Episode 2x19 "Wrong Side of the Tracks"

If you missed the review of 2x18, I'll fill ya in. The gifs pulled from the show are now in much higher quality. If they're going slow, just let them finish the first cycle, and then they should be fine.

Shawn's made a date with a girl named Jill Howwlijjdadger. That's my best attempt at her last name, Cory just sort of mumbles it out. From her outfit, we're supposed to pick up on the idea that she's wealthy, or snobby, or at least comes from upper middle class, and they actually managed to do that one right. And look, she's even got a real backpack, we're making great strides here today.

Her face honestly kinda looks like Shawn's... Lemme just... real quick...

Can't even tell the difference.

Since this is the only hallway in the school, Eric and Jason are also here. They tease Cory and Shawn a little, but all the jokes miss pretty hard. A pretty girl named Valerie in Eric/Jason's age group walks past and Eric jumps at the chance. She's interested in Eric, but she claims to spend all her time at the ice skating rink. Jason chimes in and wingmans the shit outta this, dropping a few bold lies about Eric's ability to skate and sets up a date for them to go skating. You shouldn't be insecure about being bad at skating, Eric, since Valerie is bad at acting. Either way, Jason's not too worried about it.

Turner has assigned the students biography reports, and asks the students who they've chosen to write about. Topanga has chosen Katie Couric, which is pretty cool, and Cory has chosen Captain Kirk, which is pretty dumb. Picard is the obvious choice. Turner doesn't feel like putting up with Cory's shenanigans today, and reminds him that the report can be about anyone, alive or dead, as long as they're real. 

At lunch, Jill breaks off the date with Shawn, and he's pretty broken up about it. Cory asks Jill's friend Mindy, who is also dressed to convey her affluency, while Shawn listens in from the shadows. Mindy explains that Jill's parents would never let her go out with a guy like Shawn since the two are from such different "circles". 

And her face... kinda looks like Cory's... WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS EPISODE.

Shawn gets all mopey like "what was I thinking, a high class girl would never date trailer trash", that kinda thing. It skips ahead to later in the day when Cory and Shawn are at Cory's house working on their biography projects. Recounting their pasts brings up all the differences in lifestyles between the two, with a focus on the nice things that were never available to Shawn. 

At school the next day, Shawn is up to no good. He's apparently flooded the library somehow, causing thousands of dollars of property damage that he almost certainly won't be held accountable for. A perfectly legitimate response to being rejected by a snobby girl, the same way that serial arson is a perfectly legitimate response to coloring outside the lines.

Shawn tells Cory that this is about "being who I am", and goes to ask Harley Keiner if he can join his gang of thugs. I'm not really sure who this actor is, but he doesn't even try to do the Harley-voice and it's honestly kind of embarrassing trying to pretend that this future Hollister model is Harley fucking Keiner.

From now on, if I'm making up the words on a gif or image they'll be red, and yellow if it's the actual dialogue. It may not have been obvious, but all of the text on the gifs from 2x18 was the actual dialogue.

The bell rings and Turner comes into the hallway telling Cory and Shawn to get in the classroom. Cory tries to stop Shawn from going with Keiner, but our working class hero storms off like a god damn 5 year old.

Time for an update on the Ericlogue. Jason has dubbed over his mother's "lose weight while you sleep" tapes, transforming them into "learn to skate in your sleep" tapes. Eric comments that he doesn't want to "skate in my sleep", and Jason has the gall to question Eric's intelligence. I'm preeeeeeeeeeeeetty sure you don't get to talk right now Jason, what with dubbing over fucking weight loss tapes and actually thinking it's going to work. They fire a few more blanks from the joke gun, and we're back to Shawn and Cory. 

It's essentially the same exact scene as the last one. Shawn's running errands for Harley, and Cory tries to snap him out of this bull shit with no success. Shawn spews some whiny garbage about how he and Cory can't be friends anymore since he's poor and has no future, and he storms off again. 

Look at those two gifs and tell me you're not rolling your eyes. God this is frustrating. I'm going to do the full explanation of why this is stupid at the end of the review.

Turner isn't happy and tells Keiner to quit corrupting Shawn. In turn, this lecture makes Keiner unhappy, and he plots revenge against Mr. Turner. 

