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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:14:29 GMT
Episode 7x14 "I'm Gonna Be Like You Dad"
Shawn and his cartilage piercing are making out with Angela outside The Union. A nearby Topanga is filling out a longevity quiz in Couples Magazine, verified for authenticity by health specialists across the globe, while Cory eats onion rings dipped in melted cheese. This is a refreshingly full scene! Cory interacts with both Topanga and Shawn, Shangela is actually entertaining, and Topanga's pretty funny too! Good start. Doesn't last long, but definitely a good start
The absolutely real and definitely-should-be-taken-seriously longevity quiz informs us that Cory should already be dead. He apparently can't feel his legs now, so the other three decide to go to a movie.
That total nonsense question there is the basis of Cory's story in this episode. But you know what, that's okay, because it's supposed to be silly background noise while Eric takes the spotlight. So let's see what he's up to.
This is something we don't usually see on Boy Meets World, and that's because it's profoundly annoying and it breaks the immersion. When Eric walks on-set, the audience starts cheering, preventing him from saying his lines. We just have to sit here watching and listening to the cheer and applause. I get it when the character is wearing or doing something of note, but he's wearing totally normal clothes and he simply walks into the kitchen. You are at the WRONG set, obnoxious audience. Unfortunately, that's not my only complaint here.
Here's a recap of this scene. 1. Eric wants to work at his dad's store. 2. Eric is about to graduate and is only taking two classes this semester. 3. Alan doesn't want Eric working at his store because he thinks his son is an idiot.
Point by point, 1. Reasonable. Eric is worried about his future so he's defaulting to the safe option. 2. NOT reasonable. This is his third year of college, how can he possibly take so few classes and graduate so quickly? Is he just getting his Associate's degree? Seems like a waste. 3. NOT reasonable. This is really not fun anymore. I thought we were done with this after Security Guy and Raging Cory. After all this time, Alan still doesn't respect Eric? Alan is so close to being the perfect TV dad, but this really spoils it for me.
Amy thinks it's a great opportunity for Eric to get some work experience. What really bugs me about this is that no one ever mentions that Eric has already worked at Alan's store. For better or worse, he has worked there before, and that's very relevant information! But nobody remembers!
So now we have to watch a pretty terrible scene of Cory at the doctor's office. I'm gonna skip talking about it because it's not funny and also not important. The only plot element is that Cory is convinced there's something wrong with him and wants every test there is.
We're in The Kitchen in the evening after Eric's first day at the store, and to Alan's great surprise, Eric did very well. Amy is here as the original Eric-defender of the day, but her relationship with Eric just isn't developed enough for us to really care, and the writers knew that, so they also brought in Mister Feeny. Feeny has a lot to say in Eric's defense. It's always nice to hear, but he really shouldn't have to anymore, right?
WHY DOESN'T ALAN BELIEVE IN HIS SON? HE GOT INTO COLLEGE. HE TOOK CARE OF AN ORPHAN BOY FOR SEVERAL MONTHS. HE'S BEEN WORKING AT THE UNION FOR AT LEAST A SEMESTER. THIS IS A CAPABLE, RESPONSIBLE PERSON. HOLY SHIT IT'S SEASON 7, WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.
Ughhhhhh, and it only gets worse from here! Now that Eric has proved capable at the store, Alan wants to keep him there forever to keep him from struggling out in "the real world". I'm gonna take a direct quote from 5x01 when Alan kicks Eric out of the house near the end of the episode, "In every kid's life there comes a time when he's just got to move on. And I hate that that time has come, but I wouldn't be a good father if I didn't recognize it, ... If I didn't think you could make it, I wouldn't be kicking you out."
To, once again, quote the wise Ben Sandwich, WE'RE DOING THIS STORY AGAIN?
We get a firsthand look at Eric while he's working, and for some reason everyone is standing off in the background watching. Jack and Rachel are there struggling with thought of what they want to do after graduating. Jack realizes that his dual major of engineering and journalism hasn't led him to a career that he wants, and Rachel's in a similar situation. I'm pretty curious what Eric majored in, but we'll never know. I actually appreciate this a lot. Even after four years (or three, in this case) of college, most people still don't know how they want to spend their lives, and anyone who claims that they do is probably putting up a front. There are exceptions, of course, but for the general audience this is nice to see from Jack and Rachel.
Alan uses their struggle to reinforce his position: by hiring Eric, he's protecting him from what Jack and Rachel are going through. Oh hey remember when Rachel became an RA and decided to live with Angela? I wonder how that's going. I'm sure they'll bring it up soon. That's totally unrelated, but I forgot about it until now. (I initially wrote this in sarcasm, but as is the way of things, the very next episode starts by reminding us of both of those things.)
I'd like to direct you again to that quote from 5x01, "If I didn't think you could make it, I wouldn't be kicking you out." Come on Alan. I think if we hadn't covered this extensively in past seasons, this episode would be fine. But we're supposed to be past this! There is no way to redeem this story, I'm sorry.
Alan specifically uses the words "He's safe here," and that brings back that story about the "kid gloves" in Security Guy, and even the end of Security Guy when Alan reassures Eric about his future on the condition that "you don't take the easy way out." BUT HERE IS ALAN TODAY, in season 7, encouraging, practically forcing Eric to take the easy way out. This episode is unbelievably frustrating, it's almost as self-contradicting as "this is our first fight ever" in the last episode.
HOLY SHIT IT'S GETTING WORSE. Amy points out that Rachel and Jack believe they're capable of anything, and listen to Alan here, "not everyone is capable of anything." Yeah that's great Alan, way to completely shit on your son, especially after you reassured Eric that he could be anything he wanted back in Security Guy. Hold on, I need something with alcohol in it.
