Season 1, Episode 1:"The Pilot" or "The One Where Monica Gets a New Roommate"

So, here we are. At the beginning of one of television's greatest sitcoms of all time. Let's get started, shall we?


INTRO: Full credits. No cuts to scenes from episodes during the cast credits. Probably the only time we'll have the intro focus entirely on their shenanigans at the fountain.

The episode opens with 4 of the 6 friends (Joey, Phoebe, Chandler, and Monica) hanging out at the coffee shop, Central Perk, sitting around that dumpy orange couch shooting the breeze (I'm guessing). They're all ragging on Monica because, apparently, there needs to be something wrong with some guy from her work in order for her to go out with him. She's all like, "Can't a bitch just go hangout with some dude, eat, and not have sex?" Then Chandler's like, "Oh, well, no banging? That sounds like a date." And we all laugh because I guess it's true.

It then cuts to who knows how much later in the day and Chandler is talking about some dream he had about being naked and having no dick. In place of that peen is a phone, which then proceeds to ring and it's his mom calling. According to him, the entire dream is weird, not because there's a phone where his dick should be, but because his mother never calls. Okay, whatever you say, dude. I kinda wish Chandler would've said what his phone dick looked like because I'm curious. Was it a cordless phone? One of those phones that had the handset attached via cord to the base? Or one of those cellphones disguised as bricks? These are the questions I need answered.

Even more later that same morning/day, they're still at the coffee house and we are introduced to Ross, who's standing behind that dumpy orange couch, looking and sounding pretty bummed. His wife, Carol, just moved all her shit out of their place. Monica tell him to sit his ass down while she gets him some coffee -- hopefully with some booze in it -- and we are introduced to Phoebe's eccentricity. She starts plucking the air around Ross, and he tells her to leave his shit alone because he doesn't want his aura cleansed. Ross is quick to change his attitude from wanting his ex-wife to be happy to condemning her to hell because she's the only who left him. A little bit rude, but you can't hate on the woman because she finally decided to embrace her life and be openly gay. At least be glad she cut you off sooner rather than later. Joey's like, "Dude, why didn't you know all them years?" and Ross has no idea, because he's Ross. Joey gets the bright idea that Ross needs to go to a "strip joint" to get his groove back. Ross, said he doesn't need no groove back, he just wants to be married again. And that's when...

Some bitch (her name's Rachel, by the way) in a wedding dress busts through the door who, it turns out, is looking for Monica. Says she went up to her building to look for her, wasn't there and BAM found her in the coffee house. This is when we FINALLY hear everyone's names and somewhat their connections to each other because Monica is introducing them all to Rachel. Ross and Monica are siblings, Monica and Rachel went to high school together, and the other three just showed up randomly. I hope they show us how the other five met each other, maybe some other episode. After introductions, they ask Rachel "WTF, Mate?" because she's there in her wedding dress. She starts talking about being in the waiting room at her wedding venue, and how after holding a gravy boat, she realized that her husband-to-be, Barry, looked like Mr. Potato Head. She got scared and ran off, but having nowhere to go, remembered her friend Monica lived in the city and tried her luck there. Of course, in typical-although-we-don't-know-it-yet Monica fashion, Monica points out that her she wasn't invited to the wedding even though they're "friends". Rachel was like, "Damn, I was hoping you were gonna let that slide."

Later, they are now all at Monica's apartment, watching a Spanish soap opera trying their best to figure out what's going on and Rachel is on the phone to her dad about why she walked out on her wedding. I would like to take a moment so we can all feast our eyes on the bridal fashion of 1994.

THAT DRESS! THAT TIARA/VEIL! (That phone too!)

Rachel is talking about how she doesn't love Barry and then proceeds to give a shitty metaphor about shoes and fashion accessories which her dad doesn't get. I mean, if someone tells me they've felt like a shoe their whole life and now they maybe want to be a purse or a hat, I don't think I'd get it either. Even Ross was like, "Yeah, that shit don't make sense." She's now invited herself to stay with Monica after I'm assuming her dad says you can't come home and I'm gonna cut your ass off financially. Monica was like, "I don't know how I feel about that" but she went with it.

