Episode 3x20 "I Never Sang For My Legal Guardian"

I love all the comments I've been getting lately. I'd been fluctuating between 50 and 70 readers per review for most of season 3, but it's been getting closer to 100 lately. So that's awesome. Thanks for sticking with me! (P.S. the current record is Episode 2x01 with 347 readers.)

Welcome to another episode of Boy Meets World, or rather, Shawn Meets Angst. Except that's a terrible title because Shawn already met angst, and they got married and then had a child. This episode is that child.

So yeah, Shawn hasn't heard from his father, Chet, for a long time. But Cory learns from Mr. Turner that Chet sent him the documents to become Shawn's guardian a few months back. Turner's first solution is to find a new apartment for him and Shawn to occupy since his current one is too small. It's mostly just an excuse for Shawn to pout around, but the good news is that Cory is a lot of fun in this episode. He's invested in the happiness of his best friend, so he effectively becomes a real estate agent to help Shawn and Turner find a place.

Shawn doesn't want to move though, which is probably setting up for something. Eli shows up and says some stuff that's not funny and then Shawn storms off. It's business as usual. At school, Feeny hands back a D on a paper to Eric and suggests he tutor some football player. Why are these kids still in school? They had final exams two episodes ago.

On the other side of the hallway, Cory tries to convince Shawn to go with the condo that they looked at the day before.

This is yet more evidence that the best humor comes from Cory's silliness in Shawn-centered episodes. Cory's just off the side being a real estate agent. I think that's hilarious.

Shawn insists that they're not going to move because he's sick of moving, and storms off full of angst. Back at the apartment, Turner tells Eli that he has almost finished the paperwork to be Shawn's legal guardian. Shawn comes home, Eli bails, Shawn throws out a letter from his dad because he's angsty, and Turner reveals his pending guardianship. Shawn's like "I thought you did that months ago, sorry you didn't have time for me" and storms off. Holy Moses and Mary how many times have I typed that. Take a god damn chill pill Shawn.

Now we're at Chubbie's and Eric is tutoring that football player, whose name is Jeff, on European history. It's made abundantly clear that this guy is even dumber than Eric. Their studying is cut short when some girls want to go for a ride in Jeff's Porsche.

I'm not really sure what to say about this. Feeny's intentions with this setup are unclear. He didn't say this was worth extra credit or anything, so that leaves two options. Either he wants Eric to understand how frustrating it can be to try to teach someone who doesn't give a shit, or he thinks Eric will "accidentally" learn all the material by trying to teach it to Jeff. I guess we'll find out. Either way I think we're in for a good Eric/Feeny moment. But again, finals are already over, it's way too late to be applying to colleges.

Shawn shows up at the Matthews house and tries to recruit Cory for an impromptu visit to Shawn's dad, who's at a truck stop about 50 miles away. Shawn has apparently stolen Turner's motorcycle and plans to drive it there. The audience goes "oooooooooooh" like Shawn just offered Cory some heroin or something. Are you fuckin joking with me right now? He coulda just asked Turner to take him, he probably woulda said yes. I don't know anymore. Predictably, Shawn gets pulled over/arrested.

Like, we understand that Shawn is troubled. We get it. And you know why we get it? Because we've done this before. Several times now. There's sad music and everything, they're trying so hard to manipulate the audience's emotions, it's honestly annoying at this point.

The next scene opens at Turner's place and he's got Shawn with him. I honestly expected Shawn to call his dad from the police station, so that's a relatively nice surprise. They hash things out, including Turner pointing out that he could have driven Shawn to see his father, and they realize that they're both just scared of making their living arrangement permanent. The next morning, Shawn informs Cory that he's going to move into his Uncle Mike's trailer back at the shitty trailer park, because "at least I'll be surrounded by family." WE DID THAT ONE ALREADY. UGHHHHHHHH. Remember "you don't have to be blood to be family"? I guess Shawn's just making up excuses at this point because he doesn't know how to deal with this situation.

I think they deliberately bring out Shawn's leather jacket when he's being angsty. I should have been paying more attention to that, but I don't think we've seen a whole lot of that jacket lately.

