Episode 3x21 "The Happiest Show On Earth"

Time traveling after being shocked by a microwave is more possible than this episode.

So Cory's dancin his way away over at Chubbie's with a girl that we've seen before. The actress's name is Hillary Tuck, and she played Sarah in On The Air. But for absolutely no reason that I can come up with, her name is Kristen now. Why is this? It doesn't make any sense at all, there would be no problem if it was the same girl from On The Air. I would say it's laziness, but lazy would have been keeping the same name! I just don't know how this happened.

They take a seat in a booth and Cory lays down the smooth moves. Apparently he's been serial-dating recently. They smooch, and Cory calls her "Topanga" afterward. Stay classy, Boy Meets World.

In Turner's classroom the next day, Cory and Shawn discuss Cory's new plan to re-date Topanga since he's clearly not over her. Turner begins class and we learn the results of some environmental essay writing contest. The winners who will be receiving a trip to Walt Disney World are Kristen, some dude who's not nearly as cool as Shawn named Ronnie "Lips" Watterman, and Topangarino. So Cory's plan to woo her is over before it begins. Later than night, Eric's advice is to just run off to Disney World ASAP to chase after her.

Well.... I don't know how to feel about this. It goes without saying that he is in fact going to run off to Disney World. So are we okay with it? Surely the writers know this is ridiculous, and they just wanted to use their "One Disney World/Land Episode" voucher that all the sitcoms got in the 90s. I can't wait for the stock footage, yum yum.

But don't worry. Eric's got a plan.

This is actually one of my favorite gags. Once again Eric's got the episode on his shoulders.

I just want to point out again that they already took their final exams. Why are they still in school? Just air that episode later, for crying out loud, this stuff is so simple.

Shawn comes along with two plane tickets to Florida. He got them from his "Uncle Mickey". So I guess Shawn is coming too. Cory tries to save them both the trouble by spilling his heart to Topanga before she leaves. How incredibly rational. But she gets pulled away for a minute, and in that small window Kristen manages to sneak in.

She promises to patch things up when she gets back from Florida and kisses him, but Topanga sees and gets pretty upset. I guess we're going to Disney World.

AW YEAH BABY look at all this delicious stock footage. Got an aerial shot, the monorail, the Epcot golf ball thing, Cindy's castle, the works. Was there a law that said every show had to do this in the 90s? I guess it's just the law of "show our park on your show and we give you money". Shawn and Cory arrive, apparently those tickets were for a cargo plane, which is slightly more believable than otherwise. They don't have much of a plan here, just "find Topanga". Back at school, Eric's plan is working, as he receives praise from an offscreen teacher.

That is hysterical. A lot of it is in the way Eric says "thank you", so it's somewhat lost in the gif, but god damn, it gets me every time. 

Mr. Feeny sees Eric stuff the dummy into his locker, and in the spirit of the running joke, thinks it's actually Cory. They have a really funny exchange, and ultimately Feeny does not find out about the dummy. So this plan is lookin pretty rock solid.

There's some bull shit with the essay winners and some dolphins and the dolphin trainer, and because this is a TV show, Cory and Shawn arrive on the scene. Buuuuuuuuuuut Kristen sees Cory before Topanga does, and she thinks he's there for her. This is girl is fuckin FRUIT LOOPS people, just complete wackadoo. But it wouldn't be a sitcom without these ZANY MIXUPS WEEEEHEHEHEHOOOOO. Kristen kisses Cory after proclaiming her love for him (re: fruit loops) and Topanga's lookin piiiiiiiiiiiissed.

Shawn and Cory spend the night in the log flume ride. There's some more stock footage and a little montage of Cory and Shawn asking Beast and Mouseketeer Goofy for directions or if they've seen Topanga or something, I don't know, the only sound over this footage is some whimsical flute montage music. You know what I'm talking about. Then we get another montage of Cory showing up wherever Topanga and Ronnie "Lips" Watterman are. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz but hey, I'm sure they got paid a lot of money to give us this many different shots of Disney World. Either way, Cory's hard work isn't paying off. Topanga tells him to stop chasing her, quite sternly.

