“Could I BE Wearing Any More Clothes?” The 10 Best Joey Episodes of ‘Friends’ (2024)

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Friends

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Joey gets the acting job of a lifetime: working with Al Pacino! …As his butt double! The scene where Joey ends up overacting with his butt, to the consternation of the director (played by James Burrows), is some of the funniest stuff of the earlyFriends episodes.

[Stream “The One With the Butt” on Netflix.]

While Ross’s ex-wife, Carol, is in the hospital about to give birth, Joey wanders off into the hospital where he runs into an impending single mother, played by Leah Remini in her pre-King of Queens days. She and Joey have crackly, combative chemistry as he steps in and stays with her while she’s having her baby. Things leave off on a wistful note, but I’ve always wondered whether these two could have been an iconic couple.

[Stream “The One With the Birth” on Netflix.]

In one ofFriends‘ best episodes, where the gang is stuck inside waiting to all get ready to go out, Chandler and Joey’s feud over stolen underwear escalates into something that becomes one ofFriends‘ best bits.

[Stream “The One Where No One’s Ready” on Netflix.]

Joey convinces Rachel to read Stephen King’sThe Shining if he promises to step outside of his own literary bubble and readLittle Women. It’s the kind of thing that might have been a forgettable runner of a storyline if not for how into the book Joey got …. and how devastated he was as he got further into it.

[Stream “The One Monica & Richard Are Just Friends” on Netflix.]

Why is it that all the landmark moments of Joey’s acting career happen in the shower? Only God can say. But for Joey’s big acting gig opposite Charlton Heston, he once again ended up in his altogether in the shower, this time because his stinky, stinky self needed a shower.

[Stream “The One With Joey’s Dirty Day” on Netflix.]

Ross makes the controversial decision to pick Joey as his best man (for his wedding to Emily, if you can’t keep track of all of Ross’s marriages), and Joey goes and loses the heirloom ring that Ross has entrusted to him. Classic Joey.

[Stream “The One With the Worst Best Man Ever” on Netflix.]

This was the change-of-pace episode that followed the one where everybody found out about Chandler and Monica’s relationship. In it, Soleil Moon-Frye (yes, TV’s Punky Brewster all grown up) plays a girl who Joey has started to date with theSeinfeld-ian quirk that she regularly peppers him with tiny punches. “It feels like someone’s hitting me with a very tiny but very real bat.”

[Stream “The One With the Girl Who Hits Joey” on Netflix.]

Joey and Ben (as in Ross’s son, Ben) are both auditioning for a commercial for soup —noodle soup, in point of fact — and things of course get weird when Joey’s chances for success are pitted against Ben’s. Joey’s repeated attempts to film the commercial under duress are hilarious as it is. When the kid he’s acting opposite gets fed up with him (“COME ON!”), things hit the next level.

[Stream “The One Where Rachel Smokes” on Netflix.]

The later-seasons development where Joey falls in love with Rachel, and there’s a fraught triangle with Ross, andFriends became equal parts soap opera and sitcom, are controversial among viewers. But given the parameters of the storylines, Joey (and Matt LeBlanc) are really quite compelling and sympathetic.

[Stream “The One Where Joey Tells Rachel” on Netflix.]

Joey practices for a game-show-host audition for a show calledBamboozled!, and the show’s byzantine rule structure provides a lot of laughs. It it a late-seasons attempt to re-capture the magic of the game show from season 4? Maybe. But it’s a highlight of the show’s lesser years.

[Stream “The One With the Baby Shower” on Netflix.]