The One Where Rachel Smokes

Episode 5.18
The One Where Rachel Smokes
Written by Michael Curtis

Spoiler thanks to Lauran, who went to the filming. They filmed the scenes out of sequence, and I tried to remember the scenes the best I could in the order they were filmed. The reason they were filmed out of order is because there were children in it that they had to get home as soon as the could--we got to see little Ben (Jack and Charlie Allen), and another little boy, Matt something (his last name escapes me), who everyone referred to as "Little Matty". Matt Le Blanc was just Matty. :) Anyway, the following spoiler is long and will be out of sequence from the way the ebizome will actually air, but I did the best I could: Scene 1: Joey, Phoebe, Monica and Chandler are in Central Perk. Joey does a nonsensical Joey-type card trick. Carol and Ross bring in Ben. They've just come from the park. Apparently, Ben was spotted by a talent scout, who told Carol and Ross to bring him in for a soup commercial audition. When Joey hears this, he is indignant, and complains that nothing like that has ever happened to him, and says something like this: "He goes for one lousy walk in the park?!...I mean, way to go, Ben!" Ross says they were just pushing him in a swing when the talent scout walked over, and Joey says, "I'm ALWAYS on the swings!!" Then Joey wonders aloud what he's doing wrong, to which Chandler replies, "That." And then they did another take where Chandler says, "Everything." The "everything" take was funnier, but I don't know which one they'll use. Scene 2: Monica and Rachel's apartment. Monica, Chandler, Phoebe are sitting at the kitchen table. Ross is in the bathroom. Rachel is also in the kitchen, headed for her first day at her new job working for Ralph Lauren. As she's getting ready to leave, Chandler asks her if she could grab some Polo for him. She says she wouldn't feel comfortable stealing from work on her first day, and Chandler says, "Unwilling to steal from work...interesting," as if he's really thinking it over. Rachel leaves and Phoebe says that Rachel's birthday is coming up, and she thinks they should give her a surprise party that weekend, and she has all week to plan it because (her new cop boyfriend) Gary is working late every night. Monica says she wants to help her plan it, and Phoebe says, "Okay! You can do it with me!" Joey does one of his classic Joey giggles and says something like, "Yeah, you can do it with her." Chandler then says, "Dude--that's my girlfriend." Joey says, "What, so *I've* gotta give it up now?" [Just a quick side note--Matt Perry's mom was in the audience, as were (from what I could tell) his youngest sisters and brother. At one point during this scene, Courteney sneezed and Matthew said, "Bless your ass," then covered his mouth as if he shouldn't have said it. Any red-blooded Chandlerholic would have thought it was adorable.] Anyway, Monica and Phoebe decide to just have a quiet dinner party and only invite their closest friends, so Joey yells out, "Hey Ross! We're having a surprise party for Rachel!" Ross yells back okay, and Joey says, "Done." Ross comes out of the bathroom, and they all start talking about Ben's audition. Monica asks him if he thinks it will be weird seeing some actor guy play Ben's dad, and Chandler says, "Weirder than seeing his two moms make out?" Joey, who didn't know there was a dad in the commercial, says he should go down and audition for the part of Ben's dad since, after all, he *is* Ben's godfather. Ross tells him that he isn't Ben's godfather, which upsets Joey, so Ross tells him he was just kidding, then makes some kind of motion to the others--I couldn't really tell what he did. Ross and Joey leave. Scene 3: This scene seems a little fuzzy to me now, so the order of events may be really screwed up in this one. At Ben's audition--Carol, Ross, Joey, and Ben are in the waiting area. A kid walks by, and Carol comments that he looks familiar. Joey says that the kid has been in all kinds of commercials, including one for a phone company, and the kid was so good in it, he convinced him to switch phone companies. "Chandler was maaaaad." Joey says it would be really cool to play Ben's dad, and Ross says yeah except Joey and Ben look nothing alike. Joey says that he looks more like Ben than Ross does, and winks at Carol. Carol says, "You know, I don't really know you well enough for you to do that." Scene 4: Rachel's boss's office. Rachel's boss was played by Joanna Gleason. The two of them and another employee (an assistant?) are talking. The two women excuse themselves to go outside and smoke. They ask Rachel to join them, but she says she doesn't smoke, and he dad is a doctor who told her all these horror stories about people who--and then she cuts herself off because the women are staring at her. I think there may have been more to this scene, but I don't remember it very clearly. Scene 5: [Side note: This was a long scene, and there were a lot of mistakes! Finally, all of the actors were getting it right, but a camera guy? screwed up, so they had to start over. Matthew jumped out of his seat and took his jacket off like he was going to kick the guy's ass, then he started laughing. :)] It took place in Monica and Rachel's apartment. Chandler, Monica and Rachel in the kitchen. Rachel is telling them about how her coworkers are