S10E08 - The one with the late thanksgiving : A FRIENDS fan analysis

So as usual, I get back to my room, sit down with a plate of food and open a FRIENDS episode to watch. Today I am watching The one with the late thanksgiving. The episode starts with Chandler telling the rest of the group that he and Monica wont be hosting thanksgiving that year but Phoebe manages in manipulating Monica to change her mind. So Monica and, to a little extent, Chandler cook the dinner while Rachel and Phoebe go to Baby Beauty Pageant entering Emma and Ross and Joey go to watch the rangers game. All of them are late for the dinner which angers the husband wife couple. The rest of the episode is how they try to get in. The episode ends with Monica announcing to everyone that they will finally be getting a baby to adopt.

Even when I watched this episode for the first time, I knew it was going to be one of my least favorite thanksgiving episode (lets agree the thanksgiving episodes in all seasons are simply one of the bests. Put the six friends together for the entire episode and more often than not you get outrageous hilarity!) Sure this episode too has some funny moments - when Ross gets mugged and his pocket is stolen (HEY!) or when Chandler decides to make 'chanberries' or when we get the new version of rock, paper, scissor or Monica's stinky Brussels sprouts (please let me stay on this side of the door!) or when Chandler leaves his tools in the bulldozer and Monica's are lost in the park or the floating heads.

But this episode still wont feature in my top 20 or even 50 maybe. Here's why.

So we have watched 9 seasons of the show, going on 10; isn't it little late to add new traits to the characters suddenly which were never mentioned before or after? (The writers do this a lot - when Chandler suddenly can't cry or doesn't like dogs or Ross doesn't like ice cream or Joey doesn't know what hand quotes mean.) We are introduced to two new traits - (i) Monica's vein which apparently is visible when she is very angry although it didn't happen in 9 years and all of a sudden everyone is talking about it like an everyday occurrence. (ii) Joey's big round eyes for a convincing apology (although the fact that only Chandler knew about it makes it a little more realistic but still). It is as if the writers had to extend the show but they didn't have appropriate content and kept adding random traits.

Another thing that bothered me is by now we all know the six friends pretty well and if someone does something out of character it stands out. Phoebe entering Emma in beauty pageant and Rachel opposing it? Phoebe is not the one who would scoff at the idea that all babies are beautiful. That should actually have been Phoebe's line in the first place! She is the one with all sorts of beliefs and principles and ideas about how the world should be. So what happens here? Has she completely discarded all her beliefs (she does that little by little in many episodes) so much so that now she is a completely different person? Or did the writers make a mistake and just couldn't fathom another way? I simply didn't like the fact that they would show such a thing as a baby beauty pageant, putting make up on them and both the parents, while initially opposing the idea, cave in upon hearing about the prize money. (Or was it a ploy to tell the viewers as the show was wrapping up that Ross and Rachel were ready to be together again?)

Oh, by the way, what is it with Phoebe first convincing Monica to host thanksgiving dinner and then wishing 'happy needless turkey murder day'?

Also (yeah, I said it is one of my least favorite thanksgiving episode), I hate how Monica is shown to be treating Chandler here. (What is it with everyone saying Monica deserved someone better than Chandler? Hell, Monica insults him when she doesn't get her way, hardly ever listens to him and even mocks him when he tries to do things for their relationships after having read or seen them somewhere else. In my opinion, Chandler deserved more love and support and not someone who treats him only like an adult child in need of strict disciplining.) In the beginning, Monica, not wanting to tell her friends that she doesn't wish to cook dinner herself (she has an incessant need to please others), gets Chandler to do it. Then when Phoebe talks her into it, she tells Chandler to keep out of her decisions. Wow! When Chandler cooks the cranberry sauce and keeps worrying about it, she rudely tells him that a monkey could have made them. In that scene I wished he too had gone to the rangers game leaving her alone! (He is so sweet most of the times, telling the guys that they should consider Monica's feelings and efforts in cooking the dinner. Wish she would return the gesture once in a while instead of undermining him always.)

And who throws such a tantrum when your friends are an hour or 45 minutes late?

Still, this episode is better than some of the others that come to mind, especially in the last season. (Come to think of it, this must be the season that I have watched the least number of times. Season 5 would easily be the one I watched most.) I love how Rachel looks in this episode and also Monica and Chandler finally get the news of their baby. Not the best, but good enough.

Mistakes in the episode:

1. When Monica asks for the pies and Phoebe instead says she thought prize and brings out the trophy from behind the door to give it to her, there is no way that she was standing there suddenly holding it. Just a few scenes back Ross had put the trophy way back in the hall, somewhere nearer the stairs.

2. A few scenes later you can again see the trophy in the hall. Its not completely clear and is blocked a lot by Rachel's legs, but there were only three things there that Ross had put down before: the trophy, the note from Monica and the tin foil which had the slice of turkey. The one that we see after Phoebe had already given the trophy to Monica can't be anything else.

3. Phoebe tells Ross at one point that she had already stuffed Joey's pants with sprouts and Ross says nice. They are all standing together there, wouldn't he have seen Phoebe in the act?


Does any of the other FRIENDS fan have anything to say about this episode? Please share in the comments section.