Second Look: Friends Season 3 Episode 8 – “The One with the Giant Poking Device”

Originally aired 11/14/1996
Directed by Gail Mancuso
Written by Adam Chase

“The One with the Giant Poking Device” is, without a doubt, one of Friends‘ most underrated episodes, one that isn’t often mentioned on lists discussing the show’s best, despite being a near perfect distillation of everything the show could do well. Few episodes in the series are truly able to deliver the sitcom in its truest of forms – but “TOW the Giant Poking Device” is undeniably one of those episodes, able to deliver Gen X sex jokes, traditional sitcom slapstick, and devastating emotional swings with an emphatic confidence unparalleled by many shows of its ilk.

Perhaps the most surprising part is how credited writer Adam Chase (of shows like Veronica’s Closet and late-era Mom) pulls the seemingly isolated stories of the episode together, through the shared theme of honesty. In the foreground, of course, is Chandler breaking up with Janice – which, after the dramatic reveal at the end of “The One with the Race Car Bed”, isn’t necessarily a surprising turn of events. But how it plays out, with Joey reluctantly revealing Janice’s secret canoodling with the Mattress King, is some of the best writing Friends has to offer, led by undeniably the show’s most versatile performer in Matthew Perry (but with a surprising assist from Matt LeBlanc, confidentially conveying nuance seldom offered to Joey’s character).

Perry, as he often is when the script allows it, is simply phenomenal in each of his scene’s, which are all smartly the episode’s longest, his slow path to acceptance bucking the trend we’re used to seeing with his character (for most of the episode, at least). For some time, Chandler’s kind of known that his relationship with Janice would end badly, but Friends has finally allowed us to invest in his brief bout of anxious happiness, extending their arc and giving Janice a bit more presence as a character in Chandler’s life. Though the commitment was slight (we’re talking eight episodes, not seasons), Janice’s second significant arc on the series is by far her most meaningful, both for her and how it matures Chandler as a character. The real prize, of course, is how Perry conveys it all, from resistance to begrudging acceptance, a pitch perfect, Emmy-worthy performance, providing an emotional crescendo one wouldn’t expect from a story about Chandler and Janice (and one we certainly wouldn’t get again).

It’s a really touching arc, messy and emotional in a way Friends often executed poorly, or only for cheap humor; but smartly, the show recognized it couldn’t have its most innocent, vulnerable character become a villain before the audience’s eyes (it also adheres to a rather traditional, “we gotta stick it out for the kid’s sake” kind of mentality, though that’s neither to its benefit or detriment – it’s simply how these characters feel). To extricate themselves from the corner they wrote themselves into is difficult; to be able to pull it off, and so nimbly across the course of these two episodes, is kind of stunning, the kind of performative showcase Friends often occasionally indulged in.

(Also, a big shout out to returning director Gail Mancuso, who really gives equal weight Chandler and Janice’s perspectives, and smartly pushes to wider shots in the bigger moments of Chandler’s emotional swings. Maggie Wheeler and Perry are just phenomenal in these scenes, and Mancuso smartly steps back and lets them shine.)

With such emotional weight being carried in the Mattress King plot twist in the previous episode, it would make sense for the rest of “The One With the Giant Poking Device” to fade into the background, meaningless asides about Phoebe’s paranoia (she thinks going to the dentist kills people she loves) and Monica hitting Ben’s head on her ceiling and trying to cover up for it. Though these stories are really only good for a few quick jokes – Rachel’s “If it’s not against a headboard, it’s really not worth it” is an all-timer – they help to enhance what the Chandler/Janice story is expressing; that honesty is difficult, and though it is freeing, it is also risky, and sometimes painful.

Yeah, ok, it’s a bit of stretch to fit Phoebe’s silly plot into that idea; but there’s something to the freedom with which she expresses the fear that eventually rallies the group to do a wellness check on Ugly Naked Fat Guy via creative use of chopsticks. It’s not much, but it doesn’t really have to be; interspersed with Monica and Rachel’s silly attempts to cover up Ben’s minor accident, these two stories are important in maintaining the central bond between its characters, while providing room for the episode to still be funny, which it really needs to do, given where it eventually leads with Chandler and Janice’s final scene in Central Perk. The balance of these stories are critical – and could be easily overlooked, or misread as lazy thumb-twiddling to fill the space between.

