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"The One With Two Parts" (like the title suggests) is a two-part episode of Friends; the first of the series. Both parts aired on February 23, 1995.

Plot[]

At the hospital, Rachel asks Monica to swap names with her so that she can use Monica's health insurance. Monica feels bad about this at first, and even worse when Rachel asks the cute doctors who see her ankle Dr. Michael Mitchell and Dr. Jeffrey Rosen (guest starring George Clooney and Noah Wyle respectively) on a double-date. The date goes horribly wrong, as Monica pushes Rachel over the edge with her bickering about the insurance fraud committed, which makes Rachel go on and talk about Monica's flaws with unembarrassed ease. Monica answers a call by Rachel's father on Rachel's behalf, and tells him that she had sex with Billy Dreskin on her father's bed. When Rachel gets a call from the hospital about forgetting to sign one of the admissions forms, they go to the hospital and she pays for the X-rays with a check.

Joey keeps going out with Ursula, and starts to give her more attention, neglecting Phoebe more and more to the point where he doesn't even show up at her birthday party. Phoebe feels terrible about this. However, some time later, Ursula starts to distance herself away from Joey, Although she tries not to care at first, Phoebe cares too much about Joey to let him suffer, and talks to Ursula about him. Ursula, however, points out that it's over between her and Joey, and gives her the dress which Joey gave her as a birthday present. Phoebe wears the dress and meets Joey at the coffee house, who mistakes her for Ursula. Phoebe impersonates Ursula and "breaks up" with Joey, who gives her one last kiss. The kiss reveals Phoebe to Joey, who appreciates the extent to which Phoebe went through to keep him as a good friend.

Ross keeps discussing his fears of being a terrible father with Joey and Chandler, including a dream he had where he used his son as a football. He talks with his father over lunch about his fears, which Jack talks him out of by recounting the first moment he had with him as a baby after birth, when he grabbed his finger with his tiny hand. Ross and Chandler are still pursuing the subject during a game of Scrabble, but are interrupted by a gagging Marcel, who has been swallowing Scrabble tiles. Ross escorts his monkey to the hospital, where Rachel's and Monica's date doctors take a look at him and extract the Scrabble tiles out of him. Marcel regains consciousness, and grabs Ross' finger with his whole hand, and Ross comes to appreciate the bond he and his son will come to have.

The episode ends with a Friends scene in SAP mode, in which the friends are over-dubbed in Spanish, just like Monica's TV during this and the previous episode.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

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

Supporting Cast[]

Elliott Gould - Jack Geller
Alaina Reed Hall - Admissions Woman
George Clooney - Dr. Michael Mitchell
Noah Wyle - Dr. Jeffrey Rosen
Baillie Gerstein - Customer (scenes deleted)

Crew[]

Directed By:
Michael Lembeck

Written By:
David Crane & Marta Kauffman

Trivia[]

  • The ending translates as:
    Ross: Here you go.
    Monica: Who ordered General Tso's chicken?
    Chandler: It could've been General Tso!
    Rachel: Look, look, Ugly Naked Guy is doing the hula-hoop!
    All: Hi, Joey!
    Joey: Hi, friends!
    Monica: Look, Ross, Marcel took the remote control.
    Ross: The funny thing is, he doesn't even like TV!
  • Six years after this episode, George Clooney would star in Ocean's Eleven (2001), Twelve (2004) and Thirteen (2007) with a number of Friends stars: Elliott Gould who plays Jack Geller in all seasons, Julia Roberts who plays Susie Moss in "The One After The Superbowl", Bruce Willis who plays Paul Stevens in season 6, and Brad Pitt who plays Will Colbert in "The One With The Rumor".
    • He also starred alongside Julia Roberts in Money Monster (2016) and Ticket to Paradise (2022).
  • Ross has a nightmare about using his baby as a football. At the end of the Lamaze class in the previous episode, he held a doll baby like a football and jokingly told Susan to "go deep" which is an American football term.
  • In the uncut DVD version of the episode, as Rachel is on the phone with her father, Monica shouts "Rach, are these your condoms?" Rachel then says to her father "No, that was Monica. She's drunk again."
  • Rachel is wearing the same dressing gown she wore in "The One With The Dozen Lasagnas".
  • Monica asks whom Rachel wants as an emergency contact and she chooses Monica. In "The One Where Emma Cries" (S9E2), Ross selects Rachel as his emergency contact.
  • Rachel admits she doesn't have health insurance. When her dad has brunch with her and Ross in "The One With The Race Car Bed" (S3E7), it's disclosed that she doesn't have renters insurance either.
  • In this episode, Monica pretends to be Rachel and vice versa in order to avoid the medical bill. When initial auditions were held, the casting directors envisioned Courteney playing Rachel, but she said she saw herself as more like Monica.
  • Despite being the central figure in one of the storylines of this two-part episode, Ursula only has three minor scenes in the whole story. In the first part, she appears briefly at the beginning and at the end of the episode; and in the second part, she has a short conversation with Phoebe towards the end. Her total time on screen barely reaches 2 minutes.
  • Marcel swallowing a Scrabble tile could be a reference to the book Curious George Goes to the Hospital where George swallows a puzzle piece and has to go to the hospital to have it surgically removed.
  • When Ursula gives Phoebe her "present" (Joey's present to Ursula), the name on the box is Bloomingdale's, where Rachel starts work in season 3.
  • In "The One With The Cake", Ross was able to recreate Emma's cake to look like a bunny. However, in this episode, he was unable to recreate Phoebe's cake. In his defense, he had way less time to craft anything.
  • Ross talks to his father about when he first felt like a father. Ross will have a similar conversation with Rachel when she's pregnant with their own child in "The One With Rachel's Date".
  • The "previously on Friends" voice-over was by Courteney Cox.
  • The song which plays when Marcel wakes up is New York Minute (Everything Can Change) by Don Henley.
  • Rachel wears the same clothes during most of the double episode that she wears in "The One Where Joey Moves Out".
  • Rachel mentions Billy Dreskin in a later episode to Ross when she lists who she's slept with.
  • This is the first of three birthday parties for Phoebe we see. The other's are in "The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner" and in a flashback in "The One Where They All Turn Thirty".
  • Rachel tells Monica "each day you get more like your mom". In "The One With The Butt" Ross told Monica "you are mom".
  • This episode was used as "D is for Doctor" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).
  • This episode was used as "P is for Poker" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023). (This was most likely a mistake as perhaps "The One With All The Poker" was meant to be shown.)

