The One in Massapequa

Thursday, 28 March 2002

At the Gellers' 35th anniversary party, Ross and Rachel pose as a married couple for his parents' friends, Monica's attempt to give the toast falls flat, and Phoebe decides her relentlessly upbeat date is too much.

What happens

• Monica asks Ross to hand her the anniversary toast this year, wanting to be the one who makes their parents cry for once.
• At the party the Gellers admit they have told everyone that Ross and Rachel are married, and the two agree to keep the lie going for the night.
• Phoebe catches Ross, Monica and Joey mocking her date Parker, and rounds on them about the people they have dated.
• Rachel invents an increasingly grand account of the wedding for the relatives, and tells Ross she wants it to sound spectacular because it may be the only wedding she gets.
• Asked how he proposed, Ross describes a planetarium filled with lilies and a proposal written across the dome in stars.
• Monica's toast piles on the dead grandmother, the dead family dog and neglected orphans, and not one guest cries.
• Pushed into speaking, Ross gives a short toast that calls Rachel his new bride and reduces his mother to tears.
• Back at her apartment Phoebe finally snaps at Parker for finding everything wonderful, and throws him out.
• Ross tells Rachel the planetarium proposal was not invented for the party but the one he had planned while they were together, and Rachel says she could not have refused it.
• Monica gives up on toasting, and then cries when Ross tells her warmly what her speech got right.