Top 10 Times Joey Was Surprisingly Wise on Friends

“The One With Phoebe's Dad”
While everyone likes to stay warm and cozy at Christmas, things in Monica and Rachel’s apartment get too hot in this season two holiday episode. When Ross accidentally breaks the knob on the radiator, the apartment becomes a sauna and nobody knows how to fix it. The place is full of partygoers, one of which is the building’s super, and yet none of them apparently know that you can turn off the radiator from underneath. This is a fact that the gang is later shocked to learn from Joey.

“The One With The Fake Party”
We all know that Joey loves meat and Phoebe is a vegetarian. However, When Phoebs was pregnant in season four she suddenly found herself - and the baby - craving a carnivorous diet. This obviously didn’t sit well with her meat-is-murder conscience. So, what is she to do? Well, turns out Joey had a great idea that involved him going vegetarian for the rest of her pregnancy in order to balance off her meat consumption. Not only was it an indicator of his wisdom, but it also displayed Joey’s unmatched commitment to his friends.

“The One With Joey's Dirty Day”
We all know about the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, reconstruction, and acceptance. But thanks to Joey, we also know about the post-break up phases as well. With Chandler still sitting around in his sweatpants (phase 1 by the way), the girls have no idea what to do to help him. But Joey does! And that is when he explains to Monica about the phases of dealing with a break-up. There’s a good chance he came up with the stages as an excuse to take his friends to strip clubs - but if it works, it works, right?

“The One With the Giant Poking Device”
For someone who, for most of the series, barely ever got serious with a girl, Joey was often pretty wise when it came to relationships. In season three, Chandler is dating Janice, but learns that she still has feelings for her ex-husband. He’s devastated and asks Joey what he would do. While you might assume that Joey would just take his best friend’s side and tell him to fight for her, that isn’t how it goes down. Joey recognizes that the situation is bigger than that, and that Janice and her ex have kids and that if they can make that work Chandler should let them try.

“The One With The Kips”
While still trying to keep their relationship a secret, Monica and Chandler go away together under the guise of separate work trips. The romantic getaway ends up being anything but romantic, although they can’t really talk about it since no one in the group knows they were at the same hotel. However, when pieces of their individual trip stories come out, Joey puts 2 and 2 together and realizes what’s happening … which is even more surprising given that we’re not sure he could literally add 2 and 2 together that fast.

“The One Where Ross Dates a Student”
When Ross is teaching at the university he gets an anonymous student evaluation that is very complimentary. He’s very flattered and obviously intrigued as to which student is so enamored by him. But given that the evaluations are anonymous, he knows there’s no way to determine who she might be. Or at least that’s what he assumes. Without missing a beat Joey provides Ross with a simple, dare we say brilliant way to figure out which of his students thinks he’s the “hottie of the paleontology department”.

“The One With The Jellyfish”
Quick, what do you do if you get stung by a jellyfish? If you said “pee on it”, you’re not alone. That’s probably what most people would say. And if you’re a “Friends” fan, it’s probably because that’s what Joey told Monica to do when she got stung. Joey had seen a show on the Discovery channel and remembered that urine could help ease the pain of a Jellyfish sting. So, that’s what they did, and it worked. Although, we should probably point out that there’s actually no evidence to show that peeing on a Jellyfish sting will help with the pain. But it worked in the show and it was Joey's idea so that’s all that matters here.

“The One With The Kips”
They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And Joey learned from history - the history of being trapped in Monica’s bedroom for hours when Ross and Rachel were breaking up in the living room. What he learned was that being stuck in the room without anything to eat sucked. So what did he do? He hid a box of snacks in there. And guess what? It came in handy when the four are once again trapped in the room while Ross tries to tell Rachel that Emily doesn’t want them hanging out anymore. His reasoning for including the condoms in the box is less wise, but the food and activities - that was smart.

“The One With The Morning After”
Remember when Ross slept with the girl from the copy place? No, we’re not going to debate the question of whether he and Rachel were on a break or not. We bring it up in order to point out Joey’s words of wisdom to his friend. You see, Ross feels so bad about what happened that he hasn’t considered all the details about the aftermath of his actions. But Joey has! And it all comes down to “the trail”, the path that leads from what he did back to Rachel - a trail that Ross isn’t able to cut off before word reaches her.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

We’re Still Trying to Think of a Selfless Good Deed

His Confidence Makes It Even Better

He Makes a Very Good Point

Yes, we know the word is “moot” not “moo”. But in this case, Joey’s wisdom doesn’t come from his knowledge of the proper word, but more so his brilliant explanation of the wrong one. His definition of a “moo point” as the equivalent of a cow’s opinion is so good we kinda wish that the word was “moo” instead of “moot”. Also, his advice to Rachel that she shouldn’t hit on the newly single Tag without first considering if he’s into her is pretty solid as well.