Episode 7x19 "Brotherly Shove"

The three youngest heroes are cleaning out the garage at the Matthews house, which allegedly hasn't been done in years. Cory is having trouble throwing any of his old stuff away. It's cute at first, like with his Strawberry Shortcake doll- "She's cute. She's my friend."- but then he finds his old retainer. It seems like almost every cleaning-up-old-stuff gag has someone find their old retainer. Am I crazy? Feels like I've seen this on a thousand other shows.

Shawn observes that half of this stuff is Eric's and questions his absence. Cory doesn't really have a good reason for not inviting Eric along, commenting that he'd rather do it with Shawn and Topanga anyway. TO BE FAIR, the insufferable klutz of a braindead zombie that Eric's been this season would undoubtedly make a gigantic mess and break everything. I wouldn't want to clean the garage with season 7 Eric either, highlighting once again how much he's changed since seasons 4 and 5.

Rider actually looks like he knows what he's doing with that sword.

Eric shows up now, and he is not happy. Apparently Alan wanted his sons to do this together (why not with Morgan huh? HUH?), meaning Cory blatantly ignored his father's wishes by going on without Eric. Your immediate reaction is to wonder how Cory could do something so cruel to his brother, but let's look at Eric's list of activities this season. He stalked Topanga for the sake of revenge, joined the Amish to escape a bookie, forgot Cory and Topanga's wedding rings, gave away The Union's money to an organ grinder, and was willing to kill Morgan for Alan's surprise party. In the positives column, Eric gave Cory his lucky penny and effectively saved all of their friendships in Seven The Hard Way.

Would you want that guy around? I dunnooooooooooooo.

Okay here we go, at The Union we've got Rachel and Angela sitting with each other on the couch engaged in some sort of dialogue. Yet another vain attempt at convincing us that these two are friends. There's even some jokes between them that the audience laughs at that just sort of make me hate the show.

By the pool table, Shawn and Jack agree to try to act more like brothers in light of what happened with Eric and Cory. Indeed, Shawn says that Eric got him thinking, which surprises Jack, and Shawn explains that Eric "seemed well rested." That's the running gag this episode, that Eric seems well rested simply because he's acting like a rational human being. So "well rested" is basically just code for "like season 5." It's kind of annoying, but I appreciate that the writers are aware enough to comment on such a drastic change in his personality.

Cory's at Brew Lagoon, so it's time for the second confrontation of the Matthews Brothers. Eric's clearly worried about his degrading relationship with his brother and thought this garage-cleaning would be a good chance to reconnect, it's very season 4/5, which means that I like it. Cory doesn't see the value of cleaning it together, so Eric spitefully resolves to just "get it done" by selling everything at a garage sale.

Maybe all of our season 6/7 Eric woes are just due to perpetual sleep deprivation. Maybe he was taking night classes and that's how he's graduating so fast.

Later, at The Apartment, Shawn and Jack are trying desperately to find something they can enjoy together. Much like Angela and Rachel being friends, the writers are making a last ditch effort to remind us that Shawn and Jack are supposed to be brothers. We learned in A Very Topanga Christmas that they both love ice skating, but that means absolutely nothing on this show. It's spring time coming up on summer during this episode, but they could at least mention it. And Jack doesn't want to go bowling when Shawn suggests it, even though Jack liked bowling enough to ignore his girlfriend back in Last Tango In Philly. Grumble grumble grumble.

Eventually they just decide to go check out the Matthews' garage sale.

It's a nice day out here and the birds are chirping, contrasting with the tension between Eric and Cory. Eric has pretty much shut down and is putting cheap price tags on all their nostalgic artifacts with abandon. Including the sled that, as Cory reminds him, they took up to Dead Man's Hill one winter when the schools were closed. The same hill, I remind you, where Mitchell Davis crashed his bike and "slammed his head into some garbage cans", causing him to repeat the 6th grade eleven times (re: Season 4 Episode 8). It's amazing what details they'll preserve while completely dismissing others.

The three women show up with some of their own things to sell, with yet another attempt at portraying the "they're definitely friends" thing with Rachel and Angela. Simply because the writers hate him, Eric buys one of Rachel's old tank tops for fifty dollars. Why? Why did they include this? We were doing so well, Eric was looking so strong. This was totally unnecessary.

Yeah Rachel laughs it off, and it seems like he might have just said it to be funny, but he still walks off with the tank top... He actually did pay fifty dollars for this tank top and is keeping it... It's weird.

