Forever mythologized in my heart as “The One Bill Lawrence Wrote”, “The One with the Candy Hearts” is a really fun episode of Friends, particularly because its another early Janice/Chandler story line, which always bring out the best aspects of Matthew Perry’s performance as young Chandler. When it tries to get emotional (in the Ross sub-plot, which becomes the emotional focal point of the episode) it struggles a bit, but the consistency of the humor throughout picks up the slack in a few of those moments.
“The One with the Candy Hearts” – like much of Lawrence’s material in his later work on shows like Clone High, Scrubs, and Cougar Town – utilizes a lot of goofiness, almost as a way to deflect attention from some of the heavier, “bigger” ideas at the heart of his scripts. In “The One with the Candy Hearts”, it’s the idea of destiny, paralleled in Ross and Chandler’s situations (as well as the women, to a lesser degree). Both of them find themselves engaging with their exes – Ross ends up having dinner with Carol while on a date, after watching Susan storm out, and Chandler gets set up on a blind date with Janice – and looking at two sides of the same coin. Chandler can’t believe his destiny is to be with Janice (even though she tells him after he breaks up with her, yet again, on Valentine’s Day), and Ross still can’t accept the fact that him and Carol – after his date leaves, he insists that “there’s something there” between him and Carol, which she doesn’t deny, but ultimately rejects.
Both of their situations arrive out of comedic conveniences – in a city of millions, Joey’s date being friends with Janice is a lotto shot, as is Ross and Carol having Valentine’s Day dinner at the same hibachi table – but both speak to the insecurities of these two young men who can neither achieve or escape what they believe their ‘destiny’ to be. There’s a moment during Janice’s speech where Chandler is thinking if Janice is right – and it plays back-to-back with Ross’s hopeful moment where he tries to kiss Carol. In some ways, Ross and Chandler are filling the opposite gender roles in their respective relationships – Ross/Janice insisting on some idealistic destiny, and Carol/Chandler rejecting the idea (for fundamentally different reasons, of course… Chandler isn’t gay, but you get my point).
It’s a really well thought-out sequence, and although its another example of Ross regressing from the pilot (or at least circling in a holding pattern), Chandler’s honesty with Janice shows a micron of growth on his part. Of course, this is hardly the last time we’ll see Janice – there are still nine more seasons of her popping in, most notably next season.
Which brings us to the rest of the episode – the Boyfriend Bonfire the girls decide to partake in. The girls are also trying to play with destiny, by burning off old memories in search of good karma and whatever else the bald woman might’ve suggested. On one hand, it paints the girls as love-hungry women who are basically acting like witches to find men – but on the other hand, the scenes have a very 90’s-feeling, feminist Gen X rebellion against holidays of love I kind of enjoy (although its a theme many, many sitcoms would touch on, in some form or another). I can do without the hot fireman and that Valentine’s Day is their busiest day of the year, however – googly eyes over someone basically insulting the intelligence of an entire gender makes for some very awkward comedy.
“The One with the Candy Hearts” is definitely an episode stronger with the male leads (Chandler and Ross) than it is with the females – but this unsurprisingly would happen a lot over the seasons, especially in later seasons, with baby fevers, weddings, early 30’s life crises (multiples), and of course, all the “we were on a break” shit. But “The One with the Candy Hearts” is an episode with a lot of laugh out loud moments (Kudrow’s delivery of “the semen of a righteous man” is still hilarious) and a little injection of heart, always a formula for success on a comedy.
Other thoughts/observations:
- For once, the Ross physical humor mostly lands. It works best when he’s sitting in a chair, and not pacing around or moving robotically from spot to spot making faces.
- the classical arrangment that plays as the scene fades from Chandler and Janice at dinner to Chandler and Janice in bed is brilliant.
- “I can’t go when I’m nervous.” “C’MON MAN, DO IT! DO IT! DO IT ALREADY!!!”
- breaking news: Joey has a credit card in this episode. Wonder what the APR was on that sucker.
- Up next: someone does a weed in “The One with the Stoned Guy”.
Jon Lovitz was all over the media, period, in the mid-90’s. It seemed you couldn’t watch a single movie or television show without some sort of cameo appearance by him. Given how dated his style of humor has become, it’s difficult to watch him in roles like TOW The Stoned Guy and not feel lost in a time warp.
I actually thought Marcel playing “In The Jungle” in the upcoming TOW All The Poker was kind of funny.
Ross’s date in TOW The Stoned Guy has a VERY 80’s haircut. Getting the fashions/styles of the 90’s correct is something Friends definitely struggled with in its first season.
Regarding reviewing the post-S2 episodes, you should definitely do the Ross/Rachel breakup episodes in S3 (TOW Ross And Rachel Take A Break, TOT Morning After and TO Without The Ski Trip). Maybe also do some episodes that you feel stick out and warrant analysis.