Sarah's Episode Reviews
917 - TOW The Memorial Service
Storyline #1: This was the storyline that included Chandler,Ross,and a College Alumni page. Here's the basic summary:Ross finds his college Alumni Page, which is basically where you can see what other people from college have been doing. In classic Ross fashion, he loves the page and starts writing a post about he's been up to, he shows it to Chandler and while Ross is away, Chandler writes a really funny post about Ross. He decides to not send it,but when Ross says something kind of rude to Joey, Joey ends up sending it. When Ross finds out, he writes that Chandler is gay, but it seems that everyone on the college site reads it and tons of people call up to congratulate Chandler on coming out. To get back at Ross,Chandler writes that Ross is dead. It turns out that though Chandler got tons of posts and phone calls for coming out, Ross gets none for being dead so he throws a 'Mock Memorial Service' for himself and invites everyone. Since he expects people to come, he hides in a bedroom. No one comes, but one very pretty popular girl from college who says she had a crush on Ross.Ross immediately runs into the living room to tell her he's still alive, but she calls him a freak and leaves. Even though the storyline seemed really stupid, I thought it worked well onscreen. It was funny to see Classic Ross being mad that no one cares enough about him. Though again,it seemed really desperate for him to throw a memorial service for himself, I LOVED the end line, where the very pretty girl walked out and he looked at Chandler and Monica and said, in almost geeky high school ross fashion, "Corey (last name) had a crush on ME!". It reminded me of his old geeky ways.
Storyline #2: In this storyline, Phoebe begged Monica to help her by not letting Phoebe call Mike(Paul Rudd). This storyline was the weakest of the three. It sounded like a good storyline, but it could've been presented better. I would've liked to see a more controlling Monica. In this episode, she was sometimes controlling, sometimes not. It just didn't make sense. Remember in T.O.W All the Kissing where Rachel asked Monica to make all her decisions and Monica became REALLY controlling. I would've like to see something like that in this episode. And plus, I wasn't the biggest Mike/Phoebe fan so I was alittle bummed when they "spent one last night together".
Storyline #3: In this storyline, Emma gets a hold on Hugsy, Joey's favorite penguin and won't give him back. This storyline was ok. Sometimes it was funny, especially when Joey snuck into Rachel's room trying to steal Hugsy back. The laughs weren't many, but Matt LeBlanc(Joey) really made this storyline work with his cute Joey fashion.
End Credit: In the end credit scene, Ross is talking to his mother on the phone and trying to explain to her that he's not dead. I thought this was really funny because at the very end Ross says, "Mom...you wouldn't be childless" then after a minute he says in a surprising voice,"MONICA!".
Best Lines: Phoebe (after Monica has stolen her cellphone): DAMN YOU,MONICA GELLER HYPHEN BING! and Joey (while trying to steal Hugsy back from Emma while she's sleeping): Look at that little angel sleeping.........with Emma's chubby hands around his neck!!".
I would give this episode a
B