The Hunter boys arrive eventuallly, making exaggerated laughs to make it seem like they're enjoying the other's company. It's actually pretty great, this is the best thing they've done with these two in a while. Stupid Eric makes a quick return when a customer wants to buy some fuzzy slippers. Eric ends up paying the customer for them instead. It's just like the tank top, we could have gotten on just fine without this. It's goes completely against the serious Eric that's critical to the story. Is NO ONE ELSE capable of pulling off a joke? They couldn't give him ONE episode of being serious?

The third confrontation between the brothers begins, but there's a third player this time. Some woman is constantly nagging Cory about the price of a picture frame while he's trying to talk to Eric, and eventually Cory snaps at her. The woman's husband comes to her defense and lands a right hook straight across Cory's chin. This, in turn, causes Eric to snap, delivering a few gutshots to this guy. It's a nice sentiment but it looks absolutely ridiculous. Why is this tank of a man letting Eric wail on him like this? Here's the gif, it loses a lot of its effect just because it's so stupid looking.

It's reminiscent of Eric showing up to help against Harley in the season 2 opener, against someone he similarly had no chance of beating. It's very sweet, but you also have a sister, Eric, and you were willing to let her die for a party. But if we ignore the entire season up to the the last few episodes, then yeah, this is awesome. Episodes 14 through 17 were all stellar showings from Eric, 18 was a little hiccup but still okay, and now this is great too. So let's just agree that episodes 1 through 13 aren't canon.

The tank of a man fires back at Eric, and soon the whole garage sale is one giant brawl.

The next scene opens in the Emergency Room, where Cory and Eric are icing their wounds. This is the fourth confrontation, and is, for me, one of the most memorable scenes between these two in the whole series.

I haven't watched this episode in years, and when I thought about it coming up, that's the only line I could remember. That line stuck with me since the first time I watched this episode. "Those were OUR memories!" The delivery is soul-shaking, and the context is overwhelming. He continues by asking "Do you have any idea how it felt to go down there and see Shawn and Topanga there instead of me?" This is especially cathartic since he was forced to set aside his own feelings of exclusion during The War. But here they are now, in all the glory that Rachel and Angela and Jack couldn't have hoped to achieve in The War.

Eric leaves, claiming that Cory doesn't like him and that they aren't friends, just brothers. Cory's pretty much speechless, and so am I.

That's definitely the highlight of this episode, but the next scene is pretty good too as Topanga helps Cory understand what this is all about. In the past, Cory always wanted to hang out with Eric (according to her, that's not really ever reflected in the show) and now they've grown apart.

This is a continuation of excellent showings by Topanga, and really Danielle Fishel. It's like a light went on and suddenly she's one of the best characters.

She advises Cory to think on whether he wants to reignite his strong bond with Eric and heads home. To the tune of the emotional acoustic guitar, Cory continues packing up junk in the garage. Eric shows up, and without a word helps him clean up what's left, but not without a quick playful shove.

This is a spectacular ending (there's nothing during the credits). When the clock starts running out and there's no resolution, I always start to worry about a way-too-neat tied-with-a-pretty-bow resolution a la Seven The Hard Way. Rather than solving the problem, they've both acknowledged that the problem exists, and they both appear hopeful about fixing that problem in the future. It also (can't believe I'm saying this) sets the groundwork for Eric's choices in the series finale. That's right, groundwork has been set, and I'm very excited about it.

Plot: 1.0 - Eric's hurt feelings and concerns are perfectly legitimate. Cory excluding Eric is perfectly legitimate and follows the trend we've seen this season, particularly in The War when Cory didn't want him on his team. Cory even says to Topanga in that last scene "the guy's a total screw up." So while we haven't all been happy with Eric's status as a "total screw up" this season, this use of it has certainly made me more accepting.

Character Development: 1.0 - Shawn and Jack try to be closer (even though they aren't really successful), and of course Cory and Eric resolving to regain their old, closer bond.

Humor: 0.5 - I really wanted to give this episode a perfect score because I haven't given one this season, but I can't honestly say it was very funny. And that's FINE, it wasn't supposed to be funny, it completely works without being funny. Shawn and Jack were silly, but we lost them after the garage sale, and then it was all business.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - Brother stuff.

3.5 out of 4.0. The Matthews Bruthassss. For the humor side of Boy Meets World, episode 17 is probably my favorite this season, but for exploring the relationship between characters that we love, this has to be my favorite. And a lot of it is owed to Eric finally being "well rested." BUT KBM WHAT ABOUT THE CLASSROOM SCENE AT THE END OF THE FINALE?!????? Yeah yeah, that's the best scene in the season, but it hardly makes up for the 40-minute-clip-show of a finale. I don't know, I haven't watched the finale in a while, I guess we'll find out.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday. I'm not excited about it.

