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110.Kid Gloves, Season 1, Episode 19
In this episode, Cory gets silver gloves for his becoming a man gift. However, he does not understand the significance and disregards them. To be fair, Alan does not explain them. Cory goes to school, and the kids are doing scuba club, and I think the writers put this in as yet another allusion to the kids growing up. They see Topanga and are attracted to her, and they cannot indulge in their usual antics. They see Minkus courting her, and they know he has a leg up on them somehow, but they do not quite get it. This interaction is a small taste of things to come in later seasons.
Eric guides Cory in the beginning, telling him to pretend to wear the necklace, and when he loses the gloves, Eric shows him how he values his gift (buck knife) and why it is essential, and right then and there, Cory realizes he made a mistake taking his gift for granted. He knows that he needs to find those gloves, but the situation goes from bad to worse before he can even look for the necklace. Alan comes in and explains that he won those silver gloves in a brutal Navy Boxing Tournament.
Cory feels even worse, and he sets off to the school to dive and look for the necklace himself. Of course, he gets caught by Feeny and brought back home. Alan tells Cory that he values Cory more than the gloves. Feeny returns the lost gloves that he found in the filter to Cory. I think this was a good contrast between Cory and Feeny. Cory goes in hot with a half-baked plan that fails, and Feeny solves his problem with a simple safe solution. Cory gives the gloves back to his father, saying that he knows he is not ready and wants to get them back on the most important day of his life. I like to think Alans gave Cory the gloves back when Riley was born.
In the B-plot, Morgan wants a gift, but her parents tell her she is too old to be given a gift just because Cory got one. Nevertheless, Alan gets her one, and Morgan hilariously wants him to pretend he won it in the Navy.
I like the comedy in this episode. I like the final sequence of Cory going to the pool. I liked Cory getting advice from Eric and having the moment with Feeny. The heart-to-heart with his dad was also really memorable, but I am not sure what the lesson was. Maybe responsibility? Cory giving the gloves back shows he is responsible enough to know he is not ready. Still, I feel like Boy Meets World could make the lesson more concise. Also, in terms of enjoyment, this episode feels more solid than great.
Grade B
109. Cutting the Cord, Season 6, Episode 12
This episode had one of my favorite comedy moments, Topanga and Cory singing war. Also, the conflict between sad Shawn and Angela was entertaining in a way that still connects when I watch. Shawn really carried the drama on his back in this episode. It was hard to see the king (Shawn) fall flat on his face with a date, but I guess that goes to show how real his love with Angela was. I think what holds this episode back for me is its one-off nature. These dates appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast. If Shawn and Angela formed real connections with other people and that angle was more seriously explored over several episodes, I think it would have enhanced this episode and the storyline. Alan's midlife crisis angle seemed silly at first because nobody seemed to take it too seriously, but it led to a nice moment where Eric got to school his Dad on something and help him in his time of need.
Grade B
108. Show Me The Love, Season 7, Episode 1
This episode is a shakeup episode. Topanga and Cory break up, and this is a significant shakeup because going from planning their wedding to not even being together is a massive conflict. It was entertaining to watch, and it seems like the show is challenging its own premise of love. Showing things do not always work out and addressing divorce. However, I have to say Topanga's logic is dumb to me.
She does not want to end up like her parents, so instead of having a life with Cory, She just fast-forwards to divorce, thus ending up like her parents. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then there is Amy and Alan. They serve as an example of how love works. They work out their problems. Nevertheless, their argument over Morgan's first date puts Alan in this sexist position. For the most part, Alan is a great TV dad, but they weigh his character down with these unnecessary sexist viewpoints, and it is like, why? I feel like the way they handled Cory's first date was much better.
Then there is the apartment storyline. Like everything else in this episode, it was good but a little frustrating and nonsensical. Jack and Rachel break up off-screen. I think the fact that they did not even give them an on-screen breakup shows how bad a choice it was to have Jack and Rachel date. After that, they have a chance to have Eric, Rachel, and Jack living together, which was prime, and instead, they decide to make it an all-girl house, which does not even make sense. The apartment is Jack's more than anyone else's who lived there, and he just gives it up because the girls manipulated him, and they do not even do it well.
Eric is living in a car, plus the girls' are not even really friends with Rachel. Also, they have a place to go if this does not work out. I repeat, Eric is living in a car. It be nice if Rachel had not kicked out the people who brought her in when she had no place to go.
