Episode 4x04 "Fishing For Virna"

The first minute of this episode consists of the members of the Matthews family running out the door in the morning for various reasons, completely neglecting the breakfast that Amy has prepared. Hopefully it's relevant later, because otherwise it's just kinda pointless and not funny.

Now we're at lunch and Cory's dick is getting rock hard over the lunch lady's preparation of his mashed potatoes. Topanga is lookin' like a Dixie Sweetheart today, which sort of nullifies her decision to stop worrying about her appearance. And that's fine, there's nothing wrong with wanting to look nice, I would just appreciate a modicum of consistency on this show.

This woman's name is Brenda, and the lovely couple here have used her name like twenty times so she's obviously going to be important today. Not only is she a master potatosmith, she's also saved the last piece of cherry pie for Topanga. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS LUNCH ROOM? THE SIZZLER? 

Shawn bursts into the lunch room and runs up to Cory, and takes much more time than necessary to say that his mom (named Virna) is finally back in town. Recall that she ran away back in season 2, which Shawn refers to as "a year ago", so my timeline theories are completely trash now. It officially doesn't make sense. Case closed, there's nothing we can do.

Later, at Shawn's trailer, the crew try to figure out what to do about the Virna situation. 

I fuckin love Chet. And it looks like, once again, the episode is centered on not-Cory, and so he gets to play into these types of silly dialogue.

Shawn and his father want to figure out what Virna's doing in town but they don't want to scare her off, so they send Cory to parley. So Cory goes over to the hotel she's staying at across the highway, and he makes a comment about how he's lucky to be alive after crossing the highway. There's nothing really revolutionary in this scene. Virna wants to be a good mother, but she needs to know that Chet wants to be a good father too. And she won't take his word for it, either. Virna plans to hang around until she actually sees Chet consistently being a good father.

Virna is a cool name.

Cory relays what he's learned back to the trailer, and makes another joke about the highway, saying that he'd have to be Moses to get across. It's a pretty funny running joke. 

At the school's lunch the next day, Feeny comes into the cafeteria and informs the students that Brenda has passed away. He asks the students for a moment of silence, and it happens, but Cory thinks Brenda deserves a lot more. And the new guy doesn't do Cory's mashed potatoes as well as Brenda did, so this tragedy has clearly earned the sad clarinet music that transitions us to the next scene.

Or maybe it's a flute, I don't fuckin know. Regardless, that's an ass ton of mashed potatoes Cory just got, he needs to pull himself together.

Back at the Hunters' trailer, Shawn and Chet finally have the reckoning we've been waiting for. Chet's tired of waiting for Virna and wants to go get her now, but Shawn points out what a disaster it was the last time he tried chasing her. Chet denies that it was such a disaster, but Shawn explains that Virna sent him a letter every day she was gone, while he barely heard from Chet the entire time. Chet's speechless, but the reckoning is interrupted by a knock at the door. It's Frankie the Enforcer, who apparently lives in the same trailer park as Shawn. Frankie needs to go get some milk from a store on the other side of the interstate and requests that the Hunters watch his little brother, Herman. 

I had to speed that gif up to 30 frames per second because these guys talk so fuckin slow. Herman is supposed to be a young copy of Frankie. They have the same speech patterns, but the difference is that Herman is fucking terrible at saying his lines and I want to punch my screen every time he talks.

The reckoning resumes as Chet looks over the letters Shawn got from Virna, and apologizes for not being in more frequent contact. Shawn seriously calls out Chet here, big time, saying that the two of them could have been a family without Virna, "but you didn't want that dad. Why didn't you want that?" The clarinet fades us out of a speechless Chet.

The next morning, everybody neglects Amy's breakfast again. Compared to the highway, this is a lackluster running joke. Cory is still super sad about Brenda. I guess I was wrong before, this isn't the sidekick-Cory we're used to, it's underwhelming sidestory Cory. 