Eric explains to his parents the trials of trying to teach someone who doesn't want to learn (well how bout that) and then Cory talks to them about Shawn. They advise Cory to go see Chet and tell him what's going on. I still don't know why Shawn and Turner haven't come here yet, but I guess the story's gotta keep moving. So Cory and Topanga are now at the truck stop where Chet's been staying. Oh great, that's good, they got here by bus. So there was another option besides stealing Turner's motorcycle. Good. That's good.

Anyway some older woman with a southern drawl starts hitting on Cory.

Are we done with the real estate agent bit? Well it was fun while it lasted. Topanga takes this cowgirl outside to tussle or rumble or whatever the country word for fighting is. Brawl? I don't know. Oh hey, Chet's here, working until he can pay off some parking tickets and hit the road again. The most surprising thing is that Chet gives a shit about parking tickets.

Cory explains to Chet that Shawn really needs him, but to no avail. Topanga and the chick whose hair looks like a pineapple come back inside, apparently they're friends now. The audience laughs, but...

What good things can I say about this... Well it's cool that they've got the same actor for Chet Hunter. I talked before, I think it was "Career Day" about how great this actor is, particularly in the role of Shawn's father, and he maintains that standard in this scene.

Back at school, Feeny just finished grading the most recent tests (even though they already took finals) and Eric tries to pre-emptively explain why Jeff may not have done very well.

Turns out, Jeff got a C+ and Eric got an A. Spectacular! This is a finely crafted and executed Ericlogue. The foundation is relevant to the overarcing story of the whole season, it starts off believably, builds up at a decent pace, and concludes with Eric learning a lesson he didn't even realize he was learning. That's about as good as it gets, folks. Awesome stuff. Eric realizes that Feeny's intention the whole time was just for Eric to learn the material himself while he was teaching it to Jeff.

I don't really care what happens now, this Eric story was good enough on its own.

Regardless, we're back at the police station with Shawn. Apparently Uncle Mike up and left the trailer park, and some cop found Shawn sleeping on a park bench. Conveniently, Chet arrives at the police station, he and Shawn have been chatting for a bit now and we still don't know why he's here. Chet insists that he can still find his wife, but Shawn convinces him to stay. It's actually pretty moving, and Rider Strong nails the fuck out of his lines in this scene. Shawn is actually real and vulnerable here, not the angsty annoyance he's been up until now. I love this scene, and I always have, but the best is yet to come.

Turner arrives to bail Shawn out and confronts Chet. Ah okay, Chet got caught in a speed trap on his way into town, having been persuaded by Cory's words, and got arrested for all his unpaid parking tickets. He reveals that he's staying to take care of Shawn, and Shawn asks his father to give him a moment alone with Turner. Grab your tissues. Goddddd I can already feel it welling up in me, this exchange has stuck with me since the first time I saw it.

I love the last frame of that gif. It freezes on that shot and fades to black, the one with Chet standing directly between the two of them. That's a dam good shot. And that touching saxophone or clarinet or whatever music plays. It's actually appropriate here though.

During the credits Cory and Chet help move Shawn out of Turner's apartment and Chet steals Turner's television.

Plot: 1.0 - Like I said, Eric's story was excellent, Cory's little real estate business was fun, and even though Shawn's lines were a little ridiculous sometimes, his story was good overall too.

Character Development: 1.0 - "I'd do it again." Eric developed too, thanks once again to Mr. Feeny.

Humor: 1.0 - Cory's silliness triumphs again. Eric and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were pretty funny in their scenes as well. Eli kinda sucked, but whatever.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - "You can't teach somebody if they don't want to learn."

4.0 out of 4.0 - Yeah I know I was bashing this episode for most of the beginning, but that's all in the details. Looking at the big picture, this episode has everything you could want. Shawn's angstiness is annoying, but we're sort of used to it by now, so it's not a huge deal. I've seen this episode a ton of times, and I never get tired of it. There's a famous play called "I Never Sang For My Father", which inspires this episode's name, but the plot of that play isn't really similar to this at all, so it was sort of an odd choice. And it's worth pointing out that Turner never actually did become Shawn's guardian, he said he just had "a few signatures" left.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday.

All images used under Fair Use.