Episode 4x10 "Turkey Day"

Mr. Feeny is actually teaching history today. In particular, the Rwandan Civil War, between the Tutsi aristocracy and the lesser Hutu majority, with a focus on the influence of class differences. The school-day is about to end and usher in the Thanksgiving break, but in the last moments Feeny announces that he wants the students to write a paper on class differences over the break. Further, he informs the students that Shawn and Cory have "won" the food drive by donating the most food, which is going to go right back to Shawn's poor family anyway.

Turkey is essentially a stuffing delivery device. Cory and Shawn think so too, and neither wants to give up the stuffing. This is definitely one of the more relatable issues this season. Blood has been spilled over stuffing. But the boys decide not to spill blood, and instead agree to have Thanksgiving together. It's never been addressed until now, but apparently the Matthews and Hunter parents aren't exactly friends, just incidental acquaintances. The only one on board with the group thanksgiving is Virna, Shawn's mother. She convinces Chet, and Cory manages to convince Amy and Alan on the basis that Shawn's parents are excited about it.

Later, Frankie shows up at the Matthews house to arrange a "dating situation" with Morgan.

Hilarious, but he's actually trying to arrange a date between Morgan and Herman. Like always, he delivers his lines like he's got a mouth full of cotton, and Morgan agrees to eat a piece of pie with him on Thanksgiving. That would have been enormously inconvenient if the Matthews weren't already going to be eating with the Hunters, but whatever.

I guess the writers are trying to make it clear by this point that Frankie has been reborn. He is definitely not The Enforcer anymore.

We fast forward to the trailer park on Thanksgiving day. Amy has left her purse in the car and wants to retrieve it for fear of it being stolen, but Eric steps in to be a gentleman.

It's difficult to translate Eric's tone to text, but it's perfect. You all know that sometimes Will Friedle says something perfectly, hilarious beyond explanation, and this is one of those times. His voice acting has been great over the last two decades, but I would love to see him on the screen more often. Anyway, Alan sends Cory to get the purse since he won't drive off.

After an awkward, accidental encounter with the Unters, the family find their way to the Hunter trailer. Some obvious class differences raise the tension right away. The Matthews family has brought food in nice dishes, as well as a bottle of fine wine, while the Hunters have plastic utensils and boxed wine. The parents and Eric are all painfully aware of how uncomfortable this is, even though Virna is trying her damnedest to not look like trailer trash in front of their middle class guests. She decides to go out and buy some fancier cheese to meet that end, telling Chet that she just wants the meal to go well.

Once again, much funnier with the voice. Regardless, Virna does not in fact leave to buy cheese.

Cory comes back with the purse, just in time to hear Chet tell his wife that the party is going to suck with or without fancy cheese. Cory asks Shawn how things could have gotten so bad so quickly, and Shawn concedes that these problems are bigger than either of them.

This is great stuff so far. A believable examination of the tension from class differences. Virna is obviously envious while Chet is bitter, and the Matthews parents are just trying not to be rude or condescending. Nothing exciting is happening, and we're at 10 minutes, but that's okay! It's building up for a payoff at the end, or at least it seems like it. There's a lot of framing going on, and it's interesting to think about how much better this could be if we'd seen some of these clashes between the parents in previous episodes.

The realism breaks a little bit when the Unter guy from before knocks at the door and takes Chet outside to a meeting of the Trailer Park Patriarch Mafia, or Tray-Pay-Pay-May, who tell Papa Hunter that they don't take kindly to middle class folks around these parts. It's a little silly, but it gets the story moving.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Amy was justified in worrying about her purse. These guys mean business. Chet tries to defend the Matthews folks, but the old guy orders him to get rid of them and then goes off to watch Jerry Springer. The sad acoustic guitar music plays through the fade out, but then the electric guitar fades back in, so that's weird.

Chet pulls Shawn and Virna outside to explain why their guests are going to have to leave. Inside, Cory calls out his parents on their bull shit class prejudice, and Alan brings the wisdom smackdown.