At The Dorm, Shangela and Topanga talk about how insane Cory is acting, and it's pretty entertaining, but maybe that's just relative to the previous scene. I mean this City Slackers compares to the sludge we just went through with Alan.
As usual, weird/angry Cory is funny. The other three are about to head out to a movie to avoid Cory again, but Topanga comes back. We get a very drawn out scene of her deciding to comfort Cory, because hey, that's what you do when you love somebody. And he comments that he'll want to do the same for her whenever she's scared or sick. It's all pretty adorable even if it takes too long. So at least this episode isn't pure evil.
Alright let's close this thing out. Back at The Store, Alan initiates a conversation with Eric about his future. In an absolutely STUNNING display of continuity, he brings up the fact that Eric always wanted to be a weatherman. Eric says you have to know about meteorology to be a weatherman. COME ON WRITERS. ERIC IS IN COLLEGE. JUST ONE OFFHAND COMMENT THAT HE TOOK A COURSE IN METEOROLOGY HERE WOULD SEND ME TO THE MOON. WHY DIDN'T THEY DO THAT? AHHHHHHHHHH.
After an uplifting conversation that they already had in Security Guy, Eric thinks he wants to either be a weatherman or a veterinarian, which is perfect and makes me smile, so the writers get an A+ on that. Jack and Rachel show up to recruit Eric for dinner, and Alan sends him on his way to be in career-limbo with his friends, as he should be.
Okay I said this story was irredeemable, but that line was a very strong attempt at redemption. Perhaps the most critical component of Alan's character is that he worked as hard as he could to make sure his children have a better life than he had. So "I belong here, you belong with your friends" is a genuinely beautiful way of capturing that part of him. And Russ's delivery is spot on. That hits pretty hard.
That's pretty much the end. During the credits, Cory's crazy uncle who thinks he's Sammy Sosa shows up at The Dorm and wastes everybody's time for a while.
Plot: 0.25 - The endings of both stories worked for me, but the paths there were pretty unbearable for the most part.
Character Development: ? - I don't know. Alan regressed so much that I can't bring myself to give him credit for the progress. But the ending was great! I just don't know.
Humor: 0.5 - Humor duty pretty much all fell on Cory.
Life Lesson: Iunno. Don't be a jerk to Eric.
Whatever. This episode made me furious for the first 18 minutes, and then managed to rope me in at the end. I wish I'd written this summary while I was furious. I can't stand how disrespectful Alan was to his own son for most of it, especially since we're supposed to be past it already. It's not worth the ending, I'll say that much.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:15:14 GMT
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.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:16:29 GMT
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?
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:17:07 GMT
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.
Corperic 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.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:17:29 GMT
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.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:18:03 GMT
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.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:19:01 GMT
Episode 7x21 "Angela's Ashes"
There are two things you need to know. Topanga is one of 500 quarter-finalists for an internship at the prestigious New York law firm "Brown-Elliot," and Jack has a rich stepfather. I suppose it's fair to say that the writers finally chose a direction for Jack, but that's really just because of the time constraint. I'm sure if they had another four or five episodes after this they'd change him again.
Rich Stepfather is bankrolling Jack's new business venture, "ImJack.com." Or it could be "UmJack.com." Matthew Lawrence needs to enunciate. What he doesn't need is to be any more smug because he would probably just explode at that point. Eric shows up in his graduation gown to remind us that the timeline makes no sense, and Angela's dad comes on the scene as well. The Union is fully channeling the spirit of Chubbie's right now. I don't remember this guy's rank, I think he was a sergeant, so let's go with that. Apparently Sergeant Moore has been reassigned to Europe.
And here's the kicker, he wants Angela to go with him. Shawn shows up now too (of course) just after Sergeant Moore asks Angela, so Shawn doesn't know what's going on yet but he can feel the tension immediately.
I touched on it back in Angela's Men, but the dynamic between Shawn and Moore is fantastic. A mutual respect founded on strength of character. It was still fucking weird how involved Moore got in his daughter's love life, but if we can look past that, I love the way these two talk to each other. Actually, it's really Shawn and any father figure. Alan, Chet, Turner, Feeny... Then again, it's anyone with any father figure. That's really what the first five seasons were.
But that sort of talk is more suited to the next episode, so let's keep going. Angela explains the situation to Shawn, and it's clear that Cory is more interested in Shawn's situation than Topanga's potential internship. The final thread comes later when Jack gets a call from his stepfather (in The Union, for some reason) informing him that he's being "cut off." Rich Stepfather wants Jack to be an investment banker, but since Jack wants to make his narcissistic website "business" instead, he won't be getting financial support any longer. So there we go, there's our three plot threads.
At The Apartment, Cory is advising Shawn on his latest life changing problem. I will always prefer the old system where Shawn gave Cory advice about women, Ever since the beginning of season 5, when we first met Angela, things have been too Disney-soulmate-y for me. And we all spent a great deal of time raging at Cory for how he lectured Shawn around the time of Chasing Angela. I think that's a big reason why we loved the Lauren story so much, is that it was a return to reality from the Disney-soulmate territory. Anyway, this scene reminds me very much of that Cory, which makes me uncomfortable. Cory is supposed to know nothing and thus meet the world, so when the show tries to convince me that he knows everything about love, I'm not buyin it.
Shawn buys it though, and decides that he doesn't want Angela to go to Europe.
Cory says some more shit about shoes, I don't really get it.
