Episode 4x07 "Singled Out"

"Singled Out" was a game show on MTV from 1995 to 1998, originally hosted by Jenny McCarthy, one of the most diabolical Americans of our time, and Chris Hardwick, the creator of the Nerdist podcast and current host of Talking Dead on AMC. Jenny McShit does not appear in this episode of Boy Meets World, thank GOD, but Hardwick does. 

Eric's moping around the house. He wants to be dating college girls, so he's in luck when a commercial airs for Singled Out, giving him a number to call to become a contestant on the show. In the kitchen, we learn that Cory's tonsils are fucked up and he's going to need a tonsillectomy. Shawn tells Cory about a CNN story on the disappearance of a young boy after a routine hospital procedure, so now Cory and his tucked in shirt are scared. It is truly amazing how Cory transitions up and down the spectrum of logic. Sometimes he's the voice of reason and sometimes he does stuff like this. Either way, Tobasco is our voice of reason today and she's mad at Shawn for making her boyfriend worry.

For some reason this late hour is mail time, as Eric runs into the kitchen hoping for a letter from MTV. And indeed he has been accepted to be on the show. Wouldn't be much of a plot otherwise. The next morning, Eric heads out the back door to speak with Mr. Feeny, but the old man is nowhere to be seen! This perilous catastrophe causes Eric to give glorious birth to the legendary Feeny Call.

So this is the college edition of Singled Out, but Eric doesn't go to college, and the only name he knows of is Harvard. He doesn't want to use Harvard, so he asks Feeny what college he went to. Ah the days before search engines. Feeny doesn't want to take part in Eric's deception, even though it's completely harmless, so Eric ends up going with Harvard in the interview with MTV later that day. The lady says it doesn't even matter and that they only chose him because of his hair. Sounds about right. Gosh, what was this, '96? Was there ever music on MTV?

We're in Cory's hospital room now, and Shawn comes in dressed as a surgeon. This hospital's lack of security is a running gag and it's consistently funny. Shawn's got a newspaper with an article about another kid vanishing off of the operating table. Since we last saw him, Cory has shifted to the other side of the Logic Spectrum, and calls out Shawn's story as tabloid nonsense.

Shawn goes off to deliver a baby. At long last, it's time for Singled Out to begin. The host Chris Hardwick is introduced, who is actually the real host of Singled Out playing himself here on Boy Meets World.

Now, listen, I want you guys to understand the love I have for you, the fans, and for this blog. I am actually going to watch a real episode of Singled Out on youtube now to accurately compare it to this scene.

Jesus Christ this is terrible. Okay so it's a girl eliminating contestants from a pack of 50 guys. The first category was, and I'm not lying, dick size. She will now eliminate either the "Kentucky Derby Winners" (horse sized dick), or the "Kentucky Derby Jockeys" (short guy sized dick). This actually happened, in real life.

Unsurprisingly, she eliminated the smaller dick guys, claiming that she is "from Texas where everything is big" and a whole bunch of dudes left the stage. Like, why would they even admit to it? They fill out a card or something beforehand with their answers to all the questions, and obviously the girl is gonna pick the big dick guys, so I don't know what they were thinking. Her next question is smart guys or dumb guys, and of course she eliminates dumb guys, so everyone who wrote "small dick" would have been eliminated on that one too.

I can't believe this is real. Well, the most realistic part is that Jenny McCarthy is being the biggest toolbag in the universe the whole time. It's honestly somewhat cathartic seeing her do this shit on television. Chris Hardwick is actually a lot of fun to watch here though. Maybe I should start watching Talking Dead. Anyway, it's down to five contestants now. The five introduce themselves (the girl can't actually see any of the contestants, because this show doesn't want to cheapen the love experience with things like appearances, but dick size is fine). Now she eliminates the five down to three with some bull shit that I can't really explain with words. It doesn't look like there's a part two to the episode I picked, so we'll have to stop there, but I checked another episode and it ends the same way as on Boy Meets World. So they're at least staying true to the source material.

