Friends - [5x20] - The One with the Ride Along

Friends - [5x20] - The One with the Ride Along

"The One With The Ride-Along" is the twentieth episode of the fifth season of Friends, which aired on April 29, 1999. As Emily's wedding nears, the group do their best to distract Ross. A gunshot and a meatball sandwich take center stage when the guys go out on the beat with Phoebe's cop boyfriend.



Ross' ex-wife Emily is getting married again, so the group do their best to distract Ross. Monica decides to organize some photos, but Rachel accidentally drops a box of other pictures on it, ruining all of Monica's work. Due to being upset, the two decide to make margaritas, but they do not have the ingredients, so they decide to steal them from Ross' apartment, where Rachel listens to a message from Emily, who is having second thoughts about her wedding and the divorce with Ross. Monica thinks that they should erase the message, but Rachel thinks Ross deserves to know the truth. In the discussion, they accidentally erase the message.


Phoebe talks about a ride-along that she has recently gone on with her cop boyfriend, Gary, in Central Perk, and Ross, Chandler and Joey get very excited about it. Gary offers to take them out on a ride-along, so they head out in the evening. Joey buys himself "the best sandwich in the world" but Gary tells him that he cannot eat it in his car. Joey continues to talk about the sandwich, and the other three men begin to get irritated. After Ross accidentally turns on the beacon ray, he is not allowed to sit in the front seat anymore, as they are undercover. During the ride, a car backfire scares them all, leading to Joey diving over Ross in an attempt save him, which causes problems between Chandler and Joey because Joey apparently wanted to save Ross instead of Chandler. However, it turns out that Joey had no intention of saving Ross, but wanted to save his sandwich. In order to prove how much Chandler means to him, he lets him have a bite of the sandwich.


After the believed "near-death experience", Ross is filled with a "new found respect for life", which he reports to his own answering machine, resulting in the message being heard by Rachel and Monica, who are still at his apartment. Rachel tells Ross about the message from Emily, but Ross wants to call her back, because "he wants to seize every new opportunity". Rachel talks the idea out of Ross' mind by convincing him that it isn't the day of seizing stuff, but escaping from stuff, and that he should escape from a future of being hurt by Emily.