Here's the scene now where Jack gets disowned by his stepdad over the payphone at The Union. Wearing a surprisingly hilarious expression of defeat, Jack shuffles over to Rachel, who makes a passing comment about the appeal of joining the Peace Corps. So let's keep that in mind. She's pleasantly supportive of Jack when he explains the situation. This is exactly the sort of thing they should have STARTED with. This is an EXCELLENT jumping off point for Jack, and Rachel's supportive reaction was the perfect way to kickstart their dynamic. That's literally the best thing I've seen between those two in the series. That exchange was the best thing. Why the fuck did they save this until the end of the series? Very frustrating.
Topanga went through another round of interviews this morning, and Cory initially tries to pay attention and show he cares. But as soon as Shawn walks in the door he dismisses her again. Shawn's toast at the wedding was very nice, and it looked to hold true for a little while, but it's clear as day by now that Cory will always care more about Shawn than Topanga. And those two episodes of Girl Meets World pretty much confirmed that.
Shawn finds Angela outside. Everything seems neatly wrapped up when she says "I could never leave you," up until she qualifies it with "... unless you said I could go." Pretty much the perfect setup, thumbs up to the writers.
Two days later, Shawn arrives at The Dorm to, I don't know, hang out with Cory. Naturally they immediately start talking about the situation with Angela, and Shawn explains that he's basically resigned and just wants to enjoy the time he has left with her. Shawn actually knows Angela, and clearly understands the situation, but Cory, who has never had an actual conversation with Angela, insists that he knows better and gives Shawn some bad advice. Admittedly, his first round of advice was good, but this time he's talking out of his ass. It's intentional by the writers, though. Cory explains that you have to pay attention to women to "pass their tests," and he then proceeds to pay absolutely no attention to Topanga yet again. And she's being so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute and sweet, it honestly breaks my heart that Cory doesn't give a shit about her interviews.
Shawn is convinced that he has to tell Angela to stay, but he only finds Sergeant Moore at Angela's Dorm. There's an emotional confrontation here, deserving of some comment. Shawn has always had to watch things get taken away from him, watch people leave. So you can feel the weight of his decision to stand up and say "not this time." My only complaint is that he didn't do it on his own. Why oh why oh why did Shawn need Cory to tell him to do this? Whether or not it's the right thing to do, the writers are having him do it, but it seems so obvious that he should have reached this decision on his own.
This scene is really well written, giving another reason to love the dynamic between Shawn and Papa Moore, right up until Shawn says he's going to ask Angela to marry him. Marriage as a tool to tie someone down is sort of despicable, so I think that's a pretty low blow from Shawn. Not a fan. Sarge concedes that he'll step out of the way if Angela wants to marry Shawn, and that's when Angela finally shows up.
As an aside, it's funny that Moore is so much taller than Shawn, his head gets cut out of the shot every time the camera is centered on Shawn.
So yeah, Angela is here now, and Shawn tries to steer their conversation toward asking her to marry him. He's about to do it too, before she cuts in saying "You're the only person that knows how important it is for me and my dad to spend this time together."
Mobile users, you're missing out on that one. Rider sells the hell out of this, he looks absolutely devastated as Shawn realizes that he has to let her go. I may not be fully invested in the Shawn/Angela relationship, but I sure as hell am invested in Shawn. That look on his face kills me every single time, and the sad guitar music comes in at exactly the right moment. Who directed this... Fred Savage! No kidding! Well done, Freddy. This is my favorite moment for Shangela. And not because it's ending, I'm not that mean. It's because when Angela walks over to her dad there, and Shawn is left holding out his arm with that dead look in his eyes... for those few seconds, I actually believe it.
It's time for the final goodbyes at The Union. They make one last attempt at showing us Rachel and Angela's friendship. Eric hugs Angela and sings her a song, which is hilarious, and then asks her to hand out some fliers with his picture and phone number to the girls in Europe. It's a picture of his season 4/5 self, and the bottom of the flier says 1800 - CALLERIC, but get this, it's blurred out. They blurred out the phone number on the bottom of the fliers, look at this.
I could swear we saw those in another episode, but it's not Eric Hollywood or the one with his one-man play. Help me out here. *edit* Thanks to commenter Josh for pointing me to The Psychotic Episode! That is indeed the first time we saw that picture.
Topanga arrives just in time and we're like "oh right, they're supposed to be best friends." Not much else to say about this until Angela heads out the door for the last time. Shawn has had to deal with a lot of people leaving him in one way or another over the years. But this time he let them go, and that says a whole lot more about him than an audience-cheering happy ending could have said. Cory tells him not to spin out of control, and Shawn, for once, looks like he's going to be okay. This time, he's not going to spin out of control.
To wrap things up, we learn that Topanga got the Brown-Elliot internship, but that means they'll have to move to New York. Cory is acting like he's hearing about this for the very first time, which is more for comedy than drama, thank god. Topanga doesn't seem at all affected by the fact that Cory hasn't been paying attention this whole time. Cory, on the other hand, is very affected.
Plot: 0.5 - The continued emotional destruction of Shawn Hunter. Lots of groundwork being laid for the finale.
Character Development: 1.0 - Shawn decides to take control of something. While he ends up making the selfless choice, he still made a choice. And so he's not going to "spin out of control" this time. And for the first and only time, I actually believed in Shangela.
Humor: 0.5 - It's not the most important part, but Cory and Eric do enough.
Life Lesson: 1.0 - There are more important things than your high school sweetheart.
3.0 out of 4.0. I'll never know why they did this episode separate from the finale. Both parts of the finale are mostly clips, they even do a segment for Rachel. So Angela is just completely left out, and Angela is unarguably more important than Rachel. If they had simply used fewer clips, they could have included the Angela story while also giving her some clip-time. Or hell, do this episode as the first of a three-part finale . It's just weird to me that Angela didn't get to be part of the clip show. Which is not to say I'm upset about it, just confused.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:19:27 GMT
Episode 7x22 "Brave New World (Part 1)"
It's hard not to get sentimental in this last week, but let's try to keep it wrapped up until the end. We'll call it a tribute to Shawn Hunter, us bottling up our feelings.