All images used under Fair Use.

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.

Episode 7x17 "She's Having My Baby Back Ribs"

I meant to say last time that Playswith Squirrels is still wearing all his usual rings on his fingers, even though he claims to have sold all his worldly possessions. I'm not really sure why.

And now for something completely different.

I've referred to Jack as Bronze Adonis Jack a few times, and today that's how he views himself. He's here in The Union with the female characters and he starts showing off his abs, to the amusement of Rachel and Angela. People generally view this as douchey behavior, and it is, but in all honesty I would probably want to show them off too. To the side, Topanga eats pizza and looks on at the beautiful people doing beautiful things, clearly struggling with some body image issues. The Beautifuls head off to class and we see Shawn and Cory getting coffee at Brew Lagoon.

So this interesting. In the first half of Seven The Hard Way, Shawn is clean shaven, and then in The Future he has a very beatnik goatee. I think it was real and Rider decided to keep it, because now Shawn has a goatee.

Shawn+Cory is as old as time, but we've got something new and exciting brewing on the other side of The Union. Eric sits down near Topanga with a big sub sandwich, starts to eat some pizza, and then the two discuss how they're both getting fat. I cannot explain why, but this works SO well.

Maybe season 1 Topanga was on to something when she had that crush on Eric. Maybe it's because Topanga's had so much practice being patient with Cory that she's actually able to be compassionate toward Eric here, a refreshing change from how everyone's been an ass to him this season. I can't say for sure what makes this duo so fun to watch, but they've instantly pulled me into the episode. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this.

Toperic make a pact to start dieting, and they both promise not to tell anyone about it. Eric shoves some pizza in his mouth and the audience cheers. So clearly this isn't going to be very serious. This isn't the "eating disorder" episode of Full House.

At The Dorm, Topanga's feeling insecure as well as nauseated, and she's having trouble zipping up her pants.

She says "Oh no... I have to go," and heads out the door. We all know how this episode goes, and even with the future events in mind, her exit makes no sense. None whatsoever, I cannot figure it out.

So we cut to Cory and Goatee Boy enjoying some waffles in bed, and Shawn comes to the reasonable conclusion that Topanga is pregnant, based on the information that Cory has given him. Almost every television show does a pregnancy story at some point, usually with a big season-ending cliffhanger, and almost every one of them is completely awful. "She's pregnant but I can't bring it up because X," "I'm pregnant but I can't tell him because X." You know the ones. This episode seems to be almost a satire of pregnancy episodes. The same way that the audience assume's that there's going to be a pregnancy episode, the characters assume that Topanga is pregnant. And as we all know, every pregnancy storyline could be easily solved with the slightest bit of communication between those involved. Jacobs has decided to parody that by having Shawn vehemently insist that Cory simply talk to his wife to easily sort things out, yet Cory continues to make outlandish decisions without ever talking to Topanga.

So does this merely fall into the "misunderstanding" trope, where we have to wait until the end for everyone to go "ohhhhhhhhhhhhh now I get it"? As it turns out, no, there's one more twist coming up to avoid that cliche too.

At The Union, we see some more absolutely fantastic teamwork between Topanga and Eric. This is so beautiful. It actually feels like the Shawn+Cory of seasons past, a goofy team trying to work through a plan that's bound to fail. I am loving it.

Cory walks in as Eric puts his hand on Topanga's stomach and comforts her, but of course Eric is just talking about the weight debacle. Topanga heads out, leaving Cory to confront his brother. So right away we, the seasoned television veteran, groan and roll our eyes, bracing ourselves for the imminent laughtrack resulting from the "misunderstanding." Sad to say, that's pretty much exactly what happens, Cory thinks they're having a conversation about pregnancy, Eric thinks it's about dieting, and anyone of us could have written this entire dialogue.

The good news is that the tone isn't serious at all. It's not supposed to be creating drama or tension, as it might in other shows. It's all very silly, the Matthews brothers are both doing faces and voices and wild gestures. There's a good amount of fun to be had here, even though it's totally predictable.

Cory runs outside and informs Shawn that he was right about the pregnancy. The lips are loose here in Philadelphia, so the news quickly spreads to everyone in the city, except, somehow, Topanga. It even reaches some nameless guy whose only response is to ask who Topanga is. It's weird. Random extras usually don't get lines. This was his big break.