The Chandler story, of course, is that bedrock – and it’s a very powerful one, thanks to the delivery of the episode’s unflinchingly honest dialogue. Chandler, as we’ll learn, will always be in love with Janice in some way – she was kind of the first woman to take him seriously, and was definitely the first woman he dated who wasn’t afraid to be who she was. Though she’d increasingly become a punchline in her subsequent guest appearances over the years, she’s an integral part to the growth of his character: with Janice, Chandler finally gets to imagine a future for himself with someone for the first time, one that isn’t just fairy tales (“When I woke up this morning, I was in love”, he tells Joey). For these eight episodes, we see him grasp that dream in his hands for a moment, only to realize the dream he’s watching isn’t really his at all, and belongs to another family.

The aforementioned Central Perk scene is one of the show’s most beautiful (and continues a season-long trend of fantastic scenes on the coffeeshop couch); Janice bemoaning the loss of her “movie love” is not played for cheese or desperation, instead reaching towards those honest expressions of emotions Friends could occasionally find, with the clarity that would define young adult comedy for a generation. Janice telling Chandler that she loves him and can’t believe they aren’t going to spend the rest of their lives together is a breathtakingly powerful moment; beautifully delivered by Wheeler, it offers raw insight into the strange, deep emotional bond that’s kept Janice coming back into Chandler’s life.

It’s a story I think most of us can all relate to, the story of the one who was probably the right one, but life never really let us find out, for one reason or another. Those moments, relationships, and unfinished stories, no matter how faded they become with time, stick with us – it is difficult to reconcile the certainty of one’s decision in the moment, with the uncertainty of loneliness that lies ahead. Watching Chandler go through that – and watching Janice go through the experience alongside him, stuck between two men she loves – is palpable, delivered with craft and nuance Friends often forsake for the benefit of comedy.

Unfortunately, this is the end of the Janice Litman-Hosenstein we’ve come to know over the first three seasons; her later appearances would have none of the life of season one’s “The One with the Candy Hearts” or “The One Where Heckles Dies”. As a recurring influence in Chandler’s life, she’s provided an integral avenue into defining, and maturing, Chandler as a character in a different way than his friendship with Joey (the primary vehicle for understanding Chandler in early seasons). Without that, it will be a little while before Chandler’s character feels completely whole again; considering that, hats off to Maggie Wheeler for turning a one-note character into an important emotional anchor in some of the show’s early moments of growth, anchored by a sendoff scene for the ages.

If you couldn’t tell, “The One with the Giant Poking Device” is, one of my favorite episodes of the series, one of those all-too-rare times where everything Friends did well was in complete harmony with itself, 23 minutes that crystallize precisely what made it such an iconic generational sitcom around the world. It may never make its way onto the Greatest Comedy Episodes of All-Time lists, but “The One With the Giant Poking Device” is damn near a perfect episode of TV, and an obvious highlight of its third season.

Grade: A

Other thoughts/observations:

• cannot think of a more perfect close to this episode than Phoebe joining Chandler in singing some off-key Lionel Ritchie.
• Another great scene: when Joey tells Chandler he should probably bow out, and not stand in the way of Janice and her family.
• Monica, scrambling to find a distraction from Ben’s head bump: “Take him in there, and do whatever it is you do that makes him go REEEEEEE!”
• Chandler’s ten seconds of begging? Great visualization of the rationalizing we do when faced with the prospect of eternal loneliness, condensed into a few brief moments.
• “Get her a barium enema – those are dead serious!”
• The titular poking device? A contraption devised by Joey out of his and Chandler’s leftover chopsticks.
• after last episode’s awful little bit of homophobia, Joey’s inability to understand homo sapien is a much funnier bit. “I’m not judging!”
• if this is the end for Janice as a serious romantic interest for Chandler – boy, does she go out rocking a fit.
• “I knew I shouldn’t have bought that 12-pack of condoms!”
• After the second or third dick joke of the episode Joey laughs at, Rachel’s had enough: “what are you, 12 today?”
• Ross plays a great prank on Monica to bring out the truth about Ben’s injury; “he’s usually so good with his alphabet, and suddenly he was missing his E’s and F’s!” Her horrified reaction is everything. Also, Jennifer Aniston can barely hold her shit together in that scene, which is a testament to how well both Cox and Schwimmer play up the moment.
• Extended Thoughts: the only real noticeable difference between episode versions is a small one I really enjoy, where Chandler tells Janice “I’ll settle for half your heart! I’ll settle for a quarter of your heart! I will settle for a little…. a tiny…. a ventricle!!!”

Up next: Friends dumps on the Dutch in “The One with the Football”.