The first scene has Cory yell-explaining to Shawn and Eric that he doesn't want to go to New York. There's that lighthearted guitar music in the background to show us this isn't supposed to be some dramatic conflict. And you know what? That's perfect. I hate coming into a series finale with some great conflict to be resolved in the last ten minutes. There's no marriage or confession of love, no baby being born, no fight to the death. It's not a climax, is what I'm saying. We're just saying goodbye and remembering the good times.
First up to bat is the Cory-Topanga set of flashbacks. Oh, it's only two. Well they're good ones, when Topanga wants to see if her and Cory's energies converge, and when she kisses him for the first time in Cory's Alternative Friends. In Real Time, Jack shows up to inform everyone that he's joining the Peace Corps. What, like you need a reason? Then Topanga arrives to tell Cory that she doesn't want to go to New York after all. Cory's pretty damn excited, so we get a little montage of him and Shawn cheering in unison throughout the series. And then they dance.
We'll keep a running list. So far we've got *The roots of Cory+Topanga, and *The child-like excitability of Shawn and Cory.
In The Backyard, Eric invents the final Feeny Call of the series, prompting clips of *The Feeny Call throughout time. There are a handful missing though, in particular the one from Playswith Squirrels. There's a compilation of all of them on youtube though.
Feeny finally admits that he loves the Feeny Call, which makes every fan's heart swell up with joy. And of course he made the pull-string Eric doll as a gift for his old mentor.
I actually never noticed until now, but Eric very casually pulls the doll out of that grill next to him. How long did he hide that thing in the grill? That's pretty funny.
Back on track, Eric asks Feeny to give Cory "the usual," which in this case is *Advice from across the fence while Feeny gardens. There's only two little clips of it, but we can take this to represent the general act of Feeny giving life advice to Cory. Feeny explains that he moved one of his plants from a pot in the living room to the plot here in his yard.
This plant metaphor refers to the possibility that Topanga will stop growing if she has to stay here in Philly. Feeny explains further that whats stopping her isn't her concern for Cory, but rather her fear of failure. There's something else here that's very important and is mentioned very quickly. Feeny doesn't come right out and say it, but he heavily implies that the reason Topanga didn't go to Yale wasn't because of Cory after all, but rather this fear of going to a new and unfamiliar place. I didn't remember that part of the conversation, and no one ever mentioned it in the comments, so maybe this slipped through the cracks for a lot of people. Do you folks buy this? That Topanga only claimed to be staying for Cory? That would mean her proposing to Cory was an anchoring maneuver to not have to face her fears at Yale. It seems kind of slapdash to me, and it changes a pretty massive part of their history. I kinda dig it though. It's interesting, and I feel like I'm learning something new about this series I've seen a thousand times.
Right, so now Cory has decided to help his wife leave her metaphorical living room plant-pot, and head to the garden of New York. New Jersey is the garden state, but that's not important. He reaction gives no indication that she was afraid, but whatever. We get some clips of *The storied romance of Cory and Topanga, from 3x01 up through Starry Night and Graduation, skipping over their breakup in The Grass Is Always Greener, but including the Lauren Arc (without any actual footage of Lauren, oddly enough).
It's another solid clip reel, but I can't believe they left out both instances of Topanga drawing a heart on her face with lipstick. Not just solid, but long, four whole minutes showing us their journey up to Topanga proposing at the graduation ceremony. It's still not done, actually, as we get a quick recap of the wedding arc, including Eric setting the curtains on fire which is always a treat, and ending with a clip of them exchanging vows. So all said and done it was actually six minutes. Shawn better get six minutes too.
Back in Real Time, we do in fact get Topanga admitting that she's scared of failing. I expected Cory to insist that she won't fail because she never fails, but that's not what happens. Even now, in the very last episode, the show impresses me by defying my expectations. So Cory explains that if she fails, he'll still be immensely proud of her for taking a risk for what she wants and for having the courage to face her fears. It's one of the best things he says to her in the whole series. A+.
You know, it's scenes like this that make me look back at the "Topanga's parents divorce" arc and hate it even more than I did at the time. Topanga and her interactions with Cory have been absolutely delightful for the last chunk of season 7. It's a shame we had to get through so much crap to get here.
In The Backyard, the showrunners decide to remind us that Morgan is a character on the show. She's equipped with her usual snark, because that's pretty much the only characteristic they thought of in the three and a half seasons since Ridgeway took over the role. Amy is, according to Morgan, "psycho" over the relocation to New York.
Amy is apparently pacified when Alan points out that Eric will be going to New York as well. I thought we were done with that running gag where Eric's parents don't respect him at all, but here it is. That's a shame.
For reasons unknowable, Jack and Rachel are hanging out nearby in the kitchen, and Jack learns that Rachel has decided to join the Peace Corps. So you're telling me they both came to this decision completely independent of the other? I'm calling shenanigans. It was Rachel's idea in the previous episode, and there's no way he would have considered going by himself. He must have already known somehow. Whatever, it's not important. We get some clips of Jack, Rachel, and Eric doing this and that, but it's short since nothing important ever happened with Rachel. Except maybe the end of Seven The Hard Way, BUT THEY LEFT THAT OUT.
The rest of the gang make their way into the kitchen, and Eric and Topanga have evidently maintained the bond we saw in She's Having My Baby Back Ribs as they put their arms around each other while Eric explains his excitement about New York.