And nowwwwwwwww we get a dream sequence. Nancy Kerrigan, one of the best ice skaters in the world back in 1994, teaches Eric how to skate while he's sleeping/listening to Jason's dumb tape. That in itself is neat, Nancy Kerrigan is and was a pretty big deal, but this scene is so bad.

 It's three minutes of Eric's stunt double skating far enough away from the camera that we can't see his face. I'm not exaggerating, the faceless stunt double spends more time skating than Nancy Kerrigan. It's a complete waste of time. But who can blame them? This whole episode is pretty shallow. Like I said, they did the exact same scene twice, so they're just throwin as much time away as they can.

Well we're at school the next day, in the teachers' parking lot. Harley's revenge is to have Shawn bust up Turner's motorcycle. 

This picture is rife with symbolism. The bat represents this episode's writers, and the motorcycle represents the script.

Before Shawn actually does any damage, Cory shows up, then Turner arrives, and they give Shawn a good talking to. Honestly, it's the best thing to happen so far in this episode because Anthony Tyler Quinn (Turner)'s you-better-fucking-listen-to-me voice is just spectacular. I love every scene where Turner gets angry. When Turner means business, he commands the entire scene. So that's really good here, even if the whole situation is a little contrived. It also adds some more to Turner's role as a father figure for Shawn, which is important. 

Okay. So. Nitty gritty time. Why is this episode bad?

Well let's see if Shawn can tell us.

The entire season so far

THE ENTIRE SEASONNNNNNNNNNNNNN

has been founded on Cory not knowing who he is, while Shawn serves as the cool headed, "dude it's not a big deal, relax" sort of guy. WHERE DID THAT GO? Out of absolutely nowhere Shawn is a completely different person, just because some nobody girl thinks he's too poor. This side of Shawn has definitely been seen before, back in the Christmas episode of season one, but it was far more subtle. I really liked that episode because we were getting a peek at another side of Shawn. This was not a peek. This was some guy in a trenchcoat flashing you on the subway. This episode could have been amazing if they'd built up to it, you know? Like, if we'd seen some cracks in Shawn's armor throughout the season, slight moments of self doubt that finally get to be too much in this episode. But there was nothing like that. In the first 18 episodes of this season, Shawn hasn't had a single personal problem. It just doesn't work.

And then there's some lame conclusion of the Ericlogue where Jason steals the ice skating girl. It's a little funny but that hardly matters at this point.

Plot: 0.25 - Pity points for what could have been.

Character Development: 1.0 - For Papa Turner. If I were in the habit of giving negative points, Shawn would have brought it down a little.

Humor: 0.25 - Not even Eric and Jason could save this one.

Life Lesson: 0.25 - I'll give you a life lesson. Chill the fuck out, jesus christ.

1.75 out of 4.0. Check out the last scene if you wanna see some awesome Anthony Tyler Quinn action. Not gonna find much else here though.

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x18 "By Hook or By Crook"

If you check out the comments on the reviews for 1x03, 1x07, 2x04, and 2x05, you'll see that I've got my first scathing critic! Let's pull out the old checklist here...

• Fiery, self-righteous critic? Check
• Intro animation? Check
• Celebrity acknowledgment? Checkaroni.

I'd say we're really startin to rock and roll here folks.

Eric and his best friend, His Majesty The Fantastic Jason, come home to the Matthews house with some new books about backpacking across Europe. Some of them slightly more enlightening than others.

How beautiful is that gif? I figured out a better way to make them. Welcome to the future. (If it's moving slow, just wait for it to finish one full cycle, and then it should be good.)

So Eric and Jason are planning to trek across Europe over the summer. Alan warns his son that that trip ain't happenin unless Eric can pull together a B average at school. This sets the premise for the Ericlogue, and this might be the first time Eric's education has been central to the plot. He's usually chasing skirts or setting up some scheme or other, so this is a nice change. 

In Turner's class the next day, Topanga exists again. Our lovely heroine learns from Shawn that Cory is out sick. Indeed he's "got somethin bad", as is evidenced by Shawn's claim that today is film strip day in Sex Ed and Cory still isn't there. That seems backwards to me, Sex Ed was only ever incredibly, uncomfortably awkward at my schools, it was like an episode of The Office. Either way, that's a pretty strong sign that this episode will focus on Eric. Turner comes in and regales the class with the story of his motorcycle being run over that morning. Shawn promises Turner a good deal if he goes to get the motorcycle fixed at his uncle Mike's shop and offers a business card. This is followed up by a lovely display of the show's self-awareness.

