Cory and Shawn are at a park, where everything Cory sees reminds him of Topanga. All he does is whine for two minutes, including about how Topanga rescued him from the monkey bars when they were kids. Shawn is supposed to be our comic relief, but he's got a whole lot to relieve here and it's not working for me. In particular, Cory explains that he was supposed to go to the new Van Gogh exhibit at an art museum with Topanga, but now she's gone with Angela instead.
Jump over to the exhibit with Topangela, and now everything reminds Topanga of Cory. Angela is our comic relief now, and, well, you know how that goes. The Lauren ordeal is brought up again by Topanga, who can't understand how you can kiss someone and have it "not mean anything." I think everyone has abandoned the "she kissed him" thing, since that would make this way too easy to resolve.
That's great and all, except that in "A Kiss is More Than a Kiss" in season 3, Topanga explains that kissing isn't always meaningful. I know it's not the exact same situation, they were broken up in that episode in season 3, but specifically regarding the "is kissing always meaningful" thing, we're seeing some inconsistency.
And I know that later in season 6, Topanga and Shawn kiss while filming a commercial, and that time Cory is convinced that they must have felt something when they kissed, even after all of this stuff we're seeing now. I would kill for a consistent throughline on any of this. I'm sure I'll bring it up again when we get to that episode.
A guy we're supposed to think is attractive (even though I'd say Shawn, Jack, and Eric are all better looking) comes over to Topangela to try to make some panties drop.
Okay so that was pretty funny.
Our new friend Ricky here apparently remembers Topanga from his childhood, because that's the only romance story these writers know how to tell. Angela leaves them to their business, and Ricky drones on about some Van Gogh stuff and how Starry Night is his favorite painting. Ricky and Topanga talk all day at this exhibit and he asks her out for dinner tomorrow night. So obviously we're trying to draw some parallels between this and The Lauren Event.
In perhaps her most confusing move yet, Topanga insists that she find out what Cory thinks of Starry Night before she goes out with Ricky. So she drags Cory out to the exhibit but he doesn't want to play along.
That's just a polite way of saying "gurl dis some bull shit".
They argue about him kissing Lauren again, it's all the same exact stuff we've heard ten times already, and Topanga eventually just asks him again what he thinks about the painting. I can't adequately explain how uncomfortable this scene is. First of all, they were screaming at each other in an art museum. That's like launching fireworks in a library. And now Cory's interpretation of the painting feels so forced and he's managed to make it all about him and his situation. They bring God into it somehow, even though Van Gogh is quoted as saying "The Starry Night is not a return to the romantic or religious ideas." There are still a lot of experts that think this painting has religious undertones, and hey, art is open to interpretation so whatever, but that doesn't change how absurdly disgustingly forced this dialogue is. The actors don't seem comfortable at all and it's just awkward.
I think this is one of the worst scenes in the series. It's trying so hard to be profound, but the dialogue just ends up being word soup, it's a bunch of nonsense. Cory tells her "You'll know where I'll be" and heads for the exit.
We jump to Topanga on a date with Ricky, and he's talking about how he lived in Paris for a year and all this artsy stuff. He is clearly the perfect match for the version of Topanga that's been fabricated solely for this episode. It's funny, honestly, the writers must have been like "shit, Topanga's such a bland character, how can we write a male-Lauren for her when she's so boring?" So they decided that she would be into art for this episode. I think she shoulda called up Nunzio, at least then we could pretend her "I like dancing" phase was actually a real character trait. That's my new fanfiction. Topanga falls in love with Nunzio after breaking up with Cory and Nunzio goes with her to Yale. Hell, Angela is more interesting than Topanga just because we had to dig through her purse for a while. Whatever, I doubt Topanga will ever talk about art again after this episode. On that note, though, I do like the steps they've taken with Topanga on Girl Meets World.
After Ricky and Topanga kiss. it fades to black. At school the next day, Shawn is pretty angry at Angela for telling Topanga to go out with another guy.
Angela explains that Cory and Topanga are, in fact, broken up. She has the whole practical pragmatic understanding of the situation. This episode is far and away Angela's best showing to date. I'm actually going to say that she's the best character in this one. Funny and clever and reasonable, and Trina McGee is having fun with her lines, it's honestly a joy to watch. How bout that.
Just before Feeny's class begins, Shawn overhears Topanga tell Angela how amazing her date with Ricky was.
Cory is convinced that things are still going to work out. On the other side of the hall is the Topanga Dramatica Show. It's very long winded and it's supposed to get the viewer riled up, but the gist of it is that she felt nothing when she kissed Ricky, which made her realize that she's actually truly in love with Cory. The idea is that if she couldn't feel something for someone as "perfect" as Ricky, then she must truly love Cory. I didn't know that was ever even in question. Recall near the beginning when Topanga claims that you can't kiss someone and have it not mean anything, and now she has clearly seen that that can happen. That would make sense as a legitimate conclusion if they even bothered to mention it. But they didn't.
