The One Where Underdog Gets Away. This is the first Thanksgiving episode in the series, and definitely one of the funniest because everything goes horribly wrong. The turkey burns because they get locked out of the apartment, Rachel tries to make it to her family skiing trip but misses her flight, Joey’s family won’t have him over because of the VD posters all over the city, and Chandler is still boycotting all the pilgrim holidays.

A life lesson that can be taken from this episode is: never give up. I mean it! No matter what challenges you might face in reaching your goals, never give up. This attitude can be displayed through Rachel in this episode. Her family always goes on a skiing trip to Vail, but since she is pursuing the whole independent thing, her father refuses to pay for her plane ticket. So she decides she will try really hard to make enough money to be able to go. She desperately tries to make a hundred dollars very quickly by waitressing, even though everyone knows that this is an impossible task, especially for Rachel since she is honestly a terrible waitress. But this doesn’t deter her in reaching her goal, until her work day is over and she has tried to do everything in her power to make the hundred bucks. Luckily she has some amazing friends who all pitch in some money to make sure she has enough to buy the plane ticket. In the end she isn’t able to catch the flight because they all get locked out of the apartment anyway, but this is still a good example of how you should never give up. You wouldn’t expect a character like Rachel to demonstrate this attitude, but that just goes to show that truly no one should ever give up!

The One Where Nana Dies Twice. This episode manages to put a lighter and slightly more comedic spin on Ross and Monica’s grandmother passing away. But don’t worry, they are still sad. Also, Monica and her mom have a conversation about the relationship between mothers and daughters. Meanwhile, Chandler finds out that a lot of people think/thought he is gay, including his co-workers, which turns out to be an extremely hilarious side plot.

I life lesson that can be taken from this episode is: always try to be looking for how you could become a better person. I know that this episode concentrates mostly about the grandmother, but during the funeral Monica and her mom have a conversation that is quite important to the relationship they have. I feel like Judy never appreciates her daughter enough, even though Monica is a hard working and intelligent person. During their conversation Judy is talking about how Monica couldn’t understand how annoying it is to have an under-appreciative mother, and she goes on to describe all the specific attributes of this kind of person, and she doesn’t realize that she’s actually describing herself! We as the audience find this quite funny since we know that Judy is exactly that type of person, and it adds some comic relief to the scene, even though it is a sincere moment. Towards the end of their conversation Monica has been hinting for some time that her mom displays all those qualities she mentioned earlier, and Judy finally realizes what she has been doing. Now, realize doesn’t mean change, but it means that maybe she will try to be a better mother and person. Even though change is hard, and we can see this through Judy’s behavior every time she comes back, it doesn’t mean it is impossible. Many people are stubborn or just simply don’t see (or don’t want to see) how they could change, but if you are willing to put in the effort to become a better person, then you have already started your journey. I think this is a perfect example of how you should always try to be on the lookout for how you could improve your behavior, and really, yourself in general.