Episode 2x23 "Home"

The first line of the episode is Cory saying "Come on Shawn, you've lived here three weeks and you've been in the bathroom two and a half of 'em," as he knocks on the bathroom door in the morning. A neat little way to immediately establish how much time has passed since the last episode. Eric's bothered by all this noise, as he's trying to study for the SAT. Looks like both plotlines are continuations from 2x22. As such, Eric's studying is still not going very well, and the test is in three days!

Downstairs, Morgan is having ice cream for breakfast as per Shawn's advice. I am genuinely shocked at how much better her delivery is here than it has been otherwise. Is ice cream the secret to good acting? Move over Stanislavski you old bastard, Ben and Jerry are runnin this shit.

Shawn comes downstairs and grabs some milk from the fridge, and drinks directly from the carton. Amy and Alan disapprove, but they don't want to give him a hard time about it, so Amy marks the carton with an "S", saying it's Shawn's milk now, but it's effectively a warning label for everyone else. Apparently this has been happening a lot.

My only question is what's the point of that can of soda marked with an S? Are you supposed to share cans of soda in the Matthews house? What's more, who the fuck has ever finished an already open can of soda? Just thinking about flat soda makes me gag.

Next, Amy shows Shawn that she's patched all the holes in his deliberately hole-y jeans, and she's bought him a new hoodie the color of honey mustard. He is clearly unhappy, but doesn't want to be ungrateful since she's granting him asylum in her home. Cory comes downstairs in the same jacket that Shawn has just been given, only Cory loves his and thinks it's cool that they'll be wearing the same jacket. The first four minutes of this episode have been extremely in-your-face about how completely out-of-his-element Shawn is.

Pictured: Shawn's element

Later, at school, we see a little "the night after" flirting between Jonathan Turner and Kat Tompkins in the only hallway in the school. Ms. Tompkins, who apparently left some article of underwear at Turner's place, is wearing her bolo tie again, which, like last time, I'm not happy about. She goes somewhere else and is replaced by Feeny in the role of conversation partner. The camera pans over to Shawn who has cut the sleeves off of his honey mustard jacket. Cory tries to understand why Shawn would mutilate such a wonderful piece of clothing, and Shawn's like "look I'm just tryin not to lose my fuckin mind here" and stomps off. Shawn's really had a lot of dramatic exits lately. I hope people don't do that in real life.

Mr. Turner overhears this exchange from a distance because high school hallways are known for being quiet enough for that to happen. Like, if Mr. Turner actually heard that, then everyone in the hallway must have heard it too. But they don't even move, they just keep silently reading their notebooks. Who the hell studies in a hallway? Why am I being so critical today? Did I just rhyme on purpose?

After Shawn makes his exit, Turner turns from Feeny to remind Cory that he's available if the boys ever need help with this situation. And now Feeny reminds Turner to be careful of crossing that line between authority figure and pal. It's five minutes in now and we've been reminded of all the positions and dynamics that were established in 2x22, so we can start to move forward. Personally, I think this is infinitely more effective than a "Previously, on Boy Meets World..." at the beginning. Good work.

The first step in our forward motion is Turner pointing out that Feeny is full of it.

I just noticed that I wrote "Mattews" instead of "Matthews" in the gif, but I'm going to leave it that way for two reasons. First, that's how Turner pronounces it anyway. Second, I ain't no bitch.

That evening in the Matthews kitchen, Eric and his best friend Jason have just finished a round of practice SATs. Eric got a comically bad score. Jason points out that Eric's practice scores keep dropping because he's overworked and stressed out.

That is honestly one of my favorite jokes from this show. No surprise that it comes from Eric and Jason. A more obvious punchline would have been "...what score would I need for that?" or "... well I would look good with a red nose..." or something like that. Those aren't funny at all, but that's what I was expecting. "Is that a four year school" strikes that delicate balance between realistic and unpredictable that's necessary for any really good joke. Add in their perfect facial expressions and Will Friedle's godly timing, and we've got a real masterpiece of a joke.

Jason tries to convince his best friend to get some sleep, but Eric insists that he just needs fresh air and bolts out to the backyard. Defeated, Jason goes home. Mr. Feeny shows up and, sympathetic to Eric's plight, strikes a deal with him. The three super top secret keys to doing well on the SAT in exchange for Eric's diligent help with yardwork over the next couple days.

Later that night, Cory is awoken by the howls of a stray dog "down on the corner", just like the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, and discovers Shawn seated at the bedroom window looking introspective as fuck. They have a pretty depressing conversation about how Shawn envies the stray dog's freedom. Cory starts preaching about rules and Shawn's like "screw the rules I have green hair" and escapes through the window with an expectedly dramatic flourish. This picture is just where I randomly paused the video to type this paragraph, but it's actually a really good shot so I want to throw it in.

The next scene fades in on Turner's apartment where Kat Tompkins and Turner himself are an intimate distance away from each other on the couch. We had a similar scene in the previous episode, and Kat said something like "we've been dating for three months, is this going somewhere?" Now bear in mind that Cory mentioned at the beginning that three weeks have passed. In this scene, Kat says "We've been together now for four months."

