[1] This episode sees Chandler (Matthew Perry) pick up his old smoking addiction, a habit that the rest of the group finds hard to get him to break.
Only Alan (Geoffrey Lower), the new boyfriend of Monica (Courteney Cox), can convince Chandler to drop the habit.
Meanwhile, Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) struggles to get rid of all the free money she is receiving, including $7,000 from a soda company when she finds a severed thumb in her drink.
He defends himself by saying it is just a flaw of his, and claims that they are being hypocritical, as they all have their own irritating habits (e.g. Monica's snorting, Joey's knuckle-cracking, Phoebe chewing her hair, and Ross's over pronouncing of every word).
Monica is afraid to introduce her new boyfriend Alan to the gang for fear of them ridiculing him and driving him away, as they have apparently done in the past with her other dates.
Club wrote, "the Alan storyline is pretty great, particularly because it extends that sense from the first episode that Monica's friends are all very invested in her love life".