Episode 5x15 "First Girlfriends Club"

(Seizure warning on the last gif, I guess. It's flashing really fast. Not tryin to kill anybody here.)

Valentine's Day is coming up, as is clear from the hallway's decorations. I can't imagine the holiday-decoration budget at this school. Recall that Topanga found Lauren's letter at the end of the previous episode, and has now brought it with her to school for some reason. All through the series I've admired Topanga's level headedness and maturity, pretty much her only selling point, and now that's out the window. If I were Topanga, I would bring Cory the letter and ask to read it with him. It doesn't matter though, since Angela has no concern for those sorts of things and rips the letter's envelope right open. Angela tries to make a joke and it's awful, then both girls read the letter and look sad. Boo hoo.

On the other side of the hall, we learn about Shawn Hunter's Valentine's Day anxiety. Apparently he doesn't have the necessary time to prepare for it.

He claims this is the first V-Day that's actually worth something (because of Angela) and he's afraid of screwing it up. Not to worry though! "Chasing Angela" Cory is here, riding a brand new saddle for his high horse. Cory is a self-proclaimed "Valentine's Day veteran, Shawn". Yes that's right, and what romantic evening do you have planned, wise veteran? "We have a dinner, at Chubbie's." Apparently they do that every year, recreating their first date, which takes absolutely no effort on the part of either person. That's dumb and you're dumb, Cory.

Topanga slams her soon to be ex boyfriend into a locker and tells him they need to talk. Credit where credit is due, this is the same thing we saw in Wake Up, Little Cory where Topanga gets PISSED and tells Cory off instead of devolving into a sad sack of crying mush, as other women on television are prone to do. Anger is much stronger and more compelling than sadness. Thumbs up for strong female characters.

She tells Cory she doesn't trust him anymore, and doesn't know if they can work this one out. And really, as Cory points out, it's sort of Shawn's fault for giving him the terrible advice to lie about the kiss in the previous episode.

Later, a group of three girls that we recognize from earlier seasons think that "all men are dogs" after this Corpanga scandal breaks in the school newspaper. Angela tries to defend the male gender, but these ladies think Shawn is the worst of all.

It's irrelevant, but look at the palette in this scene, everything is white red and black. Interesting.

OKAY SO I'M GONNA BLOW YOUR MINDS. I'm surprised nobody mentioned this in the comments yet. We know these three girls (im going to be calling them The Blondes) are Shawn's ex girlfriends, and I had to look up the one on the left. Her name is Libby, and she had like 10 seconds of screen time in The Last Temptation of Cory in season 3, a time when Cory and Topanga were very much in love and in a committed relationship.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN THAT EPISODE?

I QUIT. I GOD DAMN QUIT. 

I CAN'T, THIS SHOW IS JUST IT'S I CAN'T.

NO.

What the fuck man! We did this EXACT SAME SHIT already! Except Cory wasn't a dumbass that time! And Topanga forgave him that time, like any reasonable person would, given the circumstances. But Shawn said in 5x14, and I quote, "She'll forgive you for lying, because you never have before, but she will never forgive you for kissing another girl." Cory has in fact lied before, and so has Topanga, so that first part is wrong, and she already forgave him for kissing another girl. So Shawn was just completely fucking wrong. They even used one of the girls from that episode. They're like,
"Oh, which of Shawn's exes should we bring in, how bout Libby?"

"Which episode was she in again?"

"Who caaaaares, there's no way it's relevant!"

Not only did the writers forget what that episode was about, but Libby was complicit in trying to get Cory to kiss Missy, and now she wants to call Cory a dog? Fuck everything about this.

Ugh. Anyway. The blonde in the middle is Jennifer from An Affair to Forget in season 4, and on the right is, of course, Dana from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter in season 3. Hooray.

I honestly don't want to review this anymore. I'm actually pissed because of The Last Temptation of Cory and I can't focus on this crap. I'm gonna make this brief, nothing important happens until the end anyway.

The Blondes resolve to exact their revenge against Shawn by ruining his V-Day date. At The Apartment, Shawn's getting ready to actually show up to a V-Day date for the first time.

Eric's hair is long again. Huh.

There's a note left at their door, apparently from Angela, saying to meet her at "the boathouse". Which.. pff.. come on. Anyway The Blondes are lying in wait at the boathouse. They handcuff Shawn to some metal pipes and begin the "Trial of Shawn Hunter", an examination of his womanizing past.

