The One With The Dirty Girl

"The One With The Dirty Girl" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of Friends, which aired on November 6, 1997.
==Plot==
Joey's girlfriend Kathy is nearing her birthday, and Chandler has gone to extreme trouble to get Kathy a special edition of The Velveteen Rabbit, her favorite book. The guys point out he can't outshine her boyfriend, Joey. When Chandler asks Joey what he's giving her for her birthday, Joey doesn't even consider a birthday gift for his girlfriend but remedies this by buying her a pen (which is also a clock). Obviously, this is no gift for his girlfriend on her birthday, but Chandler swaps his book for Joey's pen. Kathy is really happy about the book, but when she's alone with Chandler, she confesses how she knows it's his gift and not Joey's. Chandler is on the verge of confessing his feelings, but resolves to reply that he's Joey's best friend. Kathy joins Joey in the bedroom after. 
Monica turns down a funeral for sixty people as she has no catering equipment to handle such big parties on short notice. Phoebe offers to loan her money for the equipment, which Monica uses to set up a complete set of catering equipment. The best thing about the funeral is that it's the starting link of catering business for Monica, who has another funeral the next day. This funeral, however, brings complications in that the widow is unwilling to pay. Meanwhile, Rachel is looking to finish a crossword by herself, but finds herself in sticky situations and tricks people into giving her answers for her crossword.
Monica, who hates the paying part of funerals, finds it hard to request payment to a crying widow with giant tears pouring down her cheeks, but Phoebe sees the same widow dance and sing to music the next moment. She explains to Monica how the widow is using a ruse of hers to try and score enough sympathy to have the catering free of charge, but Phoebe goes out and requests the money herself, standing her ground to the widow, who has no choice but to get her purse and give up the money. At Central Perk, Rachel has completed her crossword, but exclaims out loud that there's nobody to hug. Gunther promptly steps up but trips and falls. At that very moment, Monica and Phoebe arrive at the coffeehouse from the catering, where they tell Rachel of the good time they had at the funeral. Monica mockingly suggests she and Phoebe team up, before realizing it to be a great idea. The two set up their own catering business.
Ross goes out with Cheryl, who is undeniably beautiful. Only Rachel seems to try and find something bad in her - the other guys gawk at Ross for his dumb luck. He seems to appreciate his luck at finding Cheryl, who even shares a commonness in work as she is a doctoral paleontology candidate, but unfortunately she lacks a fundamental quality - domestic life skills. It seems that this woman somehow made it to the adult age groups without ever having learned what a broom is for. Her place is a massive garbage dump. Ross tries to persuade her to go to his apartment, but she replies that there is a weird smell at his place (Ross speculates it is soap). Ross talks to Joey about this problem, who tells Ross to get over himself and be with Cheryl in the mess. Ross tries making out with Cheryl on her couch with much discomfort, starting to dig out slices of ham and ink from underneath him, but reaches his limit when he sees a bag of potato chips move on her coffee table and starts whipping it. Fearing that it's Mitzi, her hamster, Cheryl begs him to stop, but it turns out to be a rat. This is the final straw for Ross, who dumps her. Cleanliness-obsessed Monica can't sleep when she hears of Cheryl's place, and offers to clean it up, only to have a bemused Cheryl slam the door in her face. Obstinately enough, Monica starts scrubbing the door frame.
==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===
Paget Brewster - Kathy
Rebecca Romijn - Cheryl (credited Rebecca Romijn-Stamos)
Gretchen Wyler - Mrs. Burkart
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
===Crew===
Directed By: 
Shelley Jensen
Written By: 
Shana Goldberg-Meehan & Scott Silveri
==Quotes==
Phoebe: Yeah, I'm a hard-ass.
Monica: And I'm a wuss. We should be partners.
Phoebe: Yeah, Hard-ass and Wuss, we could fight crime.
Monica: I can cook and you can take care of the money.
Phoebe: Oh! It will be like I have a wife in the 50's!
==Trivia==
*Ross uses the phrase "I know!" in the beginning of this episode. This is one of the well-known catchphrases of the show, used usually by Monica Geller.
*If you pause this episode at 11:52, during one of the small intros to scenes where music is played and a locations exterior is shown, you can see a man leaning out of the window of one of the apartments in the building where Monica, Rachel, Joey and Chandler live.
*In "The One With The Halloween Party", it is revealed the The Velveteen Rabbit is also Chandler's favorite childhood book.
