"The One With The Screamer" is the twenty-second episode of the third season of Friends, which aired on April 24, 1997.
Plot
Joey gets tickets for his friends to see him premiere in the play. Rachel surprises Ross when she says she is bringing a date, and comes with Tommy, a seemingly perfectly normal guy. However, he turns out to be an aggressive, testosterone-fueled bully who intimidates and frightens an elderly couple sitting in his and Ross' seats by, for no necessary reason, yelling his throat hoarse at them, and then calms down instantly, seemingly in a good mood now. However, as Ross is the only witness to this, Rachel doesn't believe him when he tries to warn her what an aggressive bully Tommy is, assuming he's just making up the story about Tommy screaming at the elderly couple and then calming down instantly in order to split them up and have her all to himself.
The play takes place, and Ross blows his date off when he starts focusing attention on Tommy (waiting for him to scream his head off) rather than on her. She leaves, and the director brings the early edition of the newspaper containing the review of the play. He's furious to find that the review is pretty much abysmal about everything, even the direction, and storms off. Katie, still destroyed by the review, reveals to Joey that the director dumped her after the review, and Joey supports her by staying with her at her apartment, where she passes out, and the two spend "the night" - talking to each other about their feelings. Soon after, Ross, still disapproving of Tommy, almost spills hot coffee over him. The bully intimidates Ross by ranting and shouting insults at him before calming down just as instantly as he did before, apparently in a good mood afterwards. Rachel still hangs out with Tommy despite Ross' advice, but when she, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Ross see him shout and rant insults at the chick and the duck after the chick urinates in his hand, she and the others realize Ross was right about him being an aggressive bully with little apparent control over his anger, and when Tommy can see that they are all clearly scared of him now, the bully breaks up with her before leaving.
Joey's new relationship with Kate does not last long, as Kate obtains a part in General Hospital in LA and leaves Joey, though not without watching him perform the play with understudy Lauren.
Phoebe spends a lot of time on the phone support line to claim the warranty on her broken phone. The support line keeps telling Phoebe that she's next in line, but Phoebe never gets picked up. She keeps herself busy by swapping Monica's and Rachel's stuff in each other's rooms, but when two days pass and she's still not picked up (by a Utah number, contrary to what Phoebe believed was a toll-free number), the guys make her. Phoebe breaks Monica's phone in the process, and she gives Monica the number of the company she can call.
Cast and Crew
Main Cast
Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Green
Courtney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry- Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer- Ross Geller
Supporting Cast
Ben Stiller - Tommy
Jon Favreau - Pete Becker
Dina Meyer - Kate Miller
June Gable - Estelle Leonard
Jennifer Milmore - Lauren
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
Jeff Brooks - Stage Manager
Peter Bonerz - Theater Patron
Scott Sandler - Jonny
Crew
Directed By:
Peter Bonerz
Written By:
Shana Goldberg-Meehan & Scott Silveri
Trivia
- This is the only episode in which Monica, Rachel and Chandler see Estelle.
- Aside from the brief scene across the hall where the gang observe Tommy shouting at the chick and the duck, Phoebe is in Monica and Rachel's apartment for the whole episode.
- Although not really a running gag on the show, Phoebe is shown to be quite accident-prone, and also has a tendency to ruin most things she touches.
- In this episode, she breaks her own and Monica's phones.
- In "The One With The Flashback" (S3E6), she reveals to Monica that she stained her couch pillow from one side with an ink dot, and with a big spaghetti stain on the other.
- In "The One With The Hypnosis Tape" (S3E18), she stains her tablecloth with mustard (although she does this as bait for Alice to talk her out of marrying her little brother Frank Jr.).
- In "The One With All The Candy" (S7E9), she keeps falling off the bike she receives as a gift from Ross (until she has Stabilizers attached to her bike at the end of the episode).
- In "The One Where Chandler Takes A Bath" (S8E13), Phoebe returns Monica's iron only to reveal that she had broken it.
- In "The One With The Lottery" (S9E18), she drops the bowl that holds all the lottery tickets on the street.
Goofs
- When the director is reading the paper about the play, Ross moves place without time to do so.
- When Tommy is screaming at the chick, he's holding paper he used to clean his hands. He puts the paper down, but when the camera angle changes it's in his hand again
- When Gunther brings Chandler the cup of coffee from the woman at the bar, Chandler takes it with his right hand. In the next shot, he is holding it with his left hand, which was on the couch's arm. More ahead, when he's going to drink, he's not holding it by its handle, but when he drinks, he is. Also, in this sequence, the way Monica is holding her cup changes between shots too.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| Preceded by "The One With A Chick And A Duck" |
Series Three Episodes | Followed by "The One With Ross' Thing" |
| << Season 2 | Season 3 | Season 4 >> | |||||||
| #01 | "The One With The Princess Leia Fantasy" | #10 | "The One Where Rachel Quits" | #19 | "The One With The Tiny T-Shirt" | ||||
| #02 | "The One Where No One's Ready" | #11 | "The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister" | #20 | "The One With The Dollhouse" | ||||
| #03 | "The One With The Jam" | #12 | "The One With All The Jealousy" | #21 | "The One With A Chick And A Duck" | ||||
| #04 | "The One With The Metaphorical Tunnel" | #13 | "The One Where Monica And Richard Are Friends" | #22 | "The One With The Screamer" | ||||
| #05 | "The One With Frank Jr." | #14 | "The One With Phoebe's Ex-Partner" | #23 | "The One With Ross' Thing" | ||||
| #06 | "The One With The Flashback" | #15 | "The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break" | #24 | "The One With The Ultimate Fighting Champion" | ||||
| #07 | "The One With The Race Car Bed" | #16 | "The One With The Morning After" | #25 | "The One At The Beach" | ||||
| #08 | "The One With The Giant Poking Device" | #17 | "The One Without The Ski Trip" | ||||||
| #09 | "The One With The Football" | #18 | "The One With The Hypnosis Tape" | ||||||