Episode 4x06 "Janitor Dad"

Quick review of the first episode of Girl Meets World. It could have been a lot worse. Maya's actress is really good. Ben Savage is still great. The story didn't really seem like a pilot story, it would have worked a lot better if we knew a little bit about the characters first. I probably laughed more than I did during the BMW pilot, so I'm hopeful. Also, the poster in the subway station at the end was a throwback to the subway episode of BMW.

Back to the task at hand. Amy is sabotaging Alan's store by convincing all the customers that they don't actually need the equipment they're looking at. That seems uncharacteristically stupid of her. Oh, I see, it's an outpouring of her protective-mother-ness. Alan originally asked for her help since the store is so busy, but it's time to look elsewhere.

I gotta say, they're getting a whole lot of mileage out of this new store. That was a great idea by the writers.

The next scene is Eric and Alan interviewing the candidates. They're all sort of dorky balding guys who do not, in fact, have technical knowledge of outdoor gear, but they're also not mothers, so 1 for 2 there. One of the applicants is named Mervyn, and is played by Willie Garson, who previously played Alan's assistant at the store, Leonard Spinelli. Like every other time they recycle an actor, it could have just as easily been the same character, but whatever. Next scene, some Grizzly Adams lookin guy shows up looking for a job. The impeccable convenience of this event is not lost on Eric and Alan. 

At the Hunter trailer the next morning, Virna serves her son a sticky bun and a Flintstones vitamin for breakfast, which I think is pretty funny. She wants to heat up Shawn's breakfast, but finds bills in the microwave.

Much as I like him, I gotta call out Chet on this one. If you're going to hide months and months of overdue bills, the microwave is not a clever place for it. Apparently Virna's been working at the movie theatre every day, but Chet's sitting around unemployed. Shawn recalls his mother's desire for things to be different, and convinces his dad to pick up a job. At school, Shawn pranks some kids to spill milk on themselves, and Topanga comments about Shawn picking on people weaker than him. That sounds like a moral point we're going to circle back to later. And so it begins, as the janitor who shows up to clean the milk mess is none other than Chet Hunter.

Boy, episode titles don't get much more straightforward than "Janitor Dad". This show is weird with titles. Sometimes we get some shit like "Grandma Was a Rolling Stone", which, like, what the fuck are you talking about, and sometimes we get "Janitor Dad".

Back at Alan's store, the mountain man from before, named Ezekiel is doing the opposite of Amy. He's selling everyone way more than they need, albeit with good intentions, giving the Matthews men a kick to the moral groin.

At school, class begins and some asshole named, I dunno, it's probably Dirk or some shit like that, is giving Shawn a hard time about his dad being the new janitor. I mean just look at this guy, he's like half porcupine.

Cosplaying Sonic the Hedgehog or some shit, whatever. And look, there's a poster for the BooOOoOogie Down Halloween dance coming up. You gotta love those small details.

Turner intervenes before the fists start flying, and then begins the lesson. He talks about The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, and its portrayal of drastic class differences in the future. BOOM BAM BIBBITY BOP BOW. Literature inspired themes, we're back home boys and girls, back in the arms of the, you know, your loved ones, or whatever. Turner wants to show them some of the film so they get a better idea of what's going on, and Chet comes in to set up the AV equipment. Jesus christ, I just said "AV", that's depressing. The porcupine makes fun of Shawn some more, and Cory tells him to shut the fuck up. Apparently his name is Crandall, which I think excuses his bad behavior. I would probably be a serial killer by that age if I had to go around answering to "Crandall" all the time.

In the end, Shawn attacks Crandcupine and ends up in Feeny's office. Shawn explains the situation, and ultimately Feeny passes the decision of whether to keep Chet employed at the school to Shawn, citing the possibility that his father's presence could be disruptive to his education. It's a great little scene. Like I always say, the dynamic between Feeny and Shawn is really powerful (see City Slackers review). 

Shawn and Cory eat lunch in the hallway and Cory is taking special care not to make a mess, for the convenience of Shawn's father.

