Episode 4x21 "Cult Fiction"

Wow, this post has more views than Security Guy and I haven't even written anything yet. I hope it's worth the wait. This is a difficult episode to review. Lots of room for discussion in the comments.

Hooooooooly crap, it's Turner's class. We haven't been here in a long ass time. Look at Turner, with his adult haircut. He's handing back some papers, and Shawn's paper was apparently "bad". The bell rings and Turner digs into his former roommate like "Shawn, why aren't you taking school seriously? Do you even want to go to college? I care about you, so don't blow me off." That wasn't a direct quote, but this is: "Tick tock, the clock is moving and you are running out of time to figure out your life." That is the biggest load of nonsense that's ever come out of this show. One of the most destructive notions of our time is that you're supposed to know what you want to do with your life as soon as you graduate from college, or in this case high school. Nobody needs that kind of pressure, Turner.

Okay so that's a little different, that's more of "what kind of person are you going to be", rather than "what are you doing with your life". And that mirrors what we saw between Feeny and Eric in Security Guy, Feeny asking Eric "Who are you?" So in both cases we've got these father figures asking their proteges what kind of person they want to be, and that's cool.

This girl in the orange sweater on the right is named Sherri, and Shawn greets her like we're supposed to know who the hell she is. She's played by Tamara Mello, who was on 43 episodes of a show called Popular in 1999, but only small gigs besides that. Do you think she carries her binders the same way as every other girl on this show?

That is her actual line. Someone wrote that on a piece of paper and handed it to this girl to say in front of a camera. In real life.

Anyway Sherri is saying "Hey Turner was a jerk just now for judging you. Let's go on a date and I won't judge you." I missed the part where Turner judged Shawn. They lived together, I think he knows Shawn well enough to not be judging him at this point. Shawn goes along with it for some reason though (the reason rhymes with "moobs"), and agrees to the date. The date was for coffee, but the next scene opens on somewhere totally unrelated to coffee. Sherri presents it as "The Centre" (yes it's spelled that way) and everybody gives Shawn a big hug when they meet him. Sherri tells Shawn about "Mister Mack", a remarkable man who runs The Centre.

That's Mister Mack there on the left. He's played by Jerry Levine, who had a limited acting career, but he's done a lot of directing work over the years including five episodes of Boy Meets World in seasons six and seven. Betch'a didn't know that! 

The first time I saw this episode I thought this was gonna be a long, drawn out ordeal, but that was before I knew about BMW's "doesn't talk down to the audience" mode of operation, so it was a pleasant surprise to see Shawn understand the situation so quickly. But then it sort of goes downhill. Mack points out that Shawn is "judging" The Centre, the same way his "friends and teachers" judge him. Shawn comments that he doesn't like being judged, even though the only person on this show who's ever "judged" Shawn was Dana, and that turned out okay. So Shawn agrees to get to know The Centre before judging it, and in return they'll do the same for him.

Later that day (they're all wearing the same clothes) Shawn and Sherri are studying at Chubbie's (still not getting coffee) with two other girls from The Centre. Cory shows up and Shawn comments how much he likes The Centre. Is Cory worried? Only totally. For some reason, Cory takes this opportunity to ask Shawn what he "believes in".

Does this make sense to any of you? It feels completely out of place. This could have worked at the end of season 2, like right after Shawn's dad runs away? That would be a perfect time for Shawn to get pulled in by a cult, or even at the end of season 3 before his dad comes back. But here? Looking back over the season, Shawn's made a TON of progress. Janitor Dad, Dangerous Secret, Turkey Day, Easy Street, B & B's B 'n B, and Chick Like Me all have Shawn making great strides out of his "troubled youth" persona of the past. But now all of a sudden he's back to his old ways. Anyway Shawn's cult groupies interrupt the conversation and ferry Shawn out of the restaurant.