making important decisions in the smoking area, without involving her. Chandler reminisces about the old smoking area at his work, and about smoking in general. He breathes in heavily as he does this, ends up choking, and says, "Still don't have that lung capacity back." Phoebe comes in and asks Rachel if she wants to go get a cup of coffee. Rachel says yes and Chandler tells Monica, "I'm gonna go, too, babe" and kisses her. ;) Rachel and Chandler walk out, and Phoebe says, "Oh, changed my mind!" and slams the door behind them. She turns to Monica and pulls out a list of ideas for Rachel's surprise party, and Monica says she has a list, too, and pulls out a whole big notebook. Phoebe asks what she gets to do, since Monica has taken charge, and Monica says she can be in charge of cups and ice. Ross and Joey come in and it turns out Ben and Joey both got callbacks. Scene 6: The callback. Carol, Ross, Joey, and Ben in the waiting area. They're through with the second audition, and the adults are pretty nervous. Carol asks Joey a few questions about callbacks, but he doesn't know the answers because it hasn't happened to him that much. Ross says he's sure Ben will get it, but when Carol looks at him disapprovingly, he says, "But it's okay if he doesn't." The casting director comes out and says they've got it down to two kids, Ben and Raymond, and two dads, Joey and other guy. All the other kids and their parents start leaving, Ross sarcastically tells them "Goodbye", and "Awww", and "Better luck next time", and is being a little mean, in that Geller-over-competitive way. Carol, embarrassed, hollers out, "He's my EX husband! I'm not married to him anymore! I'm totally gay!" Joey again says it will be cool if he gets to play Ben's dad, and the casting director says that that won't happen. Because Ben and Joey's looks are so different, they're putting Ben with the other man, and Joey with the other kid. Scene 7: Rachel's work. Rachel is in the smoking area with the other two women. She lights up a cigarette and the others comment that they thought she didn't smoke. She says she thought they meant marijuana cigarettes, and that she does smoke the regular ones all the time. Her boss says, "Oh, we get high," and Rachel says, "Me too." Then her boss says, "I'm kidding," and Rachel says, "Me too." Scene 8: Chandler and Joey's. Chandler and Ross are talking. Chandler asks if Ben gets the commercial, could he get some free soup? Ross tells him that soup costs like 60 cents. Chandler tells Ross he's forgetting that he's been supporting a 29-year-old Italian for 5 years. Phoebe comes in with two humongous bags of cups and asks if she can store them there until Rachel's party. She tells them that Monica will RUE the day she put her in charge of cups and ice. Chandler tells her that he rued the day once and didn't get much else done. Phoebe says she has to go out and get the rest of the cups. As she leaves, Joey comes in and tells Ross that nothing good can come out of his competing with Ben, so he's going to back off and not try for the part anymore. Ross says okay, great, and leaves it at that. Joey then tells Ross that he only said that so that Ross would pull Ben out of the audition, since Joey is the one with a career on the line, and then asks Chandler his opinion. Chandler says, "Sure, just let me get the door first," opens the door, says, "Hello, nobody" and leaves. Joey tells Ross that his kid can eat soup better than Ben, because "He played soccer with the cartoon tiger!" Scene 9: The audition. Joey is watching Ben in the waiting area while Carol is in the rest room. Ross is not there yet. Joey tries to talk Ben out of choosing acting as a profession, but only ends up reminding himself why he likes it so much. Ross comes in and he and Joey are snobby to each other. Joey goes in to do his audition with his kid, Raymond. Joey is flustered because he had been practicing with tomato soup, but the soup they had to use for the audition was chicken noodle. Instead of saying, "Mmm, soup" he kept saying "Mmm, noodle soup," and Raymond, frustrated, barks at him "Come ON!" Scene 10: Central Perk. Chandler and Monica, sitting on the couch, talking, when Rachel comes in. Monica tells her she stinks. Rachel says it's just because she was out in the smoking area for so long, but Chandler tells her there's something different about her, then accuses her of smoking. She denies it, but Chandler says, "Yes you did! You look happy and SICK! You smoked!" So she finally admits she smoked a half of a pack, and it was awful because her fingers are yellow, her tongue is fuzzy, and she feels like she is going to throw up. Chandler tells her to get past all that, because "It's about to get sooo GOOD!" Monica tells Rachel that she can't stand to be around the smell, and she gets up and leaves. Chandler tells Rachel he thinks she smells great, then starts sniffing at her (a little too closely). This was really funny because Matthew was really hamming it up, sniffing her all over. Scene 11: Rachel's work, in the smoking area. Rachel is smoking with the other two women again, and they start talking about how they'd like to quit. Rachel encourages them, and says they should all three quit together--"We can be The Patch Sisters!" She grabs all of their cigarettes and their lighters and throws them in the trash, but it turns out her boss's