The One With Monica's Thunder

Thursday, 12 October 2000

Monica and Chandler get engaged, and Monica's celebration falls apart when Rachel, unhappy about her own prospects, kisses Ross in the hallway and Monica accuses her of stealing the night.

What happens

• Chandler tells Ross that he and Monica are engaged, while Monica stands out in the street shouting the news at strangers.
• Monica decides the group should dress up for champagne at The Plaza, and Joey mentions an audition for a nineteen-year-old that nobody believes he can win.
• Chandler and Monica start to have sex before they leave, and Chandler cannot go through with it.
• Rachel tells Ross that the engagement makes her think about her own future and offers him one night together with nothing attached, and Ross turns her down.
• Chandler confesses the failure to Joey, who says it happened to him once and that he carried on regardless.
• Monica buys Phoebe's cooperation by promising her a song at the wedding, then opens the door and finds Ross and Rachel kissing in the hallway.
• Monica tells Ross and Rachel they have stolen her thunder, and Phoebe walks in on the argument and spreads the news about the kiss.
• Joey loudly defends Chandler's bedroom trouble in front of everyone, exposing it, and learns about the kiss in return.
• Chandler tells Joey he is thirty-one rather than thirty, and Monica calls off the trip to The Plaza and refuses to talk to Rachel.
• Monica drags up Rachel's behaviour at her sixteenth birthday and taunts her for still being unmarried, so Rachel storms off with Ross to spite her.
• Rachel and Ross only pretend to sleep together, and Rachel admits she acted out of sadness, which ends the fight with Monica.