The One With The Blackout. This wonderfully hilarious episode takes place when there’s a blackout in New York City and most of the friends get stuck in Monica’s apartment building, with the exception of Chandler, who gets stuck in an ATM vestibule with the supermodel Jill Goodacre. This episode also includes Rachel meeting Paolo, who becomes her boyfriend, because of the cat that jumps on Ross. Surely this scene sends us all into side-splitting stitches every time!
A life lesson that can be taken from this episode is: never underestimate the power of minor situations, or times when life has slowed down. You might feel like your life has come to a standstill and like nothing important is really happening, but these are the times when you could potentially happen upon a bigger event in your life. Even though it is quite normal for the characters in Friends to be dating, and boyfriends and girlfriends come and go often, this likely isn’t the case for lots of people. When Rachel is searching in the dark hallways of the building for the cat that escaped from Monica’s apartment, she comes across a man leaning against a door with the cat in his arms. Rachel immediately knows she wants to date this guy, and luckily for her he wants to date her too. She comes back with him to the apartment and introduces him to the others as Paolo. When she was searching for the cat, I’m sure she didn’t expect to find a boyfriend as well as the cat. And you could argue that it is normal for the friends to be dating people all the time, but it is definitely an important part of the plot line, and most of the relationships they have are important to them … with the exception of Joey and his multitude of girlfriends. But hey, some of those relationships definitely meant something to him! Relationships are an important part for the majority of people, and a lot of them can be formed when you are least expecting it. This is why you should never underestimate what minor situations in your life could lead you to.
The Squinting Observer 