I get what they're trying to do, they're exploring the underappreciation of cafeteria workers, but I'm just not sold. And maybe there's supposed to be a parallel between Brenda being unappreciated and Amy's food preparation being unappreciated. 

At the trailer, the boys are havin a real fun time looking over family photos from when Shawn was a lot younger. It's not nearly as cheesey as it sounds, it's actually enjoyable, but I'm not sure how they managed to go from "Why didn't you want to be my father" to "let's look at pictures". 

The next scene is baffling. Cory goes to a funeral home in the middle of the day and finds Mr. Feeny there. Mr. Feeny even comments that Cory is supposed to be at school. How did Cory get there and what are they both doing there anyway? They have a conversation about what a nice person Brenda was and how she considered all of the students to be her children. Then Cory asks what to do about the Virna situation, and his genius fuckin advice is to tell Virna how Chet and Shawn feel, which is exactly what Virna said was insufficient earlier in the episode. Then Cory runs off to go do it. So again, why the hell was he at the funeral home? He didn't do anything except talk to Mr. Feeny.

It's never said explicitly if Brenda is in that casket. Is that even how funeral homes work? I don't know what's going on. I guess that's the only thing that makes sense, and it would have been a little morbid to say outright that her dead body was in there.

So now Cory's talking to Virna and the conversation really isn't a lot different than last time. For the life of me I can't figure out what's changed. She seems moved by the thought that Shawn and Chet want her back, but of course they fucking do, Chet chased her across the country, and we're not even slightly addressing her desire to see Chet being a good father. That was some reasonable shit before, now it's like she totally forgot. Ultimately she asks Cory straight out if they want her back, and he says she'll never know until she crosses that highway and finds out for herself.

Virna is played by Shareen Mitchell, and she hasn't done anything since 2004, but I think she's a pretty good actress. She does this whole unstable-but-caring thing really well.

Back at the trailer, Chet gets a call from an inside-man at Virna's hotel, saying she's checked out, and the boys believe she's gone on the run again. Shawn asks his father if he's going to chase after her again, but he says no. Frankie and his stupid little brother have a habit of interrupting emotional moments at the Hunter trailer, and here they are again. Apparently Herman stole their shampoo the other day. What a dumb little bastard. Hey says his lines poorly again, it's just hard to watch.

So that was worthless, but funny. Shawn and Chet have a moment, Chet promises to be the best father he can be from now on, and then Virna appears at the door. Assuming she overheard, I guess we've fulfilled her "he has to be a good father" requirement, but again, she said that words weren't enough, so I dunno.

Then we're at the Matthews kitchen again, and everybody leaves, again, except Cory, who sits down and thanks his mother for making breakfast, causing the clarinet to play. So yeah, I guess there's the parallel about appreciating people who make you food. But it's not just about food, obviously, it's about appreciating otherwise-thankless jobs. Usually the emphasis of this show is on teachers, but today it's lunchladies and moms. Which is fine.

During the credits, we see that Cory has planned a wake for students to show their appreciation of Brenda. Feeny and Turner are there, and they both think it's a good idea.

And then a bunch of students file in and lay roses on the casket. This is ridiculous, right? Or am I crazy?

Plot: 0.5 - I mean what happened, really? Cory had the same conversation with Virna twice, Brenda died, and the Matthews family didn't eat breakfast. It seems like they stretched very tiny ideas into 22 minutes.

Character Development: 1.0 - I thoroughly enjoy the dynamic between Shawn and his father, and we got to build on that a lot in this episode.

Humor: 0.75 - The highway joke was consistently funny, and everything Chet says makes me laugh. 

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Appreciate people while you can. But Cory did appreciate Brenda while she was alive. Him and Topanga both were super grateful to her in the lunchline. The impact of "holy shit she's dead" doesn't hit very hard when she clearly loved her job and had students who appreciated her.

3.0 out of 4.0 - Not bad, not great, skipping this one is no great loss, except for the plot point that Shawn's mother is back in the picture.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday. Holy shit I'm posting this on time today.

All images used under Fair Use.