I'm just going to throw it out there right now, these people can get quite a lot done in one day. First they were down there at the coffee house for who knows how long, then they went up stairs and watched some TV, now, it's still daylight and they all making sammiches and snacksfor snacks. Phoebe tries to sing her a butchered version of "My Favorite Things," because she's Phoebe, to help console a hyperventilating Rachel. Rachel wasn't trying to have any of it, so she told her she was better, and falsely made her think she helped. Rude. Joey then hits on her, because he's Joey, and Monica tells him, "Not cool, bro." Someone buzzes up the at the apartment to be let in. Who can it now? We find out that Monica's date from earlier in the episode is Paul "The Wine Guy." Everybody get's all excited and shit, either because they know him or because she'd low-key been pining after him for a while, and now they're going out. He walks in the door, is introduced him, and we are given a typical (or it will be) Chandler joke. Everybody's like "Hi, Paul!" and he's like:

"I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name. Paul, was it?"

Anyways, Monica leaves to get ready and Phoebe continues on her weird ways saying that it can't be good that she pulled our four eyelashes. Why is she even pulling those eyelashes out!? Was she trying to pull them out to begin with? Is three the correct number of eyelashes you're allowed to pull out to be considered good? More questions, and no answers. Ross asks Rachel what she's up to that night and she says how since she isn't going on her honeymoon to Aruba anymore, she's just chilling. Ross makes an awkward comment about lizards because, of course, and then tries to invite her to help him put furniture together at this new apartment. Joey and Chandler are going to help too and they're sarcastically excited about helping out, but she says no, because she just wants to lay low. Phoebe is also invited and, being the smart one, says she totally wishes she could, but she just doesn't want to.

We are cut to Phoebe at a subway station singing one of her weird songs. This one is about some pigeon taking a shit which is supposed to be a metaphor for some dude who's breaking her heart.

Just a random scene, thrown in here with no explanation and for no reason.

That night, Joey, Chandler and Ross are putting furniture together, don't even know what they're doing and Ross proceeds to get bummed again about his divorce because he pulled out a can of his ex-wife's favorite beer. C'mon guy, get it together! The guys ask him what he got out of the divorce since Carol got everything, and he's all like "I got you guys," and they're like, "Naw, man. You got jack." Monica is now on her date with Paul "The Wine Guy," and he's talking about how he recently went through a divorce too! Since Ross is a mess, Monica is trying to get some advice. He says he broke some of her shit and her watch -- OH NO! NOT HER WATCH -- to let his anger out and Monica says she said she shredded some old boyfriends favorite towel. Watch out, we got a badass over her. We cut to Rachel who's leaving message after message on Barry's answering machine to explain why she left. She says it was probably because he was doing her with his socks on and she realized she wasn't down with all of that. Back to the guys now...

The guys want Ross to STFU about his divorce because they've never had a real relationship in a minute, while Ross had the real deal for a while. While Ross is going on about how there's probably only one woman out there for everybody we get another shitty metaphor from Joey. He relates woman to ice cream and how there's all kinds of flavors out there, he just has to try them all out. Paul and Monica's date is now getting deep and he gets all serious. He reels her in by saying that there's something he would tell her but it's a 5th date type of deal. These days, you know people be offering you their credit score right on the first date, so I could see why people were more secretive back in the day. Monica says, "Dude, there's totally gonna be a fifth date," and he tells her that he hasn't been able to get it up since his ex-wife left him TWO YEARS AGO.

Yes, girl. WHAT!? TWO YEARS!?

I'm sure her earlier declaration about not banging is going out the window. Rachel is watching Happy Days, where Joanie and Chachi are getting married. Ross is talking about how he hasn't been in the game in so long he doesn't know what to do or who'd he ask out. Baby montage of Rachel staring out the window looking pensive. Foreshadowing, maybe?

It's finally the next day and Rachel is super excited that she made everyone coffee because she's never done that before. I find that hard to believe. I don't care how rich your ass is, I'm sure at one point or another you've made your own damn coffee. Turns out her coffee is pretty nasty but, hey, at least she tried. AMIRITE? Monica shamefully comes out of the room followed by Paul. Yes, they banged. Paul then thanks her, talking about how it was all the great holidays in one, leaving Monica starry-eyed. Chandler announces he has to leave for work, which Rachel has apparently never heard of. They all say "Yes, bitch, we have jobs. How would we pay for shit otherwise?" Talk shifts to Joey's acting career and how he was in a play in the park about Pinocchio. Rachel concludes she's going to go out and get herself a job. At work, Monica is obviously that she got banged. Her co-worker is all like "Who? What? Where? When?" and Monica was like, "Yeah, it was Paul." Turns out this bitch also got her freak on with Paul because he hadn't gotten any in two years. SAY WHAT!? I sense an imbalance in the force.

Monica is outraged that Paul fed her a line and everyone says, "You should have known better, girl."

