Episode 4x11 "An Affair to Forget"

Our pal Shawn just got dumped. Way dumped. By a girl with the "popular" look named Jennifer Bassett. I checked the spelling because I thought they'd try to make a joke with Basset hounds, but no dice. She's played by Kristanna Loken who, aside from having a totally bitchin last name, has done a whole lot of everything since this role. At least one bad movie per year, almost, as well as a bunch of short-lived TV shows. My personal pick is her appearance in the Key & Peele sketch "Power Falcons". It's on youtube on the official Comedy Central channel, so it's guilt free in addition to being funny. Brenda Song is in that sketch too. (I love Key & Peele).

Anyway Shawn's taking it pretty hard. We haven't seen him like this since Dana.

Cory convinces his best buddy that Jennifer is all fake, from her personality to her nose. This inspires Shawn to go tell her off, saying that he thinks she's conceited and that he's over her. Jennifer wants to know where these insults came from. Shawn initially resists, but after a big long kiss, he admits it was Cory. I don't fully understand what happens next, but either out of spite toward Cory or revitalized attraction to Shawn's new assertiveness, or both, she decides she wants to date Shawn again. He agrees, because he's fifteen and she's pretty.

At Chubbie's, Cory explains why this is a bad idea. He lists some choice adjectives for Jennifer, or "Zathrak the Undead" as he's taken to calling her, but because this is television she's standing right behind him. As a result, Jennifer pulls Shawn aside and does a him-or-me thing. Again, Shawn initially resists, but, again, fifteen.

Cory's expression is priceless.

I dunno guys, this just doesn't seem possible. She's not even that pretty, and it's not like there's a shortage of girls who want to make out with Shawn.

At home, Amy and Alan return from the theatre and regale Eric with the details. They saw a one woman show, where she "sat on a stool and told the remarkable story of her life" to a sold out theatre. Naturally, Eric decides to write his own.

This is great. We've jumpstarted Eric's quest for meaning and fulfillment. He's been on the back-burner since he started working in his father's new store, but now he's on the... back-in-action-burner.

That was a joke. Thanks for coming.


It's even right there in the title of the play. Eric wants to feel validated.

The phone rings, and we get an adorable split-screen conversation between Shawn and Cory. They say a bunch of hilariously romantic stuff, like "I was just listening to the sound of your voice" and "you can't let her come between what we have". The delivery in particular is spot on. Ultimately they agree to meet in the library the next morning.

In the library, Jennifer shows up unannounced, causing problems for the boys' plan. It seems that Shawn has brought a cinnabun as a gift for Cory, but has to give it to Jennifer to avoid suspicion. Topanga comes by and tells Shawn there's something he might be interested in over in the Classics section. It is there that our heroes converse in cautious tones through a tall bookshelf, in the same romantic style as the stuff they said on the phone. Fun fact, the banner at the top of this blog is from this scene. Although, it was either cut footage or a publicity picture, since that exact shot never occurs. It's a great picture on its own, but in context it's magnificent. As is the scene itself, it's one of my favorites.

I love how completely unafraid they were of writing this. Bromance to the max.

Jennifer comes up expecting to find Cory, but he manages to dodge out of the way. The scene ends with Jenny dragging Shawn off to class. It's halfway through the show now and I feel like I haven't done much reviewing. There really isn't much to say. Almost everything so far has been for the sake of humor on top of a basic premise. And while the humor has been fantastic, there just isn't much to talk about story-wise.

Later that night, Eric needs some help from the only person capable of giving it.

I plan on having every Feeny Call in a gif by the end of this.

Eric wants Feeny to read through his play and give him advice, but the old man claims to want no part in this. I'm just impressed that Eric managed to write that much in less than 24 hours. Feeny relents and reads a few sentences, and they suck, and then he reluctantly agrees to try to sell some tickets for Eric's show.

