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"The One Where Ross and Rachel... You Know" is the fifteenth episode of the second season of Friends, which aired on February 8, 1996. Ross and Rachel encounter romantic obstacles. Monica falls for a handsome older doctor. Chandler and Joey have new lazy chairs and do not want to get up from them.

Plot[]

Joey gives his roommate Chandler a big surprise: he has bought two large leather recliners and a large TV for the apartment as a result of having his option picked up on Days of Our Lives, where he plays Dr. Drake Ramoray. The two of them decide to put the recliners and TV to good use right after he had bought them.

As the rest of the gang fawn over the new furniture, Rachel and Ross are smitten in their new relationship, which was rekindled in the previous episode. They discuss plans for the evening, but there is a snag. Monica is catering a party that her mother set up, and Rachel is supposed to help waitress it, but Phoebe cheerfully volunteers to take Rachel's place.

At the party, we are introduced to Dr. Richard Burke. He is a friend of Monica and Ross' parents and has not seen Monica in many years, as evidenced by the fact that he is amazed at her weight. Dr. Burke is recently divorced and seems to enjoy conversing with Monica more than attending to his party guests, all ophthalmologists. Phoebe and Monica discuss this while he is not in the kitchen. Monica seems attracted to him, even though he is twenty-one years older than her. Phoebe says Monica is "so much the smitten kitten." She tries to deny it, but is caught when revealing she has an eye appointment with him in spite of just having had her eyes checked.

Meanwhile,  Ross and Rachel have returned from their first date, a movie. They start to kiss, but things get awkward. While kissing, Ross slides his hands along her back and down to her butt and Rachel starts to laugh. It's a nervous laugh, as they are crossing "that line." Ross confesses he gets how big of a step it is, just not "ha-ha" big. They decide to try again, but Rachel keeps laughing, in spite of his hands going nowhere near her butt. This effectively ends the night, as Ross is too-self conscious to continue, despite Rachel's protestations. ("Oh, come on! Would you just grab my ass?")

Meanwhile, Joey and Chandler have not moved one inch off their new recliners. They apparently have been watching TV all night and ordering take-out food. They've even cooked up a scheme to have all the delivery guys send their food to Monica and Rachel's apartment, forcing someone to hand them the food so they don't have to move, and avoid all drinks for fear of having to get up to use the bathroom.

Ross discusses the previous night's events with the guys. Chandler can sympathize with a girl laughing while they made out, but, "it was 1982 and my Flock of Seagulls haircut was tickling her chin." Rachel talks to Ross and they decide to try again that night.

At Monica's eye appointment, she and Richard try to maintain a platonic relationship with each other, but they give in and kiss passionately.

Monica and Rachel prepare for their respective dates. At the guy's apartment (where Phoebe has now been sucked into the do-nothing-but-watch-TV crowd with Joey and Chandler), Ross grills Monica about her date. He does his best not to overreact to the fact that she's dating their father's best friend. He finds it hard to believe that Monica finds Dr. Burke sexy; an opinion the three ladies definitely do not share. This gets interrupted by a call from the museum. Ross has to go and fix several displays that were organized incorrectly.

Following Monica and Richard's date, we find out that Richard is a grandfather twice over. His daughter, Michelle, is an old high school friend of Monica's. They realize the great difference in their ages and decide not to pursue a relationship. But when they start making out again, they figure they can take their time with it.

Unfortunately for Rachel, Ross' work at the museum takes a very long time. As a result, it's too late to get to any restaurant. Rachel's ready to give up, but Ross has a plan: he takes a fur pelt from one of the displays and lays it out like a blanket in the planetarium's theatre. He works the podium so that stars fill the ceiling and Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game," comes over the speakers. He apologizes for ruining the original date, but Rachel says it was "worth the wait." They start making out, and Rachel doesn't laugh because "this time it's not so funny". Things start to get passionate, but Rachel gasps. She tries to reassure Ross that it's OK and things like this happen. Ross tells her she "just rolled over the juice box." Rachel is, to say the least, relieved, and they continue to make out.

In the morning, after Ross and Rachel... You Know, they enjoyably wake up in each other's arms in one of the museum displays. The enjoyment quickly turns to shock when they realize they are being watched by a group of children on the tour.

At the end, Joey and Chandler are still in the recliners, watching Beavis and Butthead, and unwilling to move; when a fire alarm goes off in the building, they decide to wait to see if the floor gets warm.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast[]

Tom Selleck - Dr. Richard Burke

Crew[]

Directed By:
Michael Lembeck

Written By:
Michael Curtis & Greg Malins

Quotes[]

  • Ross: (On phone) No, no, Homo Habilis was erect. Australopithecus was never fully erect.
    Chandler: Well, maybe he was nervous.

