Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Episode 7x13 "The Provider"

Anybody remember that Joshua kid? They made such a big deal about this baby at the end of season six, but have they even mentioned him so far this season? I know he shows up a few more times, but man, he really fell out of the spotlight.

Also, if you were one of the first 80 or so readers of 7x12, you saw a typo where I wrote "Hunter mind" instead of "Hunter men". I've been fairly lax with my proofreading, but still, how the hell did that happen... One more thing, it occurred to me that Shawn never bothered to ask Chet about Elaine. Is Elaine the stripper Chet was talking about? Not very clear.

One MORE thing. I tweeted the review of Eric Hollywood at Will Friedle yesterday. He hasn't responded. Sad day.


Cory finds Shawn at The Union. He's got the greatest news in the world, that he landed a telemarketing job. Half of that sentence is not true. But hey, we were all giving Cory a hard time for not having a job back when he wanted to buy that house. This is at least a step in the right direction.

But Topanga made an even bigger step in that direction. More like a sprint, really. She ran the hundred meter dash compared to Cory's one step. Lady Luck placed Topanga next to a fashion magazine editor on a subway earlier today, and ultimately Mrs. Lawrence was hired as the editor's assistant. So there's our setup. Topanga is always better than Cory at everything, and now his inferiority is finally coming to a head.


On the other side of The Union, Eric finds a lucky penny because everyone was completely out of ideas at this point. Jack is around too, and he's actually pretty patient with Eric's dumbness. That's always nice to see. Also Jack is wearing his uniform, even though he blatantly got fired from working here by Bridgett in episode 10. Rachel shows up too, and I know I've had a lot of bad things to say about Rachel, she's had a lot of bad scenes, but this one is the worstttttttt. I don't even care that she gave away The Apartment, I don't care that she did it a second time, not compared to this. She's jokingly seducing Eric for his penny, and that she's marry him for a nickel, but the writing and delivery are irredeemably bad (and it's not really a good joke in theory either). This MUST have been the first take, and nobody on the set cared enough to try again.

At The Dorm, Cory's trying to sell some magazines.


He's doing a very dry monotone for this whole bit and it's fantastic. The golden rule is that Cory is hilarious whenever he's doing something out of the ordinary (getting angry, for example), and this is no exception.


Cory goes to some room in the background on his quest for Aspirin, and Topanga equips her husbands telemarketing headset. She manages to sell eight magazines to the first person she calls, while Cory hasn't sold any all day. I completely understand how this is grating for Cory, and I would feel the same in his position, but as a third party I can't help loving Topanga right now. She is an enormous sweetheart, it feels exactly like Girl Meets World Topanga. Cory's getting fed up though.

Time for some Lucky Penny shenanigans because everyone was completely out of ideas at this point. Eric decides to call out a big tough football player as being gay t prove that his penny can protect him from anything.


The guy actually is gay, as is every other football player nearby. That's pretty bold for '99 right? That seems like a laudably bold thing to put on your show in 1999.

Outside, Cory's playing solitaire for the same reason that he owns a poster of celery. He can't figure out his next move, but Topanga shows up and makes it seem obvious and easy. Okay that one was a little annoying, you don't interrupt somebody's game of solitaire. "Solitary" is right there in the name. We learn that Cory quit his telemarketing job and all the feelings of inferiority start to come out. Topanga can see that he's upset, and asks if he wants to go home and have "pookie pook," which is adorable, but he's not in the mood since she's better than him at that too. The rest of the gang are all off on the sidelines, and Rachel comments that Cory and Topanga are having their "first fight". Now, this has been mentioned in the comments many times, how absurd it is that they call this their first fight. But SURELY Rachel just meant that it was their first fight as a married couple. Right? Well we'll find out soon enough.


That grammar correction sends Cory (and me) over the edge. His explosive reaction to that is completely justified. That sweetheart Topanga is long gone. It's a pretty drastic shift in her behavior from a few minutes ago. So they both reach their boiling points, and Topanga basically says that she has to be perfect since Cory sucked at his job, Topanga is way more vicious in this fight, up until Cory tells her that she killed his spirit. It's pretty harsh and the sad piano music starts playing as Topanga walks out of The Union.

Shawn uses his extensive knowledge of his parents' fights to give Cory some advice. It's pretty obvious advice though, basically just "go talk to her and sort this out," but it comes from a good place. Eric wants to help too. He doesn't have any real advice, but still makes a heartfelt gesture after a funny exchange with Shawn.


It's very sweet, and that's really all due to Will. His delivery is always spot on and I love him even if he won't respond to my tweet. No longer lucky, Eric gets struck by lightning multiple times here inside the Union. It's a little over the top.

