I’m feeling nostalgic so I want to write a “Friends” walkthrough. I like watch old DVD copies of the show. I find “Friends” less nostalgic when it’s in high definition. I originally watched it on an old CRT tube TV so that’s how it looks best to me. Or at least the most nostalgic.
Let’s see where I am in the show. Season Five Episode 19: The One Where Ross Can’t Flirt. I remember this is the one with the cute pizza delivery woman. It first aired on April 22, 1999. Let me check my calendar to see what I was doing that day. On that day I was in my studio working on a drawing for an oil painting and working on an 8×10 inch photo collage of a couple of friends. It looks like I spent that whole week working on paintings and photos. That Saturday I went to an engagement party in NYC. I remember that being fun. Let’s start the show.
The first pre-theme song scene starts out with the cute Pizza Woman delivering pies to Chandler. Ross is upset that Chandler, who is dating Ross’s sister Monica, flirts with the Pizza Woman. Chandler does a good job flirting. Good scene from top to bottom. Chandler’s attempt at showing Ross what flirting really is tops it off. Here comes the theme song. Talk about nostalgia!
Now we get the ladies in the apartment setting up the second plot line. Joey is going to be on Law and Order. Here come the boys and Ross is still upset at Chandler. Turns out Ross likes the Pizza Woman. He thinks she’s attractive (she is). But she forgot Phoebe’s veggie pizza so here is Ross’s chance to turn on the charm. Spoiler. Ross isn’t especially good at charm.
Joey arrives with his non-English speaking grandmother to further the second plot line. She’s there to watch his appearance on Law and Order. At some time they’ll revel that Joey was cut out of the episode and try to trick Grandma into thinking he was really in the show. This is one of the clunkier plot lines in the show.
Monica finally appears and sets up the third plot line as Chandler wants her to wear some earrings that he bought her. After a game of telephone it turns out Monica leant them to Phoebe who lent them to Rachel who lost one of them. Guess what? Monica doesn’t lend stuff to Rachel because she losses said stuff all the time. Hence our comedy out of conflict. Not my favorite plot line but they pull it off well.
They’re all watching Law and Order waiting for Joey’s scene as Rachel is looking for the lost earring. There is a knock at the door and here comes Pizza Woman. All three plot lines run close together in this thirty second scene. Ross tries to flirt and it’s a funny disaster. Chandler saves him and Ross resents it. This is my favorite of the three plots.
Rachel points out that Ross can’t flirt so Ross decides to order another pizza so can show off his flirting prowess. Now here is the reveal that they cut Joey’s Law and Order scene. They all have to smile and talk so as to not alert Joey’s grandmother. Monica needs her earrings but Phoebe can’t produce them. Ross tries out his flirting on Phoebe but she doesn’t get it. Meanwhile Chandler is upset when he finds out the Monica flirts. This is a subplot of the Ross flirting plot. They don’t always have those. Usually three main plots is enough.
A new scene starts in the girls’ apartment. All the scenes except the very first one have been in this apartment. I’d call it a bottle episode except they never went on location regularly anyway. Still no earrings for Monica so Phoebe decides to come clean. She blames the loss of the earring on herself and Monica forgives her. Rachel, jealous of the forgiveness, comes clean and tells Monica it was her all along. Monica is in no mood to forgive Rachel. After all she has a no lending stuff to Rachel policy. It pays off pretty well.
The doorbell rings and here comes Ross’s flirting. It’s another funny disaster. I love this scene. It makes me laugh every time. Ross even realizes it was a disaster. Rachel runs after the Pizza Woman to try and help Ross. She wants to know why Rachel isn’t with him in a bit of turnaround comedy. Pizza Woman gives Rachel her number for Ross.
The solution the Joey’s grandma problem is solved by Joey shooting a scene in his apartment and surreptitiously sneaking it into the VCR. This plot line was silly but the scene Joey made was funny. Especially as it was punctuated with Chandler singing “Major Tom” into the camera. He didn’t expect that to be shown. And here come the credits.
The post credit scene was Monica trying to fool Chandler into thinking she is wearing the earrings Chandler bought her. He thinks they are and the stinger is that it was actually Ross that picked out the earrings.
Now I’m going to go to https://uncutfriendsepisodes.tripod.com/season5/519uncut.htm and see what was cut out of the episode for syndication and HD. We lost a solid Ross hair joke. We also lost a couple of jokes that set up how upset Joey’s grandma would be if he wasn’t in Law and Order. No great loss there. Wow, we lost the whole scene where the pizza woman asks Rachel why she isn’t going out with Ross. And that’s it. Not a ton cut out of this one and nothing great.
Now I’m going to check what rating I gave this one about a decade back when I rated all the episodes on iTunes from one to five stars. I’m guessing I gave this one two or three stars. It’s not the best episode. I love the Ross flirting stuff but the rest was okay at best. I’d rate it three stars right now but maybe that’s because I’m felling extra nostalgic. Let’s see. I gave it four stars?!? The Ross flirting part must have really affected my grading back then. That and it was preceded by a half dozen two and even a one star episodes. If I watched a lot of them in a row I must have been happy to see this average one.