Second Look: Friends Season 5, Episode 8 – “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks”

Friends Season 5, Episode 8 “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks”
Written by Gregory S. Malins
Directed by Kevin S. Bright
Aired November 19, 1998 on NBC

“The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” is often considered on the list of all-time great Friends episodes, and I certainly understand why; it is a true ‘hangout’ episode, it features references to “The One with the Prom Video”, another fan favorite episode – and most obviously, uses the structure of storytelling to inject a number of unexpected flashbacks into the narrative. However, I consider “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” is one of the more overrated entries in the series, an episode that relies on weak slapstick humor, uncharacteristically hammy performances, and way too much focus on Fat Monica. And it’s too bad, because it absolutely starts off strong; but the minute “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” tries to get clever with itself, it undercuts anything the episode is trying to do, in either the present or the Gellar family Thanksgivings of 1987 and 1988.

It’s really a bummer, because “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” starts off so strong, opening with an immediate subversion of expectations when we see the Central Perk Six lounging on the couches, the entire day and drama of the Thanksgiving holiday already behind them (and possibly this year’s iteration of the Gellar Bowl, of course). And really, it’s almost like a double subversion (a subversion squared?); once the episode establishes that the group is going to sit around and tell stories about past Thanksgivings, it would seem an easy avenue into another clip episode (though spoiler, this is the last season of the series without a clip episode).

Instead, the group decide to tell the stories of their worst Thanksgivings ever – a great premise, but unfortunately one where it hits its high mark early, with a look back at the 1978 Bing Thanksgiving (aka The Day Chandler’s Life Changed Forever), and Phoebe’s “flashback” to 1862. The momentum is obvious; the flashbacks are fun, indulging in a bit of absurdity Friends didn’t really embrace until its later, lesser seasons – but doing so here in a way that informs Phoebe and Chandler as characters, filling in bits of personality and character history in ways that feel a bit reminiscent of Ross’s trivia game from “The One with the Embryos”.

As Chandler tells the tale of learning about his father’s tryst with their “houseboy” (I also appreciate that later on, someone points out Chandler grew up a bit wealthier than we might’ve thought of), Friends flashes back to one of its character’s childhoods, something it hasn’t done since the closing credits of “The One with the Metaphorical Tunnel”. Only this time, it’s not a home video of Ross as Bea – it’s Chandler’s heightened, slightly distorted memory of his worst Thanksgiving ever, a stylistic choice that (supposedly) informs the episode’s other flashbacks to follow with its outlandish tone (“More turkey, Mr. Chandler?“) and its willingness to explore one of its characters familiar idiosyncrasies from a new angle.

“The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” follows that by teasing Monica’s worst Thanksgiving ever (which Rachel hints she knows about) before Phoebe interrupts, pushing the episode into full absurdist territory with her Civil War cutaway, complete with arm prosthetics and spurting blood – a moment I absolutely love, perhaps the one moment of the entire series where Friends exists outside of its own reality. Though not a significant portion of the episode, the cutaway sticks out technically – both in how it is delivered, and how it presumably fits into the narrative, establishing a certain approach to how it depicts the memories and experiences of its characters (even if, as in Phoebe’s case, they are only assumed).

Leading off with those scenes make the first act of “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” an exciting episode, a rare instance of Friends experimenting with form – and even rarer instance of it benefitting from stepping outside of the traditional constructions it made its bread and butter over the 104 episodes preceding it. And the next flashback, set in 1992 where Joey emerges from Monica’s bathroom with a turkey on his head, cashes in on all of this perfectly, a hilarious sequence that is willingly weightless and having fun with the time traveling gimmick inherent in its premise.

However, any excitement is immediately culled when the episode suddenly decides to turn into a sequel to “The One with the Prom Video”, hyper fixating on the 1987 and 1988 Gellar family Thanksgivings – sequences that purportedly exist to bring some conflict into Monica and Chandler’s quickly budding relationship, in order to set up the iconic moment at the end of the episode. Unfortunately, the moment it builds to – Monica dancing with a turkey head on, prompting Chandler to tell her “I love you” for the first time – is a thoroughly unearned one, thanks to the hacky, hammy nonsense it spends half of the episode shoving down the audience’s throat.

Outside of a few mildly amusing gags about Ross and Chandler’s evolving sense of fashion, the two extended flashback scenes are a slog of unfunny callbacks (anyone want to talk about Ross’s music again?) and a whole lot of Fat Monica jokes that go out of their way to paint Chandler as a bumbling asshole – in a way that’s even a bit of a stretch for a 20-year-old college kid, like when he tells Ross he doesn’t want to “get stuck with Fat Monica” during his stay at their house.