WOAHOHOHAOHAHOAHHHHHHHHH. Break out your tinfoil hats people, this train is leaving the station! Look at that last frame,
Big. Daddy. Rocks. To follow up on Topanga's comment, we get to see some clips of *Eric's shenanigans, and is it a coincidence that the first two are strictly between him and Topanga? YOU DECIDE. Other than feeding that conspiracy theory, I don't think they picked the right clips for this at all. This is supposed to be THE Eric highlight reel, and aside from a two second clip from Shallow Boy (which I absolutely adore), they're all from seasons 6 and 7, which means they're all just punchlines where he's a total idiot. What. The fuck? I'm asking honestly right now, what the fuck is this? Eric has moved me to tears how many times and they want to show him getting struck by lightning in The Union? Yes most of these clips are funny, but he's so much moreeeeeeee. How could they do thisssss, this isn't how he should be remembered. We already had an "Eric is funny" reel with the Feeny Call earlier, and Topanga is specifically being sentimental, she knows he has a good heart, but we don't see any of that in these clips. This is a bottom-line failure by the showrunners. Yeah there's another set of clips in the next episode, but it's restricted to Eric's relationship with Alan. What about Eric and Cory? What about Eric and Feeny?
Up next is ANOTHER set of Eric clips, this time the story of his friendship with Jack. But this too is just focusing on Eric being silly. Nothing from You Light Up My Union or Playswith Squirrels, the two most meaningful interactions between Eric and Jack. How could they do all this Eric stuff without a single clip from Seven The Hard Way when he single-handedly restores their group friendship? I'm just so confused how they chose these clips. There's nothing bad about them, but there are some seriously important moments that should have been here.
That is a nice picture though.
Finally, and most importantly, it's time to address *Cory and Shawn, "the greatest friendship of all time." Cory and Shawn are reduced to tears at the thought of saying goodbye to each other, it plays out very similar to the "WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT IT" bit at Cory's wedding, and it's equally lovable and hilarious. The clip reel comes on, including, among others, "You're Cory, I'm Shawn, just like it's always been. What else do you need to know?" which is a fantastic choice, I absolutely love that one, an excerpt from the library scene in An Affair To Forget, one of my all time favorites, the scene with the celery poster, "UNDAPANTS," and of course "THEY WANT YOU TO TAKE THE ROLLS!"
This one they got right. Only about three minutes worth of clips, but definitely the most enjoyable segment of the episode for me. It could have been one of Eric's segments with the right clips, but alas, Shawn and Cory are taking home the prize. Topanga, as it turns out, has packed up all of Shawn's stuff so he can move to New York with them, which I think makes up for her nonsense at the beginning of the season.
The episode ends with that bit from Cory's wedding where Shawn asks him if he "really likes" Topanga, which was an awesome idea.
I don't think there's any point in scoring these last two episodes, so let's just keep talking. It's completely insane to me that they only used clips from seasons 6 and 7 (except that Shallow Boy one) for the "I want you to be Eric" clip reel, but other than that this episode is basically perfect. They never even imply the existence of Angela, but if you weren't thinking about it you wouldn't even notice. You can totally feel the love between all the characters here at the end (especially Topanga and Eric woop woooooop). Alan is one of the most important characters in the show and he didn't get much attention, but that's fixed in Part 2, so...
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 2, 2015 8:20:01 GMT
Episode 7x23 "Brave New World (Part 2)"
The "Last Time on Boy Meets World" not only shows us clips of the previous episode, but also bits of the flashbacks from the last episode. It's pretty unnecessary. It's not a big deal, obviously, but any time they spend showing other flashbacks could have been used to show parts of Eric's journey to college instead. Like, if they were hurting for content, they should have shown that! I'll never let that go, I'm sorry.
The first actual exchange of the episode is between Eric and Alan. Russ does his "hiding how sad I am" voice to tell Eric that he won't miss him. I don't know where that leaves us. It seems like they want me to believe that the total parent-to-son disrespect of the last two seasons was all in good fun, that they were always just messing with each other. But I don't believe that for a second. What makes it harder is the clip reel showing us the best moments between Alan and Eric from Security Guy and Raging Cory. Amy gets the same treatment with clips of their creative writing class together in How To Succeed In Business. Eric had awesome relationships with his parents up through season 5, but then right at the beginning of season 6 (episode 3, in particular) they go out of their way to avoid him at Pennbrook, "He doesn't know we're here does he?" And it continues like that for two seasons. The previous episode, part 1 of the series finale, used Amy's lack of caring about Eric as a punchline, and what, now I'm supposed to forget all of that? Sorry, can't do it. Those clips were all awesome, it's just hard to reconcile them with the way Eric's been treated lately.
You may not know this, but big daddy rocks.
Next up is Jack and Shawn. They barely have any brother moments, so instead of clips we get Chet's ghost showing up in here in the kitchen while the boys talk. Unlike his previous appearances, neither Jack nor Shawn can actually see or hear his ghost. And honestly that makes it even weirder. It means that every time Chet talks, Shawn and Jack are just pausing their conversation and staring at each other.
Jack admits that he admires Shawn for his "money doesn't matter" way of life, and this admission inspires Jack to join the Peace Corps with Rachel. One of the comments (I would say who, but I can't seem to find it now...) suggested that Jack was being sarcastic when he said he wanted to join the Corps in the previous episode. I thought that at first, but then Jack adds on a point about sticking it to his stepfather, which made me think he was serious. This scene, however, pretty much guarantees that he wasn't being serious the first time.
Rachel comments "You're giving up your stepfather's money..." He was already cut off, but I guess she means that he's giving up the chance to get it back by working with his stepfather. I don't know. Chet is incredulous that Jack would give up that kind of money. I have to reiterate how weird it is. Watch this scene and imagine that every time Chet speaks, it's just silence in the kitchen. They're all just kind of looking at each other.
