Ranking All of The 'Friends' Thanksgiving Episodes From Best Cameos to Turkey Heads

What Happens: Monica invites over now-hot high school pal Will (played by Brad Pitt!) who, as it turns out, hates Rachel because she was mean to him in high school. Meanwhile, Joey puts on maternity pants to eat the turkey that Monica prepared for him.

Ranking: Yes, Pitt is absolutely hysterical in his role as the bitter Will, but re-watching the episode after the infamous Jolie/Pitt/Aniston love triangle kind of taints the cuteness. Even Joey’s fat pants couldn’t make this episode rank higher.

What Happens: A lot of love drama going on in this episode. Chandler gets into a box to prove to Joey that he’s sorry about kissing Kathy and Monica makes out with her ex-boyfriend, Richard’s, son.

Ranking: Low, only because I haaaaate when Chandler and Joey aren’t best buds. Considering that Kathy didn’t stick around for very long after this episode, the whole thing just feels sad. And wouldn’t Monica have spent some time with Richard’s son while they were dating? I don’t buy it.

What Happens: Ross has to choose between being with girlfriend Julie or pursuing Rachel, and decides to make a pros/cons list for each woman. Rachel finds it and is understandably pissed. The episode ends with the couple staring out the window at the rain, separately.

Ranking: It’s a Thanksgiving episode, though you might forget that considering it’s allllll about Ross and Rachel’s drama. The episode gets points for Monica trying her best to make the “mockolate” (a.k.a. fake chocolate) that she has been hired to create a recipes tasty. It doesn’t work.

What Happens: Monica and Ross get the gang together to play a little “friendly football,” only to have their fierce competitive nature get the better of them.

Ranking: The episode is set almost entirely on the football field, which is a fun change. At the same time, it’s not really about the entire group of friends — it’s mostly about Monica and Ross, which is cool, but doesn’t feel very “Thanksgiving-y.”

What Happens: Monica gets roped into making Thanksgiving dinner, only to have all of the friends show up hours late for a variety of silly reasons, like baby pageants and sports games.

Ranking: This episode always makes me a little bummed, because I don’t understand why the gang is blowing off Monica’s Thanksgiving in the first place — it seems very un-them. It ranks higher than the others because of the fantastic scene where the “very sorry” friends get their heads stuck in the door frame. It’s also the very last Thanksgiving episode, so it’s hard to rank it too low on this list — it’s the last one we’d ever get to see!

What Happens: Ross and Monica’s parents come to Thanksgiving dinner (I never really get why they don’t always, considering they’re a half hour away, but anyway…) and Monica tells her then-boyfriend Chandler that her parents think he’s a pothead because Ross used him as a scapegoat when he got high. Meanwhile, Rachel accidentally combines an English truffle with a shepherd’s pie, with disastrous results.

Ranking: As someone who needs a lot of help in the kitchen, I can identify with Rachel’s cooking plight. I’m not so into the A story, which is Chandler trying to win over Monica’s parents — wouldn’t he know by know if they liked him or not? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense — but hey, it’s funny.

What Happens: Rachel’s sister Amy (Christina Applegate) comes to Thanksgiving dinner, pissed that she’s not Emma’s godmother.

Ranking: I love me some Christina Applegate, and I love Chandler proving that he can be a great dad at the end of the episode — it’s a nice little reminder that everyone is growing up, even though it’s not the last Thanksgiving episode of the series.

What Happens: Flashbacks, people! Lots of ‘em. Easily the best flashback is the one of 80s Monica and Chandler — we find out that Monica accidentally dropped a knife on Chandler’s toe, severing it and ruining yet another Thanksgiving for him. The best part is the end, when Monica puts on a dancing turkey to cheer up Chandler — and he tells her that he loves her. Aww!

Ranking: A fantastic episode, though it can’t rank higher simply for the fact that most of the flashbacks don’t include the entire gang — and isn’t that what Thanksgiving is about? I don’t want to live in a world where half the gang doesn’t know Phoebe or Joey.

What Happens: Everyone’s plans for Thanksgiving fall through, and the gang decides to do Thanksgiving together. Later they go up to the roof to watch the escaped Underdog balloon from the parade float through Manhattan and wind up getting locked out of Monica’s apartment.

Ranking: This is the Thanksgiving episode that kicked off all Thanksgiving episodes. It’s the one that solidified this group of friends as family — when their own plans with their families fell through, they realized just how close they all were. The tradition lasted for 10 more seasons, proving that Friendsgiving is always the best.