Episode 4x14 "Wheels"

So I realized the other day, we're just over halfway done! Woooooo... ooo... oo...

Topanga, Cory, and Shawn are at Chubbie's. Cory turns 16 tomorrow and they're all excited about a road trip to Atlantic City, with Cory driving his father's car. So we reflexively predict that Cory will either fail his driver's test and start lying to people, or crash his father's car and start lying to people. I hope I'm wrong. Not much else to say here, except that they make a few dumb jokes.

Gee, did Cory raise his eyebrows and nod after his punchline? I don't believe it.

The next morning, Alan explains to his wife that he's got a "Matthews Men's License Day" tradition ready for Cory, starting with taking him to the DMV for his driver's test. Except it's NOT a tradition. Alan blatantly lies to us about performing the tradition with Eric, since we already saw Eric take the test with Jason in 1x18 (Thanks to an anonymous comment for pointing that out). Morgan bursts into the kitchen and informs her parents that Cory's arrived in the driveway, behind the wheel of a car. He's apparently already passed his driver's test, so that's one overused plot out of the way. But Alan's having trouble feeling excited since his plans are now ruined. I'm getting flashbacks to 1x11 "The Father Son Game" here. A sad Alan is an Alan that no one wants.

So Cory tries to make sure his dad is okay, and then asks if he can drive his car. Alan agrees, thinking he can still spend the day with his son.

With the saddest tone ever, Alan offers to give Cory the keys in a couple hours after he runs a few errands, and Cory agrees. You guys know I love Alan, but I'm having trouble sympathizing here. He never explained these plans to Cory, and it's pretty insane for Alan to think that Cory wouldn't already have plans for his sixteenth birthday.  I understand why he's upset, but it's really his own fault.

It looks to be late afternoon when Alan finally comes home, having taken significantly longer than "a couple hours". Cory's pissed, and the two have a passive-aggressive argument ending with Cory leaving to pick up Topanga and Shawn. Alan's being pretty damn childish, just deciding to break his deal with his son for selfish reasons, but Cory's not blameless either. These two are both pretty stupid for not telling the other about their plans before today. Alan decided to stay home from work today to do stuff with Cory, but what if he hadn't? Cory wouldn't even be able to borrow the car, so both sides of this really needed to communicate ahead of time here.

Cory is about to head out with the keys when Alan reminds him to be back in time for his birthday dinner at Chubbie's in 45 minutes. Cory is reasonably pissed off and doesn't even bother taking the keys.

Eric comes home from working at the store and offers his Season 2 style of insult-advice.

Ain't that the truth.

Eric explains to Cory that he's their father's last son, and is now "old enough to drive away and leave him alone with Morgan", who goes to art class and ballet. That's... A little bit sexist, honestly. Alan and Cory haven't really done anything together in a long time, so I'm not sure what Alan is trying to hold on to, but whatever. We waste some time with the next scene as Cory tries to teach Morgan to play football and how to box so that she can be Alan's "third son".

We jump ahead to the party at Chubbie's where Cory gets another clown burger. Things get really heated between Alan and Cory, and it's honestly kinda scary. William Russ is fuckin terrifying when he's angry. Alan disapproves of Cory taking his friends to an R rated movie, so Cory's like "I really don't care where we go, I just want to go." And then they go.

This whole thing feels ridiculous. They decided they wanted to create a conflict between Alan and Cory, which is fine, but they went with "they're both upset because they expected the other person to abide by plans that they never told them about". It's not even that funny either. Too much effort is going into being serious. How are the remaining folks going to get home from Chubbie's?

Now the gang's cruising to Atlantic City at 18 miles per hour, since Cory's terrified of crashing. His passengers are both insisting that he speed the hell up before they die of old age. It's a really weird shot because it's at night, and you can't see the inside of a car at night, so it looks like their solution was just to have the actors hold flashlights between their knees.

