Episode 6x18 "Can I Help To Cheer You?"

In The Union, Cory and Topanga are arguing about wedding stuff, but it's lighthearted and fun, making us feel right back at home after the previous episode. Over in the coffee shop half, Eric and Tommy are having some treats. But things get heavy real quick, as Tommy asks his Big Brother if adoption is ever going to happen. I feel like Tommy was either misled, or never had the situation properly explained to him, but either way you gotta feel bad for him.

I said in the last review that Tommy isn't the worst child actor, but that was clearly not true. Or isn't true anymore. Every line is a test of your will and your patience. And I barely passed.

Cory, Topanga, and their respective best friends are, I don't know, sitting-in? on a wedding ceremony to see what sorts of things they want to include in their own wedding. If this sort of activity does actually exist, it seems reserved to a time before the internet, yet here we are. Topanga claims this sort of thing happens all the time, and that they just need to keep a low profile.

We meet two new fellows off to the side, the groom and the father of the bride, but they aren't getting along very well. The F of the B is named Stan, and disapproves of this man marrying his daughter because he's a kindergarten teacher and doesn't make much money. He wants this guy to join his plumbing company to have a higher salary and provide nice things for his daughter. Yeah I know, lots of exposition, and the worst thing is that most of it doesn't matter, which we'll see in a few minutes.

Stan and Cory take an immediate like to each other.

For the sake of creating a narrative, Stan asks Cory to marry his daughter, going so far as offering him a million dollars to do it. He claims that it's because Cory is nice and polite to him, and therefore deserves his daughter's hand in marriage. It's completely insane. And if he's got a million dollars to throw at the first guy he meets, why does he care how much money the other guy makes as a teacher? (Also worth pointing out is Michael Jacobs's continued theme of the underpayment of teachers.) And Cory doesn't even have a job! He has zero income and is probably in debt, but somehow he's a better fit. I guess it's supposed to be nonsense? And we should derive some sort of humor from how nonsense it is? It really doesn't feel that way, but it's the only thing that makes sense.

At home, Eric's discussing the Tommy situation with his parents, who both agree that it's impossible and irresponsible for Eric to adopt him. This point is driven home by Eric's inability to zip up his pants without catching his shirt.

Eric complains that everyone he knows has someone they want to dedicate their life to: Cory to Topanga, Jack and Rachel to each other, his parents to the new baby. He says Tommy needs him, but it's clear to the viewer that Eric needs Tommy just as much. So our boy with twenty rings on his fingers and a still-unzipped fly goes to call the adoption agency to.

That's actually really funny. It's a shame they don't give more jokes to Amy, she's got great delivery and voice, but I guess there's only so much to go around. And it's usually serious stuff whenever she gets involved.

Anyway Eric returns from his phone call with the news that a family wants to adopt Tommy, so he heads down to the orphanage to see what's up. Eric has a cute little dialogue with his Little Brother, insisting that they can still be Big and Little brothers. But that won't work, as this family lives in California. To quote Eric, "I don't want them to live in California." In the heat of the moment, Eric declares that he's going to adopt Tommy.

The orphanage matron or whatever is Mrs. Gallagher, played by Nia Vardalos. Nia went on to take the lead in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but before Boy Meets World she voiced one of the main characters on "Team Knight Rider", a spinoff of Knight Rider. As we all know, our own Mister Feeny was the voice of KITT on Knight Rider, but it doesn't look like KITT was in the spinoff, likely a big reason why the spinoff failed so quickly.

Back at the wedding, Shawn thinks Cory should.... take the money. Cory doesn't want to, because he loves Topanga, so Shawn decides to cast his lot in with Stan.

This wedding story is cripplingly boring, and not funny enough to beat out the boredom. You would think that Eric's story is the main story today, and usually the main story gets the majority of the screen time right? But I just timed it, and it's almost an exact split with Cory and Eric both getting about 10 minutes of the episode.  We're bouncing between "oh my god my heart is breaking" and "I don't care about this, why are we at a wedding".

