Episode 3x06 "This Little Piggy"

Shawn has taken in a stray pig and brought it to school to show Cory. How could this possibly be bad?

Oh, what did you say? You don't see how there can be any conflict in that premise? Boy are you wrong. Topanga doesn't think Shawn is capable of taking care of the pig, and wants to find a better home for it. IN YOUR FACE, CHECK OUT THAT CONFLICT.

GUESS WHAT ERIC'S GOT SOME CONFLICT TOO. Home boy wants to go to college, and so he asks Mr. Feeny for advice about what colleges he can get into, in particular he asks about Yale. But get this, get this, get this, get this: he mispronounces it! Wheeeeeeeeeeee

Good lord... I don't know if I can do this one, you guys... Who the hell is writing this shit? "Mark Blutman and Howard Busgang"? The same guys that wrote Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf and On The Air? IMPOSSIBLE.

This is just blatant fucking pandering. Like, if I was gonna write a shitty movie with an animal in it, the shittiest movie you could imagine, these are exactly the jokes I would be making. We're at the Hunter/Turner apartment right now, and lemme list what just happened:

The pig licks Turner's face while he's sleeping and so he thinks he's dreaming about making out with a woman, wakes up and is grossed out. And all of the pig noises are BLATANTLY just stock sounds of a pig, it's not matched up to the pig's mouth at all. Next Shawn feeds the pig with a baby bottle, and the crowd goes awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, and there's some more stock sounds of sucking noises. It's just.. it's so fucking lazyyyyyyyyy. Probably the laziest writing I've seen on this show so far. 

Cory comes over and they make a few dumb jokes, and then Shawn sets the pig on the floor so that he can talk to Cory in private. The pig walks offset and the crowd is in hysterics. It's just a pig walking. I don't get it. What's the appeal?

Either way, apparently Topanga is still upset with Shawn for keeping a pig in his apartment. Turner's not having a great time of it either.

Mr. Feeny has some contacts at Yale, so Eric tries to bribe him with tickets to an opera, hoping Mr. Feeny can hook him up with Yale. I can't fathom why a man who has taught elementary school in Philadelphia for most of his life has contacts in the admissions department at an ivy league university in Connecticut, but I guess that's just Feeny for you.

Shawn has somehow brought the pig with him to Chubbie's and is impressing some women of varying hair color with his compassion for animals. Who woulda thought. He even gets them to buy food for him and the pig. Hell, who am I kidding, I'm just jealous.

Topanga and Cory are also at Chubbie's, obviously, and Topanga's not happy that Shawn still has the pig. She's patronizing (matronizing..?) the shit out of Shawn over this whole thing, and she's definitely supposed to be the bad guy here, but she does make a good point.

So now Cory's gotta choose a side. His best friend and his girlfriend are at an impasse and they both want his support. Now there's some Boy Meets World. It took us 10 minutes to find it, and it's wrapped up in nonsense, but that's actually a perfectly legitimate adolescent problem to address. Ultimately Cory sides with Topanga. 

Oh my god, now he's getting advice from his parents. Just like the good old days ;____; This is nice, we've got a very brief window of good television here. Let's see if it can hold up. Also, in the back of this scene is a whiteboard with a numbered list of some kind. The first item says "Eric goes to opera", which is something that hasn't happened yet in the show, so I'm wondering if it's like an outline of the rest of the episode, but I can't quite make out numbers 2 through 4.

Now we're at school and it's lunchtime. Shawn's managed to bring the pig to school again, and it's having lunch with him. I don't think there's been a single scene where this pig hasn't eaten something. It's probably having a pretty good time out here. Cory tries to patch things up with his best buddy, and Shawn explains that the pig's previous owners (some family in the trailer park) just abandoned the pig and got outta Dodge. He then draws the parallels between the pig's abandonment and his own, which is genuinely sympathetic. It's not stated explicitly (even though it totally should have been), but Shawn is effectively doing for this pig what Mr. Turner did for him. This emotional outpouring sways Cory over to Shawn's side, and I gotta say, I'm on board too.

Now it's time to convince Miss Lawrence. Cory has invited her over to Shawn/Turner Kingdom to show her how great the pig's doing. She arrives as Shawn is giving the pig a bath. But before you know it, the pig is missing. Goobers.

Shawn blames Topanga for leaving the door open, but she blames Shawn for having the pig here in the first place. The trouble doesn't last long, though.

Topanga reveals that she called animal control to come take the pig away from Shawn and Cory's like "well that was a super shit thing to do, Topanga" and leaves with Shawn to try to hide from animal control. Mr. Turner explains to Toperoni that this pig really means a lot to Shawn, and that he really does take good care of it, and she realizes that she fucked up.

Next scene is Eric and Feeny at the opera. Eric's bored and is about to bail, but then Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries starts playing, which he recognizes from some Bugs Bunny cartoon and regains interest. So I guess they're seeing Die Walkure, the second of four operas in Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung cycle. I don't know how they could possibly even enjoy that without the context of the first one, I mean that's just preposterous, what are they thinking.

Inexplicably, the animal control guy found his way to Cory's house, where Shawn and Cory are hiding out. He's ready to take the pig away, and Shawn asks for a chance to say goodbye, to which the animal control commando specialist officer brigadier complies. 

It's a shame that one of my favorite jokes in this series is in such an unfavorable episode. That was hilarious though. Admit it. I mean, it's fuckin Richard Karn! From Home Improvement! He's hysterical, even if that show was kinda bad. 

But wait! Topanga arrives, saying the pig's real owner is with her, and is ready to take it back home. This is indeed a ruse, as Turner comes in and says the pig belongs to his son, Zed. His face and the way he says "Zed" is really funny, but maybe only because I've had a couple drinks at this point.

Turner comments, "Hunter, I must really like you." And it's actually genuinely sweet. 

During the credits Feeny and Eric agree to go to a ballet and the philharmonic together in the future. Adorable.

So yeah this was 75% garbage. Like just take any movie or cartoon where the plot centers around "oh here's a baby, let's engage in some WACKY HIJINX" and then replace the baby with a pig and you've got this episode. I really don't understand why they decided to do this. "Hey guys we're already season 3, IT'S ABOUT TIME WE DID AN ANIMAL EPISODE. WHEEEE." It's horrifyingly predictable but at least we got some meaningful parts with Turner and Feeny, as well as Cory having to take sides.

Plot: 0.25 - It deserves that much for being unpredictable. I honestly wasn't sure how it would end. And the Feeny/Eric opera story was reasonably interesting.

Character Development: 1.0 - Because whatever. Cory had to get through choosing between his best friend and his girlfriend, and was ultimately able to call out his girlfriend on her bull shit when it really mattered.

Humor: 0.25 - Like I said, it was mostly the same type of humor you'd see in a movie or a cartoon where they have to take care of a baby or whatever. Or any other animal movie. 

Life Lesson: 0 - Pfffffffff

1.5 out of 4.0. I am not impressed with season 3 so far. Not at all. Which is odd, I definitely remember liking it. I mean, like I keep saying, it's not bad, it's just not Boy Meets World. Season 2 was a lot better. Hopefully it picks up.

Thanks for reading, see you (probably) Monday. Life is busy and I have a million things to do. I really would like to post on schedule, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. 

All images used under Fair Use.