Episode 5x10 "Last Tango in Philly"

IT'S MY 100TH REVIEWWWWWW!!!!!!!

It's not the 100th episode though, since I reviewed On The Air twice. Thanks for sticking with me this long. It's been a fantastic journey. There's nothing else special about this post, besides Dancing Guy Logo up there. That will never get old.

During the theme song we all hate, Cory and Topanga take the ALS ice bucket challenge.

As always, the content of the previous episode does not matter anymore. The work-study program no longer exists as we see Angela and Topanga working at a Mexican restaurant. It's their first night on the job, so their boyfriends have decided to heckle them and act like obnoxious customers. The results are hilarious. Who could have ever thought that Shawn and Cory goofing off together would have positive results? The lads wanna hang out with their lasses after work, but the lasses have already decided to go dancing with people from work. An invitation to join them is extended, but Cory and Shawn resolve to go to the gym instead.

Topanga and Angela are approached by two of their coworkers, handsome men with Latino accents named Sergio and Nunzio, asking if they are still coming dancing with them tonight. As you can imagine, Cory and Shawn aren't happy with this situation. At school the next day, they're a bit worried about what happened the night before.

Topangela come up and tease the boys about being jealous of the Latin male models, but insist that they've done nothing wrong. I agree with that, but I'm pretty progressive. I totally understand why a lot of guys wouldn't be comfortable with this. The boys refuse to show their jealousy, deciding to hit the gym until they can "beat the zippers off of Sergio and Nunzio."

I suppose it is now time for these zippers to be beaten off as our heroes arrive at the restaurant, which, by the way, is just Chubbie's with some decorations. But you probably guessed that already.

This is beautiful. It feels like Boy Meets World again. The Shawn and Cory show.

We get some fun antics here at the restaurant and a confrontation with the handsome Nunzio. Nunzio is clearly very jealous of Cory for being Topanga's boyfriend, but he's not trying to steal her or anything, no matter how much Cory believes it.

In The Backyard, Alan's setting up his new satellite dish while Feeny finishes up a little gardening. Eric joins the scene to hold the ladder for his father while he climbs up to the roof. And then a strange woman named Katherine wanders into the shot, and Feeny calls out to her.

This is two houses' back yard. What is she doing in here? That is not a place for people to be idly walking around. Apparently she's headed to Starbucks and totally wants a piece of Feeny's hot ass, but he's oblivious to the flirting and sends her on her way. Eric then explains that she was asking him out. We haven't had much Feeny/Eric interaction this season, apart from that imaginary Feeny, so, again, it's feeling like the good old days.

We're at the gym now, and there's some large, black letters on the wall spelling out "THE GYM", so I'm fairly sure that's where we are. Cory and Shawn use their anger at Nunzio to motivate their weight-lifting, and some jacked women nearby compliment them on their progress. I'm not sure if they have German or Russian accents, it's one of those intimidating ones. Cory calls the restaurant from the gym's payphone to check up on Topanga, but it's closed. For some reason, the answering machine informs Cory that Nunzio, Sergio, Topanga, and Angela can be reached at "The Boom Boom Room". The only conceivable reason for that is that Nunzio predicted Cory would call, and is taunting him.

Cory's now waiting outside Topanga's house for her to get home from dancing at The Boom Boom Room. He does his whole jealous-boyfriend thing, ending with forbidding Topanga to see Nunzio again. The next day, it's THE GYM time again. The jacked girls walk in and greet our heroes, who return the greeting. Apparently their names are Sonja and Cookie. But only Sonja has lines, the same way that only Nunzio has lines and not Sergio. It's odd, honestly, but I guess it saves the show some money. Cory and Shawn talk it over, and decide that the best solution to their problem is to do the same sort of thing to Topangela, by taking Sonja and Cookie to dinner at their restaurant.

Just before they arrive, we see Topangela and Nunzio talking about how men are idiots, and Nunzio admits that he'd feel pretty awful if his girlfriend went dancing with someone as good looking as he is.