The game of city-wide telephone has resulted in Cory's parents and Feeny believing that Cory is adopting a 14 year old Chinese boy, which is funny, and Cory quickly sets them straight with his own version of the not-truth. Alan is of course very angry, but some totally unrealistic comments on his part derail his tirade. Eric shows up and derails things further, raving about breast feeding, and is soon back out the door chasing after the ice cream man. This felt like the standard season 7 Eric where nobody really gives a shit about what he's saying and they're all glad when he's gone again. Not my favorite.

The rest of this scene feels very odd to me. They do the whole emotional talk about the magic and wonder of fatherhood. Except, unlike the previous scenes, this one is totally sincere. The touching guitar music plays and comes to terms with the idea of being a father. This is the sort of thing you'd expect in every other show, and I suppose the first time viewer might not be sure whether or not Topanga's pregnant, but I feel like it should be obvious from the beginning. The rest of the episode works perfectly fine without this. So why is it here?

And just like that, right after Cliche Fest 1999, we're back in anti-cliche mode as both Amy and Shawn tell Cory to go talk to Topanga about this, and still he refuses.

Cory resolves to throw a secret surprise ninja baby shower for Topanga, and all this has me totally convinced that it's making sport of the fact that this type of plot can be resolved so easily.

The party is at The Union, obviously, where Angela and Topanga have just arrived. Like I said earlier, you would expect this sort of thing to be resolved at the end, but Topanga tells Angela flat out before they go inside that she is not pregnant, which leaves the next seven minutes wide open.

Topanga's about to tell everyone the truth, until they start handing her gifts. Including a shiny new DVD PLAYER WOAHHHHHHHHH. That was hot shit back then. So she decides to go along with the pregnancy nonsense. I've seen "She's pregnant and doesn't want to say anything," I've seen "They think she's pregnant  but don't want to say anything," but this is the only show I know of with "They think she's pregnant and she pretends to be to get gifts." It's unique. Topanga's doing something exciting and different. I like it a lot.

Morgan pushes in Nana Boo Boo in her wheelchair, who has apparently got quite a gift for her grandson.

I mean this has to be a total farce now, right? There is nothing resembling a standard pregnancy episode anymore.

Topanga refuses to give up on the charade, and it's all very entertaining, until Cory has an outpouring of love and support that makes her feel guilty. I was fine with it until he did the "don't care about the gender as long as it's healthy" line. GOD it's so tired! AS LONG AS IT'S HEALTHY

AS LONNNAAIII HEEEAAYYYYYYYYY


Come on guys, we were supposed to be anti cliche, I hate that line so muchhhhhhhhhhhh. And hey, what if it's NOT healthy? Pretty sure Joshua was unhealthy at first, you wanna just throw him to the gutter? Anywayyyyyyyyyyyyyy, Topanga does probably the funniest voice she ever does on this show when she whispers goodbye to the DVD player. Actually this might be the only silly voice she does on the show. It's a shame.

Topanga finally comes clean to everybody and it goes about how you'd expect, nothing bad, nothing great. Everyone assures her that she is still gorgeous and not fat, including Eric.

I don't know how to describe how perfect Will's delivery (pun intended) is on that line. It's so casual and apathetic, like it's just something everybody does. I adore that line. Definitely one of my favorites this season.

Eric pulls the same stunt on the guy standing behind him, and one of the extras in the background is trying SO HARD. One of my favorite games to play is to find the extras that are trying way too hard. And I know it's mean, I'm sorry, they just want to act and prove that they can act, I'm sure I'd do the same thing, but damn is it funny to watch.

The situation devolves into a bunch of beautiful people explaining how they're not that beautiful. Even Jack, who was apparently fat growing up, at which point he was known as Jumbo Jack. I don't know how that's supposed to make us feel better, he's still Bronze Adonis Jack now. Eric gives him a hard time though, which is delightful.

All these random people are still standing around watching, making the whole thing pretty uncomfortable. Nana Boo Boo takes back her giant check, and that's that. At The Dorm, Cory and Topanga gaze toward the future when they finally do have a kid, and Topanga suggests that they keep practicing in the meantime. You know what I've just decided? The wedding was worth it. I'm glad Cory and Topanga got married because it has allowed them to talk about sex like an actual thing people like to do, instead of the spooky woo-woo television-taboo of *gasp* premarital sex.

It's just music during the credits.

Plot: 0.75 - Every series has to have a pregnancy story, and this was refreshing. I would have gone for the full point were it not for that segment in the middle where it felt too emotional with Amy and Alan, like we were supposed to be taking the pregnancy seriously.

