Monica encounters Richard at the video store, and they decide to go out for a burger as friends. Rachel consistently arrives home late from work each night. Phoebe is dating an athletic individual. Joey and Rachel exchange their favorite books to determine which one is better. Monica demonstrates to Richard how to cook lasagna, and they end up becoming intimate. They contemplate the idea of being friends with benefits. Despite enjoying their time together, Monica desires a serious relationship with Richard once again. Richard, too, wishes to be with Monica, but they both recognize that they are back to the same unresolved issues that led to their previous breakup.
Did you know?!
• The tye-dye shirt Phoebe wears is a Grateful Dead Lithuanian basketball shirt. In 1992, Lithuania, newly independent from the Soviet Union, did not have enough funds to send its basketball team to the Olympics. The Grateful Dead heard about this and took it upon themselves to raise the money to get them to the Olympics. In thanks, the Lithuanian basketball team sported tye-dye jerseys. They went on to win the bronze in Barcelona.
• When Joey is talking to Ross and Chandler in the coffee shop about The Shining, he references the twins in the hallway, however they do not appear in the book.
• One of the video boxes seen in the video store is Beauty and the Beast (1991), in which the Beast is voiced by Robby Benson, who also directed this episode.
• Richard (Tom Selleck) is without his iconic mustache because he had shaved it off for the movie In & Out (1997).
• While the books Rachel and Joey are reading are a part of the storyline, Ross is seen reading a book in Central Perk. Rachel and Joey agree to read each other’s favorite books. Rachel reads “The Shining” by Stephen King and Joey reads “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott. The book Ross is reading is “Race: How Blacks & Whites Think & Feel About the American Obsession” by Studs Terkel.
• In the opening scene in the video store, when Monica is talking to the clerk behind the counter, a movie poster for the film One on One (1977) starring Robby Benson can be seen hanging on the wall behind the counter. Benson directed this particular episode, along with several others during the show’s run.
• Unofficially, alternatively known as “The One with the Book Spoilers” and or “The One with Phoebe’s Boyfriend’s Shorts”.
• Ross’s age is inconsistent throughout the series. In the first episode The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate (1994), Ross says he is 26, implying he was born in 1967. In episode 3.13 The One Where Monica and Richard Are Just Friends (1997), he says he is 29. In the next season however, in episode 4.9 The One Where They’re Going to Party! (1997), he again says he’s 29, implying he was born in 1968. Furthermore, in episode 5.4, The One Where Phoebe Hates PBS (1998), he says he is about to get divorced again before he’s thirty, implying he is still 29 and born in 1969. Also, in episode 8.4 The One with the Videotape (2001), he claims that he backpacked across Europe in 1983 then whispers to himself “I was thirteen?” implying he was born in 1969 or 1970.
• It makes no sense that Joey would get confused by the gender of the characters from Little Women, since despite his low intelligence, he would have read the pronouns referring to either Laurie or Jo.
• It may be that the writers for this episode only watched the 1994 version of “Little Women” rather than reading the book. This is indicated in a few subtle ways. Joey references Amy having burned Jo’s “manuscript.” In the film version, Amy does indeed burn the manuscript, but in the original novel, she burns the final copy of Jo’s book – the book specifically mentions that Jo had already disposed of her old manuscript. (A manuscript is a handwritten draft.) Also, Joey references Jo having a crush on Laurie, which she does not. Rachel spoils a part of “Little Women” for Joey by telling him that Jo turns Laurie down despite being in love with him. The film version (starring Winona Ryder and Christian Bale in those roles) hints that that might be the case, but in the book, Jo absolutely is not in love with Laurie.
• Strangely, it appears the writers of the episode never read the books Rachel and Joey lend each other. A lot of details in “Little Women” and “The Shining” books are wrong. All of the details mentioned for “The Shining” are from the movie and not in the novel. Joey mentions Room 237, it’s 217 in the book. The quotes Joey mentions are found only in the movie. As for “Little Women” they got a major plot point wrong. Laurie is turned down by Jo. She doesn’t want him romantically. That part is also in all of the movies released at the time (and since). It’s the crux of “Little Women.”
• While Joey is discussing The Shining with Chandler and Ross with Rachel present (so as not to give away anything) he quotes, “All blank and no blank make a blank a blank blank.”, however, this is not in the book, only the movie (pages and pages of “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” that the wife, played by Shelley Duvall, discovers).
• Rachel and Joey read Little Women. Little Women (1994) starred Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder, each of whom later guest starred on Friends (1994). Ryder played Rachel’s sorority sister Melissa Warburton in The One with Rachel’s Big Kiss (2001). Sarandon played a soap star Jessica Lockhart replaced by Joey in The One with Joey’s New Brain (2001).
• Californians that move to cold temperature states, such as New York, tend to wear more clothes during winter months not less. They are sensitive to the cold unlike Robert’s character, who claims to be from California.
