh.