Character Development: 1.0 - I'm just giving it for the beautiful chemistry between Topanga and Eric. The only time we got close to seeing that dynamic was when Eric wanted revenge against her earlier this season. And despite my better judgement, I loved that too.

Humor: 1.0 - Everybody was awesome. Except Jack, honestly. That Jumbo Jack story really isn't very interesting or funny, but Eric's reaction to it is fucking amazing.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Beauties gonna beauty. But try not to compare yourself to other people. I haven't talked much about the body image thing because it really fell to the background once the pregnancy stuff started. And of course Topanga isn't really fat, she's always been great looking, but it's still believable that she'd want to cut a few pounds after spending time with her-only-quality-is-her-appearance Rachel and Bronze Adonis Jack.

3.25 out of 4.0. This is one of my favorites of season 7. It feels like a return to form. We took something that most shows would handle in a boring and cliche way, and handled it in a different and entertaining way. And I understand the desire to broach the subject of children with Cory and Topanga. I'm sure lots of fans wanted to know about their future in that regard, and this episode gives them a very confident thumbs up, that is, that they'll happily have children some day. And as we now know from Girl Meets World, that's what happened.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday. Enjoy your Majora's Mask 3DS in the meantime.

Holy crap we're almost done.

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Episode 7x16 "Seven the Hard Way (Part 2)"

I like the title a lot. It's a reference to rolling a seven "the hard way" in the game craps, as well as that our group of seven friends are having a hard time reconciling. If we were to define a value for "title cleverness as it relates to content," this one would be pretty high.

The Seven have all been corralled into a classroom by Mister Feeny. I'm not sure how this could have possibly been accomplished. Maybe this is one of those classes that they all have together and he just kept them afterward. Eric has taken a position of command alongside Feeny, as he is by far the most concerned of the seven. We had our hearts broken with Eric in the previous episode, but he seems to have set that aside for the greater good (read as: the writers decided to forget about it). The writers also seem to have forgotten that they put Shawn and Cory at odds as The War ended, because now they're as bromancey as ever, to Topanga's great annoyance. We observed that this is the most compelling dynamic to come out of The War, so hopefully it reaches a meaningful resolution.

So we've got three main threads to deal with here.
1. Topanga wants to be Cory's #1, and despite what Shawn said at the wedding, he's evidently still got that spot.
2. Jack and Angela feel like outsiders since they haven't been around as long.
3. Rachel feels like a SUPER outsider since she hasn't been around very long AND she is no one's girlfriend or relative or close friend, like Jack with Shawn/Eric and Angela with Shawn/Topanga.

There's also the fourth thread of everyone completely disrespecting Eric and treating him like a loser, but it seems like we're erasing that one, either to simplify the plot (most likely) or to show us how mature Eric is by being able to set his own issues aside for the greater good (giving the writers too much credit).

Rachel claims that she doesn't fit in with "these people" and heads for the door before being stopped by Eric. Feeny decides to treat everyone like the children they're acting like, telling them all to write down on a sheet of paper what they like about each other. The prospect makes Rachel stay for a moment, but everyone is too busy fighting to write anything down, causing Rachel to head out the door. It's actually a funny contrast to the Big Shawn Exit, this is the Small Quiet Rachel Exit.

I want to say that all of the petty arguing going on between The Non-Eric Six is really well written. These are all genuine issues derived from what we've actually seen on the show, so there's some real bite to these fights.

Pragmatic Cory insists that no one will care about these stupid little fights by next week, which I appreciate since in most cases he'd be right. Feeny responds by dismissing everyone from the room, not because he agrees with Cory, but because he's fed up with their attitudes. Eric protests, but they all leave and things fall apart even more in the hallway when Cory (reluctantly) decides to talk with Topanga instead of Shawn. Shawn drastically overreacts to this, especially when you recall what he said at Corpanga's wedding, but you know, overreacting is just the Shawn Hunter Way.

It fades out after Shawn's Big Exit, and then back in on Cory and Topanga arriving at a retirement party for Mister Feeny in Future-2006.

I've spent a good amount of time thinking about how to review this part. The next 10 minutes are a Ghost of Christmas Future situation, and I figure everyone here knows almost all the lines by heart. What can I say that's not just preaching to the choir? I never managed to come up with a good answer to that question, so let's just wing it. 

Corpanga run into Angela first, and she's wearing leather pants which is probably the most interesting thing about her. Cory leaves the girls in search of alcohol and finds Jack by the drinks table. Okay this is actually something I want to talk about. Jack has become a captain of industry, real 1% type guy, and he doesn't have much to say to dirty proles like Cory and Shawn.