Cory speeds up to 26 miles per hour and comments that he's breaking the law, so I guess this is one of those 25 MPH interstates. Anyway a cop pulls them over almost instantly. So yeah, I was wrong, he passed the driver's test and he didn't crash the car, that's a victory in itself.

The next scene opens with everyone at the police station and I am at a loss. Did the cop walk up to the car window and say "okay just follow me down to the station where I'll write your ticket"? I have no idea how this happened, but we're here. For driving one mph over the speed limit, Cory can either pay the $200 fine, or plead his case before "the judge". Cory responds to each of those statements with disbelief, to which the police officer replies "this is a speed trap". Whatever. Topanga tells Cory to call his dad, but Cory doesn't want to talk to that old jerk, and decides to take his chances with the judge. Nevermind that he could also call his mother for help, who's been sympathetic to Cory's plight this whole time. So today we've learned that daughters and mothers aren't as cool as sons and fathers. I don't think I'm real happy with this one so far.

Next is something awful.

It's some old home movies of Ben Savage with William Russ's voice added over it. It's not even very well done, and it lasts way too long, and this dramatic acoustic guitar is playing in the background. Alan is watching these "home movies" on the couch, looking all nostalgic. I mean, come on now, all Cory did was get his license. This is a HUGE overreaction from Alan.

Woohoo, is that the end of the episode? That should be the end, that's all that needed to be said.

In the backyard, Feeny joins Alan and reminds him of all the wonderful things that come with having kids, even though it sucks sometimes. Buuuuuuut he also says that he's just received a call from Cory, who is currently on trial. As far as Feeny talks go, this is bottom of the barrel. Alan didn't even understand it. Back at the fantastical instantaneous trial, Cory's having a real rough time. But he shouldn't have expected anything else. He already blatantly admitted to speeding, so I don't even know what the fuck we're doing here.

For some reason, Cory explains to the judge why he's mad at Alan. The judge gives Cory a balloon-sword and gives Topanga a balloon-hat.

Yes. The judge is also a balloon artist. Because fuck you.

Then Alan shows up. He and Cory argue some more. Cory doesn't want to have to go to his father every time there's a problem and wants Alan to treat him like an adult. Alan is upset that Cory would ever be afraid to come to him for help. So we still haven't made any progress at all. The judge bangs his gavel and calls the two Matthews men up to the bench. I wonder if the judge is going to settle all of this episode's problems in the next 30 seconds. First, he sentences Cory to two more years of "being a kid", and as for Alan's sentence...

Are you fucking kidding me right now? Who even is this guy. The only person who's allowed to say shit like that is Mr. Feeny. What were they thinking? This is just some random judge/balloon artist in a speed trap. I can't believe they actually put pen to paper and said "yeah this fine". 

After the sentencing, Cory and Alan look at each other apologetically and it fades out with that gentle guitar music. During the credits, the Matthews guys watch some more of Ben Savage's home movies, and then they have like a... wrestling tickle fight or something on the couch. Couldn't make that up.

Plot: 0.25 - Points for not doing the fail-the-test-and-start-lying (although they did do that shit with Eric a while back), as well as not having Cory crash his dad's car. So yeah, pity points for "it could have been worse". There just wasn't anything interesting. Cory and Alan had the same conversation six times, and it was only resolved when a balloon artist gave them some advice.

Character Development: 1.0 - Yeah fine, Alan has to accept that Cory's growing up and Cory learns that he isn't quite the adult he thinks he is.

Humor: 0.25 - I think I laughed once, maybe.

Life Lesson: 0.25 - It's a good lesson. Parents letting go of their kids (or rather, their sons, since it was established that Alan doesn't care about Morgan) and kids not rushing to grow up too fast. But the presentation was awful. You can't delegate the lesson to some one-off character in the last 30 seconds of the episode.

1.75 out of 4.0. Well it had to suck eventually. This was a lot worse than I remembered though. There's just nothing redeeming at all. It's weird, because this was written by Jeff Sherman, who also wrote Shallow Boy, which was amazing, as well as some other great ones. I don't know what happened.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.