Epilogue

So with all the clip reels of the various relationships in the finale, I got to thinking about which one I liked the best. My gut reaction is Eric/Feeny, and we've all spoken at great length about how wonderful they were together in seasons 3 and 4. But then at the end of the finale when Shawn says "You never gave up on me," that hit me so hard and made me wonder if maybe Shawn/Feeny is the best. It's never quite as strong as Eric/Feeny, but it pops up throughout most of the series, as early as The Fugitive in season 1, while Eric/Feeny is mostly restricted to 3 and 4. We also have to consider Shawn/Cory, which is of course the backbone of all seven seasons, and at times is as emotional as Eric/Feeny. Shawn/Cory is lovable, emotional, and hysterical for the entire series, but it never really inspires me the way the two Feeny relationships do. So yeah. I don't know if I have an answer for this one yet. Maybe I'll just have to watch the series a few more times.

That brings up an interesting point. One of the biggest questions I thought about while I worked on this blog was whether or not I'd still want to watch the show when I was done, whether this deep analysis and criticism would exhaust my interest in it. I can say with 100% certainty that I still want to watch the show. Some of the episodes I'll probably never watch again, except maybe when that creeping thought of "was it really that bad?" works its way into my head. Others, I don't think I could ever grow tired of. So I present today's first list, in chronological order (here's the full list of episodes if you want to play along http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boy_Meets_World_episodes)

Infinitely Watchable Episodes

Season 1: Father Knows Less, Cory's Alternative Friends, Santa's Little Helper, Boy Meets Girl (4 total)

Season 2: Back 2 School, Pairing Off, Me and Mr. Joad, The Uninvited ("It's a geek party!!"), The Beard, Turnaround, Breaking Up Is Really, Really Hard To Do, Pop Quiz, Career Day (9 total)

Season 3: He Said, She Said, This Little Piggy, The Last Temptation of Cory, City Slackers, A Kiss Is More Than A Kiss ("BORIS college?") The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Stormy Weather, I Never Sang For My Legal Guardian, Brother Brother (9 total)

Season 4: Hair Today, Goon Tomorrow ("He's the good lookin guy!"), I Ain't Gonna Spray Lettuce No More, Shallow Boy, Janitor Dad, Turkey Day, An Affair to Forget, Easy Street, B & B's B 'n B, Chick Like Me, Uncle Daddy, Quiz Show, Security Guy, Learning to Fly (13 total)

Season 5: How To Succeed in Business, Last Tango In Philly, Raging Cory, The Eskimo, Heartbreak Cory, And Then There Was Shawn, Eric Hollywood, Things Change, Graduation (9 total)

Season 6: We'll Have A Good Time Then, Can I Help To Cheer You?, Bee True (3 total)

Season 7: It's About Time, She's Having My Baby Back Ribs, Brotherly Shove, Brave New World (4 or 5 total)

Season 4 has the most, which I could have told you from the day I started this blog. It has always been my favorite, and probably always will be. The characters are in that sweet-spot-age where they're young enough to make bad decisions and learn from them (hello seasons 2 and 3) but also old enough to tackle more mature issues and look at life outside high school (where season 5 is strongest). That brings us to our second list.

Season Ranking: 4, 3, 5, 2, 7, 1, 6

The hardest choice is between 3 and 5. They're both really strong for different reasons, and they both have weaknesses as well. For example, 5 has The Apartment, but it also has Jack. 3 has Mister Turner, but it also has Eli. The thing that finally made me choose season 3 is my undying, irrational fondness for The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (and Dana in general, while we're stuck with Angela in season 5). But like I said, the difference is negligible, 3 and 5 are about equal.

Season 4 is definitely first, though, and 2 is definitely fourth, but 7 and 1 were also tough to choose between. It's either nonsense episodes as kids or nonsense episodes as adults. They both have incredibly strong episodes (e.g. Father Knows Best and Brotherly Shove) but also a large amount of crap. I almost want to put season 1 ahead just because you can chalk up the bad episodes to the showrunners' inexperience. By season 7, they really ought to have known better...

But yeah. I'd be surprised if anyone could argue for season 6 not being the worst. They had to break my heart to get two of those episodes on the list. Bee True is the only season 6 episode that gets there just by being fun and entertaining. 

Speaking of worst, let's look at that next. This is another point for season 4, not one of those episodes would make a Bottom 10 list, maybe not even Bottom 20. Even Cult Fiction is good before the last scene. I'm not sure if I realized it at the time, but it's really just another father figure story. That episode tells us so much about Shawn, and I love that Feeny and Alan both fight so hard for him. It's really pretty great until Shawn starts yelling at the ceiling. But that's neither here nor there. Rather than rank the episodes one by one, since that's next to impossible and way too subjective, I'm just going to group them (the top group is least watchable, and the bottom group is more watchable, if that's not clear from the group titles). And remember, there's no particular order inside each group.

Worst Episodes

Literally Nothing Redeemable

What A Drag!

Never Ever Watch Again

As Time Goes By

The Honeymooners

No Guts, No Cory

Hogs and Kisses

Grandma Was A Rolling Stone

Pretty God Damn Bad

You're Married You're Dead

And in Case I Don't See Ya...

Show Me The Love (Part 1)

For Love and Apartments (Part 2)

Starry Night

The Happiest Show On Earth

Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf?

I Was A Teenage Spy

Guilty Pleasures

The Fugitive

The Witches of Pennbrook

First Girlfriends' Club

There's a lot of room between Pretty God Damn Bad and Guilty Pleasures, room where most of season 6 lives, but I wanted to include the Guilty Pleasures for fun. I'M SORRY THAT I LIKE FIRST GIRLFRIENDS' CLUB, OKAY? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? AN APOLOGY? I'M FUCKING SORRY, I CAN'T HELP IT. 