Real talk, Nunzio is hilarious. Can we replace Jack with Nunzio? Him and Eric could have some very real adventures together. The writers really messed up on this one. He should at least be a recurring character. Anyway, Cory and Shawn show up with their "dates" and the whole thing blows up in their faces.

Angpanga are pissed, and now Sonja and Cookie are pissed, even though Cookie doesn't have any lines. Jack and Eric are in The Backyard instead of their apartment, and apparently he's screwed things up with his girlfriend-of-the-episode, Lucy.

One of the few solid Jack-jokes in the series. And of course Eric closes it out with his legendary eyebrows.

Feeny joins the scene, returning home from a date with that Katherine woman from before. He inadvertently insulted her poetry and now he's here, confused how things went so wrong. We hear Amy shouting from inside, "It's either me or that satellite dish." I hardly think this issue is serious enough for an ultimatum, it's only been like a day and a half, but fine. Either way, Alan joins the men outside, as do Cory and Shawn shortly after. They're all lamenting their inability to understand women and what they want, except Eric who's actually been the most logical one so far.

The scene fades over to some dance club as the manly men try to brainstorm an answer to their problems. The dance club is "TV full", a phrase I've invented to mean "let's pretend it's full, since we have to move a camera around in there". Like all of the school dances on this show, right, those were "TV full". Anyway, we see that the gang is all here, Topangelanga, Nunzio, Amy, and even Feeny's gal Katherine. If Jack's girl is here, they don't mention it. Though I guess she was stuck sick at home. If that's not enough TV magic for ya, geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet a load of this.

Eric walks out onto the club's stage and announces that men are idiots, but that "this will make up for it." Hot Stuff by Donna Summer starts playing as the boys all come out on stage and to this ridiculous dance number. Buuuuuut I guess it is also pretty funny, especially seeing Feeny up there, workin it.

EYYBODY GETTIN LAID T'NIGHT! EYYBODY!

It does one of those freeze-then-fade-out things as they finish the dance. During the credits, some more dancing occurs, and we learn that Nunzio taught them all that routine. GOD DAMMIT NUNZIO! YOU'RE THE BEST CHARACTER ON THE SHOW! Let's see, Nunzio was played by Jonathan Del Arco, who had decent success for a while after Boy Meets World, but finally landed a recurring role on The Closer from '07 to '12, and now a spinoff of The Closer that's going into its fourth season. Good for him. Also, before Boy Meets World, he played Hugh the Borg, on two episodes of STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION. What. A. Boss.

Back to the show though, Jack hooks up with Sonja here at the club, and Eric hooks up with Cookie, who still doesn't have lines. She actually mouths out the word "no" when Eric asks her a question, because speaking costs a lot more. And after that dance number, we are DEFINITELY over budget.

Plot: 1.0 - I'm not sure what more you can ask for here. Everyone had their own storyline, and they all came together at the end.

Character Development: 0.5 - Not much, but this is Shawn's first serious relationship, so even though it's not really addressed, it's interesting to see him deal with this whole "jealousy" thing for the first time.

Humor: 2.0 - The same way that Shallow Boy was the pinnacle of Eric-humor, this is the pinnacle of Cory+Shawn humor. It's top 5 funniest in the series for me.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Men are idiots.

4.0 out of 4.0. It needed some bonus points to get there, but I really think this episode deserves it. Like I said earlier, this episode just feels like Boy Meets World. I've seen some threads on reddit like "What episode should I show someone who's never seen the show before", and I would go with this one. Maybe I'm biased since that's what I did with a good friend of mine a long time ago, and he loved this episode. It is constantly getting real laughs out of me. Who wrote this... Okay, it was Jeff Menell, and he's been writing for the show since season 1. He's done a lot of great episodes.

A perfect score with only two badges. But who cares.

Thanks again for sticking with me for ONE HUNDRED REVIEWS! ONE HUNDRED IS SO MANY! I'll see you fine folks on Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.