Like, how does this work? "I still love Cory, thus all the problems I had are null." When did she ever stop loving Cory? I just don't get it.
Topanga finds Cory at those same monkey bars he talked about at the beginning. Some nonsense happens, and she explains now that she understands kissing someone without feeling anything. Okay, so they did bring that up, that's good at least. Cory and Topanga kiss, and agree to "start over". If anyone out there is satisfied by all of this, then good for you, I'm glad this episode reached someone, but absolutely none of this means anything to me.
Plot: 0.25 - They tried to give Topanga a Lauren-story, and that sounds good in theory, but they had to invent a new personality for Topanga to do it, and that just immediately stops you from being interested at all.
Character Development: 0.25 - Cory and Topanga are back together. That dictates pretty much the rest of the series, so it's gotta be worth some points.
Humor: 0.25 - Angela and the brief interaction between Shawn and Cory.
Life Lesson: 0
0.75 out of 4.0. Definitely one of the lowest scores I've given. I hate this episode. None of the dialogue makes sense, Topanga is entirely fabricated, there's no Eric to make me laugh, and the resolution almost completely ignores all of the problems that led us here in the first place. It's garbage, but the writers were surely aware that they dug themselves into a hole with this story arc, and rather than having their main love interest split up, they decided to just shoehorn it back together and hope nobody asked too many questions.
Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.
All images used under Fair Use.
The only episode that I disliked more than this one was "Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf?" Ricky is probably the worst character in the series' history. The only parts of this episode that I liked were ones that you already mentioned: the opening scene with Shawn imitating Cory behind his back and Angela forgetting her name.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that one of the best episodes was followed by one of the worst.
One thing that I forgot to mention in my last post was just how stupid Topanga wanting to get Cory's opinion of "The Starry Night" is before deciding on their future together. Because that's the most important thing in a relationship.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you'd think that art experts Topanga and Ricky would have noticed that van Gogh was born in 1853, not 1855 as it said at the exhibit!
Heh, well that supports my new theory that Ricky is a con-man, completely bull shitting about everything to get in Topanga's pants.
DeleteSounds logical to me!
DeleteI like Jonathan Jackson, who plays Ricky, but yeah, Ricky seems like a total conman. I wouldn't be surprised if that childhood moment between Ricky and Topanga never even happened and it was just a false memory Ricky planted in Topanga through suggestion and hypnosis. I think there could have been a lot of humor to be gleaned by having Ricky around more and briefly dating Topanga, him meeting everyone, and Cory (and maybe Eric as an ally) being the only one who recognizes that the guy is like pure evil.
DeleteI will give this episode credit for having one of my favorite lines (which you gif'd) "I'm not going to kill you, it takes too long to break in a new best friend." It's so clever that once in something I was writing I once paraphrased that line and was so proud of myself before realizing I had plagiarized it and had to delete it.
What is it about Topanga's GMW characterization that you like?
That is one of my favorites as well, Christian, for sure.
DeleteIt just seems like Fischell is really comfortable being motherly. She radiates motherliness on GMW. Even though the child actors make me want to punch the screen, her scenes at home have been fun to watch, I think. We got to see her doing her lawyer stuff and being her old weird self. Seems like she's already more interesting than she was on BMW.
I'll go one step further and say that the scene where Topanga drags Cory into the art museum to ask his opinion on the painting is easily THE worst scene of the series period.
ReplyDeleteIf Season 7 didn't have ridiculous scenes where in, like, famous wrestlers bust into people's dorms without explanation to beat them up or Eric gets struck by lightning while in-doors multiple times, I might agree...
DeleteI always think it must have been exhausting to be either Shawn or Angela, because they had to be FRIENDS with Cory and Topanaga and listen to Corpanga nonsense, day in and day out.
ReplyDeleteThe only part of this episode that I like is when Cory is sitting at the park with Shawn retelling how Topanga and he met on the monkey bars and then Cory breaks his storytelling and screams at a little girl, "TOPANGA!" I always laugh.
This episode is pointless.
Protagonists are supposed to be likable. I don't like Topanga.
ReplyDeleteI thought there was one good line but I cannot recall what it was. I think it came after the gif you have of Shawn and Cory at the locker. Something along the lines of Cory saying how sad it is even Shawn has given up on them. Err something like that. Perhaps it was not as good as I recalled. I know I've seen it on reddit before though.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's like
DeleteCory: It feels bad Shawn.
Shawn: To know it's over?
Cory: To be the only person in the world who knows it's not.
