Episode 3x02 "The Double Lie"

Cory and Shawn are getting their schadenfreude on as they spectate an aggressive breakup between a cute girl in a beret and some jock in a letter jacket named Dennis . He looks like the kinda guy that woulda copied my homework in high school, so I say good riddance.

Shawn swoops in and sets up a date with the newly available Veronica Watson, even though his shirts are so loud that Helen Keller could both see and hear them. Shortly after, a herd of thirsty guys stampede into the hallway to try to ask her out, but they're too late. One of them is wearing overalls, I don't know what the hell he thought was gonna happen. You gotta wonder what it's like to live like that, to be one of those people who's only ever single for like a week at a time. Doesn't sound like fun to me, but what do I know.

But wait! Cory reminds Shawn that Mr. Turner is going to be out of town that weekend (during Shawn's scheduled date), and that Shawn will be staying with him. This is a problem since Shawn Hugh Hefner Hunter is going to want to get to second base with Veronica Watson, and Cory's parentally supervised living room is not the place to do it. So the boys resolve to convince Mr. Turner not to go out of town.

Compelling as that argument may be, Mr. Turner remains steadfast. Later, in the hallway, Mr. Feeny reminds Turner that he'll be late to the staff meeting on Monday morning due to a dentist appointment. It comes out of nowhere, and it's not nearly as funny as the audience thinks it is, but it'll probably be important later. 

Refer back to the Eric Graph of Destiny from 3x01's review. So Eric's gotta write a term paper for Mr. Feeny on the Manhattan Project, or else fail a class. As far as history term papers go that's probably the best subject you're ever gonna get, so it's hard to sympathize. Even though that's a totally cool thing to learn about, Eric decides to order a term paper from Term Papers By Gerard. Further, Eric completely neglected to inform his little brother that Topanga called about something important earlier. Cory's not pleased, but Eric slaps down some wisdom with one of the most widely known lines from this series.

Shawn shows up and they waste some time making a few lame jokes. We skip ahead to night time and see Shawn trying to make his way to boob town with Veronica Watson on the Matthews' living room couch. This is a sitcom, so Murphy's Law is in full swing. Everyone in the universe interrupts Shawn's date, and it's really... just... dumb... It's two and a half minutes of poorly written fluff that you would expect from a bad show. It's just cheap. It's cheap writing. Watch the scene if you don't believe me, there's absolutely no substance here.

Eventually it's Matthews-family-curfew-o'clock, so Alan drives Veronica Watson home. Shawn's pubescent libido is in juggernaut mode, so he decides to sneak out to go make out with Veronica Watson some more. I have no idea how he gets to her home or how the pair then get to Turner's apartment, but that's what happens.

Now we see Turner's contribution to the title of this episode. When Shawn turns on the lights in the apartment, he finds Mr. Turner very much not out of town, and very much next to his blonde date. It's not Ms. Tompkins, but it does look like her. I guess he's got a type. Turner's lady friend takes Veronica Watson home while Turner lays into Shawn for sneaking out of the Matthews house. Shawn initially apologizes and feels guilty, but then calls Turner out on his blatant lie about going out of town.

So the two argue a little more and it's really just intended to show the audience how Turner's inexperience really does affect this arrangement. It's cool that the showrunners didn't decide to bullshit us here. There's no way Turner would be able to do this without fucking up sometimes, so it's good that this happened pretty early on.

The argument ends with (you guessed it) Shawn storming off. Turner assumes Shawn is going to go to Cory's house and goes after him. Through some form of sorcery, Shawn manages to get to the Matthews house before Turner does. When he does arrive, though, Turner approaches through the backyard because who even cares about this story anymore. In doing so, Mr. Feeny comes out onto his porch like "dude what are you doing here" and then a woman calls Mr. Feeny back inside because his viagra should be kicking in soon. The woman is his dentist. Mr. Feeny is going to be late to the staff meeting on Monday because he'll be banging his dentist all weekend. I am not embellishing that for the sake of comedy. That is what's going on.

Smug British bastard. 

Anyway Alan invites Turner inside and they learn that Shawn is once again magically ahead of them and has already come and gone. Alan gives his worst speech of the entire series about how you can never truly be ready to be a father. It's not only shallow and poorly written, but it's also barely relevant. Raising your own child from infancy is not the same as taking care of a troubled teenager. Just more fluff in an already flufftastic episode. 

Well it's time to try to find Shawn again, and indeed Turner does find him back at their apartment. Turner apologizes for lying to Shawn about going out of town, Shawn agrees to respect Turner's private life, and everything is copacetic again. 

During the credits Feeny tricks Eric into admitting that he ordered a term paper from Term Papers By Gerard. They're both fairly nonchalant about plagiarism and literally failing a class.

Okay. Well, this was a complete disaster. I felt bad writing this review because there was almost nothing to talk about. This entire episode could have been compressed into about 5 minutes. They wasted an astonishing amount of time on failed jokes and fuckin chasing Shawn back and forth across town. It wasn't a bad episode, just mindless and forgettable. What was the "double lie" anyway? Turner lied to Shawn, but Shawn didn't lie to anyone. All he did was break curfew and try to get his rocks off. Perhaps the biggest tragedy to come out of this is the fate of the actress behind Veronica Watson, Erin J. Dean. She was actually really good in this episode. Her delivery was probably the best we've seen from a one-off girl since the beginning of the series, despite being almost entirely inexperienced before landing this role. She's clearly a natural talent but never managed to find much work after this. Maybe she just didn't enjoy it.

Plot: 0.25 - I love the idea of exploring the consequences of Turner's lack of experience and preparation. That's a great place to start a story. But that occupied maybe 20% of this episode's screen time. It's mostly empty.

Character Development: 1.0 - Shawn and Turner do manage to make some progress with their living arrangement and Mr. Turner starts to feel a little more comfortable.

Humor: 0.25 - I always say this, but a lot of this show's best humor comes from the chemistry between Shawn and Cory. That's the direction they tried to go with for this one, but they landed pretty far off the mark. Here's the template of every joke in this episode:
Shawn: *something stupid*
Cory: "Shawn, you just said something stupid."
*cue audience*
If you've ever watched this show, you know what I'm taking about.

Life Lesson: 0 - It's okay to be late to staff meetings as long as you're fucking your dentist.

1.5 out of 4.0 

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

Images used under Fair Use.