Good on you, Boy Meets World, for acknowledging Shawn's limitless uncles. Do you see the kid on the left? He's like "god dammit I'm trying to learn and this fuckin Shawn kid fuckin ruins every single class I am so done with this bull shit-". And the girl in the white shirt between Turner and Shawn starts flipping through her book. Clearly her talents are wasted in the background. For real though, she's in every episode that has a scene in this classroom, but I don't think she ever gets a name. 

The next scene starts at the end of Mr. Feeny's history class. Eric and God's Greatest Gift Jason try to persuade their teacher into giving them both Bs instead of their usual C+s on the exam that Thursday. Feeny is not convinced, and we get to see William Daniels's legendary "how do I put this gently..." expressions.

Is there anything worse than Thursday exams? It's like, damn, just make it Friday, come on. You need the weekend to dampen the blow, you know? "Well I can't answer any of these questions but at least tomorrow's Saturday." Anyway, Feeny suggests they get tutoring from a senior. I don't understand why Shimmering Magnificence Jason is worried about his own grades, maybe he's just trying to be a good friend. They agree to work with a tutor, but Eric isn't happy about it and explains that all tutors are Minkus-y nerds. Eric discovers that he is incorrect.

Oh Will Friedle! Those faces! Take my heart, I beg of you, you wonderful actor. I say this every time, but Eric and Transcendent Stupendous Jason are so damn good together. The tutor's name is Torie, and she's played by Terri Ivens. Ms. Ivens has had a decent acting career, including a starring role on All My Children, and the obvious highlight is her role on the 2012 TV movie "Piranhaconda", which can't possibly be anything less than fantastic.

Later we come in on the conclusion of Angelic Aurora Jason's session with Torie. Eternal Splendor Jason tries to flirt with her, but she ain't havin it. On the other hand, when Eric comes in for his session, Torie gets a bad case of the flirty flirts and suggests they go somewhere more comfortable. Wuh oh, is that the smell of imminent compromised integrity? I've smelled it on myself enough times to recognize it anywhere.

That came up on a Google image search for "compromised integrity". How is that even a pyramid? It's the 60 degree angle of choice, really. Whatever.

We're at Uncle Mike's repair shop now, where Shawn evidently works part time, and it's the same set that was previously used as a towing company in 1x18. The actor playing Uncle Mike was an unnamed delivery guy in 2x10. Maybe he just works a bunch of jobs. Maybe he just wants to provide for his family. You don't know. Shawn convinces his uncle to give Mr. Turner a good deal, and it's super sweet to see the planting of the first seeds of the relationship between Shawn and Turner.

Eric and Torie are at Chubbie's, which is not exactly my idea of "somewhere more comfortable", and there's no ice in their drinks. Torie confesses that she's super hot for Eric, offers to give him the answers to Feeny's test, and, to the audience's excitement, kisses him. At lunch the next day, Eric and Gallant Perfection Jason have just completed the exam and both admit to struggling with it, in fact Eric left half the test blank. Eric tells his best friend that Torie offered to give him the answers, but he didn't take them. Mr. Feeny arrives, having immediately graded their tests out of a "morbid curiosity". 

Hail Him Praise Him Jason got a B because he's awesome. Mr. Feeny calls him "Mr. Marsden", so they're actually using his full real name for his character's name. Fascinating. I never knew that. 

And Eric got an A-. After lunch Eric confronts Torie, wondering how he could have scored an A- when he left half the test blank. Somehow Torie managed to fill out the answers on Eric's test in between the class ending and Feeny immediately grading it, but fine. Eric explains that he wanted to prove he was smart, and she talks down to him like "why do you care about school when you're so good looking?" This is a very weird thing for her to ask since she is also good looking and also cares about school. 

At Uncle Mike's shop, Mike tries to charge Turner a lot more than they agreed on and Shawn comes to his defense once again. You have to wonder if the writers got here and thought "you know, this is good stuff, we need to do more of this", or if they had already planned out Shawn and Turner's friendship arc.

It's late at night and we're at the Matthews house, and Eric is studying fervently in the kitchen. Mr. Feeny is a black hearted monster, why is he giving another test so soon? There's no real sense of the passage of time here, maybe it's actually been a while, who knows. Eric gives Torie a call, hoping she can direct him to the most important topics to study. The compromised-integrity tutor doesn't think Eric can pass the exam without cheating and tells him all the answers to the test, which Eric reluctantly and guiltily writes down.