Just like last time, Shawn saves Turner from the commitment conversation when he shows up at the door. Only this time, he's been escorted by a police officer. Apparently Shawn and some other rapscallions were going to do some graffiti at the school, and when the cop chased him down he said he was staying at Turner's. Turner decides to go along with the lie and invites his student in, which sends Ms. Tompkins off, but for good this time. Mr. Turner has effectively committed to taking care of Shawn in favor of committing to Kat. That really says a lot about this guy.

Even more of Turner's character is on display as he turns on his you-better-fucking-listen-to-me voice and really lays into Shawn for all the stupid shit he's been doing. As always, it's fantastic.

They both cool off, though, and Shawn ends up staying over. I don't understand why they decided to do this scene twice. It was much more powerful the first time they did it, in 2x22, mostly because it was the first time. The scene in 2x22 didn't even impact the story, really. If this was believable in 2x22, then it also would have been believable (and much more powerful) if this scene were the first time. That sentence was difficult to word. Did that make sense? The point is, Shawn was vulnerable when he went to Turner in 2x22, this time he just got arrested because he decided to be an idiot. If they'd switched those around somehow, or just not done it in 2x22 and saved the vulnerability for this episode, it could have been fantastically amazing.

The next day, Turner brings Shawn to the Matthews house. Cory and Shawn go upstairs while the adults talk in the kitchen. In a miracle of convenience, Shawn's father, Chet, calls their landline from a payphone near Georgia, and Amy puts him on speaker phone. Amy and Alan express their concerns about continuing to take care of Shawn, but Chet tells everyone that he's not coming back any time soon and then points out that Shawn is probably eavesdropping. And indeed he is. Feeling the pain of being unwanted, Shawn yells "I don't need any of you!" and runs upstairs. The Matthews parents follow him up to console him, but Mr. Turner correctly guesses Shawn's plan to bail out of Cory's window. That's a bold guess since Turner shouldn't have any idea which side of the house Cory's room is in, but it works out, and he intercepts Shawn as he drops from the second story.

And FINALLY, this story arc comes to fruition as Jonathan Turner offers to let Shawn live with him after the two engage in a very well written and emotional dialogue.

During the credits, Feeny reveals the three SAT secrets to Eric: get a good night's sleep, clear your mind, and trust yourself. Not exactly the kind of secrets Eric was expecting and hoping for, but solid advice nonetheless. I doubt anyone reading this will ever be taking the SAT again, but there ya go.

OKAY. So let's break this one down. What exactly happened in this episode that didn't happen in 2x22? 

Here's the abridged version:

Eric struggles to study for the SAT, Cory's in the background trying to support Shawn, Chet is gone, Shawn has a hard time and stays with Turner for a night after interrupting a date, and Turner acts as a father figure. By the end, Eric feels better about the SAT, Cory thinks Shawn is going to be okay, Chet announces that he's going to be gone even longer, Shawn finds a place to stay, and Turner further solidifies his fatherliness.

That describes both episodes. The only real differences were Alan's existential crisis in 2x22 and the fact that Shawn goes with Turner at the end of this one, having gone with Cory in 2x22. They're almost exactly the same, and I already talked about repeating that scene at Turner's apartment, which is definitely the biggest problem I have with this episode. 

I really think something happened behind the scenes with either time constraints or budget issues. They're just way too similar. If they really wanted to make it two episodes, they should have focused more on Alan in 2x22, had Shawn stay with Cory and skip the scene at Turner's apartment, then focus on Shawn and Turner in this one.

But that's not to say this is a bad episode. It's a great episode. It's just that it's great for the exact same reasons 2x22 was great.

(I have more to say after the badges. Keep scrolling.)

Plot: 1.0 - See 2x22.

Character Development: 1.0 - See 2x22. And we got a little extra Feeny+Eric time here.

Humor: 1.0 - The Ericlogue was once again the main source of humor, but it was much better this time.

Life Lesson: 0 - There wasn't really a lesson this time. Which is weird. It was a touching conclusion, very emotional, but did we actually learn anything? Doesn't seem like it.

Damn that was long.

3.0 out of 4.0 

  

And there you have it. That's the end of season 2. It absolutely breaks my heart to say this, but this is the last episode with Jason Marsden. His last line was "I'm going home." Poetic. On the other hand, this is also the last episode with Lily Nicksay as Morgan. I'm sure Ms. Nicksay is a fine actress these days, she was simply too young for this role, and that's the management's fault anyway. Also, HOLY CRAP! WE FINISHED SEASON 2! What a drastic improvement over season 1, my reviews and the show. There's a solid amount of loyal readers out there, and I want you guys to know that you're awesome and I love your comments, upvotes, likes, and tweets. All that shit. That shit rules. Let's celebrate.

I don't actually smoke.

Thank you so much for reading. I'm going to take a break next week, but I'll be back to start season 3 on March 3rd. See you then!

All images used under Fair Use.