Hey. Fezzes are cool.

Anyway, Topanga thinks they're all just meaningless gestures, since every time she turns around, Cory's got Kristen's tongue in his mouth. And right on cue, Kristen shows up behind him. Once again, Topanga storms off. 

Cory goes back to the dolphin place, and, completely unsupervised, starts telling all his problems to one of the dolphins as he feeds it little fish.

Are you fucking me right now? Did that really just happen? I am so ready to be done with this.

Anyway she chases after him like "oh Cory I heard what you said blah blah blah, thank goodness I was suspiciously spying on you in this random unsupervised and likely off-limits location." And then they kiss in front of some fountains because that was literally the only way this was gonna end. 

Also, Cory is seriously overdressed for Florida in April/May. Everyone else is wearing as little as possible, but here's this guy in a full wool sweater. Whatever. The good news is, the audience doesn't go "wooo".

During the credits, we're at the Matthews house. Cory gets grounded for a month, and Morgan gets her first genuinely funny joke, perhaps the only one, of the series.

It's bleeped over, obviously, and she's probably just making random sounds, but it kinda looks like she's saying "ass shit cunt". Either way, definitely unexpected, definitely funny.

And finally Mr. Feeny finds a body in a shallow grave in his garden.

So there we go, there's our 22 minute Disney World advertisement. Where magic happens, or whatever. I wonder what happened to Kristen? I mean she did sort of tell Cory that she's in love with him. She's probably gonna hook up with Ronnie "Lips" Watterman on the rebound, poor girl. That dude's a real douche.

Plot: 0.25 - Disney World/Land episodes are notoriously terrible. I don't need to explain why this story was ridiculous.

Character Development: 1.0 - Cory and Topanga are back together.

Humor: 1.0 - Humor was definitely on point today. Every scene with Eric was hilarious, Shawn had some good stuff, so did Cory when he wasn't being an emotional wreck. AND MORGAN. Never thought I'd say that.

Life Lesson: 0.25 - If you actually love someone, you should give it a honest try, but for fuck's sake don't chase them to Orlando if they're coming back in a few days.

2.50 out of 4.0. It's worth watching just for the humor. The delivery adds a lot to the jokes, so it's significantly better in video than in gif.

See you Wednesday for the season finale.

Episode 3x20 "I Never Sang For My Legal Guardian"

I love all the comments I've been getting lately. I'd been fluctuating between 50 and 70 readers per review for most of season 3, but it's been getting closer to 100 lately. So that's awesome. Thanks for sticking with me! (P.S. the current record is Episode 2x01 with 347 readers.)

Welcome to another episode of Boy Meets World, or rather, Shawn Meets Angst. Except that's a terrible title because Shawn already met angst, and they got married and then had a child. This episode is that child.

So yeah, Shawn hasn't heard from his father, Chet, for a long time. But Cory learns from Mr. Turner that Chet sent him the documents to become Shawn's guardian a few months back. Turner's first solution is to find a new apartment for him and Shawn to occupy since his current one is too small. It's mostly just an excuse for Shawn to pout around, but the good news is that Cory is a lot of fun in this episode. He's invested in the happiness of his best friend, so he effectively becomes a real estate agent to help Shawn and Turner find a place.

Shawn doesn't want to move though, which is probably setting up for something. Eli shows up and says some stuff that's not funny and then Shawn storms off. It's business as usual. At school, Feeny hands back a D on a paper to Eric and suggests he tutor some football player. Why are these kids still in school? They had final exams two episodes ago.

On the other side of the hallway, Cory tries to convince Shawn to go with the condo that they looked at the day before.

This is yet more evidence that the best humor comes from Cory's silliness in Shawn-centered episodes. Cory's just off the side being a real estate agent. I think that's hilarious.