Yeah so Singled Out on MTV gets no badges. 0 out of 4. Anyway, here on BMW, it's swapped with a guy in that chair (Eric) and 50 girls behind him.

That guy in the background with the keyboard is the same guy from the real show, too. He looks like a Backstreet Boy.

Eric's first category is "First Date", with the options "Have You Been Naughty" or "Have You Been Nice". Eric accidentally sends away all the naughty girls, and follows that up with accidentally sending away the dumb girls. It's TREMENDOUSLY more enjoyable than the actual show. Eric's reactions to sending away the girls he wants are really funny, and Chris Hardwick is a real treat. So after two categories, Eric's got it down to five girls, (just like on the show, what a fascinating coincidence), and it's time for a commercial break.

After the commercial, it's down to three girls, I guess two of them rediscovered their dignity. From left to right, it's girls 2, 3, and 5. I'm already knee deep in this shit, so I might as well go all the way. There's a guy in the audience that I recognize from the episode of Singled Out that I watched. 

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS CONSPIRACY? WHO IS THIS PALM TREE HAIRED MAN? And since I know you're curious, he got eliminated by the "small dick" answer.

Anyway Eric answers a few rapid fire questions and ends up with Girl #5, Lisa, played by Bridget Flanery, whose career doesn't consist of anything I can comment on.

I'll give you three guesses at what their arranged prize-date is. Don't worry, you only need one. It's Chubbie's. 

It's 12 minutes into the episode now, I don't know what they could possibly do for the rest of this, but here we go. Back at the hospital, Cory's loopy on anesthesia as his family wish him good tidings in the OR. Feeny arrives, having been called earlier by Cory himself. The young man wishes to make peace with his teacher, and directs him to an airport locker containing all of his homework from the past five years. It's one of my favorite jokes from the entire series, but it's too long to put in a gif, so check it out for yourself. 

Oh, it's time for Cory's dream sequence. Well, when you wonder how a show is going to waste time, that really ought to be your go-to answer. His dream is a parody of Ripley's Believe It Or Not called We're Not Making This Up, investigating Cory's disappearance during surgery. It's got John O'Hurley as the treachcoat-clad host, before he was on Seinfeld or Family Feud, so that's cool. He also played the weatherman that Eric replaced back in season 3. This scene is the definition of wasted time, but it's probably a lot funnier if you had been watching Ripley's around that time.

At Chubbie's, Eric reveals that he doesn't really go to Harvard, and Lisa admits that she doesn't go to Columbia. In fact, they both lied about pretty much everything, so it's like a double negative, they're still a good match. It's actually really sweet, if we ignore the whole relationship-based-on-lies thing. 

During the credits, Cory's wooziness milks a few more shitty laughs out of the audience, and Topanga takes him off to find soup. Shawn walks into the empty room, assumes the worst, and starts to disappear himself, with cutting edge 1996 special effects.

The audience laughs during this bit, and that sort of thing always confuses me. They obviously can't see the effects live, so is there just a sign that tells them to laugh at this part? Or is it a laughtrack? If that's the case, why bother? No one is dumb enough to believe that an audience is actually laughing at effects they can't see.

I stand corrected.

Plot: 1.0  - It's really random and feels like a big publicity stunt, but the Singled Out story was entertaining, if nothing else, and I like the reveal at the end that they were both lying. A surgery is a pretty lazy way to keep Cory occupied for an episode, but the writers still had fun with it.

Character Development: 0.5 - This was mostly a one-off just-for-laughs episode, but Eric at least learned that he doesn't need to be a Harvard student to meet a nice girl.

Humor: 1.0 - Chris Hardwick and Eric had great chemistry, their styles of humor synergize beautifully. And the bit about Cory's hidden stash of homework makes me laugh every time.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - It's a stretch, but you don't have to lie about who you are, and a further stretch, usually your lies are going to come out eventually anyway.

