Best of Friends Season 5

The One With The Triplets: The gang arrives at the hospital for Phoebe’s labor. Joey makes a video documentary of the occasion, until he is beset with pain; what is thought to be sympathy pains turns out to be kidney stones. Phoebe’s doctor is obsessed with Fonzie, but Ross’s attempts to find a more satisfactory doctor only yield a very young looking resident whom Phoebe won’t accept. Rachel tries to set Monica and herself up with two male nurses, which causes problems between Monica and Chandler. Joey can make everything (even grandma’s chicken salad) sound dirty. Phoebe wants to keep one of the babies and manipulates Rachel into asking for her. Instead of two boys and a girl, Phoebe has two girls and a boy. Joey passes three kidney stones.

The One With The Kips: Chandler and Monica, tired of sneaking around, each make up an excuse to leave town and then go away for a weekend together. They end up fighting the whole time and Chandler’s afraid it may be over. Ross struggles to reveal his agreement with Emily not to see Rachel anymore. Rachel doesn’t take it very well; she doesn’t want to give up Ross, nor get left out of the group like Chandler’s old roommate, Kip. Joey finds some similarities in Chandler’s and Monica’s stories about the weekend, and figures out the truth; Monica and Chandler swear him to secrecy.

The One With All The Thanksgivings: After Thanksgiving dinner at Monica’s, the gang tells stories about their worst Thanksgivings ever. In a series of flashbacks, we see Chandler learning of his parent’s divorce (1978); Phoebe losing an arm (twice) in past lives (1862 and’15); Joey with his head in a turkey (1992); Chandler hurting Monica’s feelings (1987); and Monica getting a little more revenge than she planned, when Chandler loses a toe (1988).

The One With Chandler’s Work Laugh: Rachel tries to learn more about Chandler and Monica’s relationship; when Rachel confronts her, Monica makes up some pretty lame lies to cover it up. Ross finds out Emily is engaged to be married again; he goes out on the town and somehow hooks up with Janice. Their relationship starts out great, but soon Janice can’t stand Ross’s constant whining and she breaks it off. Chandler takes Monica to a work party, as well as some outings with Chandler’s boss and his wife; Monica learns that ‘Work Chandler’ is a suck-up with an exaggerated laugh. Phoebe and Joey race birds.

The One With Joey’s Bag: Chandler finds out Monica gives terrible massages but doesn’t want to tell her. When the truth comes out, Monica has a hard time accepting it. Joey is auditioning for a sophisticated part in a play, so Rachel offers to help him look the part. She outfits him at Bloomingdales, and part of the ensemble is a “man’s bag,” which bears a striking resemblence to a purse. Unfortunately, Joey’s devotion to the bag ends up costing him the audition. Phoebe’s grandmother dies; Ursula, who thought grandma was already dead, skips the memorial. The memorial does have one unexpected guest, however–Phoebe’s father. Without revealing her true identify, she arranges to meet with him later, at which time she reveals the truth… but things are still a little awkward.

The One Where Rachel Smokes: Ben auditions for a soup commercial and Joey comes along to try for a part as well. Things are going great until Joey gets paired with another child and it gets competitive. Joey has a little trouble with his line, however. Rachel starts her new job at Ralph Lauren; she soon feels left out because all the decisions get made on smoking breaks, and she doesn’t smoke. She tries to solve the problem by taking up the habit; it doesn’t work out too well, so she convinces her co-workers to quit… but that lasts about a day. Phoebe and Monica plan a surprise birthday party for Rachel. Monica, in her usual fashion, takes over completely, leaving Phoebe in charge of only cups and ice. Phoebe decides to make the most of it; she makes everything imaginable out of cups, and serves every kind of ice.

The One With The Ball: Gary decides to ask Phoebe to live with him. She doesn’t think it’s a good idea, which makes him sad, so she ends up agreeing. After some changes of heart (back and forth) they finally move in together… until one morning Gary shoots a bird that’s chirping outside the window. Phoebe breaks up with him. Ross and Joey throw a ball back and forth without dropping it for a couple hours; soon it becomes a contest, joined by Monica and Chandler. Around the tenth hour, they invite Phoebe to join; unfortunately, she doesn’t feel like playing. Rachel spends a thousand dollars on a pure-bred, hairless Sphinx cat, like the one her grandmother had when Rachel was a kid. Unfortunately, this cat is not very nice, and a scratched-up Rachel ends up selling the cat to Gunther.

The One In Vegas, Part 2: Ross and Rachel arrive at the casino, where Rachel quickly learns she is “a human doodle”. The ink won’t come off, so she and Ross spend the day hiding in the hotel room, raiding the mini-bar. Once they’re completely drunk, Rachel finally agrees to go back down to the casino–after she draws on Ross’ face. Phoebe, playing the slots, is plagued by a lurker: An elderly woman who follows her around, waiting for her to give up a machine that hasn’t paid out, then takes over and hits the jackpot (a strategy with absolutely no basis in the laws of probability). She decides to out-lurk the lurker; but during a confrontation with her, Phoebe gets thrown out of the casino. Joey tries to persuade his identical hand twin that they should go into show business. He becomes such a nuisance that he gets thrown out, too. Chandler makes a scene to get Monica’s attention. They make up, and Monica continues her winning streak playing craps. Chandler says if she rolls another hard eight, they’ll get married. The dice bounce off the table and the roll is disqualified; one die shows a four, the other is on it’s edge between four and five. Chander decides it’s a four. They arrive at the wedding chapel and are waiting for the previous service to end, when the chapel doors fly open and out walk the drunken Ross and Rachel, newly married.

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