Rather than make me fearful of what Jack could become, as was intended, it makes me regret what he could have been. When we first met Jack, his only real trait was that he's Shawn's brother. That got solved after like two episodes, and since then he's basically just been Eric's sidekick. But what if he'd been more like his filthy rich stepdad, sort of cold and elitist, aimed at becoming a businessman, and then he would be slowly turned away from that by spending time with Eric and Rachel and Shawn. That's a solid development arc, and then we would actually feel something when we see him this way in The Future That Could Be. We would say "Oh no without his friends he went back to being a cold businessman." It's a shame, he would have been ten times more interesting, and his part of this scene would have been highly emotional.

Time to meet Shawn. He's having a conversation with Feeny about his freelance writing for Rolling Stone, clearly a step up from "This entire paper is in one sentence." I like it though.

I almost wish this were the real future just for that, Shawn keeping in touch with Feeny. It's very City Slackers. So let's just assume that that happens in the real timeline too.

Cory, Topanga, and Angela find their way over to Shawn. Shawn claims not to know what Angela's been up to all this time (she is also a freelance writer), and then she has to leave. Now we learn that Shawn actually has been following her writing all this time, and I'm not a very big fan of that. It's the same problem as always, that I just don't buy into the idea that Shawn and Angela are destined for each other, and we're supposed to think that he missed his big chance to get her again now. But I don't feel any of that, to me it's just weird that he hasn't been able to move past her for seven years, more than twice as long as he even knew her. I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I am terrified of the fact that she's going to be on Girl Meets World, for the same reason.

So Eric has become a hermit and changed his name to Playswith Squirrels, and he carries around his manifesto. Apparently, all hermits have one.

There's a minute long exchange between Playswith and Jack, and once again this would be a million times more powerful if Jack had been on the road to being this coldhearted businessman before he met Eric. Jack even says "What is this power you have over me?" Your homework for tonight is to watch this episode while pretending that my new backstory for Jack is canon. I'm telling you, it's infinitely better.

Everyone begins to gather in the center of the room and there's a joke where Playswith uses "niche" instead of "niece", which is funny on its own, but even funnier when you remember that he used "niece" instead of "niche" in episode 14. Both times Feeny corrected him, and both times Eric suggested that Feeny was drunk. It is hilarious.

They all begin to wonder what happened to Rachel, and she answers that question herself, walking toward their group from the background. She's got this insane dixie hairstyle and outfit, and she's trying to do like a southern accent. Let me be frank here. This is a clown show. I am nowhere near taking this at all seriously, it's just so stupid. I think if she hadn't done the accent, or if she weren't loudly chewing gum, I could accept it, but this is a caricature. I cannot take it seriously, I'm sorry. So once again the writers have failed at making me care about Rachel. And unlike Jack, this gives me no ideas for a better backstory for her.

Yeah, I'm with you, Topanga. By the way Playswith Squirrels married a moose. They're very happy.

Feeny asks about Playswith's manifesto, and apparently it's a compendium of all his knowledge. So they decide to take a look. As you all know, the only writing is on the first page, where it says "Lose one friend, lose all friends, lose yourself."

Feeny tells Mister Squirrels that he was always his most interesting student, which falls into the same category as that "correspondence" exchange between Feeny and Shawn. I think everyone responds to this scene so well because it reminds us of the Eric of yore. Yeah he's being silly, but everyone is still listening to him. They're all taking him seriously. And as we've so thoroughly sorted out, that's the key difference between past Eric and season 7 Eric. Everyone is taking him seriously despite his eccentric presentation. And dammit all that's how it's supposed to be.

The screen wibble-wobbles us back in time to just after Rachel leaves the classroom. Only this time, Eric immediately chases after her and fireman-carries her back into the room. He shows her that he wrote something down on his piece of paper, and indeed it's the same thing Playswith Squirrels wrote in his manifesto.

A sort of friendship-dogpile begins to build up on the floor, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me smile, but I'm forced to come at this as a critic. Those three problems I listed earlier are all solved right now with one or two sentences. The same problems that caused all these friendships to fall apart are solved almost instantly by very obvious sentiments. They're just like "We like you Rachel" and that's it. Jack and Angela feeling like outsiders is never even addressed, and the Topanga/Shawn issue gets dismissed almost immediately. You get a nice feeling from watching this, but if you think about it a little more it's really not that satisfying.

They all go after Feeny at the end, and at some point Matthew Lawrence gets hit in the eye.

I can't see exactly what happens, but it's funny to me that he's breaking character right in the middle of this scene.