3.0 out of 4.0. I recommend watching this episode just for the sheer novelty of it. Sometimes shows will parody a real game show, but this was a direct carbon copy of the real game, so it's definitely fun to watch. At the end of the day though, I've gotta ask why. And how. It's so strange that this happened. I could understand if it was a parody, but it's not. Very peculiar episode here.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday. Here's the link to the Singled Out episode I watched, if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeqrGJUHM9w

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Episode 4x06 "Janitor Dad"

Quick review of the first episode of Girl Meets World. It could have been a lot worse. Maya's actress is really good. Ben Savage is still great. The story didn't really seem like a pilot story, it would have worked a lot better if we knew a little bit about the characters first. I probably laughed more than I did during the BMW pilot, so I'm hopeful. Also, the poster in the subway station at the end was a throwback to the subway episode of BMW.

Back to the task at hand. Amy is sabotaging Alan's store by convincing all the customers that they don't actually need the equipment they're looking at. That seems uncharacteristically stupid of her. Oh, I see, it's an outpouring of her protective-mother-ness. Alan originally asked for her help since the store is so busy, but it's time to look elsewhere.

I gotta say, they're getting a whole lot of mileage out of this new store. That was a great idea by the writers.

The next scene is Eric and Alan interviewing the candidates. They're all sort of dorky balding guys who do not, in fact, have technical knowledge of outdoor gear, but they're also not mothers, so 1 for 2 there. One of the applicants is named Mervyn, and is played by Willie Garson, who previously played Alan's assistant at the store, Leonard Spinelli. Like every other time they recycle an actor, it could have just as easily been the same character, but whatever. Next scene, some Grizzly Adams lookin guy shows up looking for a job. The impeccable convenience of this event is not lost on Eric and Alan. 

At the Hunter trailer the next morning, Virna serves her son a sticky bun and a Flintstones vitamin for breakfast, which I think is pretty funny. She wants to heat up Shawn's breakfast, but finds bills in the microwave.

Much as I like him, I gotta call out Chet on this one. If you're going to hide months and months of overdue bills, the microwave is not a clever place for it. Apparently Virna's been working at the movie theatre every day, but Chet's sitting around unemployed. Shawn recalls his mother's desire for things to be different, and convinces his dad to pick up a job. At school, Shawn pranks some kids to spill milk on themselves, and Topanga comments about Shawn picking on people weaker than him. That sounds like a moral point we're going to circle back to later. And so it begins, as the janitor who shows up to clean the milk mess is none other than Chet Hunter.

Boy, episode titles don't get much more straightforward than "Janitor Dad". This show is weird with titles. Sometimes we get some shit like "Grandma Was a Rolling Stone", which, like, what the fuck are you talking about, and sometimes we get "Janitor Dad".

Back at Alan's store, the mountain man from before, named Ezekiel is doing the opposite of Amy. He's selling everyone way more than they need, albeit with good intentions, giving the Matthews men a kick to the moral groin.

At school, class begins and some asshole named, I dunno, it's probably Dirk or some shit like that, is giving Shawn a hard time about his dad being the new janitor. I mean just look at this guy, he's like half porcupine.

Cosplaying Sonic the Hedgehog or some shit, whatever. And look, there's a poster for the BooOOoOogie Down Halloween dance coming up. You gotta love those small details.

Turner intervenes before the fists start flying, and then begins the lesson. He talks about The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and its portrayal of drastic class differences in the future. BOOM BAM BIBBITY BOP BOW. Literature inspired themes, we're back home boys and girls, back in the arms of the, you know, your loved ones, or whatever. Turner wants to show them some of the film so they get a better idea of what's going on, and Chet comes in to set up the AV equipment. Jesus christ, I just said "AV", that's depressing. The porcupine makes fun of Shawn some more, and Cory tells him to shut the fuck up. Apparently his name is Crandall, which I think excuses his bad behavior. I would probably be a serial killer by that age if I had to go around answering to "Crandall" all the time.

