Second Look: Friends Season 4, Episode 12 – “The One with the Embryos”

Friends Season 4, Episode 12 “The One with the Embryos”
Written by Jill Condon & Amy Toomin
Directed by Kevin S. Bright
Aired January 15, 1998 on NBC

When it was decided to incorporate Lisa Kudrow’s real-life pregnancy into the fourth season of Friends, it provided the show a unique opportunity not only for its most enigmatic, quirky character to ground herself, but for Friends to rediscover its moral core. Somewhere between “The Pilot” and “The One at the Beach”, Friends had lost a bit of its identity, its sense of hope and possibility seemingly beaten down by a world of expectations, stress, and the many disappointments we face in our mid-to-late 20s. That sense of reflection has shone through in so many places of season four, from the Kathy love triangle to Rachel’s ironically tragic attempts to grow her career; it’s made for a more compassionate series about people who find solace in each other through their struggles – setting the table perfectly for “The One with the Embryos”, which is not only one of the best episodes of the series, but one of the best sitcom half-hours of the 20th century.

Friends, at its apex, is a series about a group of friends taking the familiar risks of young adult life together; falling in love, finding a career – and most importantly, discovering one’s sense of purpose. That, of course, is accomplished through a lot of failure; though Friends spins it for comedy like any good comedy would, its first three and a half seasons are not a series about successes. Each of them (save for Chandler) have dealt with professional failure, and their personal, romantic failures are the foundation on which the show’s comedic identity is built; what makes them such an endearing group of characters, in spite of their glaring, human flaws, is their inspirational ability to keep moving forward. Despite their failures in life, Friends occasionally reminds audiences that the successes may be few, but are memorable – and are only what they are, because they can be shared and enjoyed by the ones they love.

That idea is presented at the end of “The One with Phoebe’s Uterus”, when Phoebe, seeing the joy her brother and sister-in-law got from her ‘giving’ them a puppy, decided to go through IVF to try and help them have a child. What Phoebe learned in “The One with the Embryos” is what a difficult, expensive journey it is for everyone involved; at $16,000 a pop, Frank and Alice Jr. can only afford to take one shot at IVF, which the doctor notes only has a 25% chance at success – when Phoebe finds out how they’re “literally putting all of their eggs in my basket”, she panics, a reflex of her entire life, where every worst case scenario became her reality.

Before “The One with the Embryo” reveals whether her gambit has paid off, Friends constructs another story about the pleasures and horrors of gambling on a much smaller, though more grandiose, style, when Joey and Chandler get into an argument with Rachel and Monica about who knows who better (this, following a scene where the two men identify every one of the five items in Rachel’s grocery bag). In a weird way, the famous Friends trivia game that follows is a perfect companion to Phoebe’s story; though Joey/Chandler and Monica/Rachel are fighting over a place to live in a much different way than what’s playing out in Phoebe’s uterus, it does a fantastic job of matching her story’s tenor, while providing a comedic salve for the emotional stakes of Phoebe’s story, which are only heightened by the end of the episode (she takes a pregnancy test halfway through, noting she’s always had a body faster than Western science, but it comes back negative).

Of course, Ross’s trivia game for the ages begins as a much smaller $100 bet; but underlying the escalating stakes of their game, are the much realer, grounded stakes of Phoebe’s story. In a normal episode of any other sitcom, cutting from Phoebe talking to a petri dish of embryos to Ross’s “lightning round” could feel a bit discordant; in “The One with the Embryos”, it works perfect in providing the episode some emotional balance. At times, it almost gets too distracting; the mix of personal factoids unearthed in this episode, mixed with the competitiveness of Monica and the game’s ingenious structure, is infectious to the point the recorded audience is cheering along and clapping when teams get answers right, or waiting with bated breath to see if the chick (slowly becoming a rooster) and a duck would have to leave the building, or if Monica and Rachel would have to move into the disgusting apartment across the hall.

The third act, of course, is Friends history; once Joey and Chandler win, Rachel struggles to contend with the loss of her apartment (“this is a girl’s apartment! It’s so pretty!” she pleads), refusing to accept the reality of their loss – which the ever-competitive Monica blames on her, of course – a rather stark turnaround from their shared celebration at the end of “The One with the Football”. And as Rachel devolves into a screaming match with Joey, the rest of the group follows suit – Monica argues with Ross, Chandler and Joey argue with Rachel, while a pensive Alice and Frank Jr. try their hardest not to pin all their hopes and dreams on Phoebe’s legendary lack of luck.