Inside, Cory's maintaining a lavishly prepared dinner for a late and unnamed dinner guest, whom his parents assume is Topanga. She arrives with a pie, and we learn that the dinner was in fact for Shawn. Sad to say, it doesn't seem like he's coming, but Topizzatopping insists that he will show up eventually.

I like everything about that. The writing, movements, body language, and tone are all amazing.

Just then, the phone rings and Shawn is on the other end in a hilarious country club tennis outfit with a sweater draped around his shoulders. It's the same sort of bit as before, as well as the revelation that Jennifer found Shawn's "box of cinnabun receipts", so she's been on extra high alert lately. Shawn apologizes and Cory insists that he's not hurt.

Again, I'm not sure what to talk about here. This is the third time they've done this bit, and while it's still completely hilarious, there's nothing to say that hasn't been said.

Topanga gets an idea and tells Cory to be at Chubbie's in an hour. Some sort of surfer rock guitar riff plays us into Eric's premiere of Look At Me, Look At Me. There's a shot of the sign outside, and because I paused it to write this I noticed that this is taking place at a bowling alley, but it's really easy to miss otherwise since there's no indication of it inside. The shot only lasts a few seconds, it's definitely one of the more subtle jokes I've seen on this show.

The moment Eric begins, a baby in the audience starts wailing, which is a fantastic touch.

It's not going well. The woman sitting behind Feeny is trying torturously to hide her laughter. And I can't blame her.

At Chubbie's, Topanga brings Shawn into the back room with the pool table for a secret meeting with Cory. WOW, TOPANGA. THAT WAS YOUR PLAN? Your plan for getting Cory and Shawn to meet is to bring them both to the same place, you are basically Tesla.

The boys decide to shoot some pool, but before they can start, Jennifer arrives to find them fraternizing. Apparently she received an anonymous tip to come here. Now Topanga re-enters, I guess she only left before so that she could make a dramatic re-entrance, so that's kinda vain.

Topanga explains that she set this up like it was some great feat, I don't even know where she got Jennifer's cell number, and then Jennifer gives Shawn another deep-kiss-ultimatum. So what was the point of the first ultimatum that started all this? I don't think she understands how these things work. Shawn chooses Cory this time, even though nothing has changed from last time, not even the location. And... that's it. It's really not clear why she wanted to get back together with Shawn in the first place. Or why she dumped him in the first place. I don't think it's out of spite because, in her defense, she does manage to show up only when Cory is talking shit about her. I don't think the dumping+undumping was really even necessary. That brought nothing new to the table.

During the credits, we see the ending to Eric's play and it is hysterical. Amy and Alan are asleep in their chairs and everyone else has left by the time he finishes. Eric sits down and finds that Mr. Feeny has joined him on stage to talk things out. Feeny explains that Eric still has many great years to make something out of himself, that his best moments lie ahead of him, and that a college education is a good place to start.

You're damn right they are.

Plot: 0.75 - There really wasn't anything special going on with Cory and Shawn, but Eric writing and performing a one man show? That's uniquely original and it was fun to watch. If we'd seen more if, I would have gone for the full point.

Character Development: 0.75 - As much as the writers may have intended it, Shawn did not earn most of that .75. In this episode, he thinks with his dick until he gets frustrated. There isn't any great moral ascension here. Similar to the plot, we have Eric to thank, as he has worked through an extremely common crisis for recent high school (and college) graduates. Again, full point if he had been the center of attention.

Humor: 1.0 - Eaaaaaaaasy full point. The bromance between Cory and Shawn is legendary, and it's in full force today. Eric and Feeny were also very funny.

Life Lesson: 0.75 - Bros before hoes, but only after you have enough content for an episode. More importantly, the time to regret your lack of achievement is not your early 20s. That is the time to start achieving.

3.25 out of 4.0. Eric's story deserves a lot of the credit, but even so, the entire thing was outrageously funny. Even without Eric it would still be worth watching, but he makes it considerably better. That pretty much describes the entire series.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 4x10 "Turkey Day"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 4x09 "Sixteen Candles and Four-Hundred-Pound Men"

Sixteen Candles was a movie in the 80s with Molly Ringwald. Anthony Michael Hall was in it too, in a minor role, and then a year later they were both starring the Breakfast Club. But that's probably all unrelated to what's going on in this episode.