So now there's a montage of Cory and Topanga arguing at The Dorm, it's essentially the same stuff they said at The Union, but there's one part in particular worth noting.


There you go. Both of these characters believe this is the first fight they have ever had. Not just since marriage. I refused to believe that that's what they were going for, but this is undeniable proof. I am absolutely stunned. Who let this happen? How could the actors do this with straight faces? NOBODY on the crew stopped this from happening? I... I'm incredulous. Is season 7 in a parallel bizarro universe? First Alan wasn't in the Navy, now Cory and Topanga have literally never fought before? What show am I watching?

The argument reaches a climax as Cory gives a concise statement of what's really bothering him.


I'm not really sure what kind of reviewing I can do here. It's just five minutes of them working through an argument. It's a believable argument and the resolution is decent, but the problem is that this was also a believable argument from day 1. Am I stupid or has this never been an issue before? The entire point of this episode is to watch this five minute scene at the end where Cory and Topanga are working through this fight. I could understand if this were "the episode where Cory finally fights with Topanga about his inferiority complex," except that his complex was invented just for this episode. There is no "finally" about it. This is the kind of thing you have to build up to. If they had given us some hints that Cory secretly resented his wife's success in the episodes leading up to this, then I'd be pretty happy. But they didn't. So I'm just not that invested in this.


The resolution is Topanga saying "We're not competing, we're a team," and hey, that's pretty awesome. As a team, they manage to sell a magazine subscription to the guy Cory had trouble with earlier in the episode.

During the credits, Eric shows up looking for his penny. It's still over the top, but funny.


Plot: 0.25 - Like I said, this episode is supposed to be THE ONE WHERE THEY FIGHT, but they've fought many many times before, and a handful of them were worse than this. The ONE thing this relationship does not need is more drama. We've had to deal with them breaking up twice, and I'm done. I'm done with the fights between these two. And like I said just above, there really wasn't anything leading up to this. It just sort of happened, and that's not enough to make it meaningful.

Character Development: 0.5 - The basis for The Fight was solid, I just wish they had set a trail of breadcrumbs for it in earlier episodes.

Humor: 0.75 - Cory was pretty funny, Eric was okay, Rachel was not funny.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - We're not competing, we're a team.

2.5 out of 4.0. This is not their first fight. It's not their worst fight either. It's not a well established fight. It's just a fight. I like the resolution, but it wasn't worth the work to get to it.

So I have a community project for you guys. This episode had a "How ya doin..." and it made me want to put together a compilation video of all the How ya doin's in the series. So if anyone is willing to sign up for a certain section of the series, half of a season for example, and watch all the episodes looking for instances of How ya doin, then I can put them all together into one video. It would be dreadfully tedious to look through them all myself. Maybe there's an archive of full episode scripts out there that we could just search through instead. So. Yeah. Leave a comment.




Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.






26 comments :

  1. Yeah.. I go back and forth on this episode. Mostly because I get the intent here and what they were trying to do, but the key word here is "TRYING" and like you said this can't be something that just comes up, it's obviously been around for a while. Topanga has been this way for quite some time, at least more hardworking, better at school, work, etc. Cory's been average. It's not like when Shawn and Cory got those internships and Shawn did better randomly even though that wasn't what everyone thought would happen based on his school performance. So, I don't know what else I can say but I think you hit the nail on the head.

    It makes me sad how close we are to ending this blog forever :(

    (also side random note, this is the first time I'm using my name in a comment section and thought I would since the blog is ending, I am normally an anon commenter but I am the anon comment who told you when you reviewed the BMW drinking episode that BMW was 21 years old that very same day!)

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    1. Yeah, now that I think about it it's kind of annoying that they did this exact same inferiority thing with Shawn earlier. I get that Topanga's the "best friend" now, but she doesn't need to rehash Shawn's plotlines...

      And hi! I guess if we're all doing this, you and everyone else can call me Sean if you want.

      And I remember that comment! Thanks for all your support, B :)

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    2. Your name has been Sean this whole fucking time?!?! That's something you mention back in season one dude. Watching this show must be so much cooler when your name is fucking Sean.

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    3. I agree with Ted, that's pretty cool when your name is Sean and you're watching the show. Must be fun!

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  2. So if the guy above me can do it so can I. Hi, I'm an annonymous who has been commenting since the very beginning of your blog, and has chimed in on many episodes throughout the show. You might remember me being really overjoyed you mentioned Larxene from Kingdom Hearts in an early review, I've also been the big defender of season 7 in these reviews. But even I draw the line at parts of this episode. First fight ever??? What the fuck writers... I'm not crazy about Eric getting struck by lightning here either but the rest of his plot is stupid fun.

