With Friends gearing up for its season endgame in the next two episodes, ‘The One With the Ick Factor” is a light-hearted episode about sex: both in dream form, and the physical form with high schoolers. It again puts the troublesome characterizations of Rachel and Monica front and center (a topic I’ve discussed at length this season) that can only be slightly distracted by the culmination of Chandler’s professional arc this season.
Time and time again, Chandler’s proved to be the best character in the first season: he’s very consistently written, which makes his pockets of growth throughout season 1 much more effective – Chandler’s by far the most immature person in the group mentally (some would say Joey, but it’s more lack of brain cells than actual maturity), but ironically, the most successful professionally of the group. His corporate arc for the season comes to a hilarious close in “The One with the Ick Factor”, when he hires Phoebe as an assistant and finds out none of his co-workers like him anymore, now that he’s their boss.
I love how Chandler embraces this later in the episode: he tries to appeal to them as “one of the guys” instead of Mr. Bossman Bing, but all it does is provide more jokes. So what does he do? He turns it to his advantage, giving the people around him a reason to laugh at him (if only to make them work weekends in an act of corporate vengeance). But it’s an example of when the message Friends said it was always about rings true: Chandler’s slowly getting more comfortable with who he’s become, a small step in his long arc of maturity on the show (arguably the show’s most consistent plot over the life of the show).
However, as much as they nail Chandler in the episode, they completely miss on Rachel and Monica. Rachel isn’t doing much but having sex fantasies about everyone in the group – for unexplained reasons – which causes Ross to get angry and jealous in wince-worthy fashion. There doesn’t seem to be much reason Rachel’s dreaming about having sex, and feels like a cheap ploy to sexualize a character for no reason.
Is it as troublesome as what happens with Monica? I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the point of Monica sleeping with an underage high schooler. Again, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point except “Monica makes shitty decisions with her vagina”, harking back to the pilot when she slept with Paul the wine guy, another guy whose lies spread her thighs. There’s nothing to suggest that their relationship is ‘special’ (except what we’re told), so Monica saying she loves him is more than a forced moment – and follows one of the emptiest statements a character’s ever made: “icky” doesn’t really explain much of anything.
“The One with the Ick Factor” mostly exists for its final moments, which again tease Ross and Rachel with the same formula as many scenes in the season: they get in close proximity, share half a moment, and it’s interrupted. Ross’s beeper goes off, signaling the impending arrival of his child, and the episode ends with everyone rushing off to the hospital, dumbfounded Ross in tow.
Other thoughts/observations:
- why would Ross need a beeper for the museum? “Come quick! They’re still extinct!”
- Phoebe… gets some head rushes in the episode, which she enjoys. What a character.
- It’s funny how few times Chandler actually utters the phrase “Could that be anymore ____?” compared to the amount of times people make fun of him for it.
- How old is Monica? 25 and 13 months, if you must ask.
- Up next: Friends welcomes in the next generation in “The One with the Birth”.
The Joey plot in TOW The Birth is one of my favorite plots in the series. What’s great about Joey as a character is that, even when his stupidity and womanizing were blown out of proportion later on (Chandler: “You’ve had lots of sex, right?” Joey: “When, today? … some… not a lot”), the writers had no qualms about showing his more compassionate side from time to time. That’s why, in spite of how heavily maligned it was, I actually enjoyed his romantic arc with Rachel.