In the end, Shawn attacks Crandcupine and ends up in Feeny's office. Shawn explains the situation, and ultimately Feeny passes the decision of whether to keep Chet employed at the school to Shawn, citing the possibility that his father's presence could be disruptive to his education. It's a great little scene. Like I always say, the dynamic between Feeny and Shawn is really powerful (see City Slackers review). 

Shawn and Cory eat lunch in the hallway and Cory is taking special care not to make a mess, for the convenience of Shawn's father.

Crandall comes up with some loser friend of his and talks shit about Chet again, and the crowd goes oooooooooooo even though it really wasn't that much of a burn. Just then, Feeny passes by and Shawn suggests terminating his father's employment, in the heat of the moment. Mr. Feeny agrees to fire him in a couple days after finding a replacement janitor. 

At the store, it seems that Ezekiel has sold out the entire stock of rock climbing shoes, but to people who Alan thinks have no business climbing rocks.

You can see his mouth keeps moving after he says "successful", but I can't quite hear it because THE WORST EXTRA IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD walked in front of the camera/microphone right as he says it. I think he says "right Dad?", but we'll never know for sure.

Ezekiel shows up with "terrible news from the Hill Country". His "momma's took sick". I'm quoting him directly because he's funny. So Ezekiel's gotta take off, but he's leaving his niece Lonnie to help with the store. She's listed in this episode's credits as "Lonnie", but IMDB has her as Loni, I'm not sure what's up with that.  

She's played by Jennifer Campbell, who hasn't had any acting work since 1999, but she was on a few episodes of Baywatch, which is strangely common for women on this show.

At home, Shawn details his humiliation to his mother, who holds a very different opinion. She's genuinely proud of Chet for finally not-being-full-of-shit, and Shawn looks real introspective with his pouty lips practically bursting out of the screen. The old man comes home, beaming with self satisfaction, waving his first paycheck in the air. It's honestly pretty heart warming, the actor behind Chet is so fucking good at this stuff, and Virna does a great job too. 

I've never touched on this before, but the interior of Shawn's home is WAY too big to be a trailer. Yeah, I know, "bigger on the inside", shut up.

Shawn shows up at school early the next morning to convince Mr. Feeny not to fire Chet. He really spills his heart out, and as usual Rider Strong nails the heck out of it. Feeny agrees, and admits that he was never going to fire him in the first place, that "this was never about your father, Shawn, this was always about you".

Clearly, Topanga is continuing not to care about her appearance.  

Shawn makes a mess and cleans it up in front of that Crandall guy to prove that he's not embarrassed by his dad's job anymore. During the credits, Lonnie sells a massive crossbow to Willie Garson as Eric looks on with love in his eyes. But she proves to be much tougher than he is and sort of beats the crap out of him on accident.

Plot: 0.75 - What's not to like? The store-story wasn't the best we've seen, but it was a fun intermittent break from the seriousness of the main story. 

Character Development: 1.0 - The entire Hunter family grew three sizes that day. Chet got a job, Shawn respects his father, Feeny provided the path for Shawn to find his way. *see edit below for more*

Humor: 1.0 - Certainly not as standout as the last episode, but still consistently funny.

Life Lesson: 0.75 - Topanga's line about picking on weaker people did sort of lead up to Shawn getting harassed by Crandall, but the characters never mentioned it. That line from Topanga was really quick and subtle, it would deserve the full point if it hadn't been so easy to miss, or at least if they'd explored it a little more.

3.5 out of 4.0. - This season is rocking out so far. Six episodes in a row without being focused on Cory, and if memory serves, we won't be seeing a Cory episode next week either. I love Chet, I love his relationship with Shawn, and this episode was a showcase of that. Great stuff.

