The One with the Morning After

"The One with the Morning After" is the sixteenth episode of the third season of the American television situation comedy Friends and 64th overall, which aired on NBC on February 20, 1997. The plot, which is darker than most Friends episodes, centers on Ross (David Schwimmer) dealing with the repercussions of sleeping with another woman hours after he and Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) took a break.

The episode was written by the show's creators, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, directed by James Burrows, and guest-stars James Michael Tyler as Gunther, and Angela Featherstone as Chloe, the girl from the Xerox shop whom Ross ends up sleeping with after looking for comfort when he and Rachel made the decision to take a break from their relationship in the previous episode.

Plot
The morning after Ross and Rachel take a break from their relationship, Ross wakes up in his apartment to Chloe (Angela Featherstone) walking out of his bathroom, having spent the night together. Hurriedly checking his answering machine for messages, Ross realizes that Rachel had left a message apologizing, saying that she loves him, and that she will stop by his apartment. Unable to get rid of Chloe in time, he hides her behind the door as Rachel comes by to try things again. Ross quickly agrees and becomes her boyfriend again.

Not wasting any time, Ross goes over to Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Chandler's (Matthew Perry) apartment to confess what he did. While Ross believes that he should tell Rachel everything, Joey and Chandler urge him not to. After reluctantly agreeing, the guys then try to figure out a way to prevent Rachel from finding out about Ross and Chloe’s one-night stand. Joey tells Ross that he needs to think about "the trail": the list of people from the girl he slept with to the girl he does not want to find out what happened. Chandler traces the trail from Chloe to her coworker Isaac, who has a sister Jasmine, who works with Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow), who is best friends with Rachel.

As Ross goes down "the trail" to prevent the news from getting to Rachel, he finds out that Chloe had already told Isaac, who had already told Jasmine. Though he manages to get Jasmine to promise to not say anything to Phoebe, she mentions that he should talk to her roommate that she told, because her roommate knows Rachel, too. Discovering that Jasmine's roommate is none other than Gunther (James Michael Tyler), Ross rushes to Central Perk to try to keep Gunther quiet, only to find out that he had already told Rachel everything.

Meanwhile, Monica (Courteney Cox) and Phoebe are in Monica's bedroom trying a new waxing product they purchased called Waxine, but the pain is too great. Hearing the screams from across the hall, Joey and Chandler rush over. Monica and Phoebe ensure Chandler and Joey they are fine. Before Chandler and Joey can leave the room, an angry Rachel storms into the apartment, followed by Ross. Monica, Phoebe, Chandler, and Joey stay in the bedroom, unbeknownst to Ross and Rachel.

The fight between Ross and Rachel is even worse than the one they had the night before when they took a break from their relationship. A furious Rachel demands that Ross leave, but he insists that they talk. Rachel, who is upset that she had to hear everything that happened between Ross and Chloe from Gunther, gets even more furious when Ross accidentally lets slip out that Chloe was still in his apartment when Rachel visited him earlier that morning. Rachel then tries to make Ross see her perspective creating a mock scenario of her sleeping with Mark. Chandler and Joey want to leave, but Ross tells Rachel he wanted to tell her everything but Chandler and Joey told him not to. Humiliated, Chandler and Joey decide not to leave the bedroom, but they, along with Monica and Phoebe, get so hungry that they eat the Waxine, which happens to be organic, but not edible.

At 3:00 a.m., Ross is still trying to get Rachel to forgive him and starts touching her and kissing her, but she stands up and slaps his hands away, telling him to go home. Ross walks over to her and tries again to tell her that they can work things out and that he cannot imagine his life without her. Both start to cry (as do the others in the bedroom) as Ross gets down on his knees and begs for forgiveness. Rachel tells Ross that she cannot forgive him because she cannot stop picturing him with Chloe and that there is nothing he can say or do, because it has changed everything between them forever. The two sadly part, leaving Ross devastated and saying, "This can't be it." Rachel replies, "Then how come it is?"

The episode ends as the other four finally leave the bedroom and find Rachel on the couch, and Ross nowhere to be seen. Monica wraps a blanket over Rachel as the other three quietly cross the room to go to their respective homes.

Main cast

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

Guest stars

 * Angela Featherstone as Chloe: the girl from the copy place that Ross sleeps with after him and Rachel took a break from their relationship in the previous episode.
 * James Michael Tyler as Gunther: the manager of the Central Perk coffee house where the gang spends their free time, who also happens to be in love with Rachel.
 * Maury Ginsberg as Isaac: Chloe's coworker at the copy place.
 * Cynthia Mann as Jasmine: Isaac's sister, who also happens to be Phoebe's coworker and Gunther's roommate.

Crew

 * James Burrows (director)
 * Marta Kauffman and David Crane (writers)

Reception
In an interview, Aniston mentions the infamous breakup stating, "The breakup. Well, that was sort of the beginning of the end for them. Or, the beginning of the beginnings of endings and beginnings." It was the episode in which the show's dynamic had completely changed, and had left audiences more anxious for the next episode because more was at stake in terms of character and plot development. In the show's Blu-ray and DVD commentary track, the show's co-creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane, along with producing partner Kevin S. Bright, discussed the difficulties of trying to make this episode both dramatic and comedic. Part of this was due to Aniston's performance as Rachel being a little too realistic, and the situation of the breakup being too excruciatingly familiar. According to Kauffman, "Nearly every adult watching this episode would've had some kind of personal memory of a similarly awful split". This is also the episode where someone utters for the first time the classic saying, "we were on a break", which is later said as an ongoing gag throughout the rest of the series.