Overcome with guilt, Eric confesses his cheating to Mr. Feeny, but lies about the source of the answers. We've been lacking in powerful Feeny lessons this season, but the wait pays off here, for sure. Eric claims that he'll always just be an average student, that he just isn't capable of excelling in academia.

Mr. Feeny.

Brings.

Down.

The hammer.

Mr. Feeny believes Eric is capable, and points to Eric's laziness and his affinity for easy excuses. It's all really quite inspiring, and sets the groundwork for their friendship arc. Anyone who has seen this show knows how emotionally powerful the relationship between Eric and Feeny becomes, and it all starts right here. Awesome.

No caption necessary.

Torie comes along, having been called to Feeny's office before this scene started for some unrelated reason. We get that whole 

• "How could you tell him what I did?!"
• "I didn't..."
• "Oh shit."

thing, which is honestly a staple for this show. Feeny really chews Torie out for not believing in Eric and for robbing him of his chance to prove himself. It's amazing. Ultimately though, Feeny just sort of lets her go with a warning. In an otherwise perfect scene, that has always bothered me. Feeny also comments that Eric will need to come to summer school, but Eric is okay with it.

The scene fades to black, the credits start, and the audience applauds. Forget everything I've ever said about the studio audience because I would fucking clap too. This ending is absolutely fantastic. You wouldn't expect one of these "I did something bad" confession scenes to ever be worth a damn, but this one is worth many damns.

Plot: 1.0 - Wonderful. Exquisite. Not entirely original, but very well written and entertaining. This is the first time we see the man that Eric is going to be for the rest of the series and it is EXCITING.

Character Development: 1.0 - Shawn+Turner arc, Eric+Feeny arc. Couldn't ask for more.

Humor: 1.0 - Quality from the whole cast.

Life Lesson: motherfucking 1.0 - I've already gushed a lot over that ending. It's lovely and inspiring without being cheesy or cliche. That's basically a tagline for the entire series.

I fucking love this show, you guys. I highly suggest watching this episode.

4.0 out of 4.0 with an "I fucking love this show" Bonus Badge.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed the improved gifs. I know I enjoyed making them. I want to avoid using clips from now on, unless there's some classic line that you absolutely have to hear. I got some 3D modeling software, so I might be able to rig up some new badges by the time we get to season 3. 

See you Wednesday.

All images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x17 "On the Air"

*EDIT* This post is dumb. And it's stupid. Here is my real review of this episode. http://boymeetsworldreviewed.blogspot.com/2014/08/episode-2x17-on-air-revisited.html

This episode is bad, so I'm going to make up my own better story to go with the pictures.

John Adams High has just finished the construction and installation of its extremely hi-tech Karaoke Room. Feeny's birthday is that weekend, plus he's the god damn principal, so he gets first dibs. He brings in his favorite student, that nerdy guy Alvin from 2x14, and the pair perform an absolutely adorable rendition of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better".

The Karaoke Room is broadcast throughout the school during lunch. Shawn and Cory are listening from the cafeteria. The boys are so impressed by Feeny and Alvin that they jury rig a recording device into the loudspeaker. Shawn's uncle Ralph works as at a local music label, so the boys' plan is to drop off the recording and get Feeny a record deal for his birthday.

Unfortunately, Mr. Turner comes in with his fuckin 10 calorie lunch (seriously, look at that) and catches them in the act. The boys want the record deal to be a surprise, but Mr. Turner will almost certainly spill the beans to Feeny. To cover, they tell Turner that the recording is for them to listen to at home, so they can take notes and try to be better singers themselves. Turner believes their story, and admits that he was thinking of doing the same thing. He explains to Shawn and Cory that the best way to improve at singing is to practice, and suggests they try out the Karaoke Room for themselves. Realizing that their lie has led to an imminent, meteoric rise to stardom, Cory and Shawn excitedly practice foreplay for all those groupies they're about to have. 

At lunch the next day, Cory and Shawn are in the Karaoke Room. They've brought along a female student and potential groupie named Sarah to sing with them. Shawn sits out the first song while Cory and Sarah perform "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin.

