The One With Rachel's Big Kiss (2024)

"The One With Rachel's Big Kiss" is the twentieth episode of the seventh season of Friends, which aired on April 26, 2001. It guest stars Winona Ryder as Rachel's old sorority sister, Melissa Warburton.

Plot[]

Rachel bumps into her old sorority sister, Melissa Warburton, in Central Perk. After talking for a few minutes, Melissa suggests they go to dinner together. Once she leaves, Rachel reveals that in senior year of college she and Melissa went to a party and ended up kissing after drinking too much sangria. Ross comments "well that's two of my wives" Joey becomes infatuated with the story, but when Phoebe learns of it, she doesn't believe it. Rachel attempts to convince her, but Phoebe insists that she is exaggerating and that she is too "vanilla" to do something like that. Rachel invites Phoebe to dinner saying that Melissa will tell her what happened. Phoebe agrees to go, but still doesn't believe it saying she "just can't picture it". Joey responds with "You should get inside my head". At dinner things start off well, as Melissa asks Phoebe if she has ever been in a sorority to which she responds "Of course. I was a Thigh Mega Tampon". Phoebe continues by saying they had to be shut down when Regina Phalange died of alcohol poisoning. Rachel segues into the night she and Melissa kissed, but Melissa appears to have no recollection of it. Phoebe isn't surprised to hear this, but Rachel insists that it happened. Melissa says that "if [she] thought it happened [she]'d say it". Throughout the entire dinner Rachel cannot let it go, at the end of the night Rachel confronts Melissa and says she won't let her take the experience away and kisses Melissa again to prove that she can do something crazy. Melissa takes this to mean that Rachel loves her, to the latter's confusion. She confirms the first kiss did happen and she remembers their kiss and that she loves her as well. Melissa tries to kiss Rachel again, as the latter says that she is just a good kisser as Melissa becomes extremely embarrassed. She plays it off like it was joke though she mentions picturing Rachel's face while having sex with her boyfriend. She leaves but not before asking for another kiss goodbye though the latter doesn't partake. Once she leaves, Rachel turns to Phoebe (who now believes everything). Phoebe then kisses Rachel out of nowhere. She tells a stunned Rachel that she "just wanted to see what all the fuss was about". After Rachel asks "And?", Phoebe says "I've had better" and they walk off.

Monica has the seating chart for the wedding finished and Chandler is upset that he has so few guests attending on his side, with only about ten people. Monica assures him that it is not a contest, "certainly not a close one". When Joey asks where his parents will be sitting, Monica tells him that they weren't invited. Joey says that he told them they were invited because he thought parents were coming (knowing that Monica's, Chandler's and Ross's were coming). He pleads with her to invite them, and she reluctantly agrees. After rearranging the seating chart and ordering two extra meals from the caterer, Joey tells Monica that they won't be going. He says that they think they are unwanted, but asks Monica to call his mom and convince her otherwise. Once again, Monica reluctantly agrees. Later, Joey asks Monica for time to "vamp" at the wedding because his parents want to see him officiate, but his niece's christening is on the same day. Monica states that the wedding starts at six, but for another time, reluctantly agrees. When Joey tries to get Monica and Chandler's attention later, she breaks and says that whatever he wants he can have it, even if that included his mother standing "at the altar screaming racial slurs". But Joey just thanks them for inviting his parents. He, then, shows them a ridiculous hat his parents got him to wear at the ceremony.

At Ralph Lauren, Rachel helps Chandler find a tuxedo for the wedding. She shows him custom-made tuxedos that celebrities have worn to award shows and sent back. Chandler finds one worn by Pierce Brosnan and insists that he has to "get married in James Bond's tux". Chandler thinks he is the coolest until he learns that Rachel also found Ross a tux worn by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever. Chandler asks Ross not to wear it because he is supposed to wear the famous tux and that if Ross wears Batman's tux, it will make his less special. Ross declines, insisting on wearing the tux. When Chandler tries on Ross' tux, he discovers that the jacket is way too large and the pants are way too small. There is no way he can wear it. He, then, discovers that Ross' jacket wasn't from Batman Forever, but from the premiere of a At First Sight. Later Chandler finds a tuxedo that fits him well, until Rachel tells him it was: Diane Keaton's.

Cast and Crew[]

Main Cast[]

Jennifer Aniston - Rachel Greene
Courteney Cox - Monica Geller
Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay
Matt LeBlanc - Joey Tribbiani
Matthew Perry - Chandler Bing
David Schwimmer - Ross Geller

Supporting Cast[]

Winona Ryder - Melissa Warburton
James Michael Tyler - Gunther

Crew[]

Directed By:
Gary Halvorson

Written By:
Scott Silveri & Shana Goldberg-Meehan

Quotations[]

Chandler: Batman is so much cooler than James Bond.

