The One With The Invitation

"The One With The Invitation" is the twenty-first episode of the fourth season of Friends, which aired on April 23, 1998. This is a clip show.
==Plot==
Ross and Emily begin mailing out wedding invitations and Emily is surprised that Ross is planning to invite Rachel given their past relationship. Although she doesn't have a problem with this, she tells Ross it might be awkward for him to have her there. As he goes to mail the invitations, he hesitates before dropping Rachel's in the post box. Ross remembers the day she arrived in Central Perk wearing a wedding dress, their growing friendship when she decided to stay with Monica, how they first got together and how his jealousy and one-night stand broke them up. However he also remembers how warmly Rachel encouraged him to pursue his relationship with Emily, and decides to mail the invitation to her. 
Everybody gets an invitation, but Phoebe is unable to attend as she is in her third trimester. Upon receiving her invite, Rachel remembers how she learned of Ross' feelings for her and how she had to endure his relationship with Julie before he found out she returned his feelings. She also thinks about over their previous messy break-ups and the prom video which encouraged her to take him back after the list. As a result, Rachel decides not to attend; although she claims she's staying to look after Phoebe, she confides in Monica it would be too painful for her to watch Ross get married, as she still has feelings for him. 
===Flashbacks===
* The Pilot
* "The One With The Blackout"
* "The One With The East German Laundry Detergent"
* "The One Where Ross Finds Out"
* "The One Where Ross And Rachel Take A Break"
* "The One With The Morning After"
* "The One With The Jellyfish"
* "The One With The Fake Party"
* "The One Where Rachel Finds Out"
* "The One With Ross' New Girlfriend"
* "The One With The List"
* "The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know"
* "The One At The Beach"
* "The One With The Prom Video"
==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
James Michael Tyler - Gunther
Lauren Tom - Julie (archive footage, uncredited)
Cynthia Mann - Jasmine (archive footage, uncredited)
Christina Pickles - Judy Geller (archive footage, uncredited)
Elliott Gould - Jack Geller (archive footage, uncredited)
The Horrible Woman - Camille Saviola (archive footage,  uncredited)
Ayre Groves - Michael (archive footage,  uncredited)
Michael Gary Bower - Roy Kubrick (archive footage,  uncredited)
Angela Featherstone - Chloe (archive footage,  uncredited)
Dan Gauther - Chip Matthews (archive footage, uncredited)
===Crew===
Directed By: 
Peter Bonerz
Written By: 
Seth Kurland
==Trivia==
===General===
*This is the lowest-rated Friends episode on IMDb, with a rating of just 6.9. In general, Friends clip shows have been very poorly rated on IMDb.
*This is the first of six clip shows on Friends.
*During a flashback from "The One With The Jellyfish", when Ross and Rachel are in bed and they had gotten back together after their break, Ross screams out "We were on a break!" and we see him screaming this in the bedroom. In the actual episode, we only hear his voice screaming the words, while the audience sees the main room of Monica's apartment. Presumably a different cut was used.
* Ross' memories about Rachel happen out of order. The incident with Paolo's cat happened after the night Ross and Rachel did laundry together, but is shown beforehand in the sequence. Rachel's memories also are out of order as the scene in the planetarium is shown before the prom video.
*In the uncut DVD version, there's an extra scene after the intro where Emily is able to put Ben down for a nap, whereas it usually takes Ross 2 hours to put Ben down.
*The address on Rachel's invitation reveals the address of the apartment building to be 545 Grove Street although all external shots are of 90 Bedford Street.
*Joey and Chandler discuss renting Die Hard while in London. Die Hard starred Bruce Willis who appears in two seasons time as Paul Stevens. Joey, Chandler and Ross later watch Die Hard in "The One With The Nap Partners" (twice).
*Phoebe complains about not being allowed to fly during the third trimester of her pregnancy. Lisa Kudrow was heavily pregnant during filming of this episode; and therefore would not be able to travel to London for the production of "The One With Ross' Wedding".
===Goofs===
*When Phoebe says that Ben addressed her invitation, her envelope has several lines of writing on it. However in a later shot it only has one line of writing on it.
*In the clip from "The One Where Ross Finds Out", Rachel opens the doors straight away after opening the top bolts but in the actual episode the bottom bolt remains in place when she tries to open the doors for the first time. She may have been focusing on the intensity of the moment while reliving the flashback or a different take was used, especially as Rachel shouting "I don't need your stupid ship" is omitted.
* The handwriting on the envelope is completely different from the one on the invitation to Rachel, yet from the dialogue it is clear that Ross wrote both.
* In the scene with Emily and Ross in his apartment, there appears to be the beginning of a baby bump on Helen Baxendale, who like Lisa Kudrow was pregnant at the time.
* The address on Rachel's wedding invitation is actually in Brooklyn rather than Greenwich Village where the apartments are supposed to be. (There is a Grove Street in the village but its short and doesn't have a number 545).
* All of the gang except Phoebe and Ross live above the coffeehouse so it makes no sense why he would post them, especially as a later episode shows Rachel collecting her mail from a pigeon hole in the apartment block. Ross could simply have put their invitations in the pigeon holes, especially if he didn't want to give them out personally. He may also have been too shaken up to visit Rachel's apartment to give her her invitation directly because of Emily's concerns.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with the Invitation" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
Category:Season 4
Category:Friends Episodes
Category:Clip Shows
Category:Friends
Category:Season 4 Episodes
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