That scene honestly made me cry. I love that song. You probably don't recognize her with red hair, but Sarah is played by Taylor Swift. She sings this song quite well, and there's no doubt it played a big part in getting her career started. The students in the cafeteria are all very impressed by the performance, and rightfully so.

But wait! Cory and Shawn realize that they left the recording device in the loudspeaker the day before. Because the tech in 1994 had a really shitty amount of memory, Cory's performance of A Whole New World has overwritten their previous recording of Feeny doing I Can Do Anything Better Than You. So they've ruined their gift for Feeny, but in for a penny in for a pound, so Cory wants to try to get a record deal for himself, and Shawn agrees to be his agent. They couldn't afford to build a set for the record label office, so we just skip ahead to the next day, and indeed Cory got the record deal. He performs again at lunch and the groupies show up.

Good thing he got that practice earlier. 

So this has disturbed the natural order of things. Shawn is used to being fawned over, but now he has to watch Cory get all the attention. He snidely resigns as Cory's agent and storms off. During class later that day, Mr. Feeny observes the hostility between Cory and Shawn and tries to understand the situation. Cory explains that Shawn is being a jealous piece of crap, and then Feeny unsuccessfully tries to mend the friendship.

Cory goes off to the Karaoke Room again, and gives such a commanding performance that the entire school bursts into dance, and it's really just, it's incredible. Watch this gif a few times and really understand how ridiculous some of these people looked on national television.

As you can see, Feeny and Turner think this situation's become a little too much to handle. Their only option is to get Shawn to dethrone Cory as the voice of the Karaoke Room. They know that Shawn has a more sultry and smooth singing voice than Cory, one that the students won't want to dance to. So the two teachers go find Shawn and bring him to the Karaoke Room. Turner pushes Cory away from the microphone and Shawn rushes in to start singing "Fly Me To The Moon" by Frank Sinatra.

The students all love Shawn, and now all the groupies want Shawn instead of Cory. You can see how sad Cory is in the back of that gif there. That's the look of a reinstated status quo, my friends. Everything's back to normal and the students aren't dancing anymore. Since this show has no sense of continuity whatsoever, I doubt we'll ever hear about the Karaoke Room again. Also Eric won 10 million dollars. 

Obvious perfect score, only a genius could have written this episode.

Thanks for reading, see you Monday.

Clips and images used under Fair Use.

Episode 2x16 "Danger Boy"

You guys gotta understand that Eric wants to get laid.

Like...

Home boy is thirsty.

So our boy Ewic Maffyoos is tryin to put the moves on some girl who's like, I dunno, a six, under the pretense of studying. Eric wants to bang over the weekend, after the exam they're studying for has passed, but Six's younger, female cousin is going to be in town and she wants to spend time with her. Eric suggests a double date and tries to advertise his little brother as a date for Six's cousin. Cory betrays himself by coming into the living room and pretending to be a fountain.

In an unusual display of loyalty, Eric still tries to sell her on Cory, but Shawn comes downstairs to grab a soda and is much more mature and charming. Six suggests that Shawn be the date for her cousin. Eric is still hesitant, and it's completely blowing my mind right now what a good brother he's being, but Six uses her female wiles to persuade him in favor of Shawn.

#wiles

At school the next day, Mr. Feeny reminds Mr. Turner that the faculty meeting is today. Turner's reaction is beautifully spot on for anyone who works at a job with too many meetings. Like me.

Solidarity, my brotha.

Eric successfully recruits Shawn for the double date. Awesome. No wishy-washin around, we're diving right in. The two young men walk offset and we jump forward to the faculty meeting. Mimi from The Drew Carey Show is leading the staff meeting, which is odd since Feeny is the principal. She is overtly sexually harassing Turner, so she might as well actually be Mimi,  and Turner agrees to supervise the "class ski trip". Believe it or not, that is actually a real thing in this series that does come up again later. You can also see Scuba Club there on the board, a fun throwback to season one.

Why are all the "A"s capitalized? 

Feeny was Dive Master at the scuba club in season 1, so there was probably a serious bloodbath between him and this RF guy, but either way Feeny lost out. So Mimi automatically assumes Mr. Feeny is going to want to be in charge of the Chess Club, and he's not too happy about people making assumptions about him. There are only like five people at this meeting because whatever, and the meeting is being held in the cafeteria, also because whatever.

