The One With All The Rugby

"The One With All The Rugby" is the fifteenth episode of the fourth season of Friends, which aired on February 26, 1998.
==Plot==
Rachel drags Chandler with her to the nail studio, where they bump into Janice, who has finally divorced her husband for good. Her feelings for Chandler rush back in, while Chandler can't stand the woman. Unfortunately for him, however, she has absolutely no intention of leaving him, so he has to resort to the very far-fetched excuse of international work travel to be able to get rid of her. Even more unluckily for him, the first place he can think of is Yemen. Janice's determination not to waste any of her time with him is such that she accompanies him to the airport with his luggage; he tries to obtain a fake ticket but ends up buying a genuine, expensive one. When Janice exclaims that she won't leave until she sees him take off, he actually boards the plane, to avoid Janice. 
Ross, who is dating Emily, runs into friends of hers in the City, Liam and Devon. The two are rugby enthusiasts and invite Ross for a game at the park the next day. Even though he's never played rugby before, he's keen to participate in the game, but Joey is highly doubtful that Ross will make any headway in the game. Ross is accompanied at the park by Emily, Joey and Phoebe; Emily asks the guys to take it easy on Ross, who loses no time in displaying his total ignorance of the game. When he finally gets in the game, Ross ends up blocked in the middle of a scrum on his hands. A few minutes later, he is practically reduced to rubble. However, his liking of Emily and the determination he possesses to make a good impression (together with some hints from her with regards to the others' physical weaknesses) help him inflict some of the pain they caused him back. 
Monica is preoccupied by a switch at her new apartment which has no apparent use. When she asks Joey, he points out that the switch does nothing, but she doesn't take his word for it and investigates further. She obtains electrical plans of the building, but to no avail; then she ends up tearing parts of the wall to try and follow the wire from the switch, then covers them up with paintings. Rachel is convinced that the wires are loose in her head. Monica even resorts to hiring a $200-an-hour electrician to investigate but when even this doesn't work, she decides to leave the switch be, flicking it uselessly - or so it would seem for her, as the switch is connected to a power outlet in the other apartment, causing the TV to keep turning itself on and off (to Phoebe's amusement, since she thinks she can turn the TV on and off by blinking her eyes).
==Cast and Crew==
===Main Cast===
Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller
===Supporting Cast===
Helen Baxendale - Emily Waltham
Maggie Wheeler - Janice
Mark Thomas - Liam
Adamo Palladino - Devon
Robin McDonald - Ticket Counter Attendant
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
===Crew===
Directed By: 
James Burrows
Written By: 
Ted Cohen, Andrew Reich & Wil Calhoun
==Trivia==
* Ross jumps in the middle of the scrum during the rugby game. However, there is a referee there and a referee would never allow a player to jump in the middle of the scrum like that in an actual rugby union game.
* In the uncut DVD version of the episode, it is revealed that Monica has also knocked a hole in their ceiling. Monica asks their neighbor under them, Mrs Katrokas, if she had met Kenny, who lives above them.
* This episode marks the end of Janice and Chandler's off and on relationship.
* In the scene where Rachel returns to the apartment and finds drawings pasted on the walls, Monica is seen reading Jen Branbury's Like a Hole in the Head. In "The One With Ross' Wedding, Part 2" (S4E24), the man on the plane to whom Rachel explain's her situation with Ross is reading the same book but with an alternative cover.
* The Magna Doodle says "Nice Nails Chandler", a reference to Rachel forcing Chandler to get his nails done.
* Janice says the fake address that Chandler gave her is "15 Yemen Road, Yemen."; this is the 15th episode of the season.
* Chandler, panicking, says he's moving to Yemen. This was the first word said by Ben, Ross' son with Carol.
**He says his company is making him move there. In Season 9, they will transfer him away from New York to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
**In "The One With The Butt" Aurora first says 'All of a sudden, we realized we're in Yemen...'
* The opening credits sequence contains a few seconds from the "fake party" the group throws in the next episode.
* Janice reveals she's just got divorced. This is from Gary (the Mattress King from "The One With The Race Car Bed") who she was divorcing while dating Chandler, but to whom she subsequently returned to give her marriage another try.
* The location where Emily meets her ex-boyfriend is the same one where Ross and Phoebe encounter the mugger in "The One With The Mugging".
* Although the names of the rugby teams are obscured on the TV screen, it would appear to be an England vs Wales match.
*Chandler pays for his ticket with Yemen Express airlines using an American Express credit card.
*The actual flag carrier of Yemen is Yemenia Airways and doesn't fly to the US.
*This episode was used as "Y is for Yemen" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).
=== Goofs===
*Ross asks Joey if he remembers when they went to see Dances with Wolves at the cinema. However, that film was released in 1990, and Joey and Ross met in 1993, as seen in "The One With The Flashback". However in "The One With All The Thanksgivings", Joey is already with the gang in 1992.
*The way Rachel holds the green bottle in the apartment when she's watching the rugby with Ross changes between before and after she takes a drink. It couldn't have changed round that much.
* When Ross, Emily, and Joey return to Central Perk, Ross has a bloody ear. However in the next scene, his ear is no longer bloody.
**He or Emily could have wiped it off.
* In the scene at Central Park Phoebe has got one, then two and then again one hair stick in her bun.
* Ross mentions that when he was 4 he made his father cry when he washed his Porsche with rocks, but in "The One Where Joey Moves Out" Jack (Ross' father) mentions he got the Porsche when he was 50, which means that Ross would have been in his teens or early 20s when he got it.  
* When Rachel is ripping off the drawings on the wall, the scene skips weirdly so that Rachel is suddenly in a different position, showing a cut in editing.  
* In the uncut version just before Rachel and Monica mention Mrs. Catrokas, captions on the complete fourth season DVD say "For a minute, I thought it went downstairs", but no one says it.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with All the Rugby" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
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