Here’s the premise: Phoebe and Monica whistle at a guy, who then gets hit by a car, so they pine and argue over him until he’s healed. Does this sound like a good episode of Friends? It really isn’t, no matter how much uncomfortable Chandler it brings out in the side plot – especially when its all in favor of a faux dramedy between Ross and Chandler, a poorly designed distraction from the weird threads spread about the episode. Of the first eleven episodes, “The One with Mrs. Bing” scored the biggest audience, but is a definite misfire in both script and execution.
The only part of the episode that really rings true to its characters is Rachel, who is hardly mentioned. She would be a character who’d be obsessed with romantic novels, although her fandom of Norma Bing doesn’t go beyond a throwaway line and an undeveloped story about her wanting to be a romance novelist herself – why or how she comes to this conclusion, we really don’t know. It seems to exist to allow the writers to throw in some veiled genitalia jokes, but not necessarily any funny ones (save for Ross comparing the female and males with their nipples exposed on the covers).
I wish “The One with Mrs. Bing” got more into the relationship between Chandler and his mother – much of the details amount to muffled noise behind a closed door. After Ross kisses his mother while drunk at a restaurant (which Ross points out is a plot plucked from classic Greek theater), Chandler gets mad at both of them. Why is he mad at his mother? It’s not really clear, outside of her confident aura of sexuality shown on her Leno appearance, and comments made about her son (“I was a great mother… I bought him his first condoms!”). There’s a lot to be said about a son whose mother aired her relationships out in public (her novel Mistress Bitch) and how she contrasts with Chandler’s complete lack of sexual confidence… instead, it all amounts to a comment about how their relationship “is complicated”.
However, “The One with Mrs. Bing” really shits the bed with Phoebe and Monica, who live out these weird, materialistic fantasies about a man in a coma, forcing their projections of the perfect man (which are the most typical, bland qualities a man could possibly have), and throw them into competition over a man who ends up not interested in either of them at the end of the day. It’s definitely an ending the characters earned (who would want to date two women who obsessed over you for two weeks straight? Creepy!), but it’s execution its neither humorous or rewarding in any sense of the word. A string of solid episodes ends with “The One with Mrs. Bing”, a shallow affair littered with stereotypes and predictable, half-baked humor.
Other thoughts/observations:
- “there’s no J in engorged.”
- I want to know how many books Nora wrote with the word euphoria in the title – there are two mentioned here, there must be more.
- I like Chandler’s mother in this episode – her next appearance six seasons later, not so much.
- Paulo: “Nora Bing!”
- While reading the paper to the passed out guy, Monica details the news, weather, stocks, and “teams played sports.” So thorough.
- Up next: Monica gets cooking in “The One with The Dozen Lasagnas”.