A miracle has occurred. Frankie Stachino is in Turner's class with Cory and Shawn. I can't begin to explain this, but I should know to stop trying by this point. Cory's reading poetry to the class, and I googled the verse, to no avail. Either way, Turner tries to get Shawn's opinion on the poem but he's slightly too unconscious to provide it.

Turner's actually got a professional haircut now. Looks like he finally broke down. Unsurprisingly, Frankie gives a very emotional and thorough analysis of Cory's poem, explaining that it's about reaching closer and closer to an unattainable love. After class, Cory asks Frankie "why the sad puss oh king of poetry", and he's all, "the poem is just like my life." Then Turner's like "hey Frankie you're awesome at poetry maybe you can teach Cory and Shawn to not be shit". So the boys bargain with The Enforcer, offering to help with his unrequited love problem if he helps them with poetry. What a completely non-contrived and reasonable setup they've thrown together in these first two minutes.

Arite I guess we're at Frankie's trailer now, remember he lives in the same trailer park as Shawn, and after only seconds Frankie's father, known mostly as Vader, the wrestler, comes home from the gym with The Enforcer Jr, Herman. As always, Herman gives his lines in a I-need-my-face-punched way, and we learn hat Vader doesn't like Frankie's poetry interests, and is all around disappointed in him. And in Cory, for encouraging his behavior.

But Cory displays some quick wrestling knowledge so now they're bros. At school we get some more shoehorned plot structuring as Topanama invites Cory to her sweet 16. And then that's the end of the scene. Real clever stuff today. Back at Frankie's trailer, which is blatantly the same set as Shawn's trailer, Frankie is trying to teach poetry crap to our inattentive heroes. Isn't this the second time we've done this story? "Cyrano", in season 2, where the boys help Frankie with some girl he loves, except this time it's his dad. Whatever.

Vader comes home, announcing with gusto that he's got a rematch with "Jake the Snake" for a shot at "the belt". The boys use this opportunity to coach Frankie as he talks to his dad about wrestling. Pretty much exactly like they did in "Cyrano". It... is surprisingly effective...

I think I've said this before, but it's cool how good of an actor Vader is. Then again, pro wrestling has a lot of elements of acting. Either way, he's a ton of fun to watch. Herman is really the weak link in this family.

At school the next day, Frankie requests Cory's ringside coaching at his father's match the next day, since he himself still knows very little about wrestling, while Cory's never missed any of Vader's matches. But wait! Cory's got to go to Topanga's sweet 16 that night. Maybe Shawn can help?

Shawn cannot help. At least, not with this.

Frankie goes emo for like 10 seconds, and then Cory reluctantly agrees to help him.

Topanga arrives on the scene, and Cory tries to get out of going to her party. It doesn't work, and he ultimately promises to be there.

......Really? The "has to be in two places at once" trope? That's what we're doing today? Nah, I uh, I'm not doin that. This isn't the fuckin Flintstones, or the Jetsons, okay, this is Boy Meets World and I am not doing that bull shit.

There's even a TV Tropes article on this. That's how you know we're in the Detroit of storylines here. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TwoTimerDate
"Hilarity allegedly ensues." Oh TV Tropes, I wish I was as funny as you.

Oh, wow, this is interesting, Shawn brings a tape of that exact Flintstones episode to Cory's, and explains how to use the same strategy as Fred Flintstone. Does this count as meta? A parody sort of loses its edge when it directly acknowledges the thing it's parodying. Shawn's plan is to learn from Fred's mistakes in order to carry out the scheme successfully, so I guess we'll have to wait and see if it's meta or not.

Oh okay, we didn't have to wait very long. Cory observes that time is compressed in a cartoon, and that the timeline can't properly be adapted to real life.

