Okay so I'm going to talk about an episode of Friends that I like... but it's weird. The One With The Fake Monica. So in this episode Monica finds out that her credit card is being stolen and she befriends the woman that stole her card... which is weird???
So anyway- I read this article about it on the AV club and there are 2 different people commenting on 2 episodes... I just kind of skimmed through what they thought about this episode in particular just because I wanted to know what the response of this episode was. On Kumail Nanjiani's The X Files Files podcast he reads the message boards of those episodes and what people thought about them at the time. I couldn't really find anything on Friends- although I didn't really look that hard lol. In some of the season 8- onward episodes I can tell you what I thought of them at the time when they were on but... this one I couldn't find anything for.
SOOO anyway... this episode starts off with Monica finding out someone stole her credit card- and she sees EVERYTHING this woman is using her credit card for and it's all things Monica would love to do. She decides to go to the Tap Class that fake Monica signed up for and she befriends her and says that her name is Monana.
Let's talk about the tap class scene a little. In that article both Joe and Sonia liked the tap scene although Joe loved the episode and Sonia did not. I didn't really read their opinions on the tap scene thoroughly- but I always had some opinions about the scene. Monica, Phoebe and Rachel all go to the dance class and try to dance as well as the other people in the class. Monica feels so uncoordinated and just doesn't like it. Rachel picks up on it right away and does it perfectly and Phoebe doesn't really do it the right way but she doesn't care and thinks she's doing great anyway. This says SO MUCH about all 3 characters... and Monica's struggle to relate to them. For Rachel- things kind of come easily for her at this point in time. For most of her life she's just been living off of her daddy's credit card and she had only been somewhat independent for a few months. Phoebe kind of lives in her own world and doesn't really care what other people think of her. Whereas Monica has to work hard to get noticed by people and cares very much about what people think of her. So that scene sets up the relationship between the three women of the show VERY well and it's a great scene overall.
One thing I thought was interesting- in the article I liked- was that Joe mentioned that this was an episode where we got to deal with Monica's neurotic self image issues without her family being brought into the episode. I believe he said Mother- but I'd say family because sometimes Ross and her father also bring out that side of Monica. It's kind of like a self realization storyline for Monica. She realizes she could have the lifestyle of the fake Monica- she could certainly afford the lifestyle obviously since Fake Monica is using her money... but Monica is "too uptight" and won't spend her money that way or sign up to do the things Fake Monica is doing.
So that's somewhat my issue with this episode Monica... I would say that in this episode they're starting to label her as "Uptight" whereas fake Monica is kind of a free spirit... but that's not really the case. Monica is responsible- not uptight and Fake Monica is more irresponsible than a free spirit. Phoebe is a character that is a free spirit but Phoebe wouldn't steal someone's identity for insane shopping habits.
And the episode kind of makes Monica look like the one that needs to be living her life differently- which sure she's happy spending time with Fake Monica... but it doesn't really blame Fake Monica for stealing her credit card information. At the end of the episode Monica joins the tap class and just dances and does things wrong and doesn't care when the teacher tells her.
An episode I would compare to this one that I think might kind of have a better overall moral to the episode is season 6's "The One Where Phoebe Runs" where Rachel goes running with Phoebe and the way Phoebe runs is crazy looking and it embarrasses Rachel... but then Rachel runs like Phoebe and she has way more fun! So yeah.
Overall... this is a weird episode and I love it as much as I love any episode of Friends... but it's a weird one and I'm not sure this is something they'd make today... which is the beauty of these early episodes of Friends.
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