Episode 7x18 "How Cory and Topanga Got Their Groove Back"

I was playing Cards Against Humanity last night with some folks I hadn't met. My "Hey I'm Sean" was met with "Oh yeah? I'm Cory." He was joking, but I appreciated it.

That most recent episode of Girl Meets World was good. Topanga was amazing.

I have no idea what this episode is.

Okay so we're at The Union where Cory and Topanga are anxious to return home, lest they miss 60 Minutes. The rest of the crew show up just before heading out to The Blue Room, a "loud" and "wild" night club. Jack has apparently been carried over from the previous episode. He's completely obsessed with his appearance and blah blah nobody wants to see this. Here we are, at the very end of the series, and they're still not sure what they want to do with Jack. Topanga comments that she likes dancing too, which is hopefully a display of the ability to remember previous episodes. If so, it is much appreciated.

Later, at The Dorm, Topanga's worried that she and her husband are boring now, since their own best friends didn't even bother inviting them out. Cory dismisses her concerns, and we learn that Cory likes to be the little spoon.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Topanga's restless, and resumes the conversation. Cory doesn't seem to think that acting like an old couple is a bad thing, but as a loving, compromising husband, he decides to throw a big party at their dorm the next night.

My first reaction to this is that they've always been an old married couple, and I'm trying to think of an example, but maybe it was just Cory who always acted that way, mister poster-of-celery. Either way, it's clear that this episode's version of Topanga has her wanting to go out and do stuff, rather than being an old person.

Well this is weird. Eric has suffered a bump on the head, and now every time he sneezes he sees a vision of the future. Like That's So Raven, but not as sassy. After a few sneezes, Eric has a vision of the winning lottery numbers, but only the first three, setting Jack on a warpath to get the last of the numbers.

We're back to a classic season 1 and 2 formula here, Cory taking the main stage while Eric conducts an ultimately meaningless shenanigan in the background. Classic doesn't necessarily mean high quality, though. After all this time, it's still clear that Jason was better suited to these shenanigans than Jack. To be fair, Jack can interact with the other characters in a way that Jason never could, and ultimately that makes him a better addition to the cast, but in these particular situations where these two don't even see Rachel or Cory or Shawn for the whole episode, Jason was way better.

I just want to say that going back to find a good picture with Jason reminded me how much I love season 2.

Cory's handing out party invitations to everybody in The Union. A party with "cake, ice cream, games, and surprises." If they never deliver on those surprises, I'm going to be seriously disappointed.

But as EVERYONE knows, tonight is also Jerry Dervin's party, the "best party of the year," according to Rachel. Cory makes it abundantly clear that, by golly, he's gonna throw a super fun no-parents-allowed party, even better than Dervin's party. Shawn, in return, makes it abundantly clear that he has no faith in Cory's ability to throw a party, and honestly he's pretty mean about it.

Well SOMEBODY had to say it.

The showrunners are still trying pretty hard to make it look like Rachel and Angela are friends, but I'll never be interested.

Jack and Eric have found their way to a gas station or convenience store or something, some place you can buy a lottery ticket. Eric hasn't sneezed out the last few numbers yet, and Jack's doing everything he can to get them.

I'm 99% sure that last part was ad libbed. It's pretty unusual, but if we accept the uncomfortable premise that Jack is a heartless greed-monster, then this whole gag is pretty hilarious. I love that Eric has his name in big letters written on his helmet. It's the little things. This is weird though. Jack has totally lost his mind over the lottery. And believe it or not, this is The Last Shenanigan. The last team effort between Eric and Jack, this is it, and they're doing this sociopath Jack for some reason, above and beyond how he was in You Light Up My Union.

Eric has another psychic sneeze, showing him that someone is going to be in trouble, and Eric thinks it's his responsibility to help, so he heads out to find them.

