The One With Rachel's New Dress

"The One With Rachel's New Dress" is the eighteenth episode of the fourth season of Friends, which aired on NBC on April 2, 1998. Rachel takes a provocative pose to get Joshua into a romantic mood - but her plans go awry. Chandler and Joey are at odds to persuade Phoebe to name one of her triplets after them. Ross fears that Emily might turn into a lesbian after a week in London with Susan, who is a lesbian already. 
==Plot==
In preparation for the first night with Joshua, Rachel plans the most romantic date (involving Monica into cooking dinner). Unfortunately, Joshua suffers from a form of ornithophobia - he fears farm birds, which Joey and Chandler's duck and rooster happen to be. This might have not even come up during the date were it not for the fact that the two birds are roaming around in Rachel's apartment (as they still think of it as their home), in full view of Joshua. Because of his fear, Rachel and Joshua end up taking everything at his parents' place, which happens to be quite empty as his parents are on holiday. The night promises to be a good one for Rachel, except for one thing - Joshua's parents arrive early from their holiday and catch Rachel in her negligee, which she tries to pass as a new prototype dress from Bloomingdale's. On insistence of Joshua's father, the four of them end up having dinner at a restaurant and Rachel wears nothing but her night-dress.
When Emily offers to accompany Susan on a trip to London, Ross fears the worst and suspects that Susan might try to turn Emily into a lesbian and fall in love with her, as she did with Carol. Ross expresses his fears with his friends, and the girls make fun of him because of his lack of trust in Emily. Ross even talks this out with Carol, who cannot believe that Ross actually believes that Susan and Emily might be having "too much fun" together. Ross quickly fantasizes a possible lesbian situation to her, which leads to her admitting the possibility of something happening between the two. When Ross shares his concern with the girls at Central Perk, Monica suggests that he has simply become overly paranoid about his relationships after the way things ended with Carol - Rachel citing his reaction to Mark as a particular example - and encourages him not to let what happened with Carol ruin things with Emily. At the airport (where Ross and Carol lust after an attractive woman at the arrivals), Emily and Susan arrive, with no lesbian connection between them - and Ross is happy about this.
Having named two of the triplets Leslie and Frank Jr. Jr. respectively, Frank and Alice are left with one unnamed triplet. Alice asks Phoebe to name the third boy baby, which Phoebe takes as a personal challenge when Joey and Chandler are the names she has to choose between. The guys argue the validity of their names for the third triplet, when Joey points out how he believes that Chandler is the stupidest name he's ever heard. Chandler is deeply upset about this and rushes into full plans to change his name and surname. Eventually Phoebe can't take it any longer and decides to name the baby Chandler on condition that the adult Chandler keep his name too. When she leaves, he laughs in Joey's face, revealing how everything was a ruse for Phoebe to take his name and not Joey's.
==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===
Tate Donovan - Joshua Burgin
Jane Sibbett - Carol Willick
Helen Baxendale - Emily Waltham
Jessica Hecht - Susan Bunch
Debra Jo Rupp - Alice Knight
John Bennett Perry - Mr. Burgin
Charles Thomas Allen - Ben Geller
John Christopher Allen - Ben Geller
Pat Crowley - Mrs. Burgin
===Crew===
Directed By: 
Gail Mancuso
Written By: 
Andrew Reich, Ted Cohen, Jill Condon & Amy Toomin
==Trivia==
* Joshua's father is played by John Bennett Perry, who is Matthew Perry's real-life father. Both John Bennett Perry and Jennifer Aniston's father, John Aniston, have appeared in Days of Our Lives. 
* Because she's too pregnant to play the guitar, Phoebe practices Smelly Cat on a snare drum. Her level of skill with the snare drum is even worse than her skill with the guitar, defining the "drum roll" as the actual rolling of the drumsticks over the snare skin.
* When Alice first asks Phoebe in the coffee house what to name the third baby, she replies "Cougar", which is exactly what Alice is: an older woman married to a much younger man.
*Monica is disturbed by choosing other peoples' sex-clothes, but in "The One With The Birthing Video" she doesn't mind letting other people choose hers.
* Ross begins to reference 'Incredible Hulk 72'. Due to the fact that The Hulk appeared in Tales To Astonish before The Incredible Hulk 101, there wasn't an 'Incredible Hulk 72' published until 2004.
* In Joshua's parents house there is a bust against the wall. In a few shots the eyes glow red. It is unknown why this happens. It also seems like the eyes are only red when Joshua and Rachel are both in frame, when it's only Rachel the eyes don't glow.
* Monica only appears in two scenes of this episode.
* This is the only episode you see Joshua and Rachel kiss.
* The uncut DVD episode has a rare scene of Ross' bedroom at his first apartment. In fact only Phoebe's bedroom is seen less as it's never seen in the series.
* Phoebe eventually decides the name the third baby Chandler but only if Chandler keeps his name. After Phoebe leaves, Chandler reveals it was just a ruse but Joey will have the last laugh when baby Chandler turns out to be a girl.
*Chandler says that[at the time] there will never be a president Joey, but in 2020 Joe Biden became U.S. president.
*This episode was used as "Y is for Yay!" in the Nick at Nite Friends A-Z Event (January 2023).
=== Goofs ===
* When Monica tells Rachel what she is cooking, and Rachel says "I really get crabby when I cook" she crosses her arms and in a flash they are on the counter again.
* Monica mentions that Rachel can cook a baked potato but in a future episode "The One With Phoebe's Birthday Dinner" (S9E5), Ross tells Rachel she hasn't cooked since 1996. However it's possible Ross was referring to the last time she cooked properly. 
* When Rachel shoos the birds into the hall, the chicken turns around and heads away from the guys' door. When Joey opens the door, the chicken is right outside the door. Furthermore the duck can be heard from inside Rachel's apartment but it's across the hall behind two closed doors.
**The volume of the duck quacking could have been emphasized in relation to how disturbed Joshua is of its existence behind the two doors.
* When Phoebe says "Wow", in this shot, Monica's head is turned to the left. In the next shot, when Phoebe finishes her sentence "Carol really messed you up." Monica's head is turned to the right.
* When Rachel is in Joshua's parent's house, and sits down in a more seductive way, then his parents walk in, her legs are crossed in one scene then its not and then back to crossed again.
* When Ross and Carol were talking about Emily and Susan, the naginata (sword) on the wall is unsheathed. When it goes to Carol then back to Ross, it's sheathed with its scabbard.
* When Alice is talking to Phoebe in Central Perk, the strap of her handbag changes position between shots.
* When Rachel is shooing the birds out of the apartment and Joshua is getting away from them, his position keeps changing too quickly from the door the counter.
* Joshua's mother mentions that they left him "$500 for groceries." This seems somewhat strange, as Joshua is implied to be quite financially secure, as he can afford a personal shopper and entire new wardrobe from Bloomingdale's, and also invests in a nightclub. 
** His mother was implying, sarcastically, that Rachel was a prostitute that cost $500 and that she didn't approve. That's why Rachel replies "What? This-this, no, oh no, no-no-no, this is not—that's-that's not what it is."
== External links ==
* Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
* "The One with Rachel's New Dress" at the Internet Movie Database
==Episode Navigation==
Category:Friends Episodes
Category:Episodes with Rachel's name in the title
Category:Friends
Category:Season 4
Category:Season 4 Episodes
Category:Episodes