Friends - [3x22] - The One with the Screamer

Friends - [3x22] - The One with the Screamer

"The One With The Screamer" is the twenty-second episode of the third season of Friends, which aired on April 24, 1997.

Joey gets tickets for his friends to see him premiere in the play. Ross surprises Rachel when he announces he is bringing a date. In retaliation Rachel also says she is bringing a date, and comes with Tommy, a seemingly perfectly normal guy. However, he turns out to be an aggressive, testosterone-fueled bully who intimidates and frightens an elderly couple sitting in his and Ross' seats by, for no necessary reason, yelling his throat hoarse at them, and then calms down instantly, seemingly in a good mood now. However, as Ross is the only witness to this, Rachel doesn't believe him when he tries to warn her what an aggressive bully Tommy is, assuming he's just making up the story about Tommy screaming at the elderly couple and then calming down instantly in order to split them up and have her all to himself.


The play takes place, and Ross blows his date off when he starts focusing attention on Tommy (waiting for him to scream his head off) rather than on her. She leaves, and the director brings the early edition of the newspaper containing the review of the play. He's furious to find that the review is pretty much abysmal about everything, even the direction, and storms off. Katie, still destroyed by the review, reveals to Joey that the director dumped her after the review, and Joey supports her by staying with her at her apartment, where she passes out, and the two spend "the night" - talking to each other about their feelings. Soon after, Ross, still disapproving of Tommy, almost spills hot coffee over him. The bully intimidates Ross by ranting and shouting insults at him before calming down just as instantly as he did before, apparently in a good mood afterwards. Rachel still hangs out with Tommy despite Ross' advice, but when she, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Ross see him shout and rant insults at the chick and the duck after the chick urinates in his hand, she and the others realize Ross was right about him being an aggressive bully with little apparent control over his anger, and when Tommy can see that they are all clearly scared of him now, the bully breaks up with her before leaving.


Joey's new relationship with Kate does not last long, as Kate obtains a part in General Hospital in LA and leaves Joey, though not without watching him perform the play with understudy Lauren.


Phoebe spends a lot of time on the phone support line to claim the warranty on her broken phone. The support line keeps telling Phoebe that she's next in line, but Phoebe never gets picked up. She keeps herself busy by swapping Monica's and Rachel's stuff in each other's rooms, but when two days pass and she's still not picked up (by a Utah number, contrary to what Phoebe believed was a toll-free number), the guys make her. Phoebe breaks Monica's phone in the process, and she gives Monica the number of the company she can call.