The One With Five Steaks and an Eggplant

Thursday, 19 October 1995

The three friends who earn less admit they cannot afford the group's spending, and the rift splits everyone over Ross's birthday concert, while Chandler impersonates a stranger's ex to get a date.

What happens

• Chandler screens his calls, hears a woman named Jade leave a message for an old boyfriend called Bob, and picks up pretending to be Bob so he can arrange a meeting at Central Perk.
• Chandler tells everyone they each owe sixty-two dollars for Ross's birthday, and afterwards Rachel, Joey and Phoebe agree privately that the others never notice how much less the three of them earn.
• Monica arrives with news that she has been made head lunch chef and put in charge of purchasing, and the group decides to celebrate at an expensive restaurant.
• Ross pushes Chandler to confess at the coffee house, but Chandler instead tells Jade he sensed she had been stood up and sits down with her as a sympathetic stranger.
• Ross divides the restaurant bill evenly and excuses Monica from paying, and Phoebe refuses outright to cover a share far larger than the soup she ordered.
• Joey tells Monica, Ross and Chandler that the three of them cannot keep up financially, and Ross cancels the concert tickets that were meant to be his birthday present.
• Monica and Chandler turn up with free steaks and six concert tickets they have paid for, Joey calls the gesture charity, and Phoebe, Rachel and Joey drop out while the other three go to the show without them.
• Chandler tells Ross that he slept with Jade, and Jade then phones the machine to report that her new man was nothing next to Bob.
• Monica recognises a boy she once babysat who now works for the band's law firm, he takes the three of them backstage, and the hickey Monica brings home exposes the party and reopens the argument.
• Monica's manager phones to say the free steaks from the meat supplier count as a kickback, and she is fired.