Episode 3x13 "New Friends and Old"

If you haven't seen Samuel L Jackson's slam poetry about Boy Meets World, you really really ought to.

This episode had the season 4 title sequence for some reason. Who are the old friends going to be? Is it Minkus? Is Minkus in this episode? Please?

Apparently Frankie and Joey have implicitly forced Cory and Shawn into some cheerleader uniforms, and they've just finished telling the story to Mr. Feeny.

They go out into the hall just as classes end, so a bunch of students make a few jokes at their expense, it's pretty funny and they manage to avoid any easy gay jokes, which is cool. Now Feeny's got Frankie and his pro-wrestler father, Vader, in his office to administer discipline. Vader does his whole "I'm a wrassllerrrrr" bit like always, and I guess it's funny if you like that kind of thing, and he promises that his son is going to shape up. Apparently Joey the Rat has already been suspended, and Feeny advises Frankie to find some new friends that aren't blatant criminals. A quick glance back at the title tells us where we're going with this.

Did they just not have the budget to give her any lines? It's so weird to watch, she nods and makes some hand gestures for like two more seconds without saying anything.

Frankie drags Cory and Shawn into Turner's empty classroom to kill them for ratting out him and Joey. I like to imagine Frankie running home to his dad with rainbows in his eyes, "Dad! Dad! I killed two snitches today!" And ol' Vader gets dewy eyed and sniffs before giving his son a clap on the shoulder and a couple prideful nods.

To avoid being mercilessly slaughtered, the boys offer to be Frankie's new friends, and he accepts.

A jammin' guitar riff transitions the scene over to Turner's apartment. Some ex of Turner's leaves a message on his voicemail saying that she wants to meet up while she's in town for a little while, but the man himself doesn't really wanna meet up with her, or give any details about the situation to Shawn. The two actually have a pretty funny dialogue here, they've always had good chemistry. Eli's there too, but he mostly keeps his mouth shut, which lends itself to my approval of the scene as a whole.

Turner takes a walk to cool off before he murders Shawn. While he's gone, Eli gives us the abridged version of Turner's backstory. He comes from a wealthy family and could have been rich with the country clubs and the yachts and the winters in Aspen and whatever if he had stayed to inherit the family business, but he chose to go do his own thing, leaving behind Melanie, the rich girl who's been leaving these voicemails. I could totally get behind this if it had been hinted at at least once, but they clearly never even considered to do this before now. It's still not terrible though.

At the Matthews house, Frankie sets up a sleepover at his place for Cory, against Cory's will. Back at Turner's Melanie finally shows up and she's lookin super duper poor, poorer than ol' Johnny Turner, in fact.

Melanie is played by Eliza Coyle who hasn't really done anything else worth mentioning.

Another characteristic guitar riff takes us to Chubbie's with Cory, Shawn, and Frankie. Our heroes see that the younger kids pay tribute to Frankie out of fear in the form of hamburgers and sandwiches, so they decide to cash in on these benefits as well by announcing their new best-friendery with Frankie. 

And nowwwwwwwww we're on a date with Turner and Melanie. It's like three minutes of them talking about their lives, and how you have to like, choose your own path in life, and apparently Melanie has also left the rich life behind to start her own bookstore, and came to Philly to show Turner that she's changed, and to maybe get some of his respect back. This is a disaster. Why the fuck are we doing this? This doesn't anyone else on the show. This is purely an attempt at making us care about Turner's backstory and to try to value him as more than a teacher/guardian/mentor. And that's a mistake. That's not who he's supposed to be. This scene just seems like a completely different show. I don't know what they were thinking.

So... much... 90's.... Why is Turner wearing a sweater but she's fine in a t-shirt?

At the school's lunch the next day, Shawn and Cory abuse Frankie's power to get a lunch table, and Frankie's like wait what the fuck you guys are just using me. Mr. The Enforcer wanders out into the hall and scares off some more people just by being near them, BUT WAIT. Mr. Feeny is on the scene. This better be good. This is the perfect opportunity for Feeny to slap some wisdom on this kid. Don't let me down Feeny.

So yeah it's not too bad, Feeny basically just tells Frankie that he has to stand up for himself and refuse to be a tool for his friends.

Now we're at Turner's place as he and Eli return and discuss the date with Melanie. Turner talks about how he and Melanie both misunderstood each other because of their first impressions (trust fund kids), and this resonates with Shawn and he reconsiders his first impression of Frankie The Enforcer. We're getting a two-pronged attack on morality here, from both Feeny and Turner, which sounds good in theory but... really? That's what we did all that Melanie work for? We were just building up to a lesson on first impressions? That's kind of underwhelming. PLUS! None of this shit is actually about first impressions! Turner and Melanie knew each other for a long time, those were prolonged impressions, and fuckin Frankie's been terrorizing Shawn since his first day at John Adams High. There is no misconception here, there's no hasty judgments, Frankie has been a bastard to Shawn for years, but now we're supposed to sympathize? Fuck that.

At school the next day, a bunch of those 7th grade slaves are about to exact their revenge on Shawn and Cory, but Frankie shows up and they run off. But Shawn's like "no, don't be afraid, he's not The Enforcer" and this is an actual quote, "that's only what you think of him as". Then he starts giving the speech about how there's a lot more to Frankie than beating the shit out of people. The 7th graders don't buy it though, THANK GOODNESS, I would have thrown up. Frankie appreciates the gesture though, and they all ride off into the sunset to get a hamburger. And the audience applauds. That is the first time in the series that they've done that, or at least that I've noticed it. What a joke of an ending.

Plot: 0.25 - What the hell even happened? Turner went on a date and the three boys just sorta... hung around.

Humor: 1.0 - Certainly not the best I've ever seen, but funny enough to outweigh the boring plot.

Character Development: 0.5 - I don't believe for a second that Frankie is actually done being a bully. But we learned a little more about Turner, I guess.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - It's clear what they were trying to say, and they got close enough.

2.75 out of 4.0. You guys know I love Frankie, but this is far from is best showing. Turner and Eli were boring, Feeny didn't get nearly enough screen time, Eric only had one line... But Cory and Shawn did pretty well until that last speechy preach scene at the end. Who the hell were the "old" friends?

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

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