Rachel now shows up at the coffee house looking happy as hell.Everyone thinks she got a job but she's like, "Hell no! I can't do shit! I gots my shopping on, though. Check out these fine boots!" Nobody was a fan that she used credit cards that are paid by her parents since she's trying to be independent and all and probably because they're jealous they ain't got money like that. In order to make sure Rachel sticks to her guns and goes independent,  they make her cut up all her credit cards. Hopefully they let her keep those boots. They were totally 1994-chic.

I'd be sad too, girl, cutting up cards that I didn't have to pay for.

"Welcome to the Real World. It sucks" No truer words have ever been spoken.

It's now late at night and Monica, Ross and Rachel are watching TV. Rachel found Paul's watch on the floor by Monica's room and Monica tells her to put it back down where it came from. Monica leaves for bed and smashes that watch on the floor, because Paul totally had that coming.  Ross and Rachel are left to talk and her tells her that he used to have a crush on her back in the day, and she's like "Oh, yeah. I totally knew that." Ross then asks her if  he could maybe ask her out sometime and she's like, "Yeah, sure. Why not?" The episode ends with them back in the coffee shop talking about random shit again. Rachel is now working at the coffee house, probably still making bad coffee and Chandler talking about another one of his weird dreams again, only this time he's Liza Minelli. Wish it would've been another dream about his dick phone. THE END.

In summary, this isn't that great of a pilot episode. It doesn't really reel me in like where I want to know more about these people. Let's also not forget that this show wasn't really a "hit" until it's second season. I'll see you all next week for Episode 2!

F·R·I·E·N·D·S Recaps Coming Soon.

A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to watch the entire "Friends" series from beginning to end. Back in the day when it was originally in, I didn't get into the game until it went into syndication — this was about the time that Ross was saying Rachel instead of Emily. I'd pretty much seen all the episodes at least two to three times, but that doesn't mean that I didn't forget the existence of an episode and have it be hilarious all over again, not to say that all the episodes aren't still either funny or sad still. One thing that should be mentioned is that my husband loves the show and had all the seasons, which is why I thought I'd give it a go. Also, 25 minute episodes isn't too much of a time commitment, I could at least get one watched everyday OR maybe 6-8 episodes on a day off.

I eventually popped in that first DVD of the first season and let the laughter begin. Imagine my surprise when I get towards the second half of the second season and the disc starts to skip right around the time Ross and Rachel are finally getting together, let alone finding that the disc with the last episodes of that season is missing! I missed all of Monica and Richard!! (This is new because of the titles of the episodes on the case within the case of the second season. Same thing happened in season 4: Disc 4 was missing but there were two copies of Disc 3 -- LIKE WHY!? Season 5 and 6 which are the definitely the best IMO was smooth sailing, then season 7, the disc with the first episodes is gone. Season 8 and 9 were okay, couple of episodes were skipping here and there. Lots of skipping in season 10 and then the last 3 episodes weren't even there, because why you might ask? Oh, that's right, the disc was missing! I think it's safe to say that my husband isn't be best keeper of DVDs -- I mean I shouldn't have been surprised considering how well he takes care of his CD's 0____0

So, I'm sure you can see that I have no closure with the show and feel like I missed some great stuff because I had to skip entire discs because they were either missing or too scratched to play some or all of the episodes they contained. I'm sure you could also guess how excited I was to learn last year that Netflix was going to start streaming THE WHOLE SERIES. I was like "YES! I CAN NOW WATCH THE MISSING EPISODES!" Now that it's April, I've seen some of them, but it's not the same, so I think I'm going to give it a go and try to go through the whole thing again. Along with watching it again, I think I'll do some sort of recap of them as well. I remember during my first go through, I'd be watching an episode and would have commentary but no one to say it to. It ranged from observations of what had changed in the sets episode to episode, a character being crazy and stupid, and well, whether they were all pivoting that couch correctly. I plan on doing the same thing I tried doing a few years ago. I'll  use my husband's DVD's yo watch the episodes I can and then switch to Netflix to fill in the blank spaces -- or more like to make up for the fucked up DVDs. I'm going to try and mainly stick to the DVD's because some of the episodes I've seen on Netflix are edited and missing some of the jokes which I read is because Netflix has the episodes as they "originially aired" backed in the day. I mean, who cares? I want all the laughs. I know I've seen those full episodes during re-runs, so I'm used to them. I will be sure to let you know when I watch a Netflix episode in case anyone is following along with me.

I'm excited that I'll be able to do that. Maybe I can try and solve the mystery as to whether Ross and Rachel were really on a break -- not that you couldn't probably find countless debates about that online already but I'll throw my two cents in anyways.