Angela shows up at The Apartment looking for Shawn, but wuh oh, he's not there. The Shrial of Hawn Tunter continues at the boathouse, and it's absurd. All the evidence is just "We dated... and then we didn't date anymore... how dare you...". It is beyond nonsense. Now Jack and Eric arrive on the scene, presumably with Angela as well.

Thank you, Eric, for your shining light in even the darkest of nightmares.

At home, Morgan's got some V-day chocolate and I do not care. Angela shows up looking for Shawn, so apparently she didn't go with Eric and Jack. I don't know why not. Eric calls the house to tell Cory the situation. Back at The Trial, who cares! Jack and Eric storm into the trial to argue in Shawn's defense. It's hilarious. Thank you Jack and Eric. Angela and Cory show up and Angela unlocks the handcuffs without the key. That's the power of love, baby.

There's a fairly decent conversation about forgiveness and trust and stuff, Eric and Jack are still hilarious, but there's a surprise witness for the prosecution.

Topanga is still unable to forgive Cory, and then she leaves, so I'm not really sure why she came here in the first place. There's actually a genuine and sweet dialogue between Shawn and Angela here, I think it's the only time that I actually feel good about their relationship. Cory is convinced that Topanga's still going to go to Chubbie's for their date, so he and Shangela head out. That leaves Jack and Eric to hit on The Blondes and escort the three of them out for a group date thing. Look out for my Jack x Dana fan fiction, hitting shelves this Christmas.

During the credits, Topanga does not, in fact, show up at Chubbie's. I'm pretty sure that wasn't actually their first date anyway.

Plot: 0 - IT SUCKED.

Character Development: 1.0 - Shawn admits that he used to be a womanizing jerk, and resolves to be a better person with Angela.

Humor: 1.0 - Jack and Eric man, Eric and Jack. Very funny. You know why it worked? Because Shawn and Cory work. And when they write these two like those two, as they did in this episode and the handful of episodes before this one, everybody has a good time.

Life Lesson: 0 - PPPBBBTTTTHHHH

2.0 OUT OF 4.0. MY SCORING SYSTEM IS GARBAGE. THIS EPISODE SUCKS. IT'S STILL HILARIOUS THOUGH SO YOU SHOULD PROBABLY WATCH IT. I LIKE DANA.

Episode 5x14 "Heartbreak Cory"

The seniors of John Adams High are making final preparations for their class ski trip. They're in the school's hallway, I think they're waiting for the bus. Now, I know that a "senior ski trip" was mentioned in some capacity in a previous season, and it's killing me that I can't remember when it was. Somebody please save me on this one.

A few days in ski country with no parents? That's right, our boys want to get laid. Shawn's even got blueprints of the ski lodge to plan their midnight shenanigans. Hey Shawn, how was the Super Bowl? What's that? Not gonna bring that up again? Gotcha.

And they do this kinda bullshit thing where OF COURSE THE WOMEN WOULDN'T BE INTERESTED IN SEX, but it's the 90's, so what are we gonna do.

 Romantic plans are better made with your partner, though, as Topanga informs her boyfriend. So they have a little flirty romancey dialogue and it's actually compelling, and... passionate. Like everything else this season, the Corpanga romance dialogue is either great or garbage. Mostly garbage, but this one deserves credit.

Anyway, we get to the ski lodge/hotel that's housing an entire senior class, and things have immediately taken a turn for the worse. Cory has apparently destroyed his ankle getting off the bus.

A female employee of the ski lodge is somehow able to assess the damage, and claims it's a mild sprain, which will prevent Cory from being able to ski. All of his friends leave to go skiing without him, leaving him alone with the female employee. The chemistry between Cory and this girl is immediately overwhelming. They banter, it's adorable, she gets them both some hot chocolate and they start to play backgammon. She introduces herself as Lauren.

Lauren is played by Linda Cardellini, who's done all KINDS of work over the years, and is still very active. She was Velma in those Scooby Doo movies with Sarah Michelle Gellar, but more importantly, she had a recurring role (8 episodes) as Sylvia Rosen in season 6 of MAD MEN! Yup, that's right, DON DRAPER had a season-long affair with LAUREN FROM BOY MEETS WORLD. HOWBOUTDATSHIT.

