Episode 19 - TOW Joey's Fridge
19 January 2009
Review
Synopsis: Ross worries that Elizabeth may cheat on him at Spring Break. Meanwhile Joey’s fridge breaks and he tries to convince the others to pay for it. Rachel asks if the others can find her a date but when both Phoebe, and Monica and Chandler bring a guy, things become competitive. The Good: Joey does his best to make his fridge accusations funny and to be fair some of them are. There are lots of petty insults flying around and many of them do hit their target well. The Bad: When you first watch this you could be forgiven for thinking this is a pretty funny episode. But although there are plenty of laughs throughout, they are all as cheap as possible. The writers have forgotten that there is another way to make a joke other than to have one character verbally attack another. These are meant to be good friends and yet Chandler and Ross are torn to pieces. Phoebe is so aggressive and unkind that she couldn’t be further from who she was meant to be. Joey trying to get everyone to pay for his fridge is stupid. About as stupid as how competitive the friends become over who Rachel will chose to take to the ball. There behaviour is so inappropriate that if you met people like that you’d assume they had serious social problems. Yes it is only a sit com, but that type of behaviour needs to be justified. Here they are competing over nothing that matters to any of them. Ross and Elizabeth are not funny pretending to not be going out in public. In terms of writing this episode is a real sign post on the highway to sitcom hell. Best Line: (M) “Chandler, do you think we talk about our relationship enough?”
(C) “Yeah do we have any fruit roll-ups?” Best Friend: Joey
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