"The One with Joey's Big Break" is the twenty-second of Friends fifth season. It first aired on the NBC network in the United States on May 13, 1999.
Plot
When the show starts Rachel is complaining about her eyes. Monica tells her to see her eye doctor, but Rachel refuses. She does not like it when people touch her eyes. In fact, she does not like it when anything touches her eyes. The group starts making jokes of this, using words with the sound of "eye" while pointing to their own eyes. Rachel eventually visits the eye doctor after much persuasion by Monica. The doctor wants to use a special machine to inspect Rachel's eyes for glaucoma. The machine blows tiny puffs of air in her eyes. The doctor counts to '3', but on every "3" Rachel pulls back her head. After a couple of times, the doctor says that she is still young and probably is fine. He does tell her, however, that she has a minor infection in her left eye and gives her eye drops for it. In Monica's apartment she tries to convince Rachel to use the drops, but she refuses. Monica tries everything to get the drops in Rachel's eyes. She even puts Rachel on the floor and holds her down while trying to spray the drops in her eyes. She is unsuccessful and the bottle is empty. When the credits roll, we see Monica, Ross, Chandler, Phoebe and Rachel sitting on the couch in Monica’s apartment. Ross asks Rachel for the TV guide, so she leans over to get it. At that point Monica shouts “NOW”, and everyone pushes Rachel to the floor and holds her there. Monica pounces, putting the eye drops in Rachel's eyes. When she is done, the rest of the gang releases Rachel, telling her that they will “see her in three to four hours”. Joey gets news from his agent that he is going to play the lead in an upcoming movie called Shutter Speed. The filming location for the movie is in Las Vegas. After hearing that, Chandler decides to go along with Joey. Later, when Joey and Phoebe are sitting in Central Perk, Joey cannot decide which route he will take to Vegas; the north or the south route. Phoebe then tries a game with him: Joey must clear his mind, and she asks him several questions very quickly. After she asked the question about which route he will take he answers that he will take the north route. When Joey and Chandler are on the George Washington Bridge on their way to Vegas, Joey plays Phoebe's game with Chandler. When he comes to the question “Is this movie going to be my big break?", Chandler replies “No”, only to find a startled Joey. Joey gets very angry about this, and forces Chandler out of the car in the middle of the bridge. Later on when everyone is sitting in Central Perk, Chandler comes walking in, telling everyone why Joey put him out of the car. He really wants to make up with Joey, and desperately tries to find a way how to do it. Later, Joey calls Monica's apartment and speaks to her and Phoebe. Chandler walks in, and wants to talk to Joey, but when Phoebe tells Joey he has already hung up on her. In Vegas, Joey arrives at the film site. He meets with the director, who reveals that the movie shoot is being postponed due to lack of funds and tells Joey to stick around until things start up again. Joey is dismayed to find a set of balloons with a card from Chandler saying "Congratulations on your big break." at which point he realizes that Chandler may have been right all along. Joey calls Monica from a payphone from Caesars Palace, where he does not tell her that he is working there wearing a gladiator costume and posing with various tourists. Meanwhile, Phoebe is very upset with Ross, but cannot remember why. Ross posits several reasons why Phoebe might be unhappy with him, but does not find the right reason. He soon plays Phoebe's game with her in an effort to find out. After he asks “Why are you mad at me?”, she says “You said I was boring.” Ross cannot remember ever saying that she was boring, but she claims he said it while playing chess. Ross claims they never played chess together, but according to Phoebe they did so on a frozen lake, and that after a while he ripped off his energy mask and became Cameron Diaz. Phoebe then realizes that it was a dream.
Reception
In the original broadcast, the episode was viewed by 21.3 million viewers. Sam Ashurst from Digital Spy ranked the episode #106 on their ranking of the 236 Friends episodes. Telegraph & Argus placed the episode at the same spot on their ranking of all 236 Friends episodes, and wrote that the best line in the episode was: "I am sorry about the fat ass thing. You actually have a very sweet little heinie".
