The One With the Flashback

Thursday, 31 October 1996

Janice asks whether any of the six have ever come close to sleeping together, and the answer plays out in a flashback to three years earlier, when almost every pair of them nearly got together.

What happens

• Janice asks the group whether any of them have ever nearly slept with each other, and the friends change the subject rather than answer.
• In a flashback to three years earlier, Chandler overhears Rachel telling her friends she wants one meaningless fling with the next man she sees, and he drops a cue ball near her table to be noticed.
• Still in the flashback, Monica recognises Rachel from high school, admires her engagement ring, and afterwards bets Chandler that she will never run into her again.
• In the flashback, Mr. Heckles convinces the photographer Chandler chose that the room is already taken, so the photographer leaves and Joey moves in instead.
• In the flashback, Monica invites Joey in for lemonade, Joey takes his clothes off because he reads the invitation as an offer of sex, and both of them are mortified.
• In the flashback, Phoebe finally admits she moved out weeks ago because Monica's tidiness left her no room to spill anything, and the two of them make up.
• In the flashback, Chandler finds Monica upset about being left alone, hugs her in her towel, and tells her she is the most beautiful woman he has met in person.
• In the flashback, Ross tells Phoebe at the bar that his marriage is finished because Carol is a lesbian, and he realises Carol's new gym friend Susan is her lover.
• In the flashback, Phoebe's comforting kisses turn into a real kiss with Ross, but his foot gets stuck in the pool table pocket and the balls get in the way, so nothing comes of it.
• In the flashback, Rachel daydreams while driving home that she returns to the bar and asks Chandler to sleep with her, then tells her friends she was thinking about Barry.