*EDIT* After a small reminder from a valued colleague, I have some more I want to say. Recall episode 2x22, "Career Day", where Chet lies to Turner's class about doing cool jobs and stuff, and makes Alan feel inferior. By the end of that episode, Virna's run off with their trailer and Chet goes to find her. This is in DIRECT CONTRAST to Janitor Dad. Now that Chet actually has a job, he comes into Turner's class once again, but this time to his son's embarrassment. Further, Virna does the opposite of what she did in Career Day as she explodes with pride and love for her husband. EVEN FURTHER, Alan is now in a job that he loves! We've done a total 180 from how things were in Career Day. And that's damn good story telling. I love this show.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday. A lot of people have asked if I'm going to do blog reviews for Girl Meets World. I'm not planning to right now, because I will inevitably compare it to Boy Meets World over and over, and that's really not fair or interesting, but who knows.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 4x05 "Shallow Boy"

So there's a girl playing cutesy lovey music outside Alan's store for tips. It's pissing everybody off. In fact, Alan would prefer the old sweaty smelly guy who spits on people. He sends Eric out to deal with her, but she flashes him a big old smile and ends up giving her his money.

Good old Eric. Alan has a stroke of genius as he suggests that Eric take her on a date, and then ask her to stop singing at their store while on the date.

In Mr. Feeny's class, they're talking about politics for some reason. Shawn and Cory fail to spark any interesting conversation, but Topanga posits that the most pressing issue of the time is the decline of the American family. Shawn takes this a little personally since his family situation is in the crapper. It's a fairly lackluster scene that's probably just setting some groundwork for future conflict. Topanga is wearing a shirt that's tied up in front for the third time in two episodes. In 4x04, she had one at the beginning, and then a different one at the damn funeral scene, and now this.

So I think it's fair to say that nobody in the production crew cares about Hair Today Goon Tomorrow. Again, this is not a comment on how women dress, just on consistency. She was supposed to be above superficiality, but now she clearly cares very much about her appearance.


In the hallway, Cory and his best bud make plans for a guys' night since Topanga's busy. But wait, she's actually babysitting, which Shawn points out is a great opportunity for some unsupervised late night intimacy. What it really means is that we're almost certainly going to have to endure a painful child actor giving Cory and Topanga a hard time.

Now we're at Chubbie's for Eric's date with the singing girl, whose name is Corinna.

She's played by Leisha Hailey, who has worked sporadically since Boy Meets World, including 70 episodes of some piece of crap called The L Word, and a smattering of voice acting on American Dad.

She can't stop singing during this date. She sings her answers to Eric's questions, sings about whatever she sees and whatever she's feeling, it's a nightmare and everyone at Chubbie's is appropriately annoyed. It's kinda like an episode of The Office, ya know? It's funny, but you're constantly trying to look away.

Cory arrives at the place where Topie is babysitting and promptly receives a Wet Willy from the kid who's supposed to be asleep. The red flags are raising, but it actually takes a fun turn. The kid, Billy, asks Cory if he wants to play his N64, which Billy calls his "Nintendo 64-bit". I mean, that's where the name comes from, but nobody in the history of space and time has ever said that, so I dunno. Anyway it's fun, because Cory is really excited to play video games, and really wants to do all the childish things that Billy wants to do, while Topanga insists that he go back to bed.

Naturally, this kid is terrible at saying his lines, his emphasis is all over the place, and his hair looks absolutely fucking stupid. How could someone let their kid go on cable TV looking like that? Whatever.

Cory continues to undermine his girlfriend's authority and she gets pretty angry. The scene ends with the two boys running off to watch TV against Topanga's orders.

Back at Chubbie's, Eric is dying. Corinna keeps going on about innocuous nonsense, clearly unable to pick up on social cues.

She starts singing another new song, and customers start running away. This scene is some of Eric's finest work. You can see him boiling up as he tries to sneakily ask for a waiter to bring the check, several times. Corinna says she's excited to spend the rest of her life with Eric, and then the cap comes off. Every single line coming out of Eric is hysterical, and the delivery is perfect. If you have two and a half minutes, I cannot recommend this scene enough. I will laugh at this scene until the end of time. You can find it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCDdKR_NmK8

It's about a thousand times better with sound.