I rewatched Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf just now because I wanted to be sure about it, and it's not nearly as bad as those top two categories. I thought it was, but if you go watch it now with seasons 6 and 7 fresh in your mind, it's really not even close to being the worst. What A Drag, however, is definitely the worst. With the time travel episodes you can always say "well none of that actually happened," but What A Drag is canon. That is part of the official Boy Meets World lore. And that hurts deep.

So we've already got the Infinitely Watchable list, but I can narrow it down further. It's a given that every Infinitely Watchable episode is hilarious and fun. So for this list, something in particular has to make it stand out in addition to those to qualities. The lines are blurry and subjective for most of the Infinitely Watchables, but there are three episodes that deserve the spotlight for being outstanding displays of character relationships and individual character development.

Best Episodes

Security Guy - Feeny/Eric, and Alan/Eric, and Feeny/The Three. Thanks for playing. 

The Eskimo - Feeny/The Three with an emphasis on Feeny/Shawn, as well as strong Cory/Shawn moments. Also one of the only good Eric/Jack bonding episodes.

An Affair To Forget - This might surprise you because I haven't mentioned it nearly as much as the two episodes above. I gave it a great review, and I chose that banner at the top of the blog for a reason, but it only dawned on me in the last couple weeks that this episode isn't just great, it's perfect. As perfect as Eskimo and Security Guy. This is the paragon showing of the Cory/Shawn bromance and every second of it is magic. It is abundantly clear that they love each other in a way we never see between Cory and Topanga. But that doesn't stop Topanga from helping Shawn (and the audience) understand that a girlfriend shouldn't keep you from your friends (a life lesson, you might say). What really sets this one apart from future bromance episodes is that Shawn isn't competing with Topanga. In the future, once Cory and Topanga have been soulmated™, it's presented as Shawn vs. Topanga, and littered with Topanga making frustrated faces to the sound of audience laughter. But in this episode it's not a competition. Topanga just wants to help. Meanwhile, Eric is putting on his one man show. He believes in himself, he dreams, and he tries. He fails, ultimately, but Feeny is there to help him pick up the pieces and he offers Eric some genuine, meaningful advice. This episode has everything. 

It's no coincidence that those three episodes highlight the three relationships I was talking about at the beginning of the post.

 It's really hard to choose any more "best episodes". I wanted to include City Slackers in that list, but Eric's story, as much as I love it, is ultimately meaningless, and that sets it apart from those three. But if we allow the influence of personal bias...

ConfidenceKBM's Biased Top 10

God Tier

Security Guy

The Eskimo

An Affair To Forget

Painfully Close to God Tier

City Slackers

Essential

Turnaround

Eric Hollywood

Last Tango In Philly

Shallow Boy

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Brother Brother

Like I said, it's a biased list. There's a WORLD of wiggle room in Essential. Pretty much everything from Infinitely Watchable could make it into Essential. Those are really just the ones I've watched the most. My top 4 are set in stone, but I don't think I could pick a #5. 

And I think that's all I've got to say about Boy Meets World. Well that's a lie, I could say a hundred thousand more things, but at a certain point it would devolve into a sort of rambling, fanatic rant.

I'm looking to do a cooperative writeup for Girl Meets World starting on the next episode in March with long-time commenter Christian. We've got extremely similar views on Boy Meets World, and I like his writeups for GMW, so we're gonna have a go at it. If you want to see me review season 1 of Girl up to now, I'm happy to do it: "I don't like it in general but Maya makes it tolerable and Shawn made it all worth it." There you go, there's the first season. Either way, this isn't the last you'll see of me, hopefully.

As always, I'd love to hear what you think about the show in the comments, but I suppose this is also the time to get emotional. There is absolutely no way in the universe I could have gotten through this without you guys. I wanted to quit so many times, especially after season 5. I seriously considered just taking requests for seasons 6 and 7, but you all deserved better than that, and your support and virtual pats-on-the-back are honestly the only reason I made it through all the garbage episodes. I never thought I'd get to meet people who love this show as much as I do, or that I would ever get the chance to open my heart about it, but here you all are. Reading the comments has always been my favorite part. I've spent the last ten-odd years boiling over with thoughts and feelings about this amazing show, and I've finally got them all out in the open. I like to think that this blog was a place for you to get that out as well. Like how Shawn uses poetry to get his feelings out, except not a bunch of bull shit.

Three important things that came out of this blog:
1) We all got to see that INSANE clip of Cory and Shawn on Jacobs's other show.
2) Undeniable proof that Topanga is in love with Eric.
3) Dancing Guy.

Every one of you has my undying gratitude. Every time I watch this show from now on I'll think you. This was an experience that we all got to have together, a real group adventure, and I can't describe how grateful I am that this is a part of my life. I want to give a special shoutout now. After my review of the very first episode, someone commented on the reddit post telling me that I had made a fan, and that they were going to follow my blog. I don't remember the exact words, but that was the essence of it. So if by some twist of fate you still follow the blog, First Fan, I want you to know that I wouldn't be here without you. Now of course that doesn't diminish everyone else's support, you're all fucking amazing and this blog wouldn't exist without you guys. Every "nice review," every "yeah this episode sucked," every "I'm looking forward to...", everything, it all gives me such an unbelievable feeling. 

I believed in myself, I dreamed, and I tried. I love Boy Meets World, and I love you all.

Thanks for reading.