What rings hollow – beyond the performances, led by Matthew Perry’s uncharacteristically off-putting, overwrought performance, a rare instance of him pandering for laughs – about all of it is how it tries to provide context and motivation to Monica, who decides after being dismissed by Chandler that she’s going to lose a lot of weight, if only so she can spurn him at next year’s Thanksgiving dinner. Monica’s thoroughly established planning aside, how insulting this is to Monica’s character (I also hate on the commentary how Marta Kauffman gushes over how “great” Cox is in the fat suit; it’s very telling) can’t be understated; she is as pathetic as she is in the entire series here, a virgin who talks about her “flower”, who tries to make a box of macaroni “sexy” – and who, righteously though accidentally, cuts off Chandler’s finger and accidentally brings a carrot to the hospital instead.

To a degree, I like the concept of Friends exploring past dynamics between its characters (“The One with the Flashback” is a good episode!) – but how its applied here is too acrid and flippant in its treatment of its characters, and it ultimately all rings hollow. No matter how deserved Chandler’s foot injury is, how Friends builds to it is mostly unpleasant for the sake of being unpleasant; instead of just relying on Monica’s parents to provide the expected awful comments about her weight, making Monica run and bounce around like the show’s equivalent to Bart Simpson for 10 minutes is an absolute cringe-fest to watch.

It’s too bad, because it taints what is an otherwise endearing final sequence in the episode; to apologize to Chandler for cutting and and subsequently losing his big toe in 1988, Monica puts a turkey on her head Joey-style and tries to serenade him out of his anger. Unexpectedly, Chandler tells her he loves her, creating the indelibly romantic, iconic image of Chandler professing his feelings to a dancing woman wearing a very wet turkey carcass – it’s really a beautiful little moment for the episode to end on, with Chandler finally letting go of his inhibitions and Monica suddenly realizing this relationship is a serious, potentially life-altering one, almost unable to respond as she stands dumbfounded in the boy’s kitchen with her head up a turkey’s ass.

Unfortunately, the moment is sullied by the ridiculously one-note flashbacks preceding it, scenes that are miscalibrated enough in tone and content that it upsets the balance of what is otherwise a very fun holiday episode for Friends (and unfortunately, signals the end of the quality era of Friends Turkey Day episodes). Instead of just allowing her mother to be the source of vitriol towards Monica’s weight, “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” features everyone (even a pre-nosejob Rachel!) making asides and comments under their breath about Monica’s behavior, appearance, and eating habits. These scenes aren’t just poorly written through a 2025 lens; it’s just bad comedy, and an incredibly poor use of the show’s own mythology to establish an unnecessary, and somewhat hurtful conflict between Monica and Chandler (and again, the whole idea that Chandler’s one comment is what spurned Monica to lose weight is… really just embarrassing to think anyone thought it was a good idea).

Take away most of the second and third acts of “The One with the Thanksgiving Flashbacks”, and you have a really ambitiously constructed episode, one with a lot of potential to both shed light on the pasts of its characters (like Ross learning his girlfriend plays golf and lacrosse; “She goes both ways!” he excitedly exclaims) and to center its emotional core on the deepening relationship between Monica and Chandler. Instead, the episode strangely panders to itself, with an underwhelming, counterproductive pair of flashbacks, that are almost bad enough to cloud the entire affair -ultimately, I still love the beginning and end, regardless of how unearned that final moment is in the context of this episode. It may be unearned, but it’s a nice culmination of the last 10 episodes of storytelling between them – and if anything, is a bit of a palette cleanser from all the nonsense it took to get there.

Grade: C+

Other thoughts/observations:

• Joey’s amazement at thongs and how they are a “feat of engineering” is still a great moment.
  
• “It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Chandler bumming us out!”
  
• Rachel is right – Monica should immediately cease calling a man’s dick his “tenderness”.
  
• Chandler, to Ross: “You might want to rethink the lyrics to ‘She Feels Weird Since I’ve Been Gone'”.
  
• As if Chandler inspiring Monica to get thin wasn’t enough, this episode also establishes that she became a chef because of Chandler’s offhand comment about her macaroni and cheese. Hate it.
  
• “Well Judy you did it – she’s finally full!”
  
• Rachel changed majors because she “had to – there was never any parking by the psychology building.”
  
• I do love how on-brand Judy’s dismissal of Monica’s weight loss is: “Monica is thin, it’s wonderful. But what we really want to hear about is Ross’s new girlfriend.”
  
• The editing of the knife going into Chandler’s foot is a solid little Psycho reference.
  
• Phoebe’s gushing arm is also a reference, to the classic SNL parody of The French Chef.
  
• Extended thoughts: Not a lot here, except Rachel noting Chandler’s houseboy accent gets more pronounced with each year, and the aforementioned joke about Ross’s song about Rachel.
  
• Up next: Ross brings leftovers to work in “The One with Ross’s Sandwich”.