    Anyway just wanna let you know this blog is fantastic and I'll always be willing to check out further writing from you, especially if it's your opinions on Girl Meets World

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    1. The Larxene guy! I absolutely remember that. Thank you so much for your support all this time, Jacob. You rock. Regarding Eric, my heart MELTS when he gives Cory the penny.

      Again, thanks for the kind words, you have no idea how awesome that makes me feel. I hadn't replied to that other comment when you posted this, so I'll say it again here, since we're doing the first name mask-removal thing, I'm Sean. And yes, I accidentally write my name instead of Shawn's pretty often when I'm typing these up.

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    2. I can't comment as an anon anymore, and for some reason my email is associated with some blog name I had to use for school back in 10th grade.

      Anyways - woo, Larxene! #KingdomHeartsReference

      I've been reading your blog post for every episode right after finishing the episode. After finishing reading, I'd go on to the next one.

      It'd be really cool if you did GMW reviews too. I know Christian does it, but

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    3. I had to turn off anon comments temporarily, I was getting spammed.

      Thanks so much for reading, I actually did join Christian's blog as a co-writer when season 2 of GMW started. Check it out, it's the same URL as this one just with "girl" instead of "boy"

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  3. I was waiting for you to get to this one! This one's my favorite of season 7, simply because of Cory on the phone. "Shonazi" always get me.

    Great point about the fight, but this one was long overdue. Topanga has always outdone Corey, but I don't think he's really cared until now.

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    1. The Shonazi bit is A+++++ for sure.

      You really think it's overdue? I don't think it was due at all. Cory always used to be like "I'm better when I'm with you," but now she makes him think less of himself. I don't know why it suddenly bothers him now.

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    2. I don't disagree that it would have worked better for the show if they actually showed some of his insecurity, but it's definitely not unrealistic. Constantly being the worse half, even if you're completely happy for the other person and can acknowledge it makes you a better person, can be draining.

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  4. Oh the fighting thing makes me so mad... it's just so insane. And I had the exact same reaction as you where it was like "Surely, they're not claiming... Oh wow. Yes, indeed, that is what they're claiming." It's just such an outlandish continuity error and there's no reason for it. You wanna forget Topanga's mom was named Chloe and not Rhiannon? Fine. You wanna forget Shawn and Topanga had sisters? Shit happens. But to try to claim Cory and Topanga have never had a fight before, when Cory and Topanga fighting is such a tried and true, reliable topic is... insane. And it's not even like you have to dig into the archives to find examples, they spent the whole first half of this season fighting!

    And whyyyyyyyyyyy say it? This doesn't need to have been their first fight for the episode to make sense. There's no reason for this to have been their first half! Aaaaaaargh. Just so outrageous.

    That said, I can't hate this one because besides that (and..... Eric being struck by lightning, which.... I don't even.....) the rest of it's great. It's *really* funny. Cory's constantly cracking me up. You also didn't mention it but I also enjoyed Eric's mocking of Shawn: "Oh look! Trailer Boy's got all the answers!"

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    1. Oh, and hey, I'm just curious - was Angela even in this one? I don't think you even so much as mention her name. Was she just totally superfluous or was she just not there?

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    2. Actually, I think I remember reading that Shawn wasn't actually meant to have a sister. Remember, in Season One, Cory was meant to have two best friends--it's just that the chemistry between Cory and Shawn was so good that they put Shawn in a couple of extra scenes in Season One. It was supposed to be some other kid--I think, maybe who ConfidenceKBM called "Bad Hair"--helping Cory with his hair, but Rider Strong did better in screening. Don't quote me on that, mind you, it's just what I recall.

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    3. You're 100% correct. Rider told the story on the dvd extras on the "alternative friends" episode commentary.

      They actually had another kid to play the role of the friend with the sister, but the kid's delivery sucked and he was fired. They gave Rider all his lines, and thus Shawn and Corey were born.

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    4. That's interesting that they just gave all his lines to Rider, I didn't know that.

      You're totally right Christian, the fact that was allegedly the first one didn't even bring anything to the table. Except maybe try to emphasize how important this was supposed to be? And yeah Angela tried to butt into The Fight but Cory immediately told her to back off and that was that. And I meant to say something about how Eric and Shawn are always funny together, I don't know why I forgot.

