Friends Season 4, Episode 3 “The One with the Cuffs”
Written by Seth Kurland
Directed by Peter Bonerz
Aired October 9, 1997 on NBC
Although seemingly just another slapdash collection of plot and punchlines, “The One with the Cuffs” has multiple elements that make it feel like the first ‘regular’ episode of the series since… well, probably since the pre-Ross and Rachel breakup era. And it comes from a really unexpected place: by completely sidelining Ross for 22 minutes (outside of a couple very brief appearances bookending the episode), Friends finds itself able to breathe for the first time in ages, finding its way back to its endearing mix of goofy comedy, emotional pathos – and critically, its sense of hope.
At first glance, “The One with the Cuffs” seems an incredibly imbalanced episode; the mix of Joey buying encyclopedias from Penn Jillette, the reprise of Chandler’s sexual escapades with Rachel’s boss from “The One with the Dollhouse”, and Monica’s incredibly difficult, emotional experience catering for her mother seems an odd fit. Thematically, there’s certainly a running thread between them all: Chandler, Joey and Monica are all, in their own unique ways, are deluding themselves a bit about who they are and what they can handle – the emotional stakes are wildly different between Monica and her hallmates, but there’s a basis for Seth Kurland’s script all three stories take in their own directions.
As its title suggests, “The One with the Cuffs” mostly foregrounds Rachel trying to get Chandler to break up with Joanna again after she discovers their latest tryst – and though it’s a perfectly funny story, one that finds great ways to utilize Perry and Aniston’s comedic strengths in different moments, it obviously feels a bit inconsequential next to Monica’s much more emotional story of resolving a tiny bit of the emotional chasm formed between her and her mother. The episode doesn’t even really try to engage with Chandler’s obvious discomfort with any kind of kinky sexual play when he reluctantly agrees to let Joanna handcuff him to her office chair; it is entirely a vehicle for a lot of scenes where the physical comedy is doing the heavy lifting (like Chandler pausing before spitting out Rachel’s impromptu gag), rather than anything interesting on a character level.
However, it is the first time it feels like Friends is having fun with Rachel in a really, really long time; she’s clearly justified in wanting to keep Chandler out of her work life, but instead of leaning into her desire to control the situation, “TOW the Cuffs” smartly instead leans into chaos. The vindictive, selfish Rachel of recent episodes is gone – which not only allows the episode to engage in some rare physical comedy with her character, but also begs the question of why the writers would have walked her down that road in the first place, given the refreshing reemergence of personality in this episode.
(It is also a prescient reminder that the farther Ross and Rachel are kept from each other, the better off Friends often is… not the first time, won’t be the last time).
If there’s one point of real contention I have with “The One with the Cuffs” is the title itself, when easily the best plot of the episode comes from Phoebe and Monica’s catering adventure at the Geller family home. Monica, desperate for money (remember – she never actually took the job at Pete’s restaurant… nor do we ever want to have to mention Pete Becker again, a choice I wholly agree with), agrees to cater a party for her mother, even though she knows exactly what she’s about to walk into.
Monica’s relationship with her mother Judy is one familiar to so many Gen X and millennial women; thankfully, this episode avoids a string of Fat Monica jokes, and instead focuses its attention on the more potent intergenerational conflict in the family. We all know Ross was the golden child of the family who could do no wrong (a fact the episode smartly doesn’t need to reiterate) – part of that meant Monica was the one who was always doubted and criticized by her mother, incredibly passive-aggressive behavior that quickly rears its head at Judy and Jack’s home.
When Monica realizes she’s lost a fake nail in a quiche, Judy laughs about a bet she made with Jack (she bet against Monica, of course) and starts pulling lasagnas out of the freezer, adding insult to injury when she reminds her daughter of what “pulling a Monica” means. There are other notes of Judy’s incredibly demeaning behavior towards her daughter – we’re reminded she turned her bedroom into a workout room the second she moved out, when her and Phoebe share a scene there – but when Monica points out she promised the family therapist she wouldn’t use that phrase, “The One With the Cuffs” gives incredible perspective into the formative experiences of Monica’s personality – and for once, offers her a resolution, when Judy finally apologizes for having so little faith in her daughter’s abilities.
