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Friends Season 4
Season 4
Friends Season 4 DVD cover
No. of episodes	24
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	September 25, 1997 (1997-09-25) – May 7, 1998 (1998-05-07)
Season chronology
← Previous Season 3 Next → Season 5
List of episodes

The fourth season of Friends, an American situation comedy created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, premiered on NBC on September 25, 1997. Friends was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television. The season contains 24 episodes and concluded airing on May 7, 1998. It was one of three seasons included on TV Guide's list of the Top 100 TV Seasons.

Season synopsis

In the Season 3 finale, Ross enters a room greeting to one of either Rachel or Bonnie. In the season premiere, it's revealed he's actually saying "Hi" to both of them, as he finds Rachel spreading Bonnie's bald head with lotion. Bonnie leaves off and Ross continues his interrupted kiss with Rachel. He decides to break up with Bonnie to get back together with Rachel, who writes a letter to him. However, she's willing to reconcile with Ross only on condition that he accepts that the letter "does" (state that he accepts full responsibility of everything wrong with their previous relationship). However, Ross is too tired to read a 36-page letter in the early hours of dawn ("18 pages - front and back"), but his desire to get back with Rachel is such that he accepts the letter, unknowingly to what he's agreeing to. When he does actually read the whole letter, he changes his idea, and thanks to Rachel's continuous reference to the letter after they have sex, they break up again.

Meanwhile, Chandler and Joey are with Monica at the beach, where she gets stung by a jellyfish. Joey, who saw a feature on the Discovery Channel, suggests peeing on the bite, but gets the stage-fright, so Chandler does it. In doing this, he ends his continuous speculations of a relationship with Monica, who despite defining Chandler a cute, great guy, calls him "the guy who peed on me". Not long after, Chandler and Joey are robbed in broad daylight, and for a while they fill the apartment with rusty patio furniture and a canoe (The One With The Cat).

Having learnt the truth about her birth mother, Phoebe is extremely disappointed about her and the fact that she never tried to find out about her. Phoebe storms off, never wanting to see her again. After tracking her down, however, Abbott starts off an uncomfortable but moderately friendly rapport with her daughter (albeit with some initial struggling). It's during this season that Lisa Kudrow (who plays Phoebe) becomes pregnant. This is written in the show as her surrogate pregnancy which she goes through for her brother and his new wife (who also get married in this season but we actually meet for the first time in the third season).

Joey starts dating an actress named Kathy, who Chandler has a crush on. However, Chandler and Kathy kiss while she still sees Joey. Uncomfortable about Joey finding out about her and Chandler, Kathy breaks up with Joey, but he still finds out about the kiss from Chandler, whose guilt is so great that he buys new furniture for their empty apartment. He becomes so angry that he starts sending off the stuff Chandler bought, until Chandler resolves the issue by spending Thanksgiving in a box (The One With Chandler In A Box). Thanksgiving this year is awkward for Monica, who invites Dr Timothy Burke, Richard's son, and kisses him, a brief lip contact which reminds her of her ex-boyfriend, but Joey and Chandler make up on this day. Chandler starts dating Kathy, but breaks up with her after she sleeps with her fellow actor, who Chandler sees having simulated sex with his girlfriend in a play.

Monica starts a catering business with Phoebe, but after reviewing Alessandro's restaurant and accepting a job as head-chef there, she and Phoebe break the catering business up. Her new rapport with her fellow workers is quite difficult at first, but following Chandler's suggestion, she fires Joey in a set-up and gains control of the kitchens. She and Rachel also lose their apartment to Joey and Chandler in this season (as a bet with a quiz with personal questions about each other). To make matters worse for Rachel, her boss Joanna dies, and as a result she gets shunted in Personal Shopping at Bloomingdale's, where she meets Joshua, who she has a crush on. After several incidents which prevent Rachel from expressing her true feelings to him (including an unplanned opera visit which ends up with Rachel introducing Ross to his new girlfriend, Emily), she starts dating Joshua.

However, Ross and Emily, who are crazy over each other, move on quite fast, and agree to get married in London. This sets off Rachel in a competition with Ross, and proposes to Joshua, who is still in the process of getting his divorce final. She scares him off so much that he breaks up with her. Ross sends out the invitations for his London wedding (The One With The Invitation), and naturally he invites all his friends, but struggles to invite Rachel after Emily's remarks. He decides to invite her anyway, but she is too worried of being highly uncomfortable seeing Ross marry another woman, so she RSVPs as not coming.

The friends all go to London (The One With Ross' Wedding, Part 1). Monica helps Ross with the preparations for his wedding, but between the torn-down chapel, the hurried guests menu and other stuff, she almost puts the wedding off by suggesting to Emily to postpone the ceremony; she then helps Ross solve the problem. The rehearsal dinner is a disaster for everyone: Ross can't get his parents and new in-laws to settle their arguments about payments for the wedding, Chandler can't deliver the toast, Joey gets homesick (until he meets one of Emily's bridesmaids, Felicity), and between her mother's cynical remarks and a drunken guest mistaking her for Ross' mother, Monica falls in a depression about being single. In USA, Phoebe, who can't travel by plane because she in her third trimester of pregnancy, has Rachel staying with her. Phoebe helps her re-discover her feelings for Ross.

Ross' wedding day (and the second part of the season finale) contains a few surprises: Ross almost catches Monica and Chandler, who sleep together; Rachel rushes off to London to tell Ross she still loves him (only to find him kissing his wife-to-be and realize that Ross is happy to marry Emily); and Ross has all his friends as guests to his wedding. The ceremony starts, Emily says her vows, and Ross starts saying his. But he stops mid-stream when he calls Emily "Rachel", putting an end to the fourth season.

Cast and characters

(In particular, Characters of Friends#Introduced in season four)

Episodes

Notes

1. These episodes originally aired as a single double-length episode but are sometimes split into two episodes for syndication, reruns and DVD presentation.

References

• Friends seasons
• 1997 television seasons
• 1998 television seasons
• Friends (season 4) episodes