At the Matthews house, Amy comes home with a new haircut but Alan doesn't really notice. If you haven't realized by now, I love talking about hairstyles. Every person I meet I thoroughly examine their hair. I pay attention to that shit. But the last time a girl I was seeing got a haircut, I didn't notice. If anyone on earth should notice, it's me, but I didn't. It's a curse that all men have, and to all the women out there, we're sorry. Regardless, Amy paid way too much for this haircut.

Oh William Russ. I love his voice. I watched that clip three times in the process of making it, and three times I laughed at "Well tell him to stop!" Perfect delivery. 

The next scene is centered on Cory, and he's not at home or at school, so tell me, Mr. Holmes, where is he? For that matter, since Eric and Shawn are on that double date, where are they? And finally, where is the King of Rock 'n Roll?

Elvis leaves with his food and nobody says another word about it. It's completely out of nowhere and I can't decide if it's funny or not. I don't think I've given a Bonus Badge this season and this bit caught me completely off guard, so let's throw down an Elvis Presley Bonus Badge. 

Shawn thinks that Eric already asked Cory to go on the double date, and that Cory declined, so Shawn has no problem leading Cory over to Eric. The younger Matthews brother quickly grasps the situation and is like "what the fuck, why didn't you ask me?" and Shawn is like "what the fuck, why didn't you ask him?" Cory is rightfully pissed so he goes home. 

Later that night, something amazing happens. Something unheard of. Two characters on a television show address the hostility between them by communicating with each other. Someone call the Pope, it's time for Ragnarok. Eric recounts what happened in the first scene. Already knowing the answer, Cory asks "the fountain hurt me?" with a sigh. Eric explains that Six was looking for someone more "dangerous" for her cousin, and that Cory is slightly less dangerous than "lime jello". 

I think that was Friday, so now it's Monday and Mr. Feeny's class has just ended. Feeny can see that something's bothering Cory and offers to help. Student explains to teacher, and the latter tries to pass off some of that "you shouldn't worry what people think of you" crap, but just then Turner shows up in the doorway and taunts Feeny a little about that whole club situation. Feeny shoos him away, and then amends his earlier statement to include that one must leave oneself open to new experiences in order to grow and subsequently rub the haters' noses in it. To do just that, Cory and Mr. Feeny resolve to do something dangerous and spontaneous.

At the Matthews house, we discover that Alan lost 300 dollars in his recent poker game. Instead of being immature children, they both acknowledge that sometimes they do silly things with money and essentially just laugh it off. This episode has had like 90 opportunities for stupid boring drama, but the writers had the fortitude to ignore those easy stories. Way to go.

In the boys' bedroom, Eric finds a note from Cory saying that he's gone to "the amusement park" with Mr. Feeny. Eric is unreasonably alarmed by this note, and dashes off. At the park, a woman from a local news station is reporting on the grand opening of "the most terrifying amusement park attraction ever created". Guess who's at the front of the line?

The reporter is played by McNally Sagal, who has actually had a legitimate acting career since being on Boy Meets World, but I only know her from Sons of Anarchy. Those guys behind her look like they should be in the Sons of Anarchy. The writers have taken a lot of liberties here: I have never seen a roller coaster with only two seats. Why is the grand opening of this ride at night? How could they possibly have been first in line when they were at school all day? I was going to ask if Philly even has amusement parks, but apparently Hershey Park isn't that far so whatever. IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYWAY, the point I wanted to make is that we don't care or even really notice those bigger details because the show distract us with small details: The super tough guys in line for the ride, Feeny's hilarious cotton candy, the puke-bibs... Our attention is grabbed by the fun, unnecessary things they add to the scene to draw away from the necessary things that they glossed over or ignored. And that's just fine with me, because you can tell that they actually tried to draw us into this scene. 

So anyway they board the coaster and then Eric and Turner run up from the side to try to talk them out of it. 

Apparently Turner got the same sort of note as Eric, but from Feeny. This is.. ugh, okay, look Boy Meets World, I just defended you on taking liberties with the plot, I don't know if I can rationalize this one. Maybe they ran up the handicap line or something, but where would Feeny have even left that note for Turner? Regardless, Eric and Turner concede that Cory and Feeny are "dangerous", and then the ride starts. And I want you to see it.

My favorite thing is how the second piece of stock footage is blatantly a hanging coaster. My non-sarcastic favorite thing is how Cory and Feeny switched seats. Another small but hilarious detail. Cory and Feeny trick Eric and Turner into getting in the car by telling them that Cory lost his shoe.