It’s a great plot, one worthy of its spot as the third act’s emotional engine – and one of the best scenes Christina Pickles and Courteney Cox would share in the series. So often, Monica’s childhood is one purely played for laughs, to the point it could feel incredibly mean to her character – “The One with the Cuffs” is the antithesis of this trend, and offers one of the best moments for her not only in recent memory, but throughout the whole series (at least, when it come to her family).
Of course, with so much emotional potency in the Monica plotline, it’s no surprise Joey is sacrificed as a counterbalance, in one of the stupidest Joey C plots in the entire series, as he reviews the encyclopedia for the letter V with Penn Jillette playing an unnamed salesman (one who clearly is not good at his job). As dumb and weightless as it is, it works; both as something to lighten the mood from Monica’s potent conflict, and as a much lighter interpretation of the episode’s themes – after all, what is more delusional than thinking Joey has $1200 to buy encyclopedias?
“The One with the Cuffs”, in a lot of ways, feels like a script leftover from previous seasons; the Geller conflicts are appropriately dark, and the episode’s comedy is so much more heartfelt than most of what the previous dozen episodes offered any of its characters. And while I hate to point out the obvious, it all happens with Ross on the sidelines, further highlighting the growing issues with Ross’s character the series would often fail to contend with – and in a lot of cases, only exacerbate (we are still a few seasons away from the true nadir of Ross dating his student, but we’re clearly on our way). Since about “The One Where No One’s Ready”, Ross has been a vortex of acidic nihilism – the absence of that is felt in this episode, in a way that’s more than a little bit eyebrow raising when considering his character’s continued prominence in the show’s ongoing narratives.
Regardless, “The One with the Cuffs” is a welcome change of pace for Friends, something a bit closer to the series it was in the “Before” times – but with the added bonus of a meaningful Monica plot, elevating a mostly incidental episode into something much more resonant – and in the process, smartly disguising some of the creative questions it raises with one of the most effective, potent emotional resolutions Friends has enjoyed in awhile.
Grade: B
Other thoughts/observations:
- This script is the first credited to Seth Kurland since “The One with the Hypnosis Tape” – strangely enough, the last episode before this one to really background anything having to do with Ross and Rachel.
- Chandler and Joey consider their fates, sitting in dumpster lawn furniture while the chick and duck walk around the house… “could we be more white trash?”
- Joey saying “just pickle” when Rachel asks if they have any juice cracks me up every time.
- Joey provides some clutch sound effects when describing Chandler’s bedroom activities. (“Usually I’m just in there myself!”)
- The grandmother Judy found dead in the house is obviously not the one from “The One Where Nana Dies Twice”.
- Friends does the still-rare-for-the-era cutaway, as Joey thinks about all the times he feels lost in everyone’s conversations.
- Joanna chides Sophie yet again when she brings her breakfast: “Oh great, I’ll keep it up my butt with your nose.” Sophie’s time will come, sooner than she thinks!
- Chandler being immediately distracted by the bust behind Joanna’s desk while being scolded by Rachel is such a funny moment.
- Phoebe: “My breasts are really strong.”
- Joey, trying to negotiate: “What about zero down, with zero dollars a month for a very long time?”
- Chandler’s moment of triumph only lasts for so long, when Joey refutes Rachel’s favorable recounting of what she saw when she walked in on Chandler.
- Perhaps the best physical bit comes over the episode’s credits; when Joanna begs Rachel to uncuff her from her desk chair (the result of Chandler’s revenge), her first instinct is to awkwardly put it on her desk, well out of Joanna’s reach.
- Up next: Joey makes a new friend in “The One with the Ballroom Dancing”.