Shawn insists that they're not going to move because he's sick of moving, and storms off full of angst. Back at the apartment, Turner tells Eli that he has almost finished the paperwork to be Shawn's legal guardian. Shawn comes home, Eli bails, Shawn throws out a letter from his dad because he's angsty, and Turner reveals his pending guardianship. Shawn's like "I thought you did that months ago, sorry you didn't have time for me" and storms off. Holy Moses and Mary how many times have I typed that. Take a god damn chill pill Shawn.

Now we're at Chubbie's and Eric is tutoring that football player, whose name is Jeff, on European history. It's made abundantly clear that this guy is even dumber than Eric. Their studying is cut short when some girls want to go for a ride in Jeff's Porsche.

I'm not really sure what to say about this. Feeny's intentions with this setup are unclear. He didn't say this was worth extra credit or anything, so that leaves two options. Either he wants Eric to understand how frustrating it can be to try to teach someone who doesn't give a shit, or he thinks Eric will "accidentally" learn all the material by trying to teach it to Jeff. I guess we'll find out. Either way I think we're in for a good Eric/Feeny moment. But again, finals are already over, it's way too late to be applying to colleges.

Shawn shows up at the Matthews house and tries to recruit Cory for an impromptu visit to Shawn's dad, who's at a truck stop about 50 miles away. Shawn has apparently stolen Turner's motorcycle and plans to drive it there. The audience goes "oooooooooooh" like Shawn just offered Cory some heroin or something. Are you fuckin joking with me right now? He coulda just asked Turner to take him, he probably woulda said yes. I don't know anymore. Predictably, Shawn gets pulled over/arrested.

Like, we understand that Shawn is troubled. We get it. And you know why we get it? Because we've done this before. Several times now. There's sad music and everything, they're trying so hard to manipulate the audience's emotions, it's honestly annoying at this point.

The next scene opens at Turner's place and he's got Shawn with him. I honestly expected Shawn to call his dad from the police station, so that's a relatively nice surprise. They hash things out, including Turner pointing out that he could have driven Shawn to see his father, and they realize that they're both just scared of making their living arrangement permanent. The next morning, Shawn informs Cory that he's going to move into his Uncle Mike's trailer back at the shitty trailer park, because "at least I'll be surrounded by family." WE DID THAT ONE ALREADY. UGHHHHHHHH. Remember "you don't have to be blood to be family"? I guess Shawn's just making up excuses at this point because he doesn't know how to deal with this situation.

I think they deliberately bring out Shawn's leather jacket when he's being angsty. I should have been paying more attention to that, but I don't think we've seen a whole lot of that jacket lately.

Eric explains to his parents the trials of trying to teach someone who doesn't want to learn (well how bout that) and then Cory talks to them about Shawn. They advise Cory to go see Chet and tell him what's going on. I still don't know why Shawn and Turner haven't come here yet, but I guess the story's gotta keep moving. So Cory and Topanga are now at the truck stop where Chet's been staying. Oh great, that's good, they got here by bus. So there was another option besides stealing Turner's motorcycle. Good. That's good.

Anyway some older woman with a southern drawl starts hitting on Cory.

Are we done with the real estate agent bit? Well it was fun while it lasted. Topanga takes this cowgirl outside to tussle or rumble or whatever the country word for fighting is. Brawl? I don't know. Oh hey, Chet's here, working until he can pay off some parking tickets and hit the road again. The most surprising thing is that Chet gives a shit about parking tickets.

Cory explains to Chet that Shawn really needs him, but to no avail. Topanga and the chick whose hair looks like a pineapple come back inside, apparently they're friends now. The audience laughs, but...

What good things can I say about this... Well it's cool that they've got the same actor for Chet Hunter. I talked before, I think it was "Career Day" about how great this actor is, particularly in the role of Shawn's father, and he maintains that standard in this scene.

Back at school, Feeny just finished grading the most recent tests (even though they already took finals) and Eric tries to pre-emptively explain why Jeff may not have done very well.