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  5. I'm the Anonymous above, and I could be wrong but I think this may actually be Cory and Topanga's first fight, in a manner of speaking.
    Every time they've argued before, it was usually over their relationship--Lauren comes readily to mind. Sure they fought, but they were bitter to pretty much everyone, including Feeny for a couple episodes (Man, I hated that arc). Same thing with the start of this season--Topanga not acting like herself (Another arc I hated). By all means those were fights, but the relationship of "Cory and Topanga" was at stake. I'm not sure I'd call "Honesty Night" an actual fight, since ConfidenceKBM noted how quickly Topanga and Cory came to an agreement--that was more a disagreement than a fight.
    You could argue that this was technically their first fight as a married couple and also their first fight where, even if things weren't resolved, they would still be "Cory and Topanga."

    Oh wait, I forgot about Cory and Topanga arguing over Shawn's pet pig. Never mind. And I forgot when they broke up back in Season 3. Never mind even more. And...hmm, I don't think Cory actually ever fought with Season One Topanga.

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    1. They've fought a ton over all manner of topics not related to them. Shawn's pig, yes, is one. Another is over what kind of parents they'd be in "Shallow Boy." They also fought over Cory and Topanga's differing priorities when Joshua was born. And more!

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    2. Which is why I said "Never mind." As for Cory and Topanga as parents in "Shallow Boy," it looks like Cory hasn't changed at all.
      And...hey wait a second, I just realized something--neither Feeny nor Cory's parents are in this episode. Wouldn't Amy and Alan have been useful, acting as foils for Cory and Topanga in terms of two-income households? Amy was a realtor (or did they ret-con that too?), couldn't she have made more money (at times) than Alan the Grocery Store Manager?

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    3. They don't really retcon Amy being a realtor so much as they... Stop bringing it up. More so like they legitimately forgot

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  6. I think the first fight bit works in terms of both Cory and Topanga desperately needing to romanticise their relationship into this near-mythology.
    Like it's played as a joke, but there literally seems to be a theme of how they hear what they want to hear (like when Topanga says at the wedding that they've waited their whole lives for this, what is Cory thinking; and he says 'I can't believe Shawn isn't here' to which she answers 'I love you too!')
    The continuity is all over the place with the show, of course (it's pretty obvious that Season One!Topanga didn't grow up with Cory as later stated - for starters, we see her meeting Eric and she has no idea he and Cory are brothers until he says his surname.) but out of all the characters, I'd buy Cory and Topanga as the first to be dramatic and claim they've never so much as exchanged cross looks before. Especially after getting married so young - they have something to prove.

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    1. I like your idea of them being completely deluded, but Rachel was the first person to comment that it was their first fight. So somehow everyone else believes it too.

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  7. So I've recently discovered your blog and have been catching up on all your back-log. I've been an enjoying the ride. We don't always agree on everything but that just makes things more interesting.

    So anyway, I just like to put my two cents on the whole argument. I honesty think it was built up, but not necessarily sign-posted beforehand.
    The build up comes from the characters themselves, who both have shown problems with inferiority and perfectionism since near the very beginning. But the reason they've never fought over it before is because they've never had competing interests before. Up till now they've had different goals through life. Cory wants to be cool, talented, unique, successful in business, loved by everybody, ect. ect. where as Topanaga has always been focused on academia and social political issues. Things which Cory has never cared about to the same extent that she does.
    Now that they are married and starting to live in the real world, they both start to focus their goals on similar things like jobs and living space ect. So now Topanga's perfectionism and Cory inferiority complex is starting to cause natural friction.
    One could even argue that there are signs of this friction in last week's episode where Topanga's "I want things to be done a certain way" attitude is in conflict over not wanting to start an argument with and Cory and tell him he's not doing it "the right way" or simply take over the whole project her self.

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  8. For season 7, this one ain't bad. Cory and Topanga's conflict could have a bit more build-up as you said, but the core established elements of the characters (Cory being average, Topanga being sort of a skilled, hardworking A-type) could naturally bring out some resentment of this type. It's not hinted in other episodes, but it's a believable enough development IMO.

    Eric's penny thing is pretty silly throughout. Although the gay football team was a pretty funny fake-out.

    "Shonazi...you got a dumb name!"

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  9. Count me in as another commentator who thinks that this Cory & Topanga conflict didn't come from out of nowhere. No only was it built up with the characters' previously established characteristics, but wasn't there an actual conflict where Topanga got accepted in Yale and had to chose between that and staying with Cory? I believe this was brought up a few times later where Cory felt guilty for being the reason Topanga turned down Yale. I count that as consistent build up to this plotline.

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  10. “As a professional athlete, is it a distraction being gay?”
    “AHHH!”
    Jacks scream gets me every time.

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