(Editor’s note: Seasons 1 and 2 were reviewed under an earlier editorial standard and format. They’ll be revisited in the Second Look Remastered series, running December 2026 through March 2027. Subscribe to Processed Media (it’s free!) so you don’t miss the updates.)
Like the previous episode, part of the premise for “The One with the List” kind of bugs me: why would Ross still be deciding between Julie and Rachel at this point? But unlike “The One Where Ross Finds Out”, where the climax doesn’t quite overshadow what precedes it, “The One with the List” does a fantastic job in the second half taking what seems like an insignificant plot (Ross’s list, of course) and finding real meaning in it.
Friends always enjoyed dragging things out when it came to Ross and Rachel (as we’ll find out in subsequent seasons), and the same goes for the time between them admitting their feelings and actually starting to date. There’s a moment about halfway through where Ross and Rachel hug, and we’re to assume they are about to have their first quasi-date together. But when Rachel uncovers the list comparing Rachel and Julie he was working on with Chandler and Joey, the rug gets pulled out from Ross (and by proxy, us) as Rachel reads the negative things Ross thinks about her.
It’s a little bothersome how stuck on the ‘chubby ankles’ thing she seems to be (making a distinct reference to it twice, without really addressing the rest of the list), but Rachel makes a terrific point when she tells Ross that seeing the worst thoughts you have about yourself is very hard to hear coming from someone you think loves you – that, and the fact that she’d never make such a list in the first place. In a way, she’s both condemning his unintentional insults, and the idea that a man can compare two women on a piece of paper. It’s not fair to either of them – just because Rachel’s ‘just a waitress’, that doesn’t mean that’s all she is. He tells her to read the other side, where Julie’s negatives amount to “She’s not Rachel”, which Rachel misreads because of a typo, but still – Ross certainly has less negative things to say about Julie, which clouds our assumption of just how meant for each other they are.
Unsurprisingly, Chandler manages to be the best character in an episode focused on Ross and Rachel, at the top of his comedic game as the jester to the romantic, heavier elements of the episode. His nerdy obsession over his new laptop (12 megabytes of RAM, you guys!) and what he can do with it (bragging about writing the list in different colors) is great, and his awkwardness while he accidentally prints the list and has to read it is one of the funniest single gags the show ever does (every touch Matthew Perry adds, from snapping the piece of paper, to “one lonely gray couch” is just fucking brilliant). Monica’s there in the background, too, on a forgettable adventure about Moccolate, the chocolate that doesn’t get FDA-approved (and bubbles in your mouth as you eat it), but Chandler’s few scenes and bits of dialogue run away with the episode, despite all the attention on Ross and Rachel.
Like many comedies, Friends felt the need to squeeze every dramatic ounce out of the sexual tension between Rachel and Ross – but in “The One with the List”, it actually manifests itself in an interesting way, one that gives Rachel a dynamic outside of “hot, somewhat ditzy and occasionally childish woman” that would become her trademark over the years. It can be a drag waiting for the inevitable on a comedy, but “The One with the List” finds some fresh emotional ground to walk on, one of the more enjoyable, meaningful bits of tension between Ross and Rachel.
Other thoughts/observations:
- who’s up for singing a verse of “Two of Them Kissed Last Night”?
- Not a fan of the gender stereotypes in the cold open: the guys grunt about Ross’s kiss over pizza, while the girls break out the wine and swoon over the details.
- Joey’s got two words for Ross: threesome.
- Chandler: “does anybody want to play Doom?”
- Up next: Chandler and Joey go Christmas shopping in “The One with Phoebe’s Dad”.