Crandall comes up with some loser friend of his and talks shit about Chet again, and the crowd goes oooooooooooo even though it really wasn't that much of a burn. Just then, Feeny passes by and Shawn suggests terminating his father's employment, in the heat of the moment. Mr. Feeny agrees to fire him in a couple days after finding a replacement janitor. 

At the store, it seems that Ezekiel has sold out the entire stock of rock climbing shoes, but to people who Alan thinks have no business climbing rocks.

You can see his mouth keeps moving after he says "successful", but I can't quite hear it because THE WORST EXTRA IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF HOLLYWOOD walked in front of the camera/microphone right as he says it. I think he says "right Dad?", but we'll never know for sure.

Ezekiel shows up with "terrible news from the Hill Country". His "momma's took sick". I'm quoting him directly because he's funny. So Ezekiel's gotta take off, but he's leaving his niece Lonnie to help with the store. She's listed in this episode's credits as "Lonnie", but IMDB has her as Loni, I'm not sure what's up with that.  

She's played by Jennifer Campbell, who hasn't had any acting work since 1999, but she was on a few episodes of Baywatch, which is strangely common for women on this show.

At home, Shawn details his humiliation to his mother, who holds a very different opinion. She's genuinely proud of Chet for finally not-being-full-of-shit, and Shawn looks real introspective with his pouty lips practically bursting out of the screen. The old man comes home, beaming with self satisfaction, waving his first paycheck in the air. It's honestly pretty heart warming, the actor behind Chet is so fucking good at this stuff, and Virna does a great job too. 

I've never touched on this before, but the interior of Shawn's home is WAY too big to be a trailer. Yeah, I know, "bigger on the inside", shut up.

Shawn shows up at school early the next morning to convince Mr. Feeny not to fire Chet. He really spills his heart out, and as usual Rider Strong nails the heck out of it. Feeny agrees, and admits that he was never going to fire him in the first place, that "this was never about your father, Shawn, this was always about you".

Clearly, Topanga is continuing not to care about her appearance.  

Shawn makes a mess and cleans it up in front of that Crandall guy to prove that he's not embarrassed by his dad's job anymore. During the credits, Lonnie sells a massive crossbow to Willie Garson as Eric looks on with love in his eyes. But she proves to be much tougher than he is and sort of beats the crap out of him on accident.

Plot: 0.75 - What's not to like? The store-story wasn't the best we've seen, but it was a fun intermittent break from the seriousness of the main story. 

Character Development: 1.0 - The entire Hunter family grew three sizes that day. Chet got a job, Shawn respects his father, Feeny provided the path for Shawn to find his way. *see edit below for more*

Humor: 1.0 - Certainly not as standout as the last episode, but still consistently funny.

Life Lesson: 0.75 - Topanga's line about picking on weaker people did sort of lead up to Shawn getting harassed by Crandall, but the characters never mentioned it. That line from Topanga was really quick and subtle, it would deserve the full point if it hadn't been so easy to miss, or at least if they'd explored it a little more.

3.5 out of 4.0. - This season is rocking out so far. Six episodes in a row without being focused on Cory, and if memory serves, we won't be seeing a Cory episode next week either. I love Chet, I love his relationship with Shawn, and this episode was a showcase of that. Great stuff.

*EDIT* After a small reminder from a valued colleague, I have some more I want to say. Recall episode 2x22, "Career Day", where Chet lies to Turner's class about doing cool jobs and stuff, and makes Alan feel inferior. By the end of that episode, Virna's run off with their trailer and Chet goes to find her. This is in DIRECT CONTRAST to Janitor Dad. Now that Chet actually has a job, he comes into Turner's class once again, but this time to his son's embarrassment. Further, Virna does the opposite of what she did in Career Day as she explodes with pride and love for her husband. EVEN FURTHER, Alan is now in a job that he loves! We've done a total 180 from how things were in Career Day. And that's damn good story telling. I love this show.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday. A lot of people have asked if I'm going to do blog reviews for Girl Meets World. I'm not planning to right now, because I will inevitably compare it to Boy Meets World over and over, and that's really not fair or interesting, but who knows.

All images used under Fair Use.