Were Ross and Rachel on a Break or Not!? Look Back at the Friends Couple's Relationship

Author:
Alexandra Hurtado
May 27, 2021

Were Ross and Rachel on a break, or not? It's one of the great conundrums of television. From the pilot all the way up until the series finale, the beloved couple's on-again, off-again relationship was a major plotline of Friends.

The pair's love story spanned ten seasons and was anything but smooth sailing. Despite their ups and downs, including their infamous break, drunken Vegas wedding and divorce, it was clear to viewers that Ross and Rachel were each other's lobsters. To answer the biggest question any show has ever left us with–were they on a break?–let's look back at how David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston's characters finally ended up together.

Ross and Rachel's Relationship Timeline on Friends

Season 1 Episode 1: The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate

Monica's newly single brother and best friend reconnected in the very first episode of Friends. After running out on her wedding to Barry, Rachel found Monica, Ross and their friends, Joey, Chandler and Phoebe, at Central Perk. It was during the pilot that Ross confessed to Rachel that he had a "major crush" on her back in high school, which she was well-aware of. "Do you think it would be OK if I asked you out sometime, maybe?" he asks. "Yeah. Maybe," Rachel answers, to which Ross replies, "OK. OK. Maybe I will."

Season 1 Episode 24: The One Where Rachel Finds Out

It wouldn't be until the Season 1 finale that Rachel learned how deep Ross's feelings were for her. Before leaving for China on a work trip, Ross gave Chandler a birthday gift for Rachel. Opening the present later at her party, Rachel is surprised to see that Ross remembered a pin they had seen months ago in the window of an antique store. "I can't believe he did this," Monica says prompting Chandler to inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. "Remember back in college when he fell in love with Carol and bought her that ridiculously expensive crystal duck?" he recalls.

Rachel admitted she had no idea Ross felt that way about her. "My first night in the city he mentioned something about asking me out, but nothing ever happened," she shares.

After unsuccessfully trying to speak to Ross at the airport, Rachel tells Phoebe and Monica, "I'm thinking it'd be really great" to go out with Ross.

Hours before Ross arrived back in the city, Rachel began to express doubts over pursuing Ross. "It's just not a good idea," she tells Monica. "Because I feel like I wouldn't just be going out with him. I would be going out with all of you." Thankfully, she had a change of heart and went to the airport to greet Ross with flowers. Unbeknownst to Rachel, Ross had landed with another woman.

Season 2 Episode 1: The One with Ross's New Girlfriend

Unaware that Rachel knows about his feelings, Ross returned to New York with Julie, a woman he went to grad school with, who was in charge of the dig in China. At Central Perk, Chandler asks Ross what happened in China since he was in love with Rachel when he left. "I know. I know I was. But there was always this little voice inside that kept saying, 'It's never gonna happen. Move on,'" Ross says. "She looks at me and sees a friend. That's all. And then I met Julie and I don't know, we're having a great time." While Ross is happy with Julie, Rachel is longing for Ross and says she's just going to have to deal with it...which she does by sleeping with Paolo. Joey encourages Rachel to tell Ross how she feels, but she doesn't after listening to Ross gush about how good he feels being with Julie.

Season 2 Episode 7: The One Where Ross Finds Out

On a date, Rachel leaves a drunk voicemail for Ross—who's planning on getting a cat with Julie—telling him that she's over him. Despite Rachel's attempt to get the phone from Ross after she realizes that she's left him a voicemail, Ross finds out that she has feelings for him. "You're over me? When were you under me?" he asks. A mortified Rachel explains to Ross that she had feelings for him and that he had them for her first. Ross has to leave because Julie is downstairs waiting to get their cat. At night Ross shows up at Central Perk where Rachel is cleaning up. He tells her he did not get a cat and that she had no right to tell him that she had feelings for him. Ross says, "I was doing great with Julie before I found out about you." Rachel confesses that it's not easy for her to see him with Julie and that he should have said something to her. When Ross says there was never a good time, she replies, "Right, because you only had a year and we only hung out every night." Ross informs her that it's too late and that he's happy with somebody else. Rachel asks if he's just going to put away his feelings. "I've been doing it since the ninth grade," Ross tells her. "I've gotten pretty damn good at it." The duo's argument ended with Ross leaving and Rachel shouting that now she has closure, but he comes back and they share a passionate kiss!

Season 2 Episode 8: The One with the List

While it seemed like Ross and Rachel were finally going to be together, things went south when Rachel found a list that Ross made of pros and cons of her and Julie. Although Ross decided on Rachel after making the list with Chandler and Joey, Rachel was hurt and told Ross she wouldn't give him another chance. "Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now how would you feel if the one person that you trusted the most in the world not only thinks them too but actually uses them as reasons not to be with you?" she says. Rachel tells Ross that the difference between him and her is that she would never make a list if things had been the other way around.

Season 2 Episode 14: The One with the Prom Video

A VHS tape changed everything for Ross and Rachel! In the episode, the gang watches a home movie taken the night of Monica and Rachel's prom. From it, Rachel learns that Ross was ready and willing to take her to prom after she was seemingly stood up by her date Chip. When the tape ends Rachel makes her way over to Ross and kisses him. "See? He's her lobster," Phoebe gleefully says.

Season 2 Episode 15: The One Where Ross and Rachel...You Know

The title pretty much speaks for itself...this is the episode where Ross and Rachel sleep with each other for the first time at the planetarium after Ross finishes his work at the museum. "You were worth the wait and I don't just mean tonight," Rachel tells him.