Hey Linda Cardellini, maybe you should find your own man instead of takin somebody else's all the time. Me, for example.

It fades to black for a commercial, and we come back later in the day when Coren are working on a jigsaw puzzle. They banter some more, and it's still adorable. Trouble arrives in paradise, though, when Topanga returns from the slopes. Shawn can see exactly what's going on here, no matter how much Cory denies it.

Later that night, Corpanga and Shangela are playing one of those silly couples'-games and Topanga's being very cutesy and romancey and blech. Cory asks her what animal she would want her partner to be, and she says a falcon, because they always come home or something. Recalling that earlier flirting bit, we can see how very hard they're trying to show us that this is a good relationship.

Wow, really guys? Because I could have sworn the entire basis of your relationship was "I wanna be like them." But if we're just gonna pretend that 5x08 never happened, that is fine by me. Make no mistake, I'm glad they're back in reality, but I can't just gloss over these inconsistencies.

Topanga invites Lauren to play their stupid game with them, which... why...? Apparently it's Cory's turn to answer a question, and Topanga hands Lauren the book of stupid couples' questions game book of questions. Lauren, the sly fox that she is, finds a question about whether or not the guilt of having an affair would affect Cory's behavior. He freaks out and starts rambling, it's hilarious.

Because they're jerks, Topanga, Shawn, and Angela decide to go to bed right after Lauren starts playing, leaving Cory in her clutches once again. They have some more sweet dialogue, the chemistry is as real as ever, and they look at the moon rising over the mountains together while some emotional acoustic guitar plays. The guitar tells us that they're really trying to sell us on this pairing, right, and I think that's the critical reason that people (or maybe just me) like this episode so much. It's not some bull shit homewrecker story, you know the one, where at the end Topanga tells Lauren to keep her hands off of "MAH MAN" and the audience cheers, IT'S NOT THAT. It's a genuine look at the thought of "wow, maybe there's someone else out there." We are absolutely not supposed to hate Lauren, she is not evil, she just likes Cory. And that's all infinitely better than the "NOPE WE'RE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER FOREVER" crap they've been feeding us with Topanga lately.

We learn that Corauren ended up talking all night when Mister Feeny (the chaperon of the ski trip, of course) greets them the next morning with a "How ya doin". I think one of the GMW review blogs is or was keeping track of the number of How Ya Doin's, Seems like Michael Jacobs is a fan of that line. And so am I.

Feeny tries his best to reserve judgment, and his disapproval is very subtle. It seems that he wants to let Cory make his own choices instead of giving a speech, which I think was a very mature decision from the writers.

Lauren gets up to start doing work related things, and Cory follows her, showing us, and her, and Shawn in the background, that his ankle is better. But when Topanga joins the scene and asks about his ankle... he claims it's still bothering him. And Shawn is PISSED. Cory tries to explain that he can't have feelings for another girl, which still doesn't answer the question of why he lied about his ankle, but here we are.

Later, Cory confronts Lauren to make sure she understands that "last night didn't mean anything." She responds expertly with "You lied to your girlfriend because last night didn't mean anything?" It's 100% clear at this point that Cory likes Lauren and is in denial, and she decides to kiss him. Now, whether or not that crosses a line, and how significant that line may or may not be, are topics way beyond the scope of this blog. And that's okay. We're supposed to be conflicted. This is the first time the audience is mostly silent for a major development like that, you know why? Because the audience's noises are intended to guide us, to show us when something is funny or sad or romantic, but this time? The show doesn't want to tell us how to feel. We're not supposed to know. It's uncertain. It's hard. Even Cory's not sure how to respond, so he just walks off, clearly affected by the kiss.

In the next scene, Shawn insists that Cory never ever tell Topanga about the kiss. I think we can all agree that that is terrible advice. Cory did absolutely nothing wrong and they're both idiots for not telling Topanga. Granted, I would wait until they left so that Topanga can't start some shit, but he should definitely tell her. Whatever. Cory takes Shawn's advice.

He does explain that he lied about his ankle in order to stay and explain to Lauren that talking all night didn't mean anything, and Topanga handles it like the rational adult she is. It's impressive for a tv show, and it'd be more impressive if I could focus on anything besides Topanga's TALONS.

