Episode 18 - "The One in Massapequa"
March 28, 2002
It's Ross & Monica's parents' 35th wedding anniversary, and Monica is very excited to be giving the speech at this year's celebration. Usually, Ross gives a very moving speech and makes everyone cry. Monica's attempts at writing a moving speech get pretty far-fetched, bringing up dead relatives and pets to get a few tears. Phoebe has decided that "fate" has brought her to her new boyfriend, Parker. He is a constantly cheerful, talkative, energetic and enthusiastic person with a wacky personality and a strange and annoying habit of making a big fuss of everything, even the most trivial things...and his habit of doing this irritates the friends greatly.
At the anniversary party, Parker is driving everyone crazy with his ridiculously over-the-top compliments on absolutely everything. Phoebe catches the others making fun of Parker and gets upset, but then realizes that he is driving her crazy as well. Monica & Ross's parents also tell Rachel & Ross that since they are having a child out of wedlock, they've actually told all of their friends that they got married. They don't want to pretend, but when several people give them checks as wedding gifts, they play along. When guests ask for details about the proposal and wedding, they actually end up having a lot of fun telling others about their fantasy day, with Rachel creating various extravagant details while Ross tells a touching story about proposing to her in the planetarium where they had their first date, making it seem like there is some spark left between them. Monica gives the anniversary toast and it's a total dud. She gets desperate and brings up Terms of Endearment and neglected Romanian children in an attempt to get her parents to become emotional and cry, but her speech eventually gets so ridiculous that no-one can feel anything except bewilderment after hearing it, not even the starry-eyed Parker. Ross then gets up and gives a brief two-sentence toast stating that he and Rachel would consider themselves lucky to be half as happy as Jack and Judy in thirty-five years, which makes his parents cry. Monica is frustrated.
Parker breaks up with Phoebe for angrily telling him, after getting fed up with his constant enthusiasm, that she wants him to be "much less happy." After arguing with her, Parker angrily storms out of the room...and then returns to compliment the argument.
Back at their apartment, Ross and Rachel continue to debate some details of their fictional marriage, with Rachel being touched when she learns that Ross's story about his proposal to her was the one he actually planned to use when they were going out.
At the end of the episode, a sympathetic Ross comforts an upset Monica, assuring her that he thought her speech was great, and he doesn't understand why nobody cried, also claiming that their late grandmother would have loved it, and that she was there in spirit. This makes Monica cry, and then say "Oh good God, Ross! How the hell do you do it?"
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