This next scene is either incredibly sad or incredibly adorable, it's really up to personal taste on that but there's not a lot of middleground. Cory has decorated The Dorm with balloons and streamers, and now he's breaking out the board games. Topanga approves and pulls her quiches out of the oven. So yes, quite the rager they've prepared here. I bet the quiche at Dervin's party is store bought.

It seemed like Shawn as being an unusually bad friend earlier, but he dragged Rachel and Angela out of Dervin's party to come hang out with Corpanga. Shawn really is the best. And damn, could Rachel and Angela complain about it a little more? Two episodes ago they were crying about being excluded from the in-group and now they're too good to go to Cory and Topanga's party? Fuck that noise.

To be fair, the party isn't going well.

The next scene is just Cory and Topanga fighting about what exactly caused this party to fail so completely, each blaming the other to hilarious effect. To my great surprise, Topanga totally steals this one away, she's way funnier than Cory here. That... that never happens. Mark this one down in your Boy Meets World Notebooks boys and girls. Also note that Topanga insists that she wants to "go out" and have fun and be wild and that sort of thing. The argument escalates to a giggling food fight, which, of course, ends in sex on the floor.

We find Eric and Jack in some back alley near a dumpster, apparently the location of the person Eric needs to save. Jack's patience runs out, so he starts... bashing Eric's (helmeted) head against the lid of the dumpster.

Eventually Eric sneezevisions the last few lottery numbers for Jack, but then a hobo comes out of nowhere to help the boys learn a lesson. It's very odd. He and Eric together realize that Jack is the person Eric needed to save. Eric thinks he got these psychic powers to save Jack from his overwhelming greed, but that greed wouldn't have existed in the first place without these powers, so it's kind of cyclical. I appreciate that this ties in to the Playswith Squirrels future, that perhaps, even without the lottery, Jack's greed would eventually overwhelm him and turn him into the guy we saw in that future. So the fact that Eric is saving him now wraps that all up nicely.

EXCEPT JACK DON'T GIVE A SHIT. The emotional guitar plays while Jack realizes he's become a monster, but he quickly dismisses the realization and goes to buy the lottery numbers. So there really wasn't any development here at all...

Hm....

Back at The Dorm, we see that Shawn's recruited a horde of people from Dervin's party, including Dervin himself (even though he's credited as "Punk" so I had to guess at the spelling of his name), by promising them each 20 dollars if they spend an hour at Cory's party. I said it already, but man, Shawn is the best. Cory won't ever know about it though, because when Shawn opens the door he sees Corpanga wrapped up in the Twister mat on the floor, clearly not looking for company.

Topanga tells Cory they should never go out, and it kind of looks like Topanga never got what she wanted here. She stated very firmly that she wanted to try to go out more, and now in a mess of hormones she's tossing that aside. I don't know, I'm probably thinking about it too much.

Everyone goes back to Dervin's party, except Shawn and Angela, who realize that they're sort of jealous of how much fun Cory and Topanga are having together. Rachel was also jealous but she just walked off camera. I'm sure she'll be fine, she can take home any guy at Dervin's Party.

At The Apartment, they don't win the lottery for sitcom reasons that aren't even worth explaining.

During the credits, Cory and Topanga love each other.

Plot: 1.0 - The lottery half of the episode is nonsense, but I like how we can tie it in with the Playswith Squirrels future. The Cory and Topanga half is a fun idea. They've always been like an old married couple, so it's nice to see Topanga try to challenge that. Like I said earlier though, it's disappointing that she completely abandoned it by the end.

Character Development: 0.5 - There was almost development, but then Cory and Topanga reverted back to how they've always been. Jack was... sort of development, but he didn't even seem to care that he was acting like a sociopath.

Humor: 1.0 - There's enough to hold it up.

Life Lesson: 0 - Uhhhhhh.

2.5 out of 4.0. - The only thing left I want to do is reiterate how bull shit it is that Rachel and Angela don't want to hang out with Cory and Topanga after what happened in The War and Seven The Hard Way.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.