Back in Emotionville City, Eric's filling out the paperwork to adopt Tomothy. Mrs. Gallagher explains that the other family is pretty great, and successfully adopted a girl from the orphanage when they used to live here in Philly, expertly closing that plot hole of "why are they adopting here if they live in Cali."

Gallagher is doing a magnificent job as a character (in addition to being extremely well cast), guiding Eric through this incredibly difficult and painful decision, since she knows that Eric can't possibly go through with this. She's helping him as much as she helps Tommy. She knows as well as we do that Eric is still a child at heart, still so innocent, just like Tommy. And it's definitely deliberate, having Eric say things like "I don't want them to live in California," to show us that he's still got that kid in him. It's not nearly as well developed as Eric/Feeny, but it's still wonderful to watch because Tommy brings out the best in Eric, just like Feeny did. Full disclosure, this episode makes me ache for poor Eric, and brings him back into the spotlight to remind us why he's the most loved character in the show.

So Eric finally understands that he has to let Tommy go, and braces himself for the showdown.

I'm not gonna lie to ya, it's rough. This is one of those scenes that really messes me up every time I see it. And if it was anyone in the world other than Will Friedle... I don't think it could have worked half as well.

If you're on mobile, you are missing out right now. That's A+ television right there. Granted, a lot of its power comes from the fact that we've seen the whole series up to now and we love Eric, so it's hard to say how a casual viewer would feel here. Hopefully it wouldn't be lost on them.

Maybe it's supposed to act as a cushion after that last bit, but we have to go back to the stupid wedding now.

There isn't even anything to review, really. The procession starts and Shawn makes me laugh, which is cool, I guess.

The bride is pretty, which is supposed to make us think that Cory's actually having a difficult time with this decision. And look at Angela, tryin not to laugh.

Cory begins to imagine himself being fed grapes by the bride on some beach, and thus instinctively raises his hand when the minister asks for objections to the marriage. He can't control himself at this point, and he ends up doing the most bull shit thing I've ever seen in my life. I mean this is some Full House shit right now. Cory gets up and makes a fucking speech to a crowd of people he doesn't know about how important love is and THEREFORE HE'S NOT GOING TO STEAL THE BRIDE. He doesn't explicitly say that last part, but jeez, it's so insanely ridiculous.

Wasn't the one rule to keep a low profile? But here's Cory god damn Matthews, making a speech about how important love is in front of a bunch of strangers on some random folks' wedding day. Un. Believable. UNBELIEVABLE. Who could have POSSIBLY written this! It's laughable, which might be fine if it were tongue-in-cheek, but it's not, because the audience isn't laughing. This is disgraceful after such an amazing scene with Eric. And then they all trot out of the wedding hall on their self righteous high horses as if Cory's opinion is actually worth a god damn thing to these people.

IT'S NOT.

At home, Amy and Alan try to console their poor son. Alan has a line that sounds like "Kids are a zillion", which doesn't make any sense at all, I honestly cannot figure out what he's supposed to be saying. (Thanks to a commenter, I now know it was "Kids are resilient.") Tommy shows up at the door for a goodbye hug from Eric, which is sweet, but I'm still sour over that absurd speech at the wedding.

During the credits, Shawn has taken over the beachside fantasy, but for some reason he's wearing blue jeans and his shoes. Someone didn't think this through.

Let's separate this episode into halves. The Cory wedding half gets a 0 for plot, 0 for character development, 0.5 for humor, and 0 for life lesson. The Eric half, on the other hand...

Plot: 1.0 - Tears your heart apart. Why are we tearing all the characters apart? Shawn, Eric, The Matthews family had some trouble with Joshua, what the heck is going on here? For Eric, at least, it hit all the right notes. I would have liked it better if Tommy hadn't shown up at the end, but I can't blame them for going for the happier ending.

Character Development: 1.0 - Eric wrestles with his inner child and comes out on top. With the help of Mrs. Gallagher, of course.

Humor: 0.5 - Obviously they couldn't make it too funny, with the nature of the story, but that's okay.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - Sometimes you have to make those hard decisions for the greater good.

Either 0.5 or 3.5 out of 4.0. Seriously what the fuck was that speech at the wedding, I can't let it go. It's just so out of place and unbelievable.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.