Turns out, Jeff got a C+ and Eric got an A. Spectacular! This is a finely crafted and executed Ericlogue. The foundation is relevant to the overarcing story of the whole season, it starts off believably, builds up at a decent pace, and concludes with Eric learning a lesson he didn't even realize he was learning. That's about as good as it gets, folks. Awesome stuff. Eric realizes that Feeny's intention the whole time was just for Eric to learn the material himself while he was teaching it to Jeff.

I don't really care what happens now, this Eric story was good enough on its own.

Regardless, we're back at the police station with Shawn. Apparently Uncle Mike up and left the trailer park, and some cop found Shawn sleeping on a park bench. Conveniently, Chet arrives at the police station, he and Shawn have been chatting for a bit now and we still don't know why he's here. Chet insists that he can still find his wife, but Shawn convinces him to stay. It's actually pretty moving, and Rider Strong nails the fuck out of his lines in this scene. Shawn is actually real and vulnerable here, not the angsty annoyance he's been up until now. I love this scene, and I always have, but the best is yet to come.

Turner arrives to bail Shawn out and confronts Chet. Ah okay, Chet got caught in a speed trap on his way into town, having been persuaded by Cory's words, and got arrested for all his unpaid parking tickets. He reveals that he's staying to take care of Shawn, and Shawn asks his father to give him a moment alone with Turner. Grab your tissues. Goddddd I can already feel it welling up in me, this exchange has stuck with me since the first time I saw it.

I love the last frame of that gif. It freezes on that shot and fades to black, the one with Chet standing directly between the two of them. That's a dam good shot. And that touching saxophone or clarinet or whatever music plays. It's actually appropriate here though.

During the credits Cory and Chet help move Shawn out of Turner's apartment and Chet steals Turner's television.

Plot: 1.0 - Like I said, Eric's story was excellent, Cory's little real estate business was fun, and even though Shawn's lines were a little ridiculous sometimes, his story was good overall too.

Character Development: 1.0 - "I'd do it again." Eric developed too, thanks once again to Mr. Feeny.

Humor: 1.0 - Cory's silliness triumphs again. Eric and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were pretty funny in their scenes as well. Eli kinda sucked, but whatever.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - "You can't teach somebody if they don't want to learn."

4.0 out of 4.0 - Yeah I know I was bashing this episode for most of the beginning, but that's all in the details. Looking at the big picture, this episode has everything you could want. Shawn's angstiness is annoying, but we're sort of used to it by now, so it's not a huge deal. I've seen this episode a ton of times, and I never get tired of it. There's a famous play called "I Never Sang For My Father", which inspires this episode's name, but the plot of that play isn't really similar to this at all, so it was sort of an odd choice. And it's worth pointing out that Turner never actually did become Shawn's guardian, he said he just had "a few signatures" left.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 3x19 "I Was A Teenage Spy"

This episode is kind of a silly waste of time. It starts at Chubbie's, Eli and Turner recruit Cory to pass out some fliers for the school's spring dance. Why Chubbie's? Why is everyone always here? I really don't know. Anyway the dance is themed as a 50's sock-hop which I guess influences what happens later. At home, Cory's writing a 10 page term paper on Sputnik. They had final exams in the previous episode so this seems like odd timing. Why not just air 3x18 later? Who knows.

The audience doesn't laugh at that, but I think it's hilarious. Booo audience. Booo.

Anyway Cory wants to cook his little frozen pizza there, so he plugs in the microwave (Eric had unplugged it earlier) and it shocks him back to the 50s. At Chubbie's, except it's called Slim's back in the 50s. So not only does it transport him through time, but also through space. Okay.

Topanga is also there, but she doesn't recognize Cory. And she looks all 50's and everybody's chewing gum and shit. Everybody goes back to school and Cory meets Shawnzie Hunterelli, an exaggerated 50s version of Shawn. Feeny is pretty much exactly the same, and Turner is basically Minkus. This is probably going to be my worst review ever. There is nothing to talk about.

