FRIENDS
“The One About All the Rugby”
Scenes
1. Interior, beauty salon, daytime. Chandler and Rachel are having their nails
done. Chandler is about to joke about Janice, his ex-girlfriend, when he hears her
voice. Chandler feels spooky seeing Janice in the doorway.
2. Interior, Monica and Rachel’s apartment later that day. Monica tries to find out
from Joey what a light switch does. Joey shows no interest in this problem.
Monica is disappointed that no one seems to care about the light switch that
does nothing. --3. --- Interior, Monica and Rachel’s apartment later that day. Chandler brings in
Janice. Janice breaks the news that she's divorced, implying that she would like
to start dating Chandler again. After Janice leaves the apartment, Chandler tells
his friends that he’s going to break up with Janice before Janice tries to start
another relationship with him. Chandler's friends doubt it's going to be that easy
for Chandler to do.
4. Exterior, a quiet New York street, late evening. Ross is walking with Emily, his
girlfriend from the UK. Because Emily is afraid to be on the streets of New York
this late, Ross tries to calm her down. Suddenly, Ross gets really scared when
he sees two young men running out of the darkness, picking up Emily and taking
her away. Later Ross realizes that it was a joke and that one of the two young
men used to be Emily’s boyfriend. Emily’s friends invite Ross to play a rugby
game in the park on the weekend. Emily jokes at Ross’ playing rugby. Taking
offence in Emily’s remark, Ross aggressively accepts the invitation to play this
tough game, which he never played before.
5. Interior, Central Perk café, late evening. Chandler and Janice walk in after a
concert. Janice starts building a new relationship with Chandler. Trying to stop
her at once, Chandler makes up an excuse that his job’s being transferred to
Yemen. Janice decides to spend as much time with Chandler as possible before
he leaves for Yemen. That scares Chandler to death and he tells Janice that he’s
leaving tomorrow. Janice decides to help him pack.
6. Interior, Monica and Rachel’s apartment, late evening. Monica invites Joey,
Phoebe and Rachel to watch how she’s going to find out what the problem light
switch is connected. Before starting her experiment, she explains that she’s
going to use electrical appliances that make noise to find out what the light switch
does. After Monica flicks the light switch on, we start hearing a strange noise
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which eventually happens to be coming from Joey. Rachel gets to be the first to
figure out the source of that noise and tells Monica that the noise comes from
Joey. Phoebe freaks out and asks Monica to turn Joey off. Monica understands
that her experiment failed and looks dismayed.
7. Interior, Joey and Chandler’s apartment, afternoon. Ross and Joey are
watching a rugby game on ESPN. Phoebe and Rachel join them. In walk
Chandler and Janice. Chandler looks tense; Janice carries a reel of wrap paper.
Chandler announces to everyone in the room that he’s moving to Yemen
tomorrow. When Janice disappears into Chandler’s bedroom, Chandler quickly
and quietly explains to his friends why he had to let Janice in. Joey approves of
Chandler’s plan and shows his lack of basic knowledge of political geography. --8. --- Interior, Joey and Chandler’s apartment, afternoon. Joey tries to talk Ross
out of playing rugby with Emily’s friends from the UK. Rachel agrees with Joey,
expressing her doubts and saying that Ross is too sensitive to play this rough
game. Ross tries to make fun of this game on TV. After Phoebe asked about why
he was going to do it, Ross explains to her that he wants to show Emily that, like
Emily’s ex-boyfriend, he is tough enough to play rugby. Rachel makes another
joke about Ross’ claims. Ross flips out at her. Joey calms him down.
9. Exterior, park, a rugby field, daytime. Joey gives Ross last-minute advice on
how to survive on the rugby field. Ross tries to encourage himself by calling
himself “Red Ross”. Meanwhile some distance away from Ross, Emily asks her
friends to go easy on Ross because it’s his first time. When the game starts,
Ross jumps into the middle of the scrum, falling head down, his legs sticking up
from the middle of the scrum and shaking.