Now we're in Turner's classroom for some reason, and Turner wants to know what the fuck The Centre is. I'm guessing Cory is responsible for this. Shawn tries to explain that it's nice to be accepted and not-judged by a such a large group of people, even though everyone in the school accepts Shawn and doesn't judge him. Like, this entire crisis is based on one ten-second encounter with Mr. Turner the day before. Like me, Turner ain't buyin any of this shit.

First point of order, I love this dynamic. Shawn and Turner have always been a great team, and it's great to see Turner taking such an interest in Shawn again, after all this time. That aspect of this story feels very genuine and well founded. The rest of it? Not great. I emphasized Turner's line in that gif exactly how he said it, and it makes no sense. There was no mention at all of "belief systems" in this conversation before that, so I don't know why he said it that way. They should have led up to it somehow, like Shawn says "they have an inspiring set of beliefs that I agree with" or something. But as it is, in addition to Cory randomly bringing it up at Chubbie's, the whole "beliefs" thing is so overtly and blatantly shoehorned in here. The topic itself isn't the problem, it's just that it doesn't fit here. Like I said, Turner looking out for Shawn makes sense and feels right because it's been built up over the last three seasons. But "Shawn's beliefs" is coming out of nowhere. 

Shawn bails out of the room with an angsty "I don't know who I am." Later, Cory and Eric show up at The Centre looking for Shawn. Eric comments that they're all con men and charlatans, but gets suckered in anyway by a pretty girl. It's just for laughs though. Shawn comes out and argues with Cory about whether or not The Centre is a fucking nuthouse.

That's actually a fairly eloquent explanation of how cult leaders work. Good for you, Cory. But doesn't it just feel wrong? The last thing Shawn has ever been is insecure. Cory is the insecure one. He always has been. Like, yeah, Shawn's got abandonment issues, and he's a part-time criminal and womanizer. But this shit? The only trigger for Shawn joining a cult was getting lectured by Turner the other day. If his dad left again, or something else that actually relates to his character, then I might be able to believe this. But as it is, it just seems foolish.

Then Mister Mack walks up to a podium that's in the room for some reason and officially welcomes Shawn into the cult. Everyone applauds and hugs him.

She's been making that face in the background for this entire scene.

In the backyard of the Matthews house, Cory, his parents, and Feeny are preparing to drive down to The Centre and drag Shawn out kicking and screaming. Apparently Feeny's been trying to get the place closed down for a while, so he's well acquainted with Mack's shenanigans. But just then Eric and Shawn arrive. Apparently Eric has been kicked out of The Centre for only being interested in the hugs, and Shawn was just bringing him home. He's about to return to The Centre, and everbody's like "woah no you are fuckin not goin back there." Shawn thinks they're all attacking his new "beliefs" and his search for "something to believe in".

So am I! Except that it's completely out of character. It's like if Security Guy happened without any prior mention of Eric wanting to go to college. Actually that's exactly what it's like. They're trying to do this massive character development without any buildup whatsoever. It honestly feels like they're making shit up just to be dramatic.

Oh and I was actually just wondering where the fuck Shawn's parents are in all this, but Alan said that "as long as they're out of town, you're our responsibility". Even so, this seems like something that deserves a quick phone call. Either way, the phone rings inside Feeny's house. He comes back out and informs everyone that Mr. Turner has been in a serious motorcycle accident and asks Alan for a ride to the hospital. I can't imagine why Feeny is Turner's emergency contact, but fine. Everyone heads out except Shawn who says he'll meet them there.

We're in the hospital waiting room now with Feeny, the Matthews family, and Topanga. Shawn arrives with Mister Mack shortly after. Does that cause some tension? Only totally.

It's awesome to see Alan being so protective of Shawn, but can you imagine if that was Chet instead of Alan? That would be so epic. I reaaaaaaaaaaally wish Chet was around for all of this. The adults argue over Shawn, and Mack turns to take him and get outta Dodge, but the kids are nowhere to be found. It jumps over to the room where Mr. Turner is in what looks like a full body cast and he's unconscious, while our three heroes look on.