 Seriously, her fingernails are INSANE in this episode. Other than those claws, she's been the best version of herself that we've seen in a while, which was definitely necessary for this story to work. Anyway Topanga asks if anything else happened with Lauren, and Cory, and he says no, which we know is a lie. As everyone is leaving the lodge, Lauren gives Cory a letter to read since they never got a chance to talk after the kiss. Naturally, the letter falls out of his bag for Topanga to find as a cliffhanger.

Nothing actually happens during the credits, it's just some upbeat guitar music and the show's logo. I honestly really like this tune, it's so relaxing, but maybe that's mostly nostalgia.

Plot: 1.0 - It's a good story. Very real. Even though it is mostly a bottle episode. There isn't actually a whole lot of content, but it's fun to watch Cory and Lauren talking.

Character Development: 0.75 - I don't really know what to do for this one. It's significant that Cory slightly questions the soulmate-ness of Topanga, I guess. And I'll give points for the imaginary development of Cory dating Lauren.

Humor: 0.75 - It was funny enough. No Eric, though, so it was big odds going in.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - I don't know what to do for this one either. THIS EPISODE IS SO UNCERTAIN. AHHHHH.

3.0 out of 4.0. I like this episode and maybe I shouldn't. I guess I just like Lauren. Her chemistry with Cory is explosive, and she's so much more interesting than Topanga. And I'm pretty sure Cory knows it. Also, how old is Lauren supposed to be? She said she moved to the mountains when she was 13, but other than that we got nothin.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 5x13 "The Eskimo"

This first scene... oozes Boy Meets World. It is wholly and thoroughly representative of the characters' school lives. Who else but our own Jeff Menell, a writer since season 1, could have pulled this off? Shawn hasn't turned in Feeny's latest assignment, and Cory claims that they wrote one paper together. Cory's paper got a B, so Feeny divides it in half to give both boys a D, but they complain about it and receive F's instead. Naturally, Topanga jumps to their defense, claiming "an F follows you around for life." Cory explains that he doesn't mind getting an F since his and Shawn's college applications are already sent in. That's not quite true though, since Shawn didn't bother to send his in, even though Cory filled them out for him. According to Shawn, "people like me don't go to college."

This is refreshing, that they're addressing the harsh reality of Shawn's situation. At the same time though, I suppose he would pay for it the same way Eric is paying for it. Although Eric did have a job for a while, so who knows. Also, the popular thought right now is that Cory is a terrible teacher on Girl Meets World since the class is constantly talking about whatever the hell they want while he's teaching. If you watch this scene though, you'll see that it's really not exclusive to GMW. Feeny's dealing with the same kind of crap here.

Shawn and Cory comment that there's nothing left for Feeny to teach them. Mister Feeny is the most pissed off we've ever seen him at this apathy (commonly known as senioritis), and tells the other students to leave the room. Once again Topanga tries to play defense, and this only makes their teacher angrier. We're talking full Hulk mode right now. He orders Topanga to stay too, calling her a "little control freak." Further, he wants Shawn's assignment delivered to him by 5:00 that afternoon. Shawn claims that an equally impossible task would be finding tickets to the Super Bowl, so Feeny gives him that assignment instead, due by the end of the week. The new assignment for Topanga is to butt out of other people's lives for one week or she gets an F, to which she responds that she's "never failed before".

Last but not least, Cory's assignment is to make sure that both Topanga and Shawn succeed in theirs, or he will fail alongside them. That was a lot of summary for this first scene, but there's a lot going on and the details are important.

I can't stress enough how great this scene is. We've done some wishy-washin with these characters this season, but this scene shows us the best dynamic we have between them. These characterizations are what stick out in my mind when I think of Boy Meets World. Shawn dealing with his demons, Cory coming along for the ride, Topanga sticking her nose in, and Feeny dishing out the tough love. I could watch this scene for the rest of my life.

At The Apartment, we learn that Eric and Jack have both had a rough time with dating lately. Jack is actually enjoyable to watch here, which is always nice. The writers did try to make Jack sound like a ladies' man when we first met him, but that is clearly not the case anymore.

They resolve to find their soul mates, instead of just dating random women like they've been doing. So this is our silly sidestory for the day.