This is an unconventional episode, so I don't think my conventional scoring system would be meaningful. Playswith Squirrels is enough to make anyone love this episode. Beyond that, everyone else's future self was well written, I especially like what they did with Shawn and Feeny. Oh except Rachel, hers was an absolute circus. This whole thing is centered on Rachel, and at no point in either Part 1 or 2 was I able to feel sympathetic toward her, so in that regard the writers have failed. But that's more of a long term failure starting from her introduction than a failure in this particular episode. If we had cared about her in any way before The War, this two-parter would have gone off without a hitch. There's also the feeling of a huge potential if Jack had my new backstory. Finally, when we also consider the extremely shallow resolution at the end, we're forced to wonder, would anyone really care about this without Playswith Squirrels?

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 7x15 "The War (Part 1)"

Alright, here we are. This episode and its successor are definitely the most iconic of season 7. You think about season 7, and this is what comes to mind. Well maybe that's not true, you mostly think of part 2, which is intergalactically famous. Either way, they're far more memorable than the series finale. Honestly I think this sequence could have worked as the series finale, but I guess there just wasn't enough Joshua, there wasn't enough Michael Jacobs's kid for this to be a proper finale.

And to the folks who pointed out the Cat's in the Cradle lyric references, thanks! Both instances of that went completely over my head.

So last review I sarcastically claimed that they would surely reintroduce the fact that Angela and Rachel are living together, as well as Rachel's job as an RA. The universe does not allow me to have fun, so indeed that's what happens immediately in this episode. Shawn and Angela are making out on Angela's bed, apparently they're the new Jack+Rachel, while Cory and Topanga read magazines and make an inconsiderate mess on Rachel's bed.

Rachel comes home complaining about how awful her RA job is. Apparently the only reason she took this job was to get a reserved parking spot, but someone parked in her spot today! And clearly that is grounds for losing your fucking shit. But hey, she's had a bad day, there's more going on here than just the parking spot, and it's all made worse when we learn that Shawn Hunter is the parking spot stealing troublemaker. Instead of just apologizing, Shawn and Cory decide to be unreasonably mean to Rachel about it.

It has the same feeling as You Light Up My Union, when these two went through Rachel's underwear. The actors are doing the exact same voices as that episode too, and we're feeling that same, like, "who are these guys?" as we did back then. So I'm really not a fan of that aspect, but we need to start a war here which means SOMEBODY'S gotta be a jerk.

Rachel bans the boys from The Dorm and they swear their revenge. The War begins the next morning when Rachel and Angela are awoken by the sound of Rachel's car alarm going off inside their room. Because that's where the car is. While The Dorm Car Strike may not have been fully warranted, it was certainly an impressive move by the Cory Shawn Federation to kick off The War.

The War's first parley takes place here in The Union, and the Rachel Republic has brought UN Inspector Feeny to investigate allegations of war crimes. But after hearing the story, Feeny... doesn't dish out any punishment at all.

It speaks to the cosmic power of Team Cory Shawn that not even Feeny can bring them down. Except that he's brought them down a thousand times before. Maybe Feeny got laid that morning, or maybe he has a soft spot for the boys' pranks after Bee True. Whatever the reason, it looks like they've gotten away with this one. Speaking of, Dean Bolander got totally swept under the rug after her wedding at the end of season 6. State of the Unions was her last episode in the series. I don't think they even mention her this season.

The girls break The First Parley as Rachel squirts water out of a water bottle onto Cory, and Angela does the same into Shawn's pants. This event is known to most historians as The Union Water Ambush, and is widely regarded as a turning point in The War. These sorts of guerilla tactics were largely ineffective, yes, but they set the tone for future events.

Topanga arrives as the boys are recuperating from The Union Water Ambush, and it's unclear at first who she'll be reinforcing, but indeed she views The Dorm Car Strike favorably, and thus lends her strength to the Cory Shawn Federation.

See that guy in the background? That is amazing.

The Second Parley occurs in the independent border nation of The Apartment. Both the Rachel Republic and the Cory Shawn Federation (or CSF) have held ground here in the past, and now they're both looking to bolster their ranks. The Kingdom of Jack has long been allied to the CSF under the terms of the Treaty of Hunter Brotherhood, but Prime Minister Rachel makes some ethically-grey promises (that will likely go unfulfilled) to King Jack, convincing him to renounce the CSF and fall under Rachel's banner.

The United States of Eric are also in attendance at The Second Parley, constantly trying to insert themselves into The War, even though no one wants them there. I know it sets up the plot, but this is a perfect example of the changes they made to Eric this season. What happened to "THE MATTHEWS BRUTHAAAS"? And Jack is his best friend for crying out loud.