Somehow, today's topic for discussion is "what will life be like in 40 years", which lets Cory look creative and smart, but that lasts about 45 seconds because now it's time for the "nuclear bomb scare drill" of the day. There are some funny gags throughout this whole scene, but it's really just like "haha what if we were in the 50s look how different it was". In an unusually insightful move, Cory buys all of the currently available shares of IBM. Then we meet 50's Eric who's really smart and doesn't care about girls. WEEEWOOHEEEHOOOOOO IT'S SO CRAZYYYYYYYYYY HEREEEEEEEEEEE

Sigh...

Feeny rushes into the hallway and announces that Russia has just launched a spy satellite. Cory's like "nah it's just Sputnik" which is the opposite of insightful, since now everyone thinks he's a dirty commie.

But Topanga and Shawnzie help him escape. They're oddly okay with some guy they've never seen before knowing a bunch of shit about them, Topanga in particular. He escapes to the place where his 90s house lives, and Morgan treats him like her brother so I guess whatever. Their father is played by Tom Bosley, who is credited as playing himself in the credits, so I don't even know who he is or what's going on. Apparently he was on Happy Days. Anson Williams shows up at the door, and just sort of walks in like "hey I'm Anson Williams who else would I be" and I just understand absolutely nothing about these references. He was also on Happy Days, and that show was set in the 50s, but it still seems like a pretty desperate attempt at some celebrity special appearances.

WHAT IS GOING OOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

At jail, whoever Betsy Randle and William Russ are supposed to be show up. Oh okay they claim to be Cory's parents, but I don't really think your parents can bail you out of being charged with TREASON but whatever. Either way, oh, they're actually Russian spies, which is a throwback to an underdeveloped joke they made at the beginning of the episode.

Topanga and Shawnzie Hunterelli show up and help Cory escape from jail.

WHAT

IS GOING

ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

WHO MADE THIS? WHO LET THIS HAPPEN!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So the gang arrive at Shawnzie's secret makeout apartment. Topanga kisses Cory and the audience goes so crazy you'd think they'd never seen it before. Cory realizes that it's better to live in the 90s where there aren't constant bomb scares. Golly. What a revelation. Hey all you people that are like "man I wanna live in Mad Men", maybe you should watch this episode of Boy Meets World, I don't fuckin know.

To help Cory get back to the future, Topanga and Shawnzie decide to take him to see the "Wise Man". Cory doesn't wear the chicken head this time, I don't know why. They find the Wise Man at Slim's, which is very convincing evidence that Slim's is equivalent to Chubbie's in every way except name. The Wise Man is actually played by Pat Morita, better known as Mister Goddamn Miyagi.

His advice is to get shocked by another microwave. EXCEPT THE FIRST COUNTERTOP MICROWAVE WAS INTRODUCED IN 1967, TEN YEARS AFTER SPUTNIK WAS LAUNCHED. But fine, I guess there was some prototyping of large, unwieldy microwaves between WWII and Sputnik, so whatever. It's not like it matters. The same kid who knows  how to buy shares in a company couldn't think of that solution? Whatever. Oh okay, Cory says "WAIT IT'S 1957 THERE IS NO MICROWAVE", so that's good at least. The mob shows up to arrest Cory and he hits his head on the wall and wakes up at home.

At first I thought that was just a funny thing for Shawn to say, but then I realized it's a reference to Fonzie, so I don't know how I feel about it now. At least he doesn't try to do the voice, he just kinda says "hey".

During the credits, a power surge causes Cory to lose all his work on his paper. Oh okay, the power surge brought him to the future this time.

Plot: 0 - WHAT THE FUCK IS ANYTHING

Character Development: 0 - They didn't even try.

Humor: 1.0 - Yeah sure whatever.

Life Lesson: 0 - The 50s were worse than the 90s.