Trivia[]

General[]

  • This is the only episode title that directly addresses the viewer, in order to disguise what Ross and Rachel did.
  • Aside from the opening scene, Chandler and Joey do not move from their chairs for the entire episode.
  • Chandler mentions being able to see "Green Acres" how it was meant to be seen. Green Acres was a sitcom about a couple who move from New York to a country farm.
  • The brand of juice Ross and Rachel have in the planetarium is Ocean Spray. The logo is blanked out on the carton Ross holds.
  • Ross would fantasize about the planetarium as the place where he would propose to Rachel. This is revealed in "The One In Massapequa" (S8E18).
  • The song that plays in the background in the final scene of Ross and Rachel in the planetarium is Wicked Game by Chris Isaak, who appeared in "The One After the Superbowl, Part 1" (S2E12).
  • Chandler mentions his "Flock of Seagulls hair", being the haircut worn by A Flock of Seagulls lead singer Mike Score. We would later see him with this hair in a flashback during "The One With All The Thanksgivings".
  • Ross amazingly doesn't lose his job in this episode, not being fired until "The One With Ross' Sandwich".
  • The instrumental music which plays when Monica and Richard have their first kiss is the same used when Phoebe and David first kissed.
  • The music Phoebe begins to watch with Joey and Chandler is the title song from the flop film musical Xanadu (1980). The song was written by the British band ELO and performed by Olivia Newton-John, best known for playing Sandy in the film Grease opposite John Travolta. Olivia was born in Cambridge, England, holds joint British-Australian citizenship and is a third cousin to British comedian Ben Elton.
  • Years later in "The One With Ross' Tan", Monica would refer to the scene when Rachel couldn't stop giggling as Ross touched her butt when Rachel is dating Joey, saying erroneously that was the first time Ross kissed her, as a reason why Rachel feels awkward trying to have sex with Joey.
  • Ross points out a star cluster to Rachel which he thinks could be Ursa Major. On March 28, 2002, each of the main cast (Aniston, Cox, LeBlanc, Kudrow, Perry, Schwimmer) would unofficially have a star in the cluster named after them.
  • One of the Executive Producers on The Dick van Dyke Show was Danny Thomas, father of Marlo Thomas who plays Sandra Greene.
  • The scene just before Rachel says to Ross, " Oh come on, will you just grab my ass!" is cut on the Nick @ Nite version however the laugh tracks after said line can still be heard. The last line before commercial break in that version is Ross saying "That's romantic", then it cuts to the stock shot of the building's exterior.
  • This episode was used as "D is for Dinosaurs" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).

Goofs[]

  • In the scene where Ross and Rachel go to the museum, you can catch a glimpse of the sound microphone after Ross complains about giving clay pots to Homo Habilis.
  • When Ross and Rachel enter Joey and Chandler's apartment with Ross' arm around Rachel, the kitchen counter is to their right and Rachel rests her hand on it. However when Monica enters, they are standing behind the counter with Ross' arm around Rachel's shoulder.
  • In the scene where Monica and Richard are looking at some photographs, a set of stage lights are seen reflecting off Monica's glass of wine.
  • In the scene where Rachel tells about how Richard kissed her as a child, a microphone can be seen on the top of screen.
  • In the same scene, as Ross gets beeped you can see Rachel has her chin resting in her right hand but a second later her right hand is on top of her left arm.
  • Rachel tells Ross that she didn't want to wear her glasses on their first date (she found the subtitled movie hard to follow) but she has not ever worn corrective glasses in a single episode of the show.
  • When Chandler orders pizza to be delivered, he tells the person on the phone to buzz Rachel and Monica's apartment and they would let them in. However, at this time, Monica was catering a party for Dr. Burke and Rachel was on a date with Ross. Meaning, nobody could have answered. However since they never left their chairs, it is quite possible that they didn't know that no one was home; in the uncut episode, Joey comments when Ross tells them his first date with Rachel was 14 hours ago "we've got to set the clock on this thing".  
  • At the museum, Ross complains that Homo habilis hasn't learned how to use tools yet, when in fact this species of Homo are almost always attributed to stone tools.
    • While Ross was wrong about tools (Homo habilis did use stone tools), he was right about the clay pot. The earliest pottery is from about 8000 years ago by modern humans (Homo sapiens).[1]
  • At the museum, Rachel was sitting and waiting for Ross in a showcase about Homo habilis. The information plate in front of the showcase and all posters in the visitor area show various dinosaurs, which were extinct 65 million years before the earliest humans.
  • The homo habilis man next to Rachel has turned to face her while she was waiting for Ross.
  • Monica says she's 27 which means Rachel is almost 27 (assuming her birthday is 5 May) but Rachel doesn't turn 30 until 5 years later.

External links[]

Episode Navigation[]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Preceded by
"The One With The Prom Video"
"The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know" Followed by
"The One Where Joey Moves Out"
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