Shawn doesn't like seeing Turner this way, and tries to leave but Cory turns the fuckin safety off and demands that Shawn stay and deal with the reality of the situation. He takes Topanga, leaving Shawn alone with Mister Turner.

Shawn starts talking to his unconscious English teacher, and it starts off really awesome. "Even when I was at The Centre, it was all the things that you taught me that made me wonder if it was the right place for me or not. But you didn't teach me enough." And that's awesome. Since the end of season 3, there have been almost no references to the fact that they literally lived together for a while. So it's great to see all of those feelings that seemed to be left behind coming back for one final hoorah. And, as you should recognize by now, it's awesome because it's founded on everything we've seen so far. But then things take an odd turn.

Let's pause for a moment. Pirates of the Caribbean is a great movie, right? I seriously doubt anyone came out of that movie saying "boy that sucked, cursed Aztec gold isn't real." When you watch the movie, you accept the premise that cursed skeleton pirates are real, and evaluate the movie from that perspective. Similarly, the viewer's belief or lack of belief in a god is a non-factor here, because in the Boy Meets World universe, God exists. That is the premise that we accept when we watch this scene, just like we accept cursed Aztec gold, and so that's the perspective we take to evaluate this scene.

Even so, I still think this is ridiculous. If Shawn had even remotely touched on spirituality at any point in the show before this episode, I would probably be okay with this development. I totally understand the appeal of a spiritual revelation, and this has the potential to be profound for a character who's been struggling with this journey for a while. But for Shawn Hunter, it doesn't make any sense.

At least now it's obvious why they used the word "belief" a thousand times leading up to this. And again, that would be fine if it were spaced out over the season. But it just doesn't work when it's all crammed into one episode.

Starting from the paragraph above that gif to the end of the preceding paragraph, that's the line of thought that made me want to start this blog in the first place. Fun fact. Anyway Shawn begs God not to take Turner away from him, in a sort of yelling-prayer, which I guess if Shawn is going to do some sort of praying, that's how he would do it. One way or the other, Rider Strong acts the hell out of this scene, another reason why I say "yeah this could work if it actually made any sense." At the end of the scene, Shawn grabs Turner's hand and we see Turner's hand squeeze back a little bit in response.

I think this scene would have been a thousand times better without the God stuff, it just seems so random. The ending of Security Guy? Yeah we saw that coming. You could even see Long Walk to Pittsburgh's ending coming (and we mostly all agreed that that ending was still ridiculous). So for this ending, that came out of absolutely nowhere, I don't see how you could honestly tell me that it works.

During the credits, Shawn tells off Mister Mack .

Plot: 0.50 - It's an interesting premise. Cults are interesting. Being lost and feeling alone are interesting. Two seasons ago Shawn was lost and alone, but not lately. It could have been a cool story if it weren't such bad timing.

Character Development: 0.25 - Same thing as plot. It could have been okay if it actually made sense for the character. One thing I've always loved about this show is how Cory and Shawn give each other what they need. Shawn brings excitement to Cory's drudgery and Cory brings stability to Shawn's chaos, moreso in this season than any other, so why was it suddenly not enough? I just don't buy it.

Humor: 0.25 - Eric was funny, but 90% of this one was super serious.

Life Lesson: 0.50 - The only way out of a cult is to find spirituality? You can (and probably want to) make the argument that it's not about spirituality in particular, but rather about finding something to hold on to, to guide you and inspire you, to prevent all the shit that comes from feeling lost. And I totally dig that. But if that's really what they were going for, then why choose a God story? Shawn has a ton of other things he could hold on to. The only reason I can think of for ending this the way they did is if Michael Jacobs said "hey let's make this one a God episode". Why else would they do this for a character that has never even mentioned religion before?

1.50 out of 4.0. I'm sure some people are unhappy with that. The pleading-with-God probably resonates with some viewers on a personal level, and that's absolutely fine, but it doesn't make sense for Shawn.

Thanks for reading. I'm sure there will be lots of opinions in the comments, but let's try to keep it civilized. *EDIT* I was wrong, there are no opinions.

All images used under Fair Use.