And I mean, if you're rooting for Corpanga, it's sweet, but it sounds delusional to me.
I agree. It's a great line in a context that's not awful. Also, if you close kind of tilt your head and squint so any obsessive stalkerish vibes on Cory's part is diminished.
DeleteI find that dialogue the most cringe worthy of the episode. Cory comes across as so smug and self-righteous in that scene. It is Cory at his worst. Especially when he puts that little insincere “Thank you.” in there directed at Shawn. Like Shawn has really become an uncaring jerk for daring to accept that maybe Cory and Topanga aren’t the greatest couple in history.
DeleteIts hilarious that this episode Topanga loves art so much.. they decided to just drop this in so Jonathan Jackson can come in as an artist guy who "gets" Topanga. And then we never hear her talk about art ever again. Its sort of like how Shawn went though a transformation of sorts with Angelas purse.. only, that in a way was done subtly and gets mentioned later. This one episode art thing never does.
ReplyDeleteAnd why did the show change the whole purpose of the arc of Lauren-Cory-Topanga into..whatever this is? It kind of feels like the writers were backed into a corner and had to get Cory and Topanga back together and fast, so..this happened. I feel like I'm overanalyzing this show.
And Cory did know about art when he and Alan took Eric to the museum and it turned out he'd gone there with Alan a bunch of times. So it's not like Cory should be clueless about art or should have his opinion of it dismissed like Topanga did.
DeleteYes. I’m glad someone else noticed this fact. Topanga wants so much to judge Cory based on his interpretation of the painting, and then lectures Cory about Ricky’s explanation of the meaning being absolutely correct*.
DeleteYet, in that earlier episode, we saw that Cory visits the art museum with his dad, and in that very episode, they explain to Eric that sometimes the meaning of art can be subjective.
Although, Cory making an art masterpiece into something so self-centered simply speaks to what an annoying person he’s become.
*This could be more proof of Ricky being a conman manipulating Topanga’s mind, as spelled out above.
Yeah, that gif about "We're gonna be together forever" is super creepy and stalkerish on Cory's part. It's supposed to be sweet, I know, but it's just cringe-worthy from an adult perspective.
ReplyDeleteIf you think Topanga is irrational here, just wait till you get to the end of Season 6 and the start of Season 7
ReplyDeleteThis episode, as an adult, sucks now. But as a kid/teenager.. all the cute little cory/topanga episodes would melt my heart. I'm glad not every episode of BMW sucks as an adult.. kinda like ALL episodes of Full House suck now but were awesome as a kid..
ReplyDeleteFun fact: Jonathan Jackson (Ricky) was one month shy of turning 16 when this episode aired (I think his character was meant to be older than that, and he certainly looks relatively grown up for his age) Trina McGee was 28 at the time (really!). So a 28 year old actor had to pretend to swoon over a 15-year-old actor. That haaaaaaad to have been awkward.
ReplyDeleteNot to sound like a jerk, but you gotta get over the inconsistencies. The show isn't even PRETENDING to give a shit about them. Like, the writers are just like, "Eh, I didn't like that plotline, let's try something else".
ReplyDeleteCriticisms of inconsistencies just aren't meaningful in a show that actively doesn't care about inconsistencies.
Really enjoying reading these, though!
Eh. We gotta agree to disagree on that. The overarching story from the first episode to the last episode is too important. That's why people love this show, is the development and growth, so the past is significant. So to me, it's a big deal when they try to re-write the past.
DeleteAgain, I'm on an island. But I love Corpanga and I love this episode and the scenes with the painting work monumentally well for me. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteI'm on an island too. I don't have the same swooning adoration for Cory and Topanga that I did growing up, but I don't hate them or find them irritating like everyone on this blog seems to.
DeleteThis episode didn't work as well on me as it did when I saw it growing up. But I appreciate it for what it is. It's a sitcom and the writers, however inconsistent, have created a world where the viewers should root for Cory and Topanga. After a certain point, they were always going to be the end goal. So Sean saying they should have basically written Topanga out of the show and had Cory get with Lauren because of their so-called chemistry… no, that was never going to happen.
I always liked this episode, but maybe that’s because I’m just a sucker for romantic stuff lol
ReplyDeleteI've been reading this blog for a while now while I've been rewatching the show and I've almost commented a few times, but was always like, eh...I don't really care THAT much, but I gotta say the harping on "when has Topanga even been into art" is a little weird. #1 - Topanga has always been characterized as an intelligent, cultured person, so it's not outside the realm of possibility she'd be into art. #2 - you don't even have to be INTO art to want to see a Van Gogh exhibit. Especially Starry Night. It's considered one of the greatest paintings ever made. It would be like criticizing someone for seeing the Sistine Chapel when they're not really into art.
ReplyDelete