Monica: What? 007 has all those gadgets.

Chandler: Batman has a utility belt.

Monica: 007 has a fancy car.

Chandler: Batman has the Batmobile.

Monica: 007 gets all the ladies.

Chandler: Batman gets Robin.

Rachel: We had a lot of tequila and ended up kissing...for several minutes.

Ross: Well that's two of my wives.

Gallery[]

Trivia[]

General[]

• In "The One With Frank Jr." (S3E5), Ross puts Winona Ryder on his freebie list. In this episode Winona Ryder appeared as Melissa, and she was in love with Rachel.
• As mentioned in "The One Where Joey Loses His Insurance", Rachel was a Kappa Kappa Delta. Melissa is her sorority sister.
• As of this episode, Rachel has kissed all five of her friends.
  • She kissed Monica (offscreen) to get the apartment back in "The One With All The Haste" (S4E19).
  • She kissed Ross many times.
  • She first kisses Joey on New Years in "The One With All The Resolutions" (S5E11)
  • Chandler kisses her while covering his relationship with Monica in "The One With All The Kissing" (S5E2). They also kissed before when she visited Ross and Chandler at college as seen in "The One Where The Stripper Cries" and off screen (due to Chandler being drunk) when Joey's sisters visited as revealed in"The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister".
  • In this episode, she kisses Phoebe.
• In the uncut DVD version, Joey wants to get Melissa back into the coffee house after hearing about her kiss with Rachel, and wants Ross to get the sangria.
• Rachel references her drunken marriage to Ross in "The One In Vegas, Part 2" (S5E24).
• Chandler mentions that he wants to wear James Bond's tux in his upcoming wedding. In reality, Matthew Perry posed with the then-incumbent Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and NBA champion Shaquille O'Neal, for a GQ Men of the Year photograph less than a year before this episode aired.
• Ross comments on learning that Rachel kissed Melissa "well that's two of my wives". This is a reference to his first wife Carol who left him after discovering she was a lesbian.
• Chandler brings up Batman and Robin's hypothetical hom*osexuality, which many theories imply. Phoebe actually stated "Robin is so gay" four episodes ago ("The One With The Truth About London").
• Monica calls Mrs. Tribbiani to apologize that some invitations have been delayed at the post office. In "The One With The Videotape" we discover that Rachel hasn't sent them out yet as Ross and Rachel have sex on top of the unsent invitations before sleeping together one month before the wedding.
• Joey suggests that he act as a warm-up for the wedding. In fact he almost misses it as his filming over runs. He also shows the hat he'll be wearing but in fact ends up marrying Monica and Chandler dressed in his film costume.
• Winona Ryder starred in Dracula with Gary Oldman who appears as Richard Crosby in"The One With Monica and Chandler's Wedding".
• The topic of who will marry next after Chandler and Monica comes up. Phoebe will be next when she marries Mike in "The One With Phoebe's Wedding".
• Phoebe uses her alias when she says that a girl called Regina Phalange spoiled her party.
• This is the only episode to feature an on-screen kiss on the lips between two women (other than as a thank you or farewell) as Carol and Susan were never seen kissing and when Rachel and Monica kissed for one minute it was off-screen.
• The restaurant where Rachel has dinner with Melissa and Phoebe is called Eddie's.
• Rachel mentions baseball player Paul O'Neill while showing Chandler the celebrity tuxedos. Paul O'Neill retired from the game the same year this episode aired, having played for the New York Yankees for 8 years (1993 - 2001).

Goofs[]

• Indeed, in "The One With The Evil Orthodontist", Rachel already talked about a kiss with another woman, that is Mindy, with Joey being all happy about it. This is another continuity error, or, less maliciously, an inattention.
• Rachel says the tuxedos she borrows were all tailor-made to fit the celebrities who wore them. Therefore, a tuxedo made for Pierce Brosnan, who's six feet and two inches, should be too big for Matthew Perry, who is only six feet. Similarly, a tux made for Diane Keaton (five feet, six and a half inches) should be way too small for Chandler - not a perfect fit.
• In Monica's seating plan, the table she indicates that Rachel's going to be sitting at is at the back of the hall on the bottom right looking at the stage. However at the actual wedding, the table's in the diagonally opposite corner, near the stage.
• In a blooper for the scene when Monica calls Mrs. Tribbiani, Matt Leblanc accidentally dials a real number.

External links[]

• Transcript of the episode including the deleted scenes
• "The One with Rachel's Big Kiss" at the Internet Movie Database

Episode Navigation[]