At home, our two heroes are brainstorming how to find tickets to the super bowl, while Topanga tries her best to stay out of it. We hear on the radio that the station is holding a contest to win, you guessed it, tickets to the Super Bowl. The boys are too oblivious to hear it though, so Topanga has to sort of mime her way into getting them to notice, without actually butting in.

*Edit* As per request, another gif of Topanga playing charades. 

Ultimately, they figure it out and Shawn manages to call in and enter the contest. It's a really fun little scene, and while you might want to be annoyed at this convenient solution, we'll see why it doesn't actually matter later.

The contest is to stand up on a billboard for as long as possible in the 16 degrees winter weather, and the last one remaining wins the tickets. Jumping over to that scene, Cory climbs the ladder up the billboard to bring his best buddy some hot chocolate, which really ought to be against some kind of rule. Shawn eliminates one of the other contestants who was only here because likes billboards, leaving only the Hunter boy and one other contestant: an Inuit guy on summer vacation here in January, currently eating an ice cream cone. ...Shawn is fucked, and it's depressing, since he really thought he had a chance to pull this off.

So yeah, the deus ex radio isn't a big deal since he didn't win the tickets anyway.

The protagonist trio arrive in Feeny's classroom to have a word. And this is the kind of scene that blows the mind of the casual viewer. See, they all know that Feeny ususally goes for the "lesson behind the lesson", and think they've got this one figured out. In response to their earlier senioritis, they've reasoned out that Feeny just wanted them to continue trying their hardest, which they actually did on this Super Bowl ticket assignment. And that's what I thought too, the first time. It's what any show would do. But George Feeny is not moved. He wants to see the Super Bowl tickets.

The gravitas of Mister Feeny here, and of this scene in general, is outstanding. "You have no idea what I want." I absolutely love it. One of the best in the series. The viewer is left with this feeling like "What the fuck just happened dude... I thought... but..."

For a drastic change in tone, we head over to The Apartment, where Jack and Eric are about to embark on their second dates with two girls we haven't met yet. They're both pretty cool, but Eric's date Jill is starting to seem like a better fit for Jack, while Jack's date Carol is acting a lot like Eric.

Ahhhhh the ol' double date switcharoo. It was bound to happen eventually. But I don't really mind the cliche, Eric is keeping things fresh, like always. He's like tupperware. Eric is the tupperware of the show. The Zip Lock bag.

Shawn Hunter is looking introspective as hell on the billboard where the contest previously took place. The previous board has been replaced with a picture of that Eskimo saying "I'm going to the Super Bowl".Cory and Topanga join him to try to make him feel better. This is it folks. This is the true climax of the Shawn Hunter story arc. I want to put every single line into a gif, they're all wonderful. The gist of it all is that with all these metaphorical Eskimos standing in his way, he's already convinced himself that he'll never succeed. Because of his past and the roadblocks he's currently faced with, he realizes that he defeats himself before he ever even starts.

Then, in his most significant moment of development, he says fuck it, I'm going to the Super Bowl. Cory tries to convince him that he doesn't have to go anywhere, but Shawn sees it differently.

It's so good you guys. I love this episode so much. This was another one of the best scenes in the series, but only because of all the work we've done building up Shawn's character. The moment where he finally flips the middle finger to his Eskimos and decides that he's going to go get what he wants. Without Cory's help. Epic.

We spend the next three minutes at The Apartment where Eric and Jack are trying to execute The Swap.

They are unsuccessful. The whole thing is hilarious though, and it's due in large part to Jack's behavior. He actually wanted do The Swap at the same time Eric did, they're partners here, building off of each other, rather than having Jack's reluctant heckling like we did earlier in the season. The girls get mad and bail out of there, and later we see that they're actually waiting in the hallway, saying "I can't believe they're not coming after us," which I think is just absolute BS. That's some middle school crap.

Time to close this thing out, ladies and gentlemen, in Feeny's classroom.

Like before, I want to turn every line into a gif. Cory goes on to explain that Shawn didn't need him on this one, and that he had to step out of the way for his friend to go on his own. Feeny informs Cory that he and Shawn have both passed the assignment with flying colors. Indeed, he wanted Cory to see that Shawn can't succeed just because Cory wants him to, that Shawn has to want to succeed and believe that he can on his own.

"Then why did you want me to help him?"
"You need to know you won't always be able to."