1.0 out of 4.0 - An absolute waste of time, but I guess it was pretty funny.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 3x18 "Life Lessons"

Harley Keiner is coming back for Girl Meets World. I think he's a janitor? So that's pretty exciting.

It's time for final exams here at John Adams High. Err, okay, they're actually two weeks away... Which is... plenty of time... But our heroes and a bunch of extras are terrified since three of the exams are in one day. Topanga breaks down into full anti-social studying mode while Shawn has a reaction that really hits home for me.

Fuckin real talk right there. The extras groan and Cory assures them that if they devote the next two weeks to studying, they'll have nothing to worry about. The scene immediately cuts to Shawn and Cory watching TV in a few different locations, and then they're finally cramming with only two days left before exams, wondering where all their time went. Honestly, that explanation really doesn't do it justice. It's about 30 seconds long, too long for a gif, so I highly recommend finding this episode just for the first minute. It's so spot on, I can't even handle it.

Some "tough" looking guys come up to Cory and say they need to "get rid of Feeny", since he's the mastermind behind this diabolical exam schedule. It's hilarious that backward baseball caps were perceived as "tough" back in the 90s. These guys look pretty ridiculous. I bet they're in a garage band or something.

Cory does that thing sitcoms do where he manages to get the attention of a large group of people just by saying "listen up gang", and they all decide to go talk to Feeny as an organized unit. Buuuuuuuut the scene cuts to them all watching TV at Chubbie's. It's pretty funny, I actually didn't expect that. We're doing good so far.

At school, presumably the next day, the mob of students, lead by Cory, ask Mr. Turner why the exams have to be jammed together in such a demanding schedule.

Apparently cut-aways to the punchline are the name of the game today. And that's fine, it's definitely working.

Feeny is adamant. He goes on to explain that the schedule should be hard, to make sure the students are actually learning all the material. To give my own insight, I believe the reasoning is that you can't cram for three exams, right? You can cram for one, maybe two, but three would be difficult. That's just my two cents. Anyway, Feeny. though steadfast, agrees to hear out the students' concerns. Naturally, Cory is chosen to represent the students. That tough guy from before in the leather jacket, apparently his name is Denny, which is just the least intimidating name he could ever have, tells Cory that if he can't change Feeny's mind, the rest of them will take matters into their own hands. This guy's tone really pisses me off. Who hired him.

Needless to say, Cory is unsuccessful. It's interesting to think about how the target audience feels right now. As a middle/high school student, we would probably sympathize with Cory, but as adults we remember all of the exams we passed without actually learning anything by studying the night before, and so we understand Feeny's intentions.

The students are unhappy with this outcome, so Denny and his Ragtag Gang Of Hilarious Thugs, henceforth abbreviated DR. GOHT, band the unhappy students together and march off to enact some unspecified revenge against Mr. Feeny. It appears that Shawn goes with them.

At home, a leggy redheaded woman named Brenda arrives at the door and Eric lets her in. She's been set up on a date with Mr. Turner by Amy Matthews, and she mistakes Eric for Turner, so they have a humorous exchange.

I was sitting here like damn, I know I recognize this woman from somewhere. And then I was CERTAIN that she is currently playing Zelena on Once Upon A Time. Like, the resemblance is RIDICULOUS, their mannerisms, their voices, everything. It's insane how similar they are, but alas, they are not the same actress. This is Lisa Akey who really hasn't done anything worth mentioning. I was so excited too, dammit all. She also kinda looks like Rachel, who comes into this show in season 5.

Anyway, Turner had to cancel the date, so Eric offers to take her to dinner in his stead and she agrees. Quick reminder, Eric did indeed turn 18 a few episodes ago.

That saxophone riff plays as we jump ahead a few hours. Through his kitchen window, Cory sees DR. GOHT tp'ing and shaving-creaming Feeny's house. They break a window, alerting Feeny, and they run off. Feeny comes out and makes eye contact with Cory as the sad clarinet music plays.

That's some crazy shit. Not much to say about it except that's pretty compelling.