Definitely the dumbest part of an already quite-dumb scene. No one would ever let this happen, and Eric could have blatantly seen that Cory is still wearing both of his shoes. I don't want to be that guy, but this scene in particular is full of nonsense. During the credits, Alan is hosting a poker game and Elvis shows up again. 

One thing about this show is that you can never tell which stories are going to be important. The Alan/Amy story was just filler, completely unrelated to everything else. In 2x15, Feeny hustled Turner in racquetball, and that was filler as well. Sometimes all the story threads come together, and other times it's hard to really know what to pay attention to. But I suppose for the casual viewer, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.

Plot: .75 - Pretty much every episode this season has been founded on Cory's insecurities or his lack of some quality that Shawn has, so nothing new there. What is new is his relating to Feeny on that insecurity. Cory and Feeny team up very very rarely, and it's always a lot of fun.

Character Development: 1.0 - We're well aware that Cory is an insecure teenager, but seeing Mr. Feeny in a state of vulnerability is unique and refreshing. Watching him overcome that vulnerability is a real treat.

Humor: .5 - In the early seasons, a lot of the best humor comes from the chemistry between Shawn and Cory, but Shawn had maybe 30 seconds of screen time in this episode. On the other hand, William Russ is always funny as Alan, and Cory did have a few good bits with Eric.

Life Lesson: 1.0 - This was one of those switcheroo life lessons. It looked like we were going to get lectured on not caring what people think of us, but we ended up with something much more meaningful. It's the same sort of lesson we learned back in 2x12 when Mr. Turner was discussing Pygmalion. In the real world, how people perceive you has a very real effect on your life. That's not to say that you should only worry what people think, but just like Cory and Feeny in this episode, it's good to try to improve yourself if you want to be perceived differently. We are all special little snowflakes, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to better ourselves when we can. 

3.25 out of 4. 

Thanks for reading, see you Friday.

Episode 2x15 "Breaking Up is Really Really Hard to Do"

Yeah. It's pretty hard.

The show opens at Chubbie's, the only restaurant in Philly, and Cory's reading aloud the contents of a Hallmark card, using his "can you believe this shit?" voice. You know the one. It's an invitation to a dinner party, but it's couples only. Cory, a proud bachelor, feels slighted by these strict requirements and looks to a nearby Shawn for solidarity, but Shawn's tongue is busy holding hands with the tongue of some girl we'll never see again. The girl goes off to write in her diary that she kissed a boy, or whatever, leaving our heroes alone at their table. In his infinite cool-headed wisdom, Shawn points out that Cory merely needs to ask a girl to the party. He suggests Wendy, who is also currently at Chubbie's because there's nowhere else in the universe for her to be.

Wendy is adorable. You may remember (read as: I remember) her from episode 2x02. That episode ended with Cory and Wendy agreeing that they should get to know each other better before being boyfriend and girlfriend. Apparently they did, and now Cory is comfortable with the idea of being a couple with her. She must have been sick during the turnaround dance. Anyway Wendy is really excited and readily accepts.

Awwwwwwwwww. This actress does a great job as Wendy. Her tone and demeanor remind me of Lila from Hey Arnold. 

At the Matthews house, Eric's report card is filled with something that rhymes with "gad brades". As punishment, his parents forbid him to go on any more dates until it rhymes with "good grades". Crap, switching the letters didn't work that time. But hey, awesome, we've got an Eric side story in this one. I'm going to invent the term "Ericlogue" for this. It's like "epilogue" or "prologue", but for Eric. 

Once again Amy is wearing four layers of the same color and Eric has buttoned only the bottom button of his shirt. I'm sure you're all as frustrated by this as I am.

At school the next day, Wendy is waiting for Cory outside Turner's class after the bell rings. She wants to make plans with Cory for the summer, even though the summer is not even remotely close. Wendy also comments on Cory's next class and straightens his collar as she sends him off with a kiss. 

This scene shows us everything we need to know about Wendy. She's coming on way too strong, but she's also a sweetheart and genuinely cares about Cory.

The Ericlogue resumes. A pretty girl named Lori wants Eric to come over and help her "get the heat up" in her hot tub. In a refreshingly surprising move, Eric obeys his parents and turns Lori down. Our boy is obviously not happy about this, but just then his charming, well spoken, and all around amazing best friend Jason comes along and suggests a "parentally acceptable, highly satisfying, dating substitute."  