The same lesson applies to Topanga, who needed to learn that a time will come when she won't be able to help Shawn and Cory. Further, a time will come when Feeny won't be able to help them, and that's why he's still pushing them so hard in the second half of their senior year, while he still can. That's why he was so hurt by the notion that there's "nothing left to teach", because he wants to keep helping them as much as he can, while he can. (The impact of this otherwise beautiful sentiment is slightly lessened since we know he follows them to college, but whatever.)

Another fantastic, A+ scene.

During the credits, everybody's watching The Super Bowl at Chubbie's. Everyone except Shawn...

Plot: 1.0 - What a story. Twists and turns, a powerful plot, compelling narrative. It's everything you could want.

Character Development: 1.0 - "I'm my own worst Eskimo." "I do have to go somewhere, because if I don't, I'll never go anywhere." The best part is that the writers were smart enough not to include Angela in any of Shawn's business today. That could have really ruined everything.

Humor: 1.0 - Jack and Eric were spot on, they could have earned the point themselves, but Cory was also really funny from start to finish.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - The triumph of the individual spirit and determination. Say "fuck you" to your Eskimos. Your metaphorical ones, I mean. Don't be rude to people.

4.0 out of 4.0. My #1 favorite episode. I will talk about this episode to anyone who will listen, so thank you all very much for listening. Leave comments.

 I've been looking forward to this review since the beginning. It's all downhill from here, there's only a handful of good ones left, but DAMN do I love this episode. It is absolutely my most watched episode, and that's probably true for a lot of people, especially at the end at Chubbie's. This show fully encapsulates what Boy Meets World means to me. The only trouble is that you'll need to have seen the previous seasons to really get the full effect of Shawn's growth here, the same way Eric getting into college wouldn't have meant as much without all the buildup before it.

Thanks for reading,

Episode 5x12 "Raging Cory"

I decided to take the holiday on Monday. Please excuse my laziness.

I finally watched episodes 4 through 7 of GMW. Maya is still the best, Cory is still 90% of the good jokes, and it's still pretty good overall, even if I have to pause and cringe sometimes. Loved seeing Willie Garson and Lee Norris. No spoilers, but holy shit I can't believe they actually did what they did with Minkus. I'm becoming more comfortable with Lucas, which I didn't think would happen, so that's good. Also, "Weird-mommy is cool."

Most importantly, I realized what's missing. Riley is Cory, Maya is Shawn, Auggie is Morgan, Farkle is Minkus, Lucas is Topanga, Cory is (at least trying to be) Feeny, yada yada.

But there's no Eric.

THERE'S NO ERIC. WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO???

WHAT ARE WE GONNA DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

One more thing. I've posted this everywhere already (and made it, of course), but if you still haven't seen it, here it is.

It's the Matthews basketball championship game between Eric and Alan, in scenic The Driveway. Problem is, Cory's not included. He wants to be, though, and wants a game with his father after Eric, but Alan's already exhausted after goofing around with Eric all day. Things get heated, and Cory accidentally knocks his father to the ground.

There's trouble at The Apartment too, as Jack "pokes a bubble" on the ceiling of his room and a bunch of water collapses in on him. Shawn offers to let Jack stay in his room for the time being, and it is an absolute monstrosity. I can't imagine why Angela wouldn't take some steps to get him to clean this place up, it's pretty bad. Jack comments that "a pig would never live here," but that's not quite true, as it turns out.

I hope that's a callback to 3x06.

It's probably a coincidence though, since the writers have proven that they can't keep track of a damn thing. 

Cory joins us in Shawn's room, I guess he broke into the apartment, and explains what happened with his father. The "talking based relationship" isn't enough for Cory, who wants to actually do stuff, like Eric gets to. Shawn insists that Cory has a great relationship with his father, and he's also hilarious here. One after the other with the jokes, they really nailed this scene. 

It's 2 a.m and Mister Feeny knocks on the patio-to-kitchen door as Alan is preparing a sandwich. Feeny can't sleep since he knows there's a problem and yet nobody came to him for advice. It's a funny little self aware bit, and Feeny explains to Alan that Cory's upset because of their "talking based relationship". 

There really isn't much to say so far. It's been separated into very easy-to-summarize little bits. 