Feeny's giving a lecture to all of the warring nations, which is odd since some are seniors while the others are sophomores. The lecture is on the Civil War, and hey! That's awesome, we haven't had a school lesson tie in with the plot for far too long.

After a brief ceasefire between Shawn and Angela, the flames of war reignite here in the classroom. The United States of Eric plead for the others to make peace, despite just yesterday being desperate to join The War.

Okay I'm done with the war-history gag now, because there's no good way to describe what's about to happen. We quickly discover that Team Rachel put superglue on the chairs of Cory, Shawn, and Topanga, then poured honey on them and left the room as a ferocious bear roams into the classroom.

As we all know, the final straw comes next in The Union, where Cory and Shawn have blown up a sexy picture of Rachel and put it on display. The prank war is over at this point, and everyone thinks Shawn and Cory crossed the line with this since, as we all know, implied nudity is worse than literally putting peoples' lives in danger. This poster thing is a pretty scummy thing to do, and definitely goes beyond the conventional standards of a prank war, but RACHEL ATTACKED THEM WITH A BEAR. I really wish they hadn't done the bear thing. It's so absurd and over the top that it takes away from the emotion of this scene. How can I take all these emotions seriously when they just got attacked by a huge bear in a classroom? How can Rachel play the victim when she almost killed Cory, Shawn, and Topanga with a bear? I also want to point out once again that they can't get through a single story involving Rachel without bringing up her appearance. The fact that she's good looking has to come up EVERY SINGLE TIME.

The much more compelling aspect here is when Topanga shows up. Apparently she wasn't informed about the posters, and takes the exclusion personally. In fact, the whole reason she sided with Team Cory Shawn was to "be part of the legendary team," and recalling the toast Shawn gave at their wedding about stepping aside for Topanga, we can understand why she's so hurt about being left out. This is by far the most interesting thing the writers have done with Topanga in a very long time. This draws on the entire history of these three to delivery a genuinely powerful punch.

Things only get worse when Cory makes an offhand comment about how they haven't been friends with Rachel for very long. She takes it understandably hard. Everyone insists that she's their close friend, in particular that she was one of Topanga's bridesmaids, which in my opinion is sufficient evidence that she's actually part of their group, but Rachel is inconsolable at this point.

We have to stop and consider how we view Rachel as well. Is our lack of interest coming from the short time she's been around? That's how she thinks the others see her, and it makes you stop for a second and wonder if that's our hangup as well, but I don't think it is. Lauren is a good example, she managed to be interesting right away. And Harley, and Nunzio, and Griff, and Eric's old best friend Jason. This show is perfectly capable of making us care about characters without long exposure. They just weren't able to do it with Rachel. It barely seems like they even tried. She was just a trophy to be obtained by Eric and Jack for a whole season. Sorry Rachel, but my lack of interest in you is simply because you're not interesting.

The rest of the episode is showing all the other relationships fall apart. Jack and Angela are upset that they aren't part of the inner circle, Topanga is sad that she was left out, and for no reason that I can think of at all, Shawn is also mad at Cory. For now, at least. It's gone by the start of the next episode, so I don't really get it.

All that's really left is Eric. He makes some pretty adorable attempts at using Ghandi's philosophies to mend things between the Hunter boys at The Apartment. It falls apart though when Jack points out that no one wanted Eric on their team earlier, causing Eric's heart to quite visibly break in two.

Plot: 1.0 - I don't find myself very invested in what happened to Rachel, but the Eric and Topanga parts definitely hit hard. Topanga especially. Her feelings of exclusion are totally justified and we have the entire series to draw on for the emotional punch of that exclusion. I think it's awesome that they decided to address Shawn's toast from the wedding this way. Up until now, it looked like we had a smooth transition to Topanga being the best friend.

Character Development: 1.0 - Interesting developments for Topanga and Eric, as well as Rachel even though it's not as emotional for the viewer. We have to deal with the fact that Eric's development is founded on the fact that he's a braindead zombie this season, but still.

Humor: 0.75 - Everybody was pretty funny up until the poster ordeal when things got all gloomy.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Being excluded fucking hurts.

3.25 out of 4.0. It's a good episode even though the bear prank is completely insane. We also have to remember that this is a buildup episode for Part 2, and it does a fantastic job of building up the things that it needs to. I still don't understand the tension between Cory and Shawn, and there's no reason for Team Rachel to have any lingering animosity, which will be an important thing to think about in the next episode. Either way, the Topanga and Eric angles are enough for me to be completely satisfied with this episode.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.