Episode 5x17 "And Then There Was Shawn"

So I'm watching this HBO show called Deadwood, right, and who do I find but William Russ himself. He looks so cartoonishly evil with that mustache. 

I've got a crazy fan theory for Girl Meets World. Like how Cory's name is actually Cornelius, I bet Auggie's real name is something like that too. My guess is "Augustus". I want to say that Riley's is like that too, since all three names end in the "ee" sound, but I have no idea what it could be.

Everybody's being real dramatic in Feeny's class this morning. A few episodes ago, I likened our heroes' outbursts in class to those in Girl Meets World, saying yeah, it's annoying in GMW, but they did it here too. Well today that's very different. The Feenster is getting fed up with The Breakup being the center of attention in his classroom. The whole thing was sparked by some new guy named Kenny asking Topanga to borrow a pencil, and they're really making it seem like we should know who this guy is. He looks and sounds like Jack. But that's not important.

Yeah, take a note here Cory. You're gonna need to do this in a couple decades.

They don't let up though, and Feeny threatens to give them all detention in the event of "one more interruption". Just then, a ghastly ghoul of a janitor bursts into the classroom, and then slowly backs out again. There's a history of bad janitors at this school. Anyway Feeny decides that this creepy custodian satisfies the requirement of "one more interruption" (a dick move, by the way) and gives the Cory Crew detention, and Kenny too.

At detention, the jarring janitor appears on the other side of the door's glass pane. Feeny locked the students in the room before he left, so Shawn pleads with the curious curator to unlock the door. He doesn't, though, and the map on the blackboard rolls up to show a threatening message written in blood.

So yeah, as we all know, this episode is a dream sequence that parodies some classic horror films. Sad to say, I know dick-all about horror movies. It's not that I dislike them, I just... don't understand them..? I don't know. Either way, I am not going to be able to point out the references, and I apologize for that shortcoming.

Shawn thinks Feeny is setting up an elaborate lesson to teach them something, and uses his vast knowledge of cheap horror films to predict the upcoming events. Reminds me of 4x22, where Shawn had a dream foretelling their visit to the sorority. Anyway, Shawn predicts that something horrible is about to walk through the door, and it turns out to be Jack and Eric. Eric does an impression of Mr. Hankey from South Park going "Howdy Ho," and... it's... just so out of place. The first season of South Park premiered in August 1997, and this episode aired in February 1998, so I guess it was still sort of timely. Our two new arrivals explain that they saw the scary... scustodian... out in the hall, emptying the trash cans.

The jokes keep rolling. There's this awkward pause after Shawn says "This is straight out of that horror film classic, Blood In The Showers," where I guess they forgot to edit in the laughtrack? I laughed, I don't know what the audience is doing. Shawn predicts that Kenny is going to die first, which is exactly what happens after a gloved hand turns the lights off. He's been stabbed through the brain with a very large pencil. Naturally, Eric responds with "Oh my gosh, they killed Kenny," (not "Oh my god", mind you, this is ABC after all). Is that the entire reason he was in this episode? His 8 minute lifespan had the sole purpose of setting up a South Park reference? I looked up the actor, Richard Lee Jackson, and he's not a horror film veteran or anything like that, but it still feels like I'm missing something

Everyone runs screaming into the hallway and some sort of eerie song starts playing over the loudspeakers, which must be a reference. Shawn makes a few more predictions which all start coming true, ultimately leading them to find a dead Feeny.

The gang retreat back to the classroom, where Angela then wonders if any of them is safe. Shawn explains that virgins never die in horror films, to which Eric and Jack reply that they're both going to die, which is pretty funny. Shawn comments that he'll get "as sick as you can get without actually dying," and Jack gives him a pat on the back like "hey, that's okay buddy." It's hysterical, it's such a guy moment, having this conversation in the face of impending death, and of course Cory thanks Topanga for keeping him alive. It's an extremely funny little bit that presumes a level of maturity in the audience (one of this show's trademarks), and also crosses "sex stuff" off the horror-movie-trope checklist. Well played. But wait... Feeny died... so that means...

Hmmm... Jack's just kinda standing there lookin awkward... You know what this needs?!

Much better. That might be my masterpiece.

The heroes hear the spooky... sp... spatula... okay I ran out of janitor alliterations. The heroes hear the scary janitor out in the hallway, but find that he's already dead. Eric accidentally volunteers himself to keep watch while everyone else hides in the classroom. He's ambushed by a girl named Jennifer Love Fefferman, played of course by Jennifer Love Hewitt. Friedle and Hewitt were dating at this point in time, and they also did an extremely shitty teenage-guy-needs-to-get-laid movie together called The Trojan War around this time. The film was produced for $15 million, and made, this is not a typo, $309 in ticket sales because it was played in only one theatre and they stopped showing it after a week. I kinda need to see it now. I'm trying to think of how we could organize a community viewing of this terrible movie.

Anyway Eric and "Feffy" start vigorously making out in the hallway. I don't know why. Maybe she was just on set that day and they decided to give her some lines. She contributes nothing to the story. It's weird.

Angela's been doing these really loud, campy screams the whole episode, so when Feffy does her own high pitched shriek, Angela gets sassy like "uh uh, I'm the one who does the screaming." Angela being funny is like a unicorn, so I was compelled to mention it. The heroes flee to the school's library, the same library pictured in this blog's banner, which we saw in 4x11. I'm surprised we don't see this place more often if they've just got it on hand like that. The masked killer shows up and starts killing, down to just Cory, Topanga, and Shawn. Then he puts Cory and Topanga's hands together, like they're holding hands, which I don't understand. Shawn pulls off the mask and we discover that the killer is... Shawn.

I DON'T GET IT.

Without any further comment, Shawn wakes up from his dream. He's in detention, and Kenny is there, so I guess everything in that first scene before detention was real. Somehow, this dream has given Shawn the revelation he needed to resolve the situation. He begins, "You two have been together since before I even knew you." I had to look back at that bullshit flashback at the zoo from 5x03 to be sure, and this is indeed consistent with that retcon. He explains further, that if Cory and Topanga aren't together, then he has nothing he can depend on, which is a little insulting to the Angela seated directly in front of him. So this lack of dependability is making Shawn feel bad, and then Mister Feeny lets them all go home.

Hm? What's that? You thought there was more? Nah that's it. It makes zero fucking sense. Zero. How does that explain the metaphor of killing everybody? It's a half-assed attempt at pulling something out of nothing. It was perfectly fine as a one-off joke episode, there was no need to try to make something meaningful out of it here at the end. I appreciate the effort, but the execution was absolutely dreadful. They would have been way better off without it.

During the credits, it's time for Feeny's dream sequence, where he asks Topanga a question she can't answer, and Shawn and Cory are smart.

FUN FACT. There's an episode in season six where Cory dreams about killing everybody, and that's also the only other episode we have left where (an imaginary) Lauren makes an appearance. And of course, Lauren is the cause of Shawn's grief here in this episode. FULL CIRCLE BABY.

IT'S A FULL... IT'S.. 360 DEGREES BABY.

Plot: Fuck it. There's no reason to use my stupid scoring system on this episode. It's a joke episode. We all already know it's amazing, and we love it and it's a classic. The whole thing is hilarious. Start to finish. Except the South Park jokes, but they were probably funny in 1998. If we evaluate this joke episode as a joke episode, it passes with flying colors. Ultimately though, it's meaningless. Not much else to say. I probably could have written a better review if I were more familiar with the films they're referencing. Oops. Sorry if you expected better of me.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.