Corinna gets angry and starts playing some minor chords and singing an edgy song about how Eric's a dick. It's called Shallow Boy, which holy shit, is the name of the episode. And this time, the people at Chubbie's are enjoying her music.

 At school, Cory requests the company of his girlfriend at the cafeteria for Taco Bar Tuesday. But she's off her rocker about somethin or other, starting with "YOU WOULD FEED TACOS TO OUR CHILD?" Apparently she's worried about the well being of their potential post-marriage child, but Cory is as confused as I am. Oh okay, "You'd rather be pals with our kids than a strong responsible role model," inspired by his behavior with Billy the previous night.

Well this is just ridiculous. Cory shouldn't have undermined her authority, but she is blowing this way out of proportion. I mean this is the exact reason why you're not supposed to have kids at 15, because you're still immature and shit. Give him 10 or 20 years Topanga, jesus christ, then worry about his ability to be a father.

Later, we're at the Camping Store. I need to come up with a consistent term for this place. Eric's listening to "Sounds of the Sleeping Sled Dogs" over the store's loudspeaker, and it sounds really damn weird. I can't justify it at all. Watch this scene, it sounds so weird. Shawn and Cory have arrived with Corinna's new CD for Eric to listen to. The first track is Shallow Boy, the one she was singing at Chubbie's, but that doesn't prove anything! This album could be about anybody.

Oh. It's even being played on the radio. What a pickle.

At home, Cory's reading a book about how to be a dad, and Eric comes home with the new title of "maladjusted woman hating loser freak." Yes, Corinna's got a new song on the airwaves, and Morgan comes downstairs singing along with that new tune on her pocket radio or walkman or somethin, Iunno. The last part we hear Morgan sing goes "I think he likes boys, if you know what I'm saaaayiiiiin."

There's not much to say about all this except that Eric is hilarious and Topanga is losing her mind. Alan comes home with a note from Corinna, she visited him at his store, requesting to meet Eric at, you guessed it, Chubbie's. Corinna arrives in a Steve Jobs turtleneck, and is basically trying to milk anger out of Eric so that she can write more songs. In a moment of convenient plot driven intelligence, Eric sees what's going on and starts to sing The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow to get Corinna back to her old self. In the end, she can't resist, and it looks like Eric's in the clear.

Again, not much to say, it's just funny. At home, Cory sends Morgan to bed on time, and Topanga is watching off to the side for some reason. Morgan's wearing her totally awesome cow slippers again, and she actually said her lines like a legitimate actor today, so everything except the convenience is decent. Topanga explains to Cory that by the time he is old enough to have a kid, she suspects he'll be a pretty good dad. What the fuck changed from when she was losing her shit earlier? Just implied off-screen insight? That's slightly unsatisfying. I guess we'll finally get to find out how good of a father Cory is later this year. This is actually the most pertinent background episode for Girl Meets World, which is interesting. We'll see if any of this stuff comes up again.

During the credits, the radio plays Corinna's latest single called "Fuzzy Wuzzy Wuv", and it's shit. I mean, all of her songs were shit, but now the radio guy thinks so too.

Plot: 1.0 - I love the Corinna story. It's unique, creative, and not entirely predictable. It might seem like it's going to end up like the Wendy story, where Cory ends up missing her, but indeed we have a completely fresh story here.

Character Development: 0.25 - Eric doesn't really change at all, and Cory, I don't know, he's planning on being more responsible or something?

Humor: 2.0 - I'm giving bonus points to humor to boos the score since Development and Life Lesson are lacking, and this episode deserves a good score.

Life Lesson: 0.25 - Some people are just crazy.

3.5 out of 4.0. This episode is thoroughly laugh-out-loud funny. Eric is amazing. What's interesting is that the main character for the first five episodes has been, in order, Eric - Topanga - Alan - Shawn - Eric. No Cory-centric stuff yet, and they've all been really strong episodes. Very interesting.