The next day, Feeny's class ends and Cory talks with him about the exam stuff again. The teacher explains to his student that the pressure caused by the difficult schedule is what forces them to really learn, but in greater detail than how he explained it to Mr. Turner earlier. He goes on to tell Cory that he's decided to retire at the end of the year, since he believes himself no longer capable of earning his students' respect.

In the hall, we learn from Shawn that he didn't actually take part in the vandalizing, but Cory thinks they're both responsible since they knew about it and didn't do anything to stop it.

This is heavy stuff! Not only have the terrorists convinced Feeny to retire, our heroes feel like it's all their fault. It's hard to pretend that this would ever happen in real life, but in the Boy Meets World universe, this is a great story so far.

Later, Turner comes to Feeny's house to convince him not to retire.

Wo-hoah! That legendary stern Turner voice I've talked about before! This really shows us how the dynamic between these two teachers has changed since the beginning of season 2. Mr. Turner giving a stern life lesson to Mr. Feeny... Who woulda thought! It works though, for sure. I think the key here is that this is the kind of advice we would expect Turner to be giving to his students, right? At its core, this episode is about bullying. Feeny is being bullied by DR. GOHT. Indeed, what we're seeing is that you don't have to be a student to learn from a teacher. Further, the fact that it's Turner in particular is critical. Imagine if that was Eli instead of Turner. It would be a disgrace. Turner's character arc over the last two seasons is what allows this scene to work. Awesome. Sadly, Feeny is not convinced.

In the Matthews kitchen, Eric tells his parents that he's going out with Brenda. Amy realizes it's the Brenda she was setting up with Turner and forbids Eric from seeing her (because of the age difference), but Alan encourages him, even so far as to lend Eric his car. During the date, Eric and Brenda aren't hitting it off, but Turner arrives just in time to swoop in and take over the date. Eric meets some other girl his own age. That's the end. Why on earth did we do that? I mean, it was fun, but that's a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion, especially since Turner just got done with something much more important.

Back at home, Cory and Topanga are studying when Shawn bursts in. Apparently DR. GOHT are up to no good at the school. I guess... they walk there...? Either way they're at the school in the next shot.

DR. GOHT have made a mess of the parking lot and spray-painted all over the walls. Denny's got some bolt cutters and breaks the padlock on the door to the school. Cory and Shawn get kinda preachy about how Mr. Feeny cares about his students, and Shawn explains that he learned about freedom of assembly from Mr. Feeny, but that it only applies to peaceful assembly. It's just sort of showing us how this education is applying to real life, I guess.

That definitely could have been written better, but woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah damn! That's powerful. Throwback to City Slackers right there. I pointed it out several times, the development between Feeny and Shawn during this season. I wasn't just makin that shit up, it's all come to fruition here now. Again, the actual wording isn't amazing, but the essence of what he's saying here is really satisfying.

So anyway, Feeny comes out through the now open door and DR GOHT run off. They were all really bad at saying their lines. Feeny reveals to our heroes that he's not going to retire after all, and then they help him clean up the parking lot.

During the credits, everyone learns their exam scores. Shawn got mostly C's, Cory got mostly B's, everyone's happy.

Plot: 1.0 - Despite the unsatisfying conclusion of Eric's story, everything else was good.

Character Development: 1.0 - Turner has clearly earned Feeny's respect, Eric learns a little about why age gaps can in fact make a big difference in dating, and the heroes obviously get a little closer to Feeny. But we can't leave out the old principal himself, who shows us more of what makes him human and vulnerable, as well as displaying his true passion for teaching. Great stuff.

Humor: 1.0 - The cutaway gags at the beginning were great, and it's consistently funny throughout the rest.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - I've already talked about the lessons from this one at length. After all, the episode is named "Life Lessons". What did you expect?

4.0 out of 4.0. That's the third perfect score this season. Great episode. No reason to miss this one.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday!

All images used under Fair Use.