10. Interior, Rachel and Monica’s apartment, late afternoon. Rachel gets back
home from work. Monica stands at a table studying electrical plans for the
building. Rachel shows her interest in what Monica’s doing with the electrical
plans. Monica updates Rachel on the progress of solving the problem with the
light switch and how much she’s done so far. Rachel jokes about Monica’s efforts.
Monica tries to involve Rachel into her project, but Rachel jokes about it again.
11. Interior, daytime, airport. Janice and Chandler arrive to a gate with all
Chandler’s luggage. Janice tells Chandler that she’s going to be around until he
gets on board of the plane. Chandler asks Janice to wait for him a few steps
away from the ticket desk. He comes up to the desk and explains his situation to
the ticket officer. The ticket officer doesn’t understand Chandler’s plan to buy a
fake ticket to Yemen. After realizing that Janice watches him closely, he decides
to buy an airplane ticket to Yemen for $2,100 with his American Express credit
card.
12. Exterior, park, rugby field, daytime. After catching a ball, Ross gets knocked
down on the ground by a player. Almost all players jump on Ross, piling up and
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making Ross scream in pain. During the break when talking to Emily, Ross
pretends that he really enjoys the game. When Emily steps aside to bring him a
bottle of water, he confesses to Joey and Phoebe that he can’t play anymore
because he feels miserable because of all the injuries he’s got playing it, and that
this game is too rough for him. Joey, Phoebe and Emily ask Ross to stop playing
this game, but Ross wants to finish it. Then Emily advises Ross on some other
players’ injuries so that Ross could hurt them back. Equipped with Emily’s
knowledge of other players’ traumas, weaknesses and secrets, Ross gets back
on the field to finish the game. His friends cheer him up.
13. Interior, Rachel and Monica’s apartment, late afternoon. Rachel gets back
home from work. Monica is peacefully sitting on a sofa, a book and a glass of
wine in her hands. Rachel notices a few simple children drawings on A4 format
paper hanging on the wall. After tearing off a few of them, Rachel gets scared by
big holes those drawings covered. Monica explains that she made those holes to
find the loose wire. Rachel’s dismay over what Monica did to the apartment gets
bigger when she sees a hole in the floor and another one up in the ceiling. Now
Rachel can finally talk to her neighbors below and above her without leaving her
apartment.
14. Interior, Central Perk café, early evening. Emily and Joey bring in the dirty,
beaten up but still walking, talking and breathing body of Ross. Ross wants to
celebrate his victory on the rugby field, offering everyone a cup of coffee. Ross
and Emily sit on the couch. Ross brags about how great he was on the field
during the game. Emily hugs Ross after she sees how much she means to Ross.
She squeezes Ross a little too tight making Ross squeal in pain. After Ross says
that Emily’s hug is worth the pain, she hugs him again. This time Ross stops
Emily pushing her away.
15. Interior, airport, boarding time. It’s time for Chandler to get on the plane to
Yemen. Chandler tries to say good-bye to Janice, hoping that she will leave now.
Janice promises that she will write to Chandler every day and wait for him as
long as it takes Chandler to finish his work in Yemen. Running out of hope that
Janice may leave before the plane takes off, Chandler gets himself unwillingly
through the gate. After unsuccessfully trying to escape from the gate while Janice
is looking away, Chandler has nothing else to do but get on board of the plane.
16. Interior, Rachel and Monica’s apartment, evening. Disappointed, Monica is
flicking the light switch that does nothing, sharing with Rachel how much effort
she has put in to find the problem of the light switch. Then Monica decides to
give up. Rachel feels relieved. --17. --- Interior, Joey and Chandler’s apartment, evening – the same time while
Monica is flicking the switch on and off. Joey and Phoebe are watching TV.
Phoebe blinks at the TV, thinking that her eyes’ blinking may control the TV while
watching it because it starts switching on and off as she blinks at it. Amazed,
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Joey stops eating his sandwich and looks at this miracle. Eventually the TV stops
switching on and off. Phoebe is disappointed as she loses control over Joey’s TV.
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