However, all the fighting and yelling come to a sudden pause when Phoebe rushes out of the bathroom, ecstatic to announce that she was in fact, pregnant, and their $16,000 gamble paid off (though we wouldn’t find out just yet how much it paid off). In an instant, all of their fighting dissolves, and the group comes together around Phoebe and her tiny family – it’s a touching moment, one that cuts immediately through the superficial tensions of Rachel’s “steady hand” (“That’s right – you do what the hand says!”) and the comedic aftermath of the trivia game, and makes a definitive statement about the journey of season four (at least, to this point). Season four’s been a well of renewal for the series, re-grounding itself in Chandler’s punchlines and meaningful arcs like Monica’s career choices, Joey defining male friendship for an entire generation – and of course, Phoebe’s series-long journey to find her family, an arc that hits its emotional high note when she delivers the news to Frank and Alice Jr. (I will never, ever forget the line “My sister’s going to have my baby!” and its delivery by Giovanni Ribisi).

“The One with the Embryos” is able to do all of this, without ever purporting itself as an Important Episode (which so many 1990s shows would fall victim to) or trying to artificially enhance its most dramatic, emotional moments. It’s really a masterclass of writing; it engineers most of its energy and momentum with Phoebe off-screen, using the excitement of the trivia game to build an electric, reactive atmosphere; the audience is lulled into thinking the end of the game is the big moment of releasing tension, until Phoebe makes her announcement and Friends goes for the gut punch – and absolutely nails it, closing the episode on a moment highly reminiscent of the last time Friends gathered themselves around a new presence in the world (waay back in “The One with the Birth”).

It also marks a larger change for the series; though characters like Ross would always find themselves at the whims of a cruel world, the shift from stories of failure and regret of the early seasons are giving way to something a little more positive – even as they still challenge characters like Monica and Rachel, there’s a distinct shift in the sense of hope for its characters, a creative rebirth of sorts this episode represents the pinnacle of.

If there is a perfect episode of Friends, “The One with the Embryos” is it, an episode that fully embodies the revamped mindset of the writer’s room after the toxic post-Ross/Rachel breakup of season three. Though it doesn’t aspire to have the narrative ambitions of “The One with the Prom Video” or “The One Where No One’s Ready”, it is able to have the emotional impact of both, full of revealing, rewarding moments for fans while honoring the emotional journey of its central character in a powerful, evocative way. What else can you ask for in 22 minutes of television?

Grade: A+

Other thoughts/observations:

• I believe this is the last time there is a Joey and Chandler sit back in a recliner” joke, but they certainly pick a high note to go out on.
  
• The episode opens with the chick crowing – though after being told he’s becoming a rooster, Chandler notes “we’re getting a second opinion.”
  
• Phoebe – “I felt really thick this morning.”
  
• Little notes like Rachel’s overexcitement help give the trivia game so much tension; it’s a tiny note, but one that adds so much to the moment.
  
• Frank suggests maybe putting like, 200 embryos in Phoebe, to which Alice says: “She’s a woman, not a gumball machine.” Friends smartly stays away from commenting on their age gap, but there are moments when it comes through in the dialogue and Rupp’s performance that are really rewarding.
  
• Frank also suggests getting drunk to help with the chances of getting pregnant: “that worked for a bunch of girls in my high school!”
  
• What’s your favorite trivia answer? Mine is tied between “Viva Las Gaygas” (if only for Monica’s excitement in delivering the line) and Monica’s 11 types of towels.
  
• One of Ross’s questions references “The One Where Nana Dies Twice”.
  
• There’s a running bit about Chandler offering to check things for people, that mostly involve women’s genitals. It’s a bit crass for notorious Soft Boy Chandler, but still hilarious.
  
• The only three questions the teams get wrong: Mrs. Chanandler Bong, Monica getting a pencil stuck in her ear… and of course, Chandler’s job, which we are not given an answer to in this episode.
  
• Joey, explaining the rules: “You bet on a bet, and if you lose, you lose the bet!”
  
• “Oh, Rach, FYI – your new apartment hasn’t had hot water since Christmas.” Good reader, I would’ve killed that man.
  
• “You are ruining moving day for us!”
  
• Monica’s scream of defeat = the greatest sound byte in Friends history.
  
• Extended thoughts: Another episode with some longer cuts and transitions – the most notable addition is a longer debate over getting into the apartment bet.
  
• Up next: Friends shifts gears in “The One with Rachel’s Crush”.