The One With The Sharks

"The One With The Sharks" is the fourth episode of the ninth season of Friends, which aired on October 17, 2002. Monica visits Chandler in Tulsa and suspects an odd fetish. Back in New York, Phoebe and Mike talk about long-term relationships, while Joey is confused about his familiarity with his date's apartment.
==Plot==
Monica goes to Tulsa to surprise Chandler, but he is watching porn in his hotel room and when Monica comes in, he quickly switches the channel to a movie about sharks. When Monica sees this, she thinks he has a shark fetish. When he comes home, she puts a shark movie on to try and arouse him. Chandler tells her the truth, and she is very relieved.
Ahead of a date with Mike, Ross tells Phoebe how he likes her dating attitude of going from person to person and not having anything serious. This upsets Phoebe, who begins to cry as Mike walks in to pick her up. Ross goes to her apartment the next day to apologize and Phoebe fears Mike could have actually been the one. Ross goes to Mike's apartment to explain himself and accidentally reveals how she hasn't had a serious relationship, despite Mike already arranging another date with Phoebe. Ross then lies saying Phoebe had a six year relationship with a kite designer named "Vikram". Phoebe originally refuses to go along with it but does anyway. She lies and says that Vikram has been calling her because he's lonely, but says she left him because he slept with Rachel. Mike says he'd beat him up, unless he was big (he would send a mean letter instead). Noticing how much Mike will do for her, Phoebe tells him the truth and he accepts it, just as Ross calls pretending to be Vikram.
Joey goes on a date with Hayley, an attractive woman he met at the coffee house. Upon going back to her apartment, he recognizes it and assumes he must have slept with her before. However, when Joey brings it up and she says they haven't dated before. Just then, Hayley's roommate, Poppy, walks in, and Joey realizes that she was the one he slept with. She remembers him, much to the disgust of Hayley.
==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===
Nikita Ager - Poppy 
Paul Rudd - Mike Hannigan 
James Michael Tyler - Gunther 
Susan Ward - Hayley 
Phil Donlon - Bellhop (uncredited) 
Dan Buckantinsky - Waiter 
===Crew===
Directed By: Ben Weiss
Written By: Andrew Reich & Ted Cohen
==Trivia==
* Unusually Rachel doesn't appear until halfway through the episode. Also unusually Ross and Rachel only share a brief scene when they say goodbye to Chandler as he heads off to Tulsa. 
* In the final scene, Phoebe uses virtually the same lines to Joey as Ross said to her (about never having a serious relationship) but this prompts Joey to return to his normal confidence.
* The name Ross comes up with for Phoebe's fake long-term boyfriend, Vikram, may be a nod to Ross' Indian counterpart, Vikram, from the short-lived Indian version of Friends which aired from 1999 to 2000, titled Hello Friends.
* For unknown reasons this is one of the few episodes to not air on Nick @ Nite. Along with this were "The One Without The Ski Trip", "The One With Joey's Dirty Day" (although it only aired January 2023, September 2023, and November 2023), "The One Where Rachel Smokes", "The One Where Chandler Can't Cry" (which will air on November 4, 2023 to pay respects of Matthew Perry), "The One With The Stripper", and "The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner".
** It will later debut on nick@nite on November 5, 2023 to pay respects of Matthew Perry.
=== Goofs ===
* When Joey comes to Monica's apartment to tell her and Rachel about his date, after he says "... I already slept with her", the camera switches to Monica. While Monica is sitting down, there is a stand-in in Rachel's place, with straight long hair and a dark blue shirt. Rachel had wavy hair and a shirt with yellow-pink patterns in that scene. (This may only be visible in the wide-screen version of the episode.)
* Both Joey and Phoebe say they never had relationships that lasted longer than a month. However, Phoebe dated a cop called Gary for longer than a month (and almost moved in with him), and it is said in the earlier seasons that Joey had been with a girl called Angela Delveccio for three years. Additionally, in "The One With Chandler's Dad", Phoebe's boyfriend, Jake, says that he has been going out with Phoebe for longer than a month.
* When Monica first enters Chandler's hotel room, she leaves the door open but in the next shot it's closed. Also the edited version omits scenes of the porn movie Chandler starts watching resulting in awkward editing as Monica jumps from opening the door to being a few steps inside.
* In the next scene of Monica on the phone to Rachel, the dialogue is edited to cut out Monica saying she saw Chandler "getting off on shark porn" which makes the exchange between Monica and Rachel disjointed. 
* The editing also causes the transition music after the scene with Joey, Rachel and Monica to end abruptly after the scene.
* In one scene, when Ross goes to Phoebe's apartment, he comes bearing veggie hotdogs for having ruined her date with Mike. During their conversation the camera cuts between them a couple times. Although Phoebe has paper towels in her hand, she does not appear to motion as if to tear one off, nor does either of them seem to take a bit of the treat. However in between takes they all of a sudden switch from unscathed and on the counter surface to missing a bite and placed neatly on a paper towel.
* Early on in the episode, Monica mentions to Joey that she would be flying out and having a "second honeymoon" with Chandler at the Tulsa Ramada. However, it is later revealed (from an outside shot) that Chandler is staying at a Hyatt.
** Monica may have misremembered what hotel Chandler was staying in.
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode
* "The One with the Sharks" at the Internet Movie Database
== Episode navigation ==
Category:Friends Episodes
Category:Season 9
Category:Episodes
Category:Season 9 Episodes