Double Humor Badge.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday!

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 4x04 "Fishing For Virna"

The first minute of this episode consists of the members of the Matthews family running out the door in the morning for various reasons, completely neglecting the breakfast that Amy has prepared. Hopefully it's relevant later, because otherwise it's just kinda pointless and not funny.

Now we're at lunch and Cory's dick is getting rock hard over the lunch lady's preparation of his mashed potatoes. Topanga is lookin' like a Dixie Sweetheart today, which sort of nullifies her decision to stop worrying about her appearance. And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look nice, I would just appreciate a modicum of consistency on this show.

This woman's name is Brenda, and the lovely couple here have used her name like twenty times so she's obviously going to be important today. Not only is she a master potatosmith, she's also saved the last piece of cherry pie for Topanga. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS LUNCH ROOM? THE SIZZLER? 

Shawn bursts into the lunch room and runs up to Cory, and takes much more time than necessary to say that his mom (named Virna) is finally back in town. Recall that she ran away back in season 2, which Shawn refers to as "a year ago", so my timeline theories are completely trash now. It officially doesn't make sense. Case closed, there's nothing we can do.

Later, at Shawn's trailer, the crew try to figure out what to do about the Virna situation. 

I fuckin love Chet. And it looks like, once again, the episode is centered on not-Cory, and so he gets to play into these types of silly dialogue.

Shawn and his father want to figure out what Virna's doing in town but they don't want to scare her off, so they send Cory to parley. So Cory goes over to the hotel she's staying at across the highway, and he makes a comment about how he's lucky to be alive after crossing the highway. There's nothing really revolutionary in this scene. Virna wants to be a good mother, but she needs to know that Chet wants to be a good father too. And she won't take his word for it, either. Virna plans to hang around until she actually sees Chet consistently being a good father.

Virna is a cool name.

Cory relays what he's learned back to the trailer, and makes another joke about the highway, saying that he'd have to be Moses to get across. It's a pretty funny running joke. 

At the school's lunch the next day, Feeny comes into the cafeteria and informs the students that Brenda has passed away. He asks the students for a moment of silence, and it happens, but Cory thinks Brenda deserves a lot more. And the new guy doesn't do Cory's mashed potatoes as well as Brenda did, so this tragedy has clearly earned the sad clarinet music that transitions us to the next scene.

Or maybe it's a flute, I don't fuckin know. Regardless, that's an ass ton of mashed potatoes Cory just got, he needs to pull himself together.

Back at the Hunters' trailer, Shawn and Chet finally have the reckoning we've been waiting for. Chet's tired of waiting for Virna and wants to go get her now, but Shawn points out what a disaster it was the last time he tried chasing her. Chet denies that it was such a disaster, but Shawn explains that Virna sent him a letter every day she was gone, while he barely heard from Chet the entire time. Chet's speechless, but the reckoning is interrupted by a knock at the door. It's Frankie the Enforcer, who apparently lives in the same trailer park as Shawn. Frankie needs to go get some milk from a store on the other side of the interstate and requests that the Hunters watch his little brother, Herman. 

I had to speed that gif up to 30 frames per second because these guys talk so fuckin slow. Herman is supposed to be a young copy of Frankie. They have the same speech patterns, but the difference is that Herman is fucking terrible at saying his lines and I want to punch my screen every time he talks.

The reckoning resumes as Chet looks over the letters Shawn got from Virna, and apologizes for not being in more frequent contact. Shawn seriously calls out Chet here, big time, saying that the two of them could have been a family without Virna, "but you didn't want that dad. Why didn't you want that?" The clarinet fades us out of a speechless Chet.

The next morning, everybody neglects Amy's breakfast again. Compared to the highway, this is a lackluster running joke. Cory is still super sad about Brenda. I guess I was wrong before, this isn't the sidekick-Cory we're used to, it's underwhelming sidestory Cory. 

