The One With Joey's Award

"The One with Joey's Award" is the eighteenth episode of the seventh season Friends, which aired on March 29, 2001.
==Plot==
Monica and Phoebe are in Central Perk when Joey enters to tell them that he is nominated for a Soapie Award for his return as Dr. Drake Ramoray in Days of Our Lives. They are somewhat excited about the news, but they have never heard of the award, as Monica even asks if it's something he made up. Joey tells Rachel, who gets very excited, claiming that the Soapie is third highest prestigious award in soap operas and so he decides to take her as his date to the awards show. She agrees to go with him.
Ross finishes up conducting a lecture at the university and afterwards, tells one of his students that he failed the midterm. The student tells Ross that he failed because he is in love with Ross, and can't concentrate. This totally freaks out Ross who tells the student that the two of them cannot be in a relationship together, because he is a professor while he is a student, and also because he (Ross) is straight.
Back at Central Perk, a guy is checking out Monica, and Phoebe tells her to approach him. Monica tells her that she is engaged, but Phoebe tells her that she should have a backup in case things don't work out with Chandler (Phoebe's example involves Chandler losing his ability to satisfy sexually and so how he would be happy if another man would satisfy her needs). The guy approaches them instead, and Monica informs him that she's engaged. It turns out that he actually wanted to talk with Phoebe, so Monica gets a little embarrassed and leaves.
Back at his apartment, Joey is practicing winning the Soapie Award. Rachel enters, and he tells her that he will also be presenting an award. She gives him tips on how to go his 'gracious loser face' if he doesn't win the award.
After her date, Phoebe meets Monica at the restaurant to tell her about the date. After hearing Phoebe talk about the excitement of going on a first date, Monica realizes everything she'd be giving up once she gets married to Chandler. He will be the only one she would get to kiss, sleep with, and so on and will therefore no longer be able to feel the buzz of a new relationship. Later, she realizes that her relationship with Chandler is deep and meaningful, and tells him this. He then tells her to pull his finger, which causes her to have second thoughts. When she goes to Phoebe for advice, Phoebe tells her that she should keep her feelings to herself and not express them towards Chandler. (Phoebe's mother had told Phoebe to never discuss fears or problems with your significant other and to keep them locked up somewhere in your mind). When Monica asks if this is the same mother who had multiple husbands and killed herself when Phoebe was 13, Phoebe realizes her mother was wrong and tells Monica to find Chandler and tell him how she really feels, but also asks whether her mother was wrong about telling her that putting out (having sex) would give her love, which horrifies Monica.
At the apartment, when Monica questions Chandler about not sleeping with anyone else ever again, he says he is not worried at all. He is just happy that they will be spending the rest of their lives together and Monica realizes that everything she's giving up will be nothing compared to what she will be getting once they're married, such as buying a house together and having a kid and even a grand kid.
At the awards show, Joey (accompanied by Rachel) ends up losing and forgets the 'gracious loser face', instead throwing a mini-tantrum which is caught on camera before he composes himself. When he goes to present an award for Best Returning Actress, the winner doesn't show up and, as he is supposed to accept on her behalf, ends up reading the winners speech he prepared. He intends to keep it, but he agrees to give it back to her after Rachel tells him that one day his talent will win an award which would actually mean something to him. Joey agrees, and takes Rachel to the set of Days to find Jessica Ashley to give her the award. Jessica, however, carelessly tosses the award aside claiming that it isn't a real award and leaves, and so Joey decides to keep the award for himself with Rachel's approval.
Ross feels sympathy for failing the student, and decides to change his grade for the better, until he finds out it's just a scam. It turns out that the student has a girlfriend, and had been using the same trick he pulled on Ross with three other teachers. Ross confronts the student, claiming that the student doesn't love him and that he's just using him, but two university professors walk in on the argument. Attempting to preserve his last shred of honor, Ross agrees to give the student a C if the student doesn't cause any further problems about the particular issue.
==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===
Alison Sweeney - Jessica Ashley
Kyle Howard - Alan Lewis
Vince Vieluf - Ned Morse
Troy Norton - Jake
McKenzie Westmore - Herself - The Presenter
Kurtis Rintala - John Wheeler (uncredited)
===Crew===
Directed By: 
Gary Halvorson
Written By: 
Sherry Bilsing, Ellen Plummer & Brian Boyle
==Trivia==
*In other episodes Phoebe says her mother killed herself when she was 14 but in this episode Monica asks Phoebe if her mother killed herself when she was 13 and she doesn't correct her.
*Alison Sweeney who plays Jessica Ashley from the show's fictional version of Days of our Lives also plays Sami Brady on the real life version of the show.
**Jessica is also the name of Cecilia Monroe's DOOL character (whose brain was transplanted into Dr. Drake Ramoray).
*In the end credits, Phoebe imitates the iconic opening of Saturday Night Live. Reportedly Jennifer Aniston turned down Saturday Night Live to star in Friends.
*The surnames of the two students that appear in this episode are Morse and Lewis, which are the same surnames as the two main characters of the British detective show Inspector Morse.
*Rachel reveals that she slept with her teacher when she was nineteen. Ross also slept with his student, Elizabeth Stevens.
*Joey presents one of the awards. In real life the main cast have presented Emmy awards and both Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow have won individual Emmys, with each the main cast nominated except Courteney Cox. The series also won an Emmy in 2002 for Best Comedy Series.
** On the gag reel of this season's DVD, Lisa Kudrow at one point references her Emmy win.
* Matt was subsequently nominated four times for an Emmy for Episodes (2011 - 2017) for which he did win a Golden Globe Award.
*In the uncut version, there was an additional scene at the beginning of the episode. The scene showed Rachel talking to Phoebe and then Monica about her experience at a bachelorette party where there was a cake shaped like a penis trying to gage Monica's interest in it. 
**This is the first time a phallic cake has been featured. The second was in "The One With The Cake" (S10E04) when the gang are celebrating Emma's first birthday. In that instance, Ross manages to arrange the image to look like a bunny. In this episode, Rachel first suggests turning it into a "weird elephant," then putting NASA on it and giving it to Ross, then finally giving it to Joey as "microphone with two tennis balls."
== Goofs ==
* When Phoebe and her boyfriend kiss at the door of Central Perk, he says "alright" but his lips do not move.
* When taking Jessica's award, Rachel opens the door. But when the camera cuts, Joey is first through the door.
* When Joey sets down the award he sets it at a straight angle to the counter edge, but when Joey catches Rachel about to pick it up it is angled and not straight
* Phoebe asks "Does this also mean putting out doesn't get you love?" but she already knew that when she played the guitar in the children's library in "The One After The Superbowl, Part 1": one of her songs included the text "you'll want to sleep with people just to make them like you, but don't."
* On the back cover of the magazine Monica is reading in Central Perk is an advert for the DVD release of the 2000 film "The House of Mirth". However this film wasn't released on DVD in the USA until two months after this episode aired.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with Joey's Award" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
Category:Friends Episodes
Category:Season 7
Category:Episodes with Joey's name in the title
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 7 Episodes