Chet is always funny and it's wonderful that they got him for this episode. After his tirade about money, he realizes how proud he is of his boys.
It is kind of unsatisfying that they can just bring Chet back whenever they want and have him state explicitly how he feels. Like I said, it's always nice to see him, but it cheapens his death in my opinion.
Arite here's the scene that no one likes. I don't wanna watch it. I've got ten minutes left in the very last episode and I still can't bring myself to watch it. Gotta check reddit, watch an episode of Friends, oh hey House of Cards new season, better watch a couple of those...
Why is Michael Jacobs's kid here? Joshua should be just over a year old, but here he is at least 3 or 4. Maybe they induced a miracle so that Joshua could have a conversation with Cory? Well then they shouldn't have used this kid because he doesn't know how to say his lines. He doesn't really even have any, he just says "okay" and "yeah" and stuff, it's so fucking difficult to watch. If they wanted a scene where Cory just talks at Joshua, they should have used the correct-age baby Joshua. He would have said exactly as many coherent things as Jacobs's son did.
STOP LOOKING AT THE CAMERA. STOP RUINING THE FINALE OF ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHOWS. And don't blame it on his age. Original Morgan was Meryl Streep compared to this guy. Maybe they just didn't have the budget for literally anyone else, so they had to use him. A mystery for the ages.
It's a shame because I like what Cory has to say here about growing up, but it's just so hard to focus with this kid's completely insane facial expressions. It worked in 7x09 when he "saw dead people" because he was supposed to be creepy. He's doing pretty much the exact same thing here in this scene, it's such a mess. I have no idea how this happened.
That line makes it all worth it though.
Everybody makes their way outside to the patio (Joshua is inside for good now) and oddly enough, Rachel and Jack head off without a word. The others are going somewhere very mysterious where "he" will be waiting, and Cory is left to say goodbye to his family.
We get a couple clips from season 1 between Cory and Alan. This pairing deserved better treatment. As Cory says goodbye to Morgan, she gets two clips as well, and they take up about the same amount of time as Alan's. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I do like what they did with Morgan though. She doesn't try to be snarky or funny, she just tells Cory to take care of himself. Definitely the right way to go.
It's time for the last scene in Mister Feeny's classroom. Feeny himself enters first, followed by Topanga, Cory, Shawn, and Eric. The first three take the same seats they always had in high school, which is just beautiful. The decision to leave out Jack, Rachel, and Angela was entirely necessary and hardly needs mentioning. It wasn't even much of a decision, I think everyone knew this is how the last scene had to look.
The students ask Feeny if he has anything left to teach them, and he explains that he does not, and that they're all ready to go meet the world. He does have some parting advice for them though.
That is my favorite Feeny line in the entire series, and perhaps the most inspirational moment I've ever seen on television. A lot of that comes from the lack of cliches. There's no "you can be anything," or "you can have anything if you work hard enough," or "the power of love," none of that. Just very real, personal advice, Hearing "try" makes me think back to The Eskimo where the students thought Feeny just wanted Shawn to try, but that wasn't so. The trying was meaningless if Shawn didn't also believe in himself and dream of something bigger. And in Security Guy, Eric certainly had the dream of going to college, but he needed to believe in himself and try as well. We can look at Topanga's recent journey as well. She believed in herself and tried as hard as she could, but she also needed the dream of something bigger (this job in new york) in order to keep growing. There are other examples, but you get the point. You gotta have all three. That line from Feeny is perfect. And of course doing good speaks for itself.
As Eric says, there's only one thing left to take care of.
I have to point out that Feeny told Eric he loved him back at Feeny's wedding, but rather than detracting from this scene I think it just adds to that scene at his wedding.
It's time for everyone to hug Mister Feeny and say goodbye. The actors are all crying at this point, as am I. I think it was Rider who said that they only did one take of this because everyone was crying for real. It's all overwhelmingly emotional. I doubt I'll ever be able to watch this without getting choked up. Topanga and Cory both have nice things to say, but Eric's and Shawn's lines stand pretty high above the other two since they had real development arcs with Feeny.
Feeny offers Shawn a handshake but Shawn goes for the hug instead, it's a nice touch. Obviously I have to mention City Slackers. You see that moment and you want to go watch City Slackers, and then The Eskimo, and everything in between. Rider is completely falling apart here, it adds this raw power that you can't get just by acting. It tears me apart, every time.
The audience laughs when he says "I blame you for that" but it kinda just... makes me cry... I think it's way more emotional than funny. But that's fine. Eric has thanked Feeny for his help getting into college on multiple occasions, and it's been two seasons since then, so this was the right thing to do, to look at how Feeny has affected Eric's future rather than his past.
Cory's up last, and there's really not much there except for Feeny revealing that his real name is Cornelius. They have a wonderful goodbye hug, and once the students have all left, Mister Feeny gives the last line of the series.
And there we have it. Everyone loves this episode despite the Joshua nonsense, and it's not hard to see why. It drags out every emotion that a series finale should. As I said in the last post, a lot of series have a climax in their finale, and then a rushed conclusion in the last few minutes. This finale was all ending, all closure. It's damn close to perfect. This last scene is definitely the best scene of the season, and one of the best of the series. It captures that feeling from the earlier seasons, and that's no surprise since it was so focused on school life.
