The One With Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss

"The One With Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss" is the seventeenth episode of the fifth season of Friends, which aired on March 18, 1999. After a job interview, Rachel impulsively kisses her potential boss on the cheek. Joey tries to find a hot girl who lives in Ross' apartment but instead ending up in Ross' apartment. Phoebe and Gary vie for "steamiest-affair" with Monica and Chandler.
==Plot==
Phoebe talks with Monica about the good time she and Gary are having, which primarily consists of sex. Phoebe finds it hard to believe that she and Chandler are still all over each other sexually, which she voices out loud to Monica. This spurs in Monica the urge to beat Phoebe at "who's-having-sex-more-than-who", taking every chance she can to have sex with Chandler. Although he gladly helps her at first, he grows tired of all the competitiveness and admits to Monica how he's more excited about the relationship, which is by far the longest one he's ever been in, and that he's crazy about Monica.
Rachel has an interview for a job at Ralph Lauren. Although the interview goes well, she screws it up at the end, when her interviewer, Mr. Zelner, opens the door for her, leaning in a little in the process, and she kisses him on the cheek. Thinking that she's screwed up her chance, Rachel is bewildered to discover that Mr. Zelner has called her for a second interview however starts to worry that he may take the kiss as a sign she'll do anything to get the job. At the second interview, she enters Mr. Zelner's office with ink on her lip after biting a pen. When Mr. Zelner gesticulates his lip to try and alert her, she interprets this as a gesture for her to kiss him and tells him up, screwing up the interview before it even starts. When she learns of her mistake after her friends tell her, she manages to get Mr. Zelner to meet with her again. At the meeting (which Mr. Zelner warns Rachel is being video-taped) Rachel explains her actions and Mr. Zelner decides to hire her. Things go in the wrong direction once again when Rachel tries to give him a handshake but ends up grabbing his crotch.
When Joey gets tired of watching Ross from his apartment, he sees a hot girl and flirts with her using gestures. She waves him over to her place, but Joey always runs into Ross every time he tries to go at her place. Desperate for her, Joey starts shouting "Hot girl!" in the hallways in the hope of meeting her, but instead ends up on the noticeboard as a pervert looking for girls. Ross meets the hot girl, Jen, at the noticeboard and she mentions him as The Guy who wouldn't chip in for the Handyman. Ross is upset, but Jen actually sides with him, as she thinks it was really unfair the way the other residents reacted and that he had just moved in. This cheers Ross up and he asks Jen out. Back at Monica's, Joey is about to give up on the girl, but Monica helps him point out the correct apartment (Joey failed to take into account that the ground floor is Floor 1 and that the window on the edge of the building was for the stairs, so he was one floor and apartment short). When he manages to find the correct door, Ross (about to go out with Jen) answers, causing Joey to think he's gone to the wrong apartment yet again and gives up completely.
==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===
Michael Rapaport - Gary
Samantha Smith - Jen aka 'Hot Girl'
Steve Ireland - Mr. Zelner
Marc Goldsmith - The Man
Devyn La Bella - The Little Girl
Ralph Manza - The Old Man
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
===Crew===
Directed By: 
Shelley Jenson
Written By: 
Andrew Reich & Ted Cohen
==Trivia==
*The uncut DVD episode includes the extended scene when Monica tells Rachel she has a second interview. Rachel says "Monica, that's not funny!" to which Monica dances and repeats the message left for Rachel. When Rachel asks Monica if she is being serious, Monica says "You just told me to be funny!"
*In the uncut DVD episode, after Rachel walks out of her second interview she says to the next candidate waiting: "If you're going in there to see Mr. Zelner, I hope you're ready to put out!" and she responds by saying "I am!"
*This is Steve Ireland's first appearance as Mr. Zelner. His last appearance is in "The One Where Estelle Dies" (S10E15) when Ross successfully bribes him into offering Rachel her old job back. 
*Ross' Third Apartment now has its walls painted red; prior to this episode, they were blue.
*This episode was used as "I is for Inadvertent Kiss" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).
===Goofs===
* When Joey goes to Ross' apartment for the first time, when he is in the corridor knocking on Ross' door, his shirt is purple. But when the camera angle changes when Ross opens the door, Joey's shirt is black.
* When Joey goes to Ross' apartment for the second time, the corridor ends after his apartment. But after Joey knocks on the child's door there is a door and the corridor goes off to the right, just like all other times the corridor is seen.
* When Ross is doing his "watching TV bit," there is no one on the couch in the reflection on the TV.
* When Joey counts wrong as to where the "Hot Girl" is, he accidentally comes to Ross' apartment. When he knocks on the door, his arm is on the door jam. When the camera focuses on Ross, Joey's arm is down again.
* When Joey knocks on Ross' apartment door the apartment number, 3B as seen in "The One With The Girl Who Hits Joey", is missing. In "The One Where Everybody Finds Out", it was numbered 201.
* Phoebe states that she and Gary violated Section 12 Paragraph 7 of the criminal code by having sex in a public place. In fact, Section 12 Paragraph 7 is threats of violence with intent to obtain a confession or information of a crime.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with Rachel's Inadvertent Kiss" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
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