Okay so it's not meta or a parody, it's just self aware. And I don't really think that excuses it. The rest of this better be damn good.

The next scene opens on the beginning of Vader's wrestling match. As such, I just did a little research and there's some interesting stuff if you care. Vader is wearing his actual getup from the WWF (WWE as of 2002). Further, Jake "The Snake" Roberts is also a real wrestler, but the two never fought one-on-one like this as far as I can tell. This episode was filmed in summer-ish of 1996, and earlier in that year there was a 3v3 tag team match with Vader on one side and Jake The Snake on the other. Vader's team won the match when he pinned Jake The Snake, so that's probably what inspired this. I was expecting footage from that fight, but they've actually got the real Jake The Snake in this episode too, so that's pretty cool.

Now, this is an interesting set. I have no idea how they got all these extras, maybe they even came in on a real wrestling event, but there's no "live audience" here. The boys make a few jokes and, by golly, there's no "audience laughter". It's quite wonderful, to be honest, even if the jokes aren't particularly funny.

Anyway, the match begins and our heroes run off to Topanga's party. He arrives, as does the studio audience. The laughter's consistency usually lets the viewers tune it out, but here it's just kinda weird to only have it in half the scenes. It really breaks the immersion. Cory chats with the birthday girl a little bit and then makes a bullshit Flinstones-y escape back to the fight. Zzzzzzzz.

Jake the Snake looks really unsuited for this.

That guy was a pro wrestler for years after filming this. Now go pull up a picture of John Cena. Boy have times changed.

Cory gives Frankie some timely advice to feed to his father, and it helps, so I guess the plan is working so far. Back at the party, it's more cliche awfulness and I hate it. Topanga puts on her special birthday song just as Cory bails again, leaving her to stand alone in the middle of the dance floor looking sad. At the fight, Cory's all out of ideas for Vader, so why the fuck did he go back, and then Frankie tells his father that he'll love him whether he wins or loses. This revitalizes the bald wrestler and he goes and does good wrestling, finishing Jake The Snake with his famed Vader Bomb.

Is this over yet? The boys run back to the party, which by this point is empty except for Topanga. For Hollywood reasons, the wrestling match was on the TV at Topanga's party, so she saw the above picture as it happened. Topanga demands a good reason for this fuckery, and Cory explains that he was trying to help Frankie get closer with his dad. A quick glance at the TV shows Topanga that he was successful, and she... is okay with it... But she still wishes she could have had a special dance with her boyfriend. Shawn reminds them that Frankie owes Cory a favor, even though he doesn't since the deal was for him to teach them poetry, which somehow translates to Cory and Topanga dancing in the wrestling ring.

Plot: 0.25 - Literally on TV tropes. Why did they do it? Why? Also, the part about Cory and Shawn learning poetry from Frankie never turned into anything at all. I think the draft of this script was different, where they just do Frankie a favor (because of what Shawn said about a favor) and then the first half was rewritten with the poetry deal, without changing anything in the second half. But I might be talking out of my ass.

Character Development: 0.5 - Frankie got closer to his dad, which is nice, I guess.

Humor: 0.5 - The first ten minutes was good, and Shawn was consistently funny, but once the two-places-at-once cliches came rolling in I wanted to vomit. "Hilarity allegedly ensues" indeed.

Life Lesson: 0 - Have an extremely forgiving girlfriend so you can get away with dumb shit.

1.25 out of 4.0. - The first real disappointment of the season. I guess if you liked wrestling in 1996 this was probably pretty damn cool, but I don't and didn't, so it's not really doing anything for me. At least we got to see Frankie again, but he's honestly not as good without Joey around. Herman was actually listed in the credits this time, he's played by E.J. De La Pena, who, CRAZILY ENOUGH, hasn't had any real work since this.

No badges. Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 4x08 "Dangerous Secret"

If you want to see someone try to do what I do, but fail at it, check this out. http://community.ew.com/2014/05/28/boy-meets-world-recap-minkus-arrives/

That guy gets PAID to write that. Sigh.