*Chandler mentions the 1994 Broadway revival of the musical Grease.
*Ironically, a bottle of Pine-Sol can be seen on one of the end tables in Cheryl's apartment.
*Cheryl is the second paleontologist whom Ross dates, having dated Julie two years ago. In season 10 he briefly dates Charlie Wheeler who's also a paleontologist.
*Chandler reveals that Joey dated Angela Delvecchio for three years prior to The Pilot when Joey states "she never had a birthday while we were dating". Although not specifically stated, this is likely the same Angela whom Joey and Monica broke up in "The One With The East German Laundry Detergent" (S1E05) and who he calls in "The One With Barry and Mindy's Wedding" (S2E24).
*Rachel and Chandler mention the film musical Rent which was loosely based on the opera La Bohème by Puccini. Later this season Rachel convinces Ross to take Emily to another opera, sparking a new romance.
*The widow Mrs. Burkart sings You're a Grand Old Flag by George M. Cohen, and Jeepers Creepers by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer.
*Chandler unconsciously helped Rachel finish her crossword. Previously Chandler unconsciously helped Ross with his crossword.
*Rebecca Romijn who plays Cheryl in this episode was married to John Stamos at the time, who would later go on to play Zack in season 9's "The One With The Donor".
*This episode was used as "V is for Velvetine" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023). (Nick@Nite uses the spelling "Velvetine", it should be "Velveteen".)
==Goofs==
* Monica says "I just had to turn down a job catering a funeral for 60 people." Rachel says "Oh my god, what happened?" Monica replies, "60 guests", clarifying that only one person actually died and there will be 60 guests at the funeral. Later, after coming home from that job, Monica says "It was the best funeral ever! I even got another funeral for tomorrow: the dead guy from today's best friend. It's like I am the official caterer for that accident", implying that there was, in fact, an accident in which many people died. This is a writing error. 
*After Phoebe finally gets the widow to pay her and Monica is alone with the guests, the boom mic is clearly visible at the top of the screen.
*When Joey is showing the pen he got for Kathy's birthday, Rachel's hair is behind her right ear. When the camera angle changes, her hair is down, and then it's behind her ear again.
*When Ross is making out with the dirty girl on the couch he gets ink all over his left hand and then a few seconds later when he puts his hands on her back the ink is gone.
*Continuity: Chandler says that Joey was with "Angela Delvecchio" for three years. However in the first episode Chandler talks about how they have never had a relationship that lasted "longer than a mento."
**Furthermore, in "The One With The Flashback" it is revealed that Joey and Chandler only became friends/roommates a year before the show began. In another episode, Chandler mentions Joey's "breakfast adventure with Angela Delvecchio" on their kitchen table, which means that Joey would have dated her while living with Chandler. However, she was never seen as part of the show. This isn't true: Angela Delvecchio was with Bob whom Joey and Monica broke up in "The One With The East German Laundry Detergent " . Furthermore in "The One With All The Thanksgivings", Joey is already with the group in 1992.
**[Counter-argument] It is possible that Joey dated Angela for 3 years before he met Chandler, and then the "breakfast adventure" he was referring to was just a post-breakup hookup. This may have occurred off-screen after Joey and Monica broke up her relationship with Bob.
** Or, Joey may have been dating Angela when he moved in, then broke up with her before the show began (thus Chandler knew her).
* In the scene with Chandler, Rachel exclaims Oh, "pathetic"! but her lips appear to say Thank you, "pathetic". The phrase was probably dubbed over later because Rachel wanted to finish the crossword without any help and saying "thank you" would be an admission of Chandler's help.
* Phoebe calls Monica "Monicant" then calls her "Monican" before quietly saying "Monica" while trying to contain her laughter.
* When Monica returns from the first catering job, Phoebe asks for her money back. However the edited episode doesn't show Phoebe lend her the money.
* After Phoebe agrees to lend Monica money for the Catering, they hug. When Joey and Kathy enter during the hug, Monica is then seen walking out of the kitchen while on the phone, with not enough time elapsed for this to be possible.
* After Rachel turns down Phoebe's help with the crossword puzzle, Phoebe goes to sit down on the couch and says Rachel can't help her develop a new universal language. During this line, Phoebe's mouth does not move in sync with the overdubbed audio.
*At one point,[at least in the WGN Chicago version] Chandler says" Hanukkah" but the captions say "Chanukah" instead.
**This also appears on the fourth season DVD.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with the Dirty Girl" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
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