I get what they're trying to do, they're exploring the underappreciation of cafeteria workers, but I'm just not sold. And maybe there's supposed to be a parallel between Brenda being unappreciated and Amy's food preparation being unappreciated. 

At the trailer, the boys are havin a real fun time looking over family photos from when Shawn was a lot younger. It's not nearly as cheesey as it sounds, it's actually enjoyable, but I'm not sure how they managed to go from "Why didn't you want to be my father" to "let's look at pictures". 

The next scene is baffling. Cory goes to a funeral home in the middle of the day and finds Mr. Feeny there. Mr. Feeny even comments that Cory is supposed to be at school. How did Cory get there and what are they both doing there anyway? They have a conversation about what a nice person Brenda was and how she considered all of the students to be her children. Then Cory asks what to do about the Virna situation, and his genius fuckin advice is to tell Virna how Chet and Shawn feel, which is exactly what Virna said was insufficient earlier in the episode. Then Cory runs off to go do it. So again, why the hell was he at the funeral home? He didn't do anything except talk to Mr. Feeny.

It's never said explicitly if Brenda is in that casket. Is that even how funeral homes work? I don't know what's going on. I guess that's the only thing that makes sense, and it would have been a little morbid to say outright that her dead body was in there.

So now Cory's talking to Virna and the conversation really isn't a lot different than last time. For the life of me I can't figure out what's changed. She seems moved by the thought that Shawn and Chet want her back, but of course they fucking do, Chet chased her across the country, and we're not even slightly addressing her desire to see Chet being a good father. That was some reasonable shit before, now it's like she totally forgot. Ultimately she asks Cory straight out if they want her back, and he says she'll never know until she crosses that highway and finds out for herself.

Virna is played by Shareen Mitchell, and she hasn't done anything since 2004, but I think she's a pretty good actress. She does this whole unstable-but-caring thing really well.

Back at the trailer, Chet gets a call from an inside-man at Virna's hotel, saying she's checked out, and the boys believe she's gone on the run again. Shawn asks his father if he's going to chase after her again, but he says no. Frankie and his stupid little brother have a habit of interrupting emotional moments at the Hunter trailer, and here they are again. Apparently Herman stole their shampoo the other day. What a dumb little bastard. Hey says his lines poorly again, it's just hard to watch.

So that was worthless, but funny. Shawn and Chet have a moment, Chet promises to be the best father he can be from now on, and then Virna appears at the door. Assuming she overheard, I guess we've fulfilled her "he has to be a good father" requirement, but again, she said that words weren't enough, so I dunno.

Then we're at the Matthews kitchen again, and everybody leaves, again, except Cory, who sits down and thanks his mother for making breakfast, causing the clarinet to play. So yeah, I guess there's the parallel about appreciating people who make you food. But it's not just about food, obviously, it's about appreciating otherwise-thankless jobs. Usually the emphasis of this show is on teachers, but today it's lunchladies and moms. Which is fine.

During the credits, we see that Cory has planned a wake for students to show their appreciation of Brenda. Feeny and Turner are there, and they both think it's a good idea.

And then a bunch of students file in and lay roses on the casket. This is ridiculous, right? Or am I crazy?

Plot: 0.5 - I mean what happened, really? Cory had the same conversation with Virna twice, Brenda died, and the Matthews family didn't eat breakfast. It seems like they stretched very tiny ideas into 22 minutes.

Character Development: 1.0 - I thoroughly enjoy the dynamic between Shawn and his father, and we got to build on that a lot in this episode.

Humor: 0.75 - The highway joke was consistently funny, and everything Chet says makes me laugh. 

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Appreciate people while you can. But Cory did appreciate Brenda while she was alive. Him and Topanga both were super grateful to her in the lunchline. The impact of "holy shit she's dead" doesn't hit very hard when she clearly loved her job and had students who appreciated her.

3.0 out of 4.0 - Not bad, not great, skipping this one is no great loss, except for the plot point that Shawn's mother is back in the picture.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday. Holy shit I'm posting this on time today.

All images used under Fair Use.