Also I tweeted my review of 4x07 to Chris Hardwick. He did not respond. If you haven't read that one, I recommend it. It's a thousand times more fun than this one.

Cory shows up at Shawn's trailer/tardis late at night with paper bags full of various provisions. Cory believes Shawn to be sick and wants to help take care of his best buddy. He even brought flowers. What a lamb. Cory wants to go plug in the humidifier he brought when A LIGHTNING BOLT OF TROUBLE STRIKES.

Ahhhhhh shit, it's one of the ones where they try to be serious.

Cory tries to make his escape, but Shawn follows him outside. Naturally, Cory assumes that Shawn and Claire are doing a little more than holding hands, and Shawn tells Cory to trust him on this one. Claire joins the boys outside and asks Cory not to tell anyone. So this all looks pretty racy to the audience here. Shawn is 15 or 16 right now, and given his history it's pretty believable, while still a little shocking, that he'd be sleeping with this girl.

At Chubbie's the next day, Cory's got his mind set on the whole Claire situation, and once again our hero feels like he needs to catch up to his best friend. Saying that he genuinely feels ready to go further than kissing with Topanga, Cory asks Shawn how to... get there.

Later that night, it's date night for Cory and Tobongos. He lures her up to his bedroom and makes the most awkward sexual advance in the history of Philadelphia. It's two minutes of accidentally playing Barney CDs and stuff. It's sort of unfunny and hard to watch. Eventually he gets the right music on. They start to make out and Cory shoves his hand up the back of his girlfriend's shirt. If Shawn's advice was to unhook her bra while her shirt was still on, I am seriously disappointed, but I guess there's not much else they could have done on ABC.

Topanga's a little weirded out by the moves being laid down and the whole thing blows up as Cory admits that Shawn had a girl stay over and that he and Topanga should be at least as intimate and Shawn and some random girl. "We should be at like ninth base by now", he claims.

So the brakes are thrown on and the night is ruined. I'm not entirely sure what to say about this. It stops being awkward once Cory makes his move, and is well written after that. Topanga doesn't freak out or anything, she's just like "you're clearly doing this for the wrong reasons," ya know? So it's a good scene for that reason, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure we're all adults here and I don't need to spend too much time discussing adolescent wisdom about sex.

 At school the next day, Mr. Feeny smells the smoke between Cory and Topanga and suggests that Cory keep the lines of communication open, regardless of hurt feelings. That's probably the most meaningful thing we're going to get out of this episode, that really is good advice. Alas, it doesn't help Cory as Topanga doesn't "know what to say" to him.

Cory blames everything on Shawn and tells him what happened the night before. Shawn's main takeaway point is that Cory told Topanga about Claire, even though he promised not to. They really should have paid more attention to the writing on this. Cory didn't actually mention Claire by name to Topanga, he just said "a girl", so there's really no problem here.

Later that night, Cory's lurking around at home, so his parents know something is off. They inquire, and our hero tries to distract them by initiating a group singing of Michael Row The Boat Ashore. A lot of shows try to do random-funny, and most fail, but this is random-funny done properly.

So now it's time for THE MATTHEWS BRUTHAS to talk sex in their room. Eric sticks to his classic insult-advice, but he's pretty much right on the money: "these things have gotta happen naturally", "sex is like a bike without training wheels, if you try it before you're ready you're gonna fall off and break your head". It's not the typical preachy stuff that circulated the "family friendly" tv environment of the 90s, and reminds us of this show's previous mature approach to sex in "Wake Up Little Cory" from season 2. Great stuff for the target audience.

Shawn arrives through the window as Eric heads back downstairs.