I'm going to make a sort of Epilogue post tomorrow. I'll talk about my final thoughts on the series as a whole, and on the blog and the future. There will probably be a few top 10 or top 5 lists, and I'm excited to see your own lists and final thoughts in the comments. I've also got some news about a project for Girl Meets World that I'm looking to be involved with. A lot of you have had really kind words as we reached the end, and that means the world to me. If you want to add your own, I would absolutely love to see them, and I love everything that's been said so far, but I'd prefer to see it on the post tomorrow, if that's okay. Just so we can talk about this episode on this post.
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Post by sbtbfanatic on Jul 3, 2015 3:27:50 GMT
Boy Meets World Epilogue So with all the clip reels of the various relationships in the finale, I got to thinking about which one I liked the best. My gut reaction is Eric/Feeny, and we've all spoken at great length about how wonderful they were together in seasons 3 and 4. But then at the end of the finale when Shawn says "You never gave up on me," that hit me so hard and made me wonder if maybe Shawn/Feeny is the best. It's never quite as strong as Eric/Feeny, but it pops up throughout most of the series, as early as The Fugitive in season 1, while Eric/Feeny is mostly restricted to 3 and 4. We also have to consider Shawn/Cory, which is of course the backbone of all seven seasons, and at times is as emotional as Eric/Feeny. Shawn/Cory is lovable, emotional, and hysterical for the entire series, but it never really inspires me the way the two Feeny relationships do. So yeah. I don't know if I have an answer for this one yet. Maybe I'll just have to watch the series a few more times. That brings up an interesting point. One of the biggest questions I thought about while I worked on this blog was whether or not I'd still want to watch the show when I was done, whether this deep analysis and criticism would exhaust my interest in it. I can say with 100% certainty that I still want to watch the show. Some of the episodes I'll probably never watch again, except maybe when that creeping thought of "was it really that bad?" works its way into my head. Others, I don't think I could ever grow tired of. So I present today's first list, in chronological order (here's the full list of episodes if you want to play along en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boy_Meets_World_episodes)Infinitely Watchable Episodes Season 1: Father Knows Less, Cory's Alternative Friends, Santa's Little Helper, Boy Meets Girl (4 total) Season 2: Back 2 School, Pairing Off, Me and Mr. Joad, The Uninvited ("It's a geek party!!"), The Beard, Turnaround, Breaking Up Is Really, Really Hard To Do, Pop Quiz, Career Day (9 total) Season 3: He Said, She Said, This Little Piggy, The Last Temptation of Cory, City Slackers, A Kiss Is More Than A Kiss ("BORIS college?") The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, Stormy Weather, I Never Sang For My Legal Guardian, Brother Brother (9 total) Season 4: Hair Today, Goon Tomorrow ("He's the good lookin guy!"), I Ain't Gonna Spray Lettuce No More, Shallow Boy, Janitor Dad, Turkey Day, An Affair to Forget, Easy Street, B & B's B 'n B, Chick Like Me, Uncle Daddy, Quiz Show, Security Guy (12 total) Season 5: How To Succeed in Business, Last Tango In Philly, Raging Cory, The Eskimo, Heartbreak Cory, And Then There Was Shawn, Eric Hollywood, Things Change, Graduation (9 total) Season 6: We'll Have A Good Time Then, Can I Help To Cheer You?, Bee True (3 total) Season 7: It's About Time, She's Having My Baby Back Ribs, Brotherly Shove, Brave New World (4 or 5 total) Season 4 has the most, which I could have told you from the day I started this blog. It has always been my favorite, and probably always will be. The characters are in that sweet-spot-age where they're young enough to make bad decisions and learn from them (hello seasons 2 and 3) but also old enough to tackle more mature issues and look at life outside high school (where season 5 is strongest). That brings us to our second list. Season Ranking: 4, 3, 5, 2, 7, 1, 6 The hardest choice is between 3 and 5. They're both really strong for different reasons, and they both have weaknesses as well. For example, 5 has The Apartment, but it also has Jack. 3 has Mister Turner, but it also has Eli. The thing that finally made me choose season 3 is my undying, irrational fondness for The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (and Dana in general, while we're stuck with Angela in season 5). But like I said, the difference is negligible, 3 and 5 are about equal. Season 4 is definitely first, though, and 2 is definitely fourth, but 7 and 1 were also tough to choose between. It's either nonsense episodes as kids or nonsense episodes as adults. They both have incredibly strong episodes (e.g. Father Knows Best and Brotherly Shove) but also a large amount of crap. I almost want to put season 1 ahead just because you can chalk up the bad episodes to the showrunners' inexperience. By season 7, they really ought to have known better... But yeah. I'd be surprised if anyone could argue for season 6 not being the worst. They had to break my heart to get two of those episodes on the list. Bee True is the only season 6 episode that gets there just by being fun and entertaining. Speaking of worst, let's look at that next. This is another point for season 4, not one of those episodes would make a Bottom 10 list, maybe not even Bottom 20. Even Cult Fiction is good before the last scene. I'm not sure if I realized it at the time, but it's really just another father figure story. That episode tells us so much about Shawn, and I love that Feeny and Alan both fight so hard for him. It's really pretty great until Shawn starts yelling at the ceiling. But that's neither here nor there. Rather than rank the episodes one by one, since that's next to impossible and way too subjective, I'm just going to group them (the top group is least watchable, and the bottom group is more watchable, if that's not clear from the group titles). And remember, there's no particular order inside each group. Worst Episodes Literally Nothing Redeemable What A Drag! Never Ever Watch Again As Time Goes By The Honeymooners No Guts, No Cory Hogs and Kisses Grandma Was A Rolling Stone Pretty God Damn Bad You're Married You're Dead And in Case I Don't See Ya... Show Me The Love (Part 1) For Love and Apartments (Part 2) Starry Night The Happiest Show On Earth Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf? I Was A Teenage Spy Guilty Pleasures The Fugitive The Witches of Pennbrook First Girlfriends' Club There's a lot of room between Pretty God Damn Bad and Guilty Pleasures, room where most of season 6 lives, but I wanted to include the Guilty Pleasures for fun. I'M SORRY THAT I LIKE FIRST GIRLFRIENDS' CLUB, OKAY? