Episode 1x12 "Once in Love with Amy"

It's a busy morning at the Matthews house. Eric gets dumped, Cory needs a permission slip for a field trip, Amy has to get to work and constantly avoids her husbands attempts at early morning romance, and "Judy, Queen of Zits" calls to bail on babysitting that night. Eric is going to babysit in her stead.

Points of note are that Amy has bowling league that night, Alan has a managers' meeting, and Eric digs up an artifact of wisdom: "You know the big difference between guys and girls? Girls want commitment. Guys want girls." Deep stuff. Also Morgan's bowl of oatmeal shatters the modern scientific paradigm by disproving Newton's Law of Cooling.

Mr. Feeny gives the class a good math problem, despite being their social studies teacher. "One person washes a car in 6 minutes, the other in 8 minutes, how long does it take them to wash it together?" Cory's answer of 7 minutes and Minkus's answer of 4.5 minutes are both wrong. Topanga channels a spirit and obtains the correct (and still unknown) answer. Honestly, this scene captures pretty much everything about the first season. We've got sardonic Feeny and naive Cory bantering, Shawn comprises the peanut gallery, Topanga is being weird, and Minkus is being a smarty pants. And it's funny. If I wanted to convince someone to watch the first season of Boy Meets World, I would show them this scene.

                                       

Later that night, Cory and Shawn are trying to solve the math problem. Somehow Minkus shows up at the door and does my favorite bit of the entire first season. (I know these long clips make me look lazy, and I'm sorry, but it's worth it.)

                                        

Where the fuck was the Emmy nod for that? God, I'm still laughing. I need to make a gif, hold on.

Absolutely wonderful. Humor and Character Development Badges. I was gushing over Minkus with a colleague the other day, and she mentioned that Lee Norris was on One Tree Hill. I can't IMAGINE that I would enjoy that show, but he is in all nine seasons... I want to talk to him, but this is from an interview he did in 2009: "I just don't think I'm exciting enough to have a Twitter personally."

There's no point in finishing this review. It doesn't matter what happens next. 

But I might as well. Back on track, Mrs. Matthews, as it turns out, has lied to her family and is not going to bowling league. (Seriously, does anyone care anymore? Fucking Minkus.)

The Matthews brothers resolve to stalk their mother instead of just asking her, leaving Shawn to watch Morgan. Thankfully, Boy Meets World decides not to insult our intelligence, and wraps the whole thing up pretty quickly. I don't know what the point was, but there were enough funny bits throughout those few minutes that it was still enjoyable. As Amy explains the sneaky-danger-excitement-date to her sons, Eric thinks it was a cool thing to do while Cory is upset that she lied. Amy explains that the real world isn't so black and white, and that Cory needs to learn to think with a more open mind. 

Somehow that gives Cory the insight necessary to solve Mr. Feeny's math problem. His explanation of his answer is solid and Shawn looks like he's actually learning something, which is cool, even though he's wearing those fucking stupid clothes again. He's kind of making the same face as the picture of Lincoln behind him. And then there's Feeny's line at the end of the clip.

                                   

Heartwarming, to say the least. Also the math on the chalkboard is Minkus's further attempts at solving the problem. In that process, he has inadvertently figured out time travel, which as we all know is represented visually by $5 special effects. 

                                      

                                     

Look at 'im, bouncing up and down to clean the chalkboard. I love that guy.

The story about Mr. and Mrs. Matthews sneaking off to their date was poorly fleshed out, and that whole formula is extremely tired. The only thing to come out of it was Cory's lesson to "think differently", but the attempt to tie it into the math problem was awful. There are a million better ways for Cory to learn that he needs to think differently. Honestly, the secret to the episode is to follow Minkus. All of the scenes where the character Minkus was present (anything in the classroom, and his Emmy performance at Cory's house) were spot on. Everything else was uninspired. Honestly, the root problem was trying to make Amy the "wise parent" instead of Alan. We all know Alan's been rocking this season, but we barely saw him in this episode. The writers wanted to give Amy a shot at the spotlight, and it did not work. Can't blame them for trying.

P.S if you know a way to contact Lee Norris, please show him this review. If he never knows how I feel, my restless soul will be left to haunt the internet forever.

1 for humor, 1 for character development, .5 for plot since the math problem plotline was good, and .5 for life lesson since it was a good lesson presented poorly.

3/4, with two badges and an Emmy for Lee Norris.

See you Monday.

Clips and images used under Fair Use.