Turns out, Shawnie's parents are back in town, so he wants to have Claire stay with Cory now. But whyyyyyyy what's the big secrettttttttt. Cory insists that he can be trusted, even though he demonstrated earlier that he cannot, and Shawn relents. Apparently Claire's father, a vice president of a bank, occasionally beats the crap out of his daughter. There's no mention of alcohol but it's sort of implied. And they can't go to the cops since their word ain't gonna mean shit against the VP of a bank. Damn, the 1%'s ability to avoid prosecution, that's some harsh reality that, as far as teenagers go, only the punk rock kids are gonna catch. Even without that, it's an unusually heavy subject matter. In the end, Cory agrees to call Shawn once his parents are asleep.

Claire arrives later that night and comments that the house reminds her of her aunt's place in Vermont. As Cory takes her coat, he sees some bruising on her arm.

Claire is played by Ariana Richards, who was actually Lex Murphy in Jurassic Park, which is pretty cool. JEFF GOLDBLUM and all that. She hasn't seen a whole lot of work since then though.

Anyway, Cory goes to get her a glass of milk, and returns to the living room to find her already asleep on the couch. It's almost an exact reproduction of when Shawn fell asleep at Turner's place right as Turner looked away for a second, back in 2x22.

I am so good at making gifs. Regardless, it's kind of an interesting parallel. Shawn was physically abandoned by his parents, while Claire's been sort of emotionally abandoned by hers. 

At school the next day, Cory insists to Shawn that they go to the police, but Claire overhears and explains that she'll just lie to the cops. She claims that her father just has a lot of stress from work and that she gets in his way. It's actually classic self-blaming, a sort of Stockholm Syndrome, and the reason why people all-too-often stay in abusive relationships. I'm impressed, Boy Meets World. That's real as fuck. Ultimately, Cory agrees to let her stay at his place another night. 

As always, there's a bunch of posters unrelated to English class on the corkboard of the English classroom in the background there.

Later that night, Cory shows up at Shawn's trailer with a very black-eyed Claire. I'd make the obvious joke, but it's probably in bad taste. Heh, bad taste. I guess I made a different joke on accident. Whatever.

Claire breaks down in the trailer and the sad music plays. I guess the boys decide to have Claire stay at Shawn's, since they go back to Cory's to retrieve the pillow and blanket she used earlier. But Cory's parents are lying in wait! They found one of Claire's textbooks that she left there the other night, and the boys spill the beans. Oh okay, they've bought Claire a bus ticket to Vermont to stay with her aunt, which is why the writers had her talk about it earlier (and why I mentioned it). It's a Happily Ever After ending, and it's honestly how I expected it to end, but I underestimated this show. It doesn't end there. Alan points out that there's nothing to stop Claire's father from just going to Vermont to get her back, that their solution is actually kinda shitty. Finally, Shawn accepts that the only way to stop this guy is to go to the police. 

During the credits, we learn from Cory and Boomeranga that Claire has in fact gone to Vermont and her father is in a therapy program. That is an incredibly progressive resolution, instead of "he'll be locked up for a long time". Fascinating. Cory and Topanga kiss and she suggests they "take a lead off of first". Scandalous.

When this aired on TV, there was one of those cheesy PSAs at the very end with a hotline for domestic abuse, but it is evidently not on the DVDs.

Plot: 1.0 - There's the very real question of why Claire even went to Shawn in the first place. He blatantly said that they aren't even dating, so there's really no reason for it. But if we accept that premise, it's a reasonable exploration of how these types of things play out, and the self-blaming was an excellent touch.

Character Development: 0.5 - Cory's goin to boob town.

Humor: 0.5 - There were some really funny lines, but overall it's kinda bogged down by the gravity of the main story.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - For 1996, this is decent stuff. And we're not talkin about Skins here folks, this is a fuckin ABC sitcom. All the stuff about sex is much more mature than we might have expected, especially from Eric, and then there's the whole "don't abuse your kids" thing.

3.0 out of 4.0. I definitely prefer the first seven episodes of this season. A good tagline for BMW is "lighthearted and funny, yet profound" but this episode's seriousness really breaks the rhythm we had established. Every series has to have a couple of these though, so for what they were trying to do it's pretty good.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday. 

All images used under Fair Use.