late husband had given the lighter to her, so Rachel goes digging in the trash for it. Scene 12: Rachel's boss's office. Rachel's boss asks her how she's doing with quitting, and she says it's horrible, and says she can't sleep and has patches all over her body. The other two women leave one at a time with flimsy excuses. Rachel figures out they've gone to smoke, and goes after them. When she catches them in the act, they say they just can't give it up, so Rachel starts to light up, too, but her boss won't let her because she was doing so well quitting, and tells her if she catches her with a cigarette, she'll be fired. They tell her to get out of there, so Rachel starts to leave, and as she does, the two women again start talking about something important, and not including Rachel. Scene 13: [This scene was another one that took a long time because there was so much in it, and it was really late. Everyone was very tired, but still in good spirits. Matt L. and David kept screwing up their lines and making each other giggle, and all three of the guys kept teasing Lisa. They had been doing it all night--poking at her behind her back and scaring her, then running away. At one point, the three of them had her trapped and wouldn't leave her alone. She looked like a pinball, moving around, trying to get away from them. :)] Monica and Rachel's--Rachel's surprise party. There are cups everywhere, as decoration, hats, etc. and two huge tubs of ice (one shaved, one cubed), and a smaller tub of dry ice. Chandler tells Phoebe that she did a great job with the cups and ice. Monica is walking by, hears this, and says to him, "Why don't you just go out with her?" Monica goes into the kitchen, followed by Chandler. She complains that no one is eating her Tuscany finger food. During one take, Courteney mistakenly said finger Tuscany food...when everyone started laughing at her, she said she was sorry, but it was 9 million o'clock (it was actually around 1:30 am), and she was tired. This might not have been so funny at another time, but everyone was so exhausted, and we all felt the same way, so Courteney got a big round of applause from the audience for saying this. :) Anyway, Monica complains about Phoebe's sno cone machine, and Chandler says excitedly, "There's sno cones?!" When Monica glares at him, he says, "Yuck, sno cones, blech." But she tells him to go ahead and go get one, so he does. [They cut after that, and Matthew had gotten his sno cone. It dripped all over his hand, and he started wiping it off on his jeans. The way he was doing it, he looked like a very large 6-year-old. :)] Rachel comes in after that, and they yell Surprise! She says thanks, but her birthday is still a month away, and even Chandler's birthday is closer than hers. So they all look at Chandler guiltily and weakly say "Surprise." Chandler says sarcastically, "Great." Chandler starts digging in Rachel's? purse and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Monica sees him and asks what he's doing. He tries to hide the cigarettes and says he's stealing all the money. But Monica sees the cigarettes. Chandler says he just wanted one. Monica asks him why, and he says because nobody knows when his birthday is. Monica says she'll make it easy for him. She points at the cigarettes and says "Those", then points at herself and says "Or this." So he puts the cigarettes down and hugs her, which was really sweet, but then he says, "They were menthol" and she shoves him away. Ross goes up to Joey and tells him he's sorry about the audition, and Joey is really down on himself. Ross tells him that maybe the reason why he blew the audition is because subconsciously, he cared more about Ben than about getting the part. Of course Joey agrees with that, then asks with sincerity if Ben got the part. Ross says no. Joey says, "Yeah, well, what are ya gonna do?" and walks away. While they were filming this part, Matthew, Lisa, Jennifer and Courteney were standing in the kitchen (off-camera) all huddled together. It was really sweet, and Matthew and Lisa even held hands for awhile (nobody get their panties in a wad here, it was just a friendly type of thing, and really cute--don't ruin it). Final tag scene: Smoking area at Rachel's work. Rachel's boss and the other lady are standing around smoking. Chandler comes in, looking for Rachel, because he's supposed to take her to lunch. They tell him where to find her, turn away from him. Rachel's boss is holding her cigarette up near her shoulder in between puffs, and Chandler sneaks in behind her and takes a drawl. Classic Matthew Perry here, this scene was really great. I wouldn't be surprised if next week's filming has Chandler smoking again and Monica freaking out about it. Just a few more quick comments: David Arquette was there, and he and Courteney seemed really sweet together. Everyone talks about how cute the cast is, and I have to say that in person, all six of them are damn good-looking people. All three ladies are pretty thin, but healthy looking and downright gorgeous. Matt LeBlanc has a barrel chest, more so than it looks on TV. David is tall but thin, and Matthew looked kind of little--maybe because he's shorter than Schwimmer and so much smaller around than LeBlanc. Women from the audience kept begging Matthew to do his "Chandler dance" and he finally caved in and did it. What a guy. :)