There's this long gag now where Jack is trying to fall asleep in Shawn's room, but Shawn needs the light on to remind him of the headlights shining through his window back in the trailer park, and he also needs to play this tape called Sounds of the Trailer Park.It's not nearly as funny as that first scene with Shawn, but we do learn that the pig's name is Little Cory, just like it was in 3x06, so maybe it is actually a callback. Anyway, things escalate and the Hunter boys are about to throw down. Jack decides he'd rather sleep though, "in the dark, like a normal person," and Shawn looks pretty hurt. And I don't blame him! That was a punch right in the insecurity. 

The next morning, Topanga breaks into the apartment to wake up Cory.

She assures him that he has a great relationship with his father, just like Shawn said, but Cory still ain't buyin it. Just then, Alan and Eric show up at the door and kidnap Cory to go skydiving. Well that's a quick resolution at 8 minutes. I was worried we'd spend the entire episode on this, and then have some moving activity together at the end, but we're knocking it out quick. 

Our Matthews boys are in the skydiving plane now, in the longest scene in the universe. It's stretched out to four minutes as Alan explains to Cory that he truly values their talking relationship, that he loves to hear his opinions on politics and philosophy and such. Cory jumps out of the plane first, and we see how the rest of the episode is going go. Eric explains that he wants that meaningful, deep relationship too, that he wants to talk to his father about politics and other important stuff.

Holy crap, that was extremely harsh. Jumping out of a plane rather than talking to your son. Poor Eric. Back at home, Cory's playing basketball with Alan now, and Eric is the one who ends up pushing Alan down this time. The scene ends pretty abruptly though, so we'll have to see how it pans out later. 

At The Apartment, Jack plays Shawn a recording of him both talking and snoring in his sleep. They argue some more about how disgusting the room is, it's basically the same scene as before, except they actually fight this time.

I don't think this was pieced together properly. Cory's obviously not staying on their couch anymore, and that was the only reason Jack was staying in Shawn's room anyway. Jack can totally just take the couch now, (or sleep in Eric's room). So I feel like this scene was supposed to happen earlier, before Cory got kidnapped, but whatever. Out in the living room, Cory arrives to smooth things over with Eric, and Eric explains that he'll be joining the witness protection program. It's hilarious, because it's Eric, but the plot doesn't actually move at all.

Back in Shawn's room, the boys are still fighting, it's really unclear if maybe time just passes more slowly in Shawn's bedroom, I don't know. Ultimately, they both realize that they're not actually fighting about the messy room, but rather about... not getting to know each other.. while they were growing up..? It's not well written at all. I get that they both might wish they got to know each other earlier, but I don't know why they would... physically fight about it... It's weird. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

Later that night, we're back in the driveway where Amy gets to do the speech of the day, which is a rare sight indeed. She's basically explaining that he's gotta give both sons both sides of him, that this "talking vs doing" split between them isn't going to work anymore. Amy hasn't been given a lot of love when it comes to speeches, but I'm pleased with how this one turned out.

Now it's Eric's turn to be kidnapped.

So they're at an art museum where, ALLEGEDLY, Cory enjoys going with Alan sometimes. This goes back to the whole "why is Cory suddenly a scholar" thing from 5x09. Anyway Eric chooses an abstract sculpture thing to try to interpret, and he sees it as a metaphor for, to paraphrase, a father monkey with two sons and only one coconut. It's a heartwarming little scene, and it turns out that Eric actually knows a decent amount about art but always thought Alan didn't want to hear about it. 

During the credits, Alan confirms with Morgan that they have a good relationship where they talk and also do fun things together. It might not seem like much to the casual viewer, but I'm really glad they decided to throw that in. 

Plot: 0.75 - The Shawn and Jack thing was stuuuuuuuuuuuupid, oh my goodness. Sooooooooooo stupid. But I do love Alan, and this father son story felt very season 1, where Alan got a lot of good stories. 

Character Development: 1.0 - This whole father son thing grew pretty dramatically, and we got to see some new sides of all the Matthews men. And I guess Shawn and Jack sort of did some shit but who cares.

Humor: 1.0 - Eric and Shawn, of course, stand out the most. 

Life Lesson: 0.5 - I'm not really sure what we can take away from this, other than that you shouldn't be afraid to improve your relationships with your parents (or your kids). 

3.25 out of 4.0. If this review was bad, I'm sorry, it's been a shitty day. This is a pretty good episode though.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.