Listen... men... boys... lads and blokes... if you've never had a $25+ salon haircut from a beautiful woman, then that is something that you need to do. During my senior year of college, my stylist was Aphrodite herself and I always loved going to see her. Female friends of mine have described similar experiences with handsome male stylists. The point is, Jason is spot on here. This really is one of life's secret pleasures. What's interesting though is that they built this surprisingly well set up salon for one episode, but they won't build a second hallway to use for three more seasons at the school. I'm pretty sure that plant on the right was in the Matthews' living room in season one.

That skip was intentional, from "I know what the homework is" to where Shawn says "End it this minute". Figured that was better than posting two separate clips. For the future, if a clip skips, it's intentional. And remember the socks gift, that's important later.

In that clip we saw Shawn and Cory hand in poems they've written, and when class starts Turner decides to read some of them out loud so they can all discuss them. His first selection is Shawn's poem Welfare, which actually might be social commentary as the first stanza reads "My uncle Ralph he does not care, 'cause twice a month he gets welfare". Cory passes the break-up note to Wendy just as Turner starts to read her poem titled Leave Me And I'll Die. It is as creepy as/creepier than it sounds. Wendy reads the break-up note, starts crying, leaves class, and Cory goes after her. Cory manages to convince her that he doesn't want to break up, even though the note said "I think we should break up." It's not exactly believable, but maybe when you're as smitten as Wendy you'll take what you can get. 

Later that day...

So Wendy has come to make and eat dinner, uninvited. Alan catches on to the state of things pretty quickly.

  

That's one of my favorite bits. I've seen this episode a thousand times and it always gets me. It takes a little more convincing, but eventually Amy gets weirded out as well. Remember that this scene lasted four minutes, I want to come back to this later.

At school, Cory tells Shawn the story of another failed attempt to break up with Wendy. Resigned, Cory starts to imagine the final years of his life. We see an elderly Cory and Wendy having dinner at some place we're supposed to pretend isn't Chubbie's. Cory is stealing everything, from the dinner rolls to the salt shakers. I think that's hysterical, old people really just don't give a shit. Wendy goes to get her husband of 90 years some prunes, and old-Shawn shows up. Their old-man voices are actually really funny, and we get one of those classic Boy Meets World lines.

They even gave Cory a wedding ring to wear for that scene. FINALLY they pay attention to some details.

We're out of Cory's imagination now, and he and Wendy are eating at Chubbie's. Thinking it's not a big deal, Cory reveals that he wasn't looking for anything too long-term when he asked Wendy to be his girlfriend. 

Wendy says she doesn't want to be in a relationship based on a lie, and breaks up with Cory. Then we see one of the most genuine, heart wrenching moments so far in the series.

The socks.

During the credits, the Ericlogue concludes with Eric trying to "break up" with the stylist. But she ropes him back in. Breaking up is hard to do, folks.

The Spectre wasn't in this one, so I don't think we'll see her again. That's probably a good thing, that joke was getting tired.

What happened to the dinner party? Isn't that why Cory paired up with Wendy in the first place? Speaking of dinners, let's talk about that four minute dinner scene with the Matthews family. It was entertaining, but Amy and Alan's opinions of Wendy had no impact on the story, and ultimately Cory wanted to stay with Wendy, so that was all kinda pointless. 

Why does Cory always get the crazy girls? For that matter, DIDN'T WE ALREADY DO THIS? Episode 2x10??? A lady by the name of Theresa Keiner??? She was basically this exact same trope. I guess she was more "let's fuck" moving-too-fast, while Wendy was "let's get married forever" moving-too-fast.

Plot: 0.75 - This is a great episode, but we did sort of already do this story, like I said.

Character Development: 1.0 - Cory learns that the standard serial monogamy of high school doesn't really apply to him, which of course sets the stage for his long-term relationship with Topanga.

Humor: 1.0 - Lots of good stuff from the whole cast, but what really sold me was the Ericlogue. He wasn't the saboteur/older brother we've been seeing lately, he was just a silly, doofy guy. And that's the Eric that we all love.

Life Lesson: 0.5 - Fuck the police, date whoever you want. But at the same time, it's high school dating. Don't take it too seriously.

3.25 out of 4. Watch it.

Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.