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? AN APOLOGY? I'M FUCKING SORRY, I CAN'T HELP IT. I rewatched Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf just now because I wanted to be sure about it, and it's not nearly as bad as those top two categories. I thought it was, but if you go watch it now with seasons 6 and 7 fresh in your mind, it's really not even close to being the worst. What A Drag, however, is definitely the worst. With the time travel episodes you can always say "well none of that actually happened," but What A Drag is canon. That is part of the official Boy Meets World lore. And that hurts deep. So we've already got the Infinitely Watchable list, but I can narrow it down further. It's a given that every Infinitely Watchable episode is hilarious and fun. So for this list, something in particular has to make it stand out in addition to those to qualities. The lines are blurry and subjective for most of the Infinitely Watchables, but there are three episodes that deserve the spotlight for being outstanding displays of character relationships and individual character development. Best Episodes Security Guy - Feeny/Eric, and Alan/Eric, and Feeny/The Three. Thanks for playing. The Eskimo - Feeny/The Three with an emphasis on Feeny/Shawn, as well as strong Cory/Shawn moments. Also one of the only good Eric/Jack bonding episodes. An Affair To Forget - This might surprise you because I haven't mentioned it nearly as much as the two episodes above. I gave it a great review, and I chose that banner at the top of the blog for a reason, but it only dawned on me in the last couple weeks that this episode isn't just great, it's perfect. As perfect as Eskimo and Security Guy. This is the premier showing of the Cory/Shawn bromance and every second of it is magic. It is abundantly clear that they love each other in a way we never see between Cory and Topanga. But that doesn't stop Topanga from helping Shawn (and the audience) understand that a girlfriend shouldn't keep you from your friends (a life lesson, you might say). What really sets this one apart from future bromance episodes is that Shawn isn't competing with Topanga. In the future, once Cory and Topanga have been soulmated™, it's presented as Shawn vs. Topanga, and littered with Topanga making frustrated faces to the sound of canned laughter. But in this episode it's not a competition. Topanga just wants to help. Meanwhile, Eric is putting on his one man show. He believes in himself, he dreams, and he tries. He fails, ultimately, but Feeny is there to help him pick up the pieces and he offers Eric some genuine, meaningful advice. This episode has everything. It's no coincidence that those three episodes highlight the three relationships I was talking about at the beginning of the post. It's really hard to choose any more "best episodes". I wanted to include City Slackers in that list, but Eric's story, as much as I love it, is ultimately meaningless, and that sets it apart from those three. But if we allow the influence of personal bias... ConfidenceKBM's Biased Top 10 God Tier Security Guy The Eskimo An Affair To Forget Painfully Close to God Tier City Slackers Essential Turnaround Eric Hollywood Last Tango In Philly Shallow Boy The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter Pop Quiz Like I said, it's a biased list. There's a WORLD of wiggle room in Essential. Pretty much everything from Infinitely Watchable could make it into Essential. Those are really just the ones I've watched the most. My top 4 are set in stone, but I don't think I could pick a #5. And I think that's all I've got to say about Boy Meets World. Well that's a lie, I could say a hundred thousand more things, but at a certain point it would devolve into a sort of rambling, fanatic rant. I'm looking to do a cooperative writeup for Girl Meets World starting on the next episode in March with long-time commenter Christian. We've got extremely similar views on Boy Meets World, and I like his writeups for GMW, so we're gonna have a go at it. If you want to see me review season 1 of Girl up to now, I'm happy to do it: "I don't like it in general but Maya makes it tolerable and Shawn made it all worth it." There you go, there's the first season. Either way, this isn't the last you'll see of me, hopefully. As always, I'd love to hear what you think about the show in the comments, but I suppose this is also the time to get emotional. There is absolutely no way in the universe I could have gotten through this without you guys. I wanted to quit so many times, especially after season 5. I seriously considered just taking requests for seasons 6 and 7, but you all deserved better than that, and your support and virtual pats-on-the-back are honestly the only reason I made it through all the garbage episodes. I never thought I'd get to meet people who love this show as much as I do, or that I would ever get the chance to open my heart about it, but here you all are. Reading the comments has always been my favorite part. I've spent the last ten-odd years boiling over with thoughts and feelings about this amazing show, and I've finally got them all out in the open. I like to think that this blog was a place for you to get that out as well. Like how Shawn uses poetry to get his feelings out, except not a bunch of bull shit. Three important things that came out of this blog: 1) We all got to see that INSANE clip of Cory and Shawn on Jacobs's other show. 2) Undeniable proof that Topanga is in love with Eric. 3) Dancing Guy. Every one of you has my undying gratitude. Every time I watch this show from now on I'll think you. This was an experience that we all got to have together, a real group adventure, and I can't describe how grateful I am that this is a part of my life. I want to give a special shoutout now. After my review of the very first episode, someone commented on the reddit post telling me that I had made a fan, and that they were going to follow my blog. I don't remember the exact words, but that was the essence of it. So if by some twist of fate you still follow the blog, First Fan, I want you to know that I wouldn't be here without you. Now of course that doesn't diminish everyone else's support, you're all fucking amazing and this blog wouldn't exist without you guys. Every "nice review," every "yeah this episode sucked," every "I'm looking forward to...", everything, it all gives me such an unbelievable feeling. I believed in myself, I dreamed, and I tried. I love Boy Meets World, and I love you all.
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