Goofs[]

  • In the DVD version of the episode, during the transition before the scene where Phoebe talks to Ursula about Joey, the superimposed "Riff's" sign remains in the forefront when a passerby walks in front of the camera. Also this sign was missing from the first shot of Riff's in part one.
  • While Monica and Rachel are discussing insurance, the woman in a red skirt suddenly changes position behind Rachel halfway through the conversation.
  • In the same scene, when Rachel stands up and begins to hobble away a doctor is seen approaching the reception desk. Monica grabs hold of Rachel and brings back towards their seats and the same Doctor is walking towards the desk again. Also the woman is back in the same position she was at the start of Monica and Rachel's conversation.
  • No hospital would admit a monkey let alone Marcel, Ross would have had to take Marcel to the vet instead.
  • In the scene where Ross and Chandler are in Monica's apartment playing scrabble and Chandler is talking about Ross being a father, initially there is no band aid on his left hand like there was in previous scenes. Then later in the scene the band aid appears. This band aid is from the stapler wound Nina Bookbinder inflicted on him in the previous episode.
  • In this episode, Joey states that Ursula does not drink, but in "The One With The Halloween Party", Ursula herself states that she wants to go get very drunk to Phoebe and Eric. That episode also establishes that Ursula lies all the time about basic facts about herself, so she might have deliberately lied to Joey when she told him she didn't drink.
  • While Rachel (as Monica) is talking to the doctors in the apartment, the camera light can be seen reflected in the TV.
  • In the coffeehouse scene, Chandler and Joey have newspapers in their hands while Ross says "no with him" (his baby) but in the next shot the newspapers are on the table and Chandler and Joey have their hands together. However the uncut episode shows Joey and Chandler throwing the papers onto the table.
  • When Monica and Rachel first visit the hospital, Monica tells the receptionist that she needs new forms as she put the wrong details in. However there is an eraser on the end of the pencil she's using so all Monica need do is erase the wrong details.
  • During Phoebe's conversation with her sister in Riffs, the position of the flask changes during the scene when Ursula stands up to get Phoebe's "present". (Watch the image on the flask).
  • In "The One With Frank Jr.", Phoebe says that her birthday is on February 16th. Despite it being Phoebe's birthday, this episode could not have taken place on February 16th because it was Valentine's Day three episodes ago ("The One With The Candy Hearts"), and much more time than two days have passed since then.

Quotes[]

Rachel: Aren't you a little cute to be a doctor?
Dr. Rosen: Excuse me?
Rachel: Young! Young. I meant young to be a doctor. Good, Rach.
Monica [pretending to be Rachel]: Thank you!
Monica [pretending to be Rachel]: I was supposed to get married, but I left the guy at the altar.
Dr. Mitchell: Really?
Monica: Yeah. I know it's kind of selfish, but heym that's me.
Rachel [pretending to be Monica]: Have I mentioned that, back in high school, I was a cow.
Monica [pretending to be Rachel]: I used to wet the bed.
Rachel: I use my breasts to get other people's attention.
Monica: We both do that!
Chandler: Okay, worst case scenario: Say you never feel like a father.
Ross: Uh-huh.
Chandler: Say your son never feels connected to you as one. Say all of his relationships are affected by this.
Ross: Do you have a point?
Chandler: You know, you'd think I would.

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 Two Parts, Part 1"
"The One With Two Parts, Part 2" Followed by
"The One With All The Poker"
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