Episode 3x07 "Truth and Consequences"

Shawn and Cory are making some sort of documentary in the cafeteria. They get some footage of this sasquatch lunch lady and her jello, and Cory comments that she was formerly the nanny for the Gorbachev family. The audience does not laugh at this because they're a bunch of tools.

Oh okay, that was actually the finished product, and the students were watching it in Eli's video journalism class. Well it was shit and nobody liked. Eli wants them to redo their report since they're going to be putting on some sort of public access broadcast in a few days.

I'm trying out white font instead of yellow today. Maybe it's easier to read, I don't know. Somebody leave a comment.

After school, Cory and Shawn are at Turner's apartment (it should be understood at this point that Shawn is living there) filming some woman across the alley who dances around her living room in a towel every day at 5:30. Turner comes home and ends the voyeurism, explaining that "exploiting someone's body isn't news." He then turns on a tv news channel to prove his point, but the news is running a story on breast implants. BOOM SOCIAL COMMENTARY. Nice one, Boy Meets World. And that's actually not the first time. When we learned Eli's backstory we heard a similar story about new stations reporting on bull shit, so this seems like an issue that Michael Jacobs felt pretty strongly about. Neato.

At lunch the next day, there's a bit between Feeny, Eli, and Turner about the gorgeous women interviewing to be Feeny's new secretary, but it's mostly a flop. Across the room, Cory and Shawn decide they're going to find a scandal to report on. Just then, Joey the Rat comes in with some tires asking if anyone needs to buy tires, and additionally offers to sell the boys some tube socks since, according to the man himself, "everybody needs tube socks!" They reckon that if they follow Joey around, they'll find the scandal they want. It's interesting, Cory and Shawn are now looking to Joey for the same reason that I look to him when I watch the show: he gets to do things that nobody else can do. He's a criminal doing whatever criminal thing is relevant to the plot, but it's always got that tinge of believability.

It's time for the Ericlogue to begin, and this one's actually pretty funny. A "science lady" is conducting a dream research study in, conveniently, John Adams High- Turner's classroom in particular, since that's the only room they built a set for. She wants to pay Eric some money to sleep for a while so she can monitor his brain activity. As anyone would be, he's pretty excited about getting paid to sleep.

We jump ahead to the news broadcast being conducted by Eli's class. Topanga is anchoring, and she sort of turns into a diva about the whole thing. It's humorous, but the audience is taking it a little far. Eventually, she announces the Cory's investigative report on the subject of... Janitor Bud.

Turns out, Bud is leaving early every day and pays Joey to go punch his card out at 5:00. That's.... actually a well thought out scandal, all things considered.

After the broadcast, Feeny reveals to the boys that he's going to have to fire Janitor Bud because of what they've uncovered. They're feelin pretty rotten. Next day, nobody wants to talk to Cory and Shawn after they've exposed Janitor Bud, and indeed Mr. Feeny mercilessly fires the old man, even though he could retire with a full pension after two more months.

Our favorite thug JoeJoe comes along to inform our heroes that they didn't get the whole story, pointing out that they don't even know where Janitor Bud was going every day.

Honestly, this is Joey's finest moment. He has a lot of lines here, and they're all perfectly crafted to his character. His timing and delivery and posturing are all spot on. I had trouble choosing which part to make into the gif.

Anywho, Joey reveals that Bud has been leaving early to go bet on horses, which Joey finds acceptable. Cory however remains steadfast in his belief that what they did was right. Janitor Bud comes back real quick to tell the boys that he knows it's their fault, and inflicts "the janitor's curse" upon them.

Back in the Ericlogue, Eric wakes up from his nap and the science lady informs him that he registered absolutely no brain activity while he was sleeping, which she calls remarkable, and Eric's pretty proud. I think this is funny. It's obviously silly, but it's a smart sort of silly. Compare this to the Eric-based humor from season two and you can see just how much they've changed this character. The general consensus is that it was a change for the better, and I definitely agree.

At lunch, Shawn slips on a plunger and blames the Janitor's Curse, and then they face the scorn of the other students for getting Bud fired. This might sound ridiculous depending on what your high school was like, but I remember at my high school we had this janitor that we all called "Lightning." I'm not sure if anybody knew his real name, but we called him that because he was pretty spry and quick for an old dude. The point is, Lightning was awesome, and if somebody got him fired, there would probably have been hell to pay.

On the other side of the cafeteria, Turner and Eli discuss the consequences that Cory is currently facing, and Eli realizes he probably shouldn't have put so much pressure on Cory to find a real story.

At home, Amy and Alan take opposing sides on whether or not Cory did the right thing, but nothing really comes of it. Which is depressing. Another wasted opportunity to get some valuable wisdom from Alan. Matter of fact, Eli is almost certainly going to be the one giving the advice here, so again we can see how much the show has changed from seasons one and two. Also Eric got a letter from U. Penn saying that they want to study him.

And indeed, now it's time for the Eli-Cory talk at school. It's actually pretty decent. Eli explains that journalism is naturally a gray area, that there's no right or wrong, adding the concise yet powerful insight that "It's a tough game when you care." Maybe this is just me extrapolating beyond their intention, but that's a pretty good line, relevant to almost every aspect of life. Not bad, not at all.

Eli and Cory visit Mr. Feeny to try to get Bud his job back, and learn that Bud has in fact been hired as Feeny's new secretary so that he can get to his retirement. So that's why they mentioned the women interviewing for the position earlier. Smooth.

During the credits, the Ericlogue concludes as a team of scientists are watching him sleep (in Turner's classroom again). As before, he shows no brain activity during sleep, while the field mouse being studied shows quite a bit.

The science lady is played by Kathy Trageser, who hasn't done anything since 2003, and her most noteworthy role was something on 22 episodes of "Team Knight Rider", which was some shitty ripoff of Knight Rider that got cancelled after one season. But that's sort of interesting, since William Daniels (Feeny) was the voice of K.I.T.T, the car on the original Knight Rider series. Full circle.

So yeah, this episode was good! The Ericlogue was funny without trying to be too important. Shawn and Cory actually had a reasonable school assignment with reasonable consequences. I always love when I'm not quite sure how to feel. We in the audience experienced that same gray-area that Shawn and Cory did. The absolutely insufferable I'm-going-to-puke conclusion would have been Bud being rehired as janitor, and I probably would have preferred him just straight up getting fired to really drive home the idea of facing consequences. But, being hired as Feeny's secretary is an acceptable middle ground, especially for the target audience.

Plot: 1.0 - Maybe I'm just used to bad stories this season, but this one seems pretty solid. It was believable and entertaining, and I couldn't be certain how it would end (the first time I watched it, anyway).

Character Development: 0.5 - Cory and Shawn didn't change much, but we saw Feeny's heart of gold at the end, and Eli's character became a little more fleshed out

Humor: 1.0 - Great work from the whole cast, Joey in particular deserves another shoutout.

Life Lesson: 0.75 - I dunno, I wanna give it the point, but they really don't even try to extend the "it''s a tough game when you care" to anything outside of journalism. If they had even MENTIONED that that could apply in other aspects of life, I woulda gone for the full point.

3.25 out of 4.0. It's about damn time. Pretty sure that's the first plot badge of the season, and I still don't think we've had a life lesson badge. All I know is, 50% off week at Dominos starts today, so it is very much pizza time.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.