Hooooooooooly SHIT. That is amazing advice, especially for teenagers. I've wasted a monumental amount of time in arguments where everyone involved "knew" they were right, and by the end nothing changed. I think this is the harshest reality we've seen so far on Boy Meets World, and it couldn't have come from anyone but Alan. Damn that's real.

Outside, Chet explains the situation to his family. The Matthews kids come out to escort Morgan to her date with Herman. At Chet's behest, everyone walks really low to the ground to avoid being seen.

We get some more tense class-conflict between the four parents while the kids are sneaking over to Herman's. Hopefully Frankie's dad was not in the Patriarch Mafia. Wait, his dad is Vader, how the fuck is Vader poor enough to live in a trailer park?  Thaaaaaaaaaat doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, the parents agree that this event isn't really working out, and that the Matthews family should just head home. Alan comments "That doesn't make it anybody's fault," and they all know that it's nothing personal. And that's the KEY, ladies and gentlemen, that is the most important part! How easy it is to be uncomfortable around "different" people, for "not personal" reasons; that's basically the definition of prejudice. Even without violence or animosity or hostility, it's still so easy to be prejudiced.

Over at Frankie's trailer, Vader is nowhere to be seen so I don't know what's going on there. The Stachino boys invite Eric, Shawn, and Cory to stay and eat with them, as they've all just finishing setting up the table outside. That's actually reasonable. Unlike the magical trailer pictured above, an average trailer wouldn't have room for a big table inside. I don't know if the allure of a thanksgiving meal could get me to sit down with Herman though. Look at his dumb face.

At least he's being nice to everybody. AM I THE PREJUDICED ONE? HOLY SHIT. It's not because he's fat, it's just the way he says his lines, I can't stand it. 

They decide to go around the table and have everyone say what they're thankful for. We did that in my family on Thanksgiving, and it was always the most awkward thing ever. I have two sisters, and so for any Thanksgiving at least one of us was at an angsty age, so we could never just get through the damn thing, but ultimately it's probably a worthwhile tradition.

Eric goes, then Frankie, and they're both meaningful without being cheesey, and then Herman says "I ah thehfuh tuh buh si'i neh ta this delkuht blawshm," while looking at Morgan. AND MAYBE IT'S JUST BY COMPARISON, but Morgan goes next and does her best delivery in the series.

The parents (listening from the background of that gif) realize that they're a bunch of jerks, and resolve to try their best to enjoy Thanksgiving, and sit down with everyone else at the table. It sounds cheesier than it is. 

During the credits, we're in Feeny's class as he hands back the papers everyone wrote over the break. He calls Shawn up to the front of the room to read his paper out loud. And honestly, real talk, my heart is already racing. This is one of those top 5 scenes right here. Shawn reads part of his paper where he draws parallels between the Hutu/Tutsi conflict from earlier and the class conflict he saw during Thanksgiving. It's really quite good, and if you recall my mention of a "payoff" at the end, this is the payoff.

I strongly recommend watching that scene, if not the entire episode.

Plot: 1.0 - A Thanksgiving episode with a legitimate conflict? It's almost unheardof.

Character Development: 0.5 - I want to give this episode a full score, but I really can't justify the CD badge. The parents are all less dick-like about class differences, at least for the time being, but they kinda got guilted into it, so I'm not feeling a badge here.

Humor: 1.0 - The humor was spread around the cast really well. Everybody had at least a couple funny lines.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - The prejudice stuff, obviously, but that's not even necessary for the full point. That gif of Alan about "being right", man, that's some seriously heavy wisdom.

3.5 out of 4.0. This is a great one. That scene at the end though... It's City Slackers-esque, you know? Every time Feeny shows pride in Shawn, my heart sings. It's really just beautiful.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday. Also, I've really enjoyed all the comments lately!

All images used under Fair Use.