Season 3 Episode 15: The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break Part 1

On their anniversary, Ross, who was jealous of Rachel's colleague Mark in Season 3, shows up to Rachel's job at Bloomingdales with a picnic basket. In the midst of a crisis at work, Rachel tells Ross to go home. At the apartment, a fight breaks out between the couple. Ross tells Rachel he's tired of having a relationship with her answering machine. The frustrated pair admit that they don't know what to do anymore and Ross asks if this is about Mark. "Oh my God. I cannot keep having the same fight over and over again Ross," Rachel says. "No, you're making this too hard." When Ross asks what she wants him to do Rachel responds, "I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we should just take a break." Ross then suggests a break for frozen yogurt to cool off. "No, a break from us," she clarifies. Rachel later admits to Mark at her apartment that she doesn't want to take a break from her relationship with Ross. When Ross calls her at the apartment, he hears Mark's voice and hangs up the phone before Rachel can explain. The episode ends with Ross making out with Chloe from the Xerox place.

Season 3 Episode 16: The One the Morning After Part 2

The night after their "break," Rachel tells Monica that she and Ross "kind of broke up." Meanwhile, Ross wakes up to Chloe coming out of his bathroom and finds a voicemail from Rachel. "I've been trying to reach you all night. I feel awful," she says, assuring Ross that there's nothing between her and Mark. "This whole break-up thing is just stupid. I'm just so sorry I put you through it." In her message, Rachel tells Ross she will swing by on her way to work in the morning, which she does while Chloe is still there, but she doesn't know that (yet). When word later gets back to Rachel that Ross slept with Chloe, the couple gets into a big fight with Ross telling her he's made a mistake and Chloe meant nothing to him. "And yet she was worth jeopardizing our relationship," Rachel says, to which Ross replies, "I didn't think there was a relationship to jeopardize. I thought we were broken up." Rachel reiterates, "We were on a break." Ross explained that, to him, that was a breakup.

"You think you're going to get out of this on a technicality?" Rachel asks. After going back and forth, she tells Ross that he is a "totally different person" to her now. She adds, "I used to think of you as somebody that would never, ever hurt me. Ever" and him sleeping with her has changed everything forever.

"This can't be it," Ross cries. "Then how come it is?" Rachel says.

Season 3 Episode 25: The One at the Beach

Season 3 ends with all six friends and Ross's current girlfriend Bonnie in Montauk. Rachel tells her ex that it's not easy for her to see him with someone else. Ross reminds Rachel that it was she who ended their relationship. Rachel agrees, saying yes, because she was mad, not because she stopped loving him. When asked if she wants to get back together, she says, "No! Maybe. I don't know." The pair winds up kissing (yay) until interrupted by Joey and Chandler. Ross goes upstairs, though in the finale it's unclear whether he entered Rachel or Bonnie's room.

Season 4 Episode 1: The One with the Jellyfish

As it turns out, it was Rachel's room that Ross walked into in the Season 3 finale. After kissing, Ross goes to his room to break up with Bonnie. When he returns, Rachel has a letter she wrote 18-pages...front and back...for Ross to read. "Before I can even think about the two of us getting back together, I just need to know how you feel about this stuff," she tells him. Ross ends up falling asleep reading the lengthy letter. When Rachel comes downstairs in the morning, she asks him, "So, does it?" Ross, who clearly had no idea what she was referring to, answers, "It does." Before heading back to the city, Ross reads the letter to himself and exclaims, "It so does not!" In her letter, Rachel wrote that she wanted Ross to take responsibility for everything that went wrong in their relationship, and went on for multiple pages about how he was unfaithful to her. Ross tells Joey and Chandler, "She says here if you accept full responsibility, full responsibility I can begin to trust you again. Does that seem like something you can do? Does it?" Later in bed, Rachel praises Ross for owning up to everything and commending him on how much he's grown. "I just wish we hadn't lost those four months, but if time is what you needed just to gain a little perspective," Rachel said while patting his face. Ross then exclaimed, "WE WERE ON A BREAK." As quickly as they got back together, Ross and Rachel were done once again...but not for good!

Season 4 Episode 23: The One with Ross's Wedding Part 1

After staying behind in New York, Rachel decides to fly to London for Emily and Ross's wedding to tell her ex that she loves him. "I have to tell him how I feel. He deserves to have all of the information and then he can make an informed decision," she explains to Phoebe, who also did not make the trip because she was pregnant with her brother's triplets. "It's not over until someone says I do."

Season 4 Episode 24: The One with Ross's Wedding Part 2

Rachel journeyed across the pond to express herself to Ross. Though she had a change of heart and opted not to confess her feelings to Ross after seeing him and Emily kiss prior to their wedding ceremony. Instead, Rachel congratulated the groom. With no one standing in their way it seemed like Ross and Emily were going to live happily ever after, that is until Ross said Rachel's name at the altar.

Season 5 Episode 1: The One After Ross Says Rachel

Needless to say, Ross and Emily's marriage went downhill fast. Following the ceremony, from which Emily flees, Rachel asks Monica what she should do. Monica reminds Rachel that Ross is now married. Ross stresses to Emily's parents the day after that Rachel is just a friend. He says, "Yeah, I said Rachel's name, but it didn't mean anything. She's just a friend. That's all."