This episode was entertaining, and it shook things up, but I am not too fond of the logic of how they did it and some of the choices they made. However, Shawn and Cory were great in this episode. They were hilarious, and it was nice to see Cory drag Shawn into trouble at the end.
Grade B
107.For The Love of Apartments, Season 7, Episode 2
In this episode, Cory attempts to put Topanga's parents back together, and Jack and Eric try to get their rooms back. The B story had many holes. For example, Why couldn't Eric and Jack redecorate the dorm? There would be nothing girly about it, then. Then again, why did the writers break up the trio of Eric, Jack, and Rachel? With the girls, Rachel is the third girl in line in terms of attention. While with the boys, she was the first Rachel in line.
Then Feeny says the boys are the laughingstock of the campus, but how would the whole campus know or care about what happened to them? Is Eric's camera still set up? Then they have a wrestling match, but the girls cannot be hit anywhere, and it just makes the whole match pointless, and it makes the win feel hollow. I will say I did enjoy Mankind, only hitting Eric, that was really funny. Mankind's appearance was carrying this story.
Then we go to the main story, and it was good. I like that Cory and Shawn were so dedicated that they went to Pittsburgh to try and stop a divorce, just believing they can solve anything. What I do not like is the fact that Cory lies. He tells a whopper of a lie to get Topanga's parents in the same room. However, I understand why Cory would do that. He believes his lie will become true even though he does not think it is currently true. However, when it blows up, and Cory goes what is wrong with this woman and sticks Topanga's mom in front of Topnaga's father, I am like, Cory, calm down, what are you doing? Rhiannon is visibly sobbing. Do not thrust her into the cause of her pain, who is trying to flee the room. Rhiannon is super understanding and breaks her divorce down, so Cory does not feel bad even though he just opened up a big wound. Rhiannon, just ignoring that did not seem unrealistic. I think this episode was dramatic and funny, and entertaining. However, it had holes in logic that brought the episode down for me. Plus, the A and b stories did not connect very well.
Grade B
106.First Girlfriends Club, Season 5, Episode 15
I have mixed feelings about this episode. It is funny, entertaining, and creative, but it is filled with inconsistency. This episode is the finale of Shawn and Angela's story and the start of Cory, Topanga, and Lauren's aftermath. In this story, Topanga reads Cory's letter. I repeat Cory's letter that she took from him.
Then she shoved him against the lockers and confronted him about it. The best part about this scene was just before the shove. The way the boys just carried on about Valentine's Day when we, the audience, knew the shit storm that was coming their way. News spreads around school that Cory and Topanga are having problems.
Then we move into the First Girlfriend's storyline, which is hella inconsistent. Dana disappeared from Shawn's life two years ago, but we are supposed to believe he was with her six months ago? Also, Jennifer was infamously terrible to Shawn, so she does not work as Shawn's victim. Libby is the most believable, But that is not saying much. If you recall, Libby appears in The Last Temptation of Cory. She is seen in the first scene flirting with Cory, whom she knows is in a relationship with Topanga. Then she helps Missy blitz Shawn and Cory with a double date knowing Cory is in a relationship. Shawn also had no idea this was going to happen. This was a blind date she aggressively pursued even when Shawn (barely) tried to resist. So Libby really has nothing to complain about.
When we first learn about Shawn's two-week rule, we learn that the girls know it. Which means they know what they signed up for. This knowledge undercuts Shawn's admission and makes it seem as if they are rewriting history. If Topanga was there the whole time, why didn't she help Shawn, who is supposed to be her friend and who was missing out on a date with her friend Angela?
This episode has some nice moments, like Shawn apologizing to his former girlfriends and wanting to be just friends with Angela to build a connection, and Cory's speech was moving too. However, the logistics and rewriting of history messed up a lot of it. Also, Dana was funny with her "Don't you just love Valentine's day" line. It was also funny to watch Jack and Eric's desperation at the apartment and their pathetic attempts to save Shawn. In the end, when they go on dates with Shawn's exes, it is weird that Jack is dating his younger brother's exes, and Eric and Jack are picking up possibly underage high school girls. That is this episode in a nutshell, nice if you take everything at face value, but it all falls apart if you dig a little deeper.
Grade B
105.Shallow Boy, Season 4, Episode 5
In this episode, Eric dates a young street performer whom his father wants away from his shop. When Eric rudely dumps her after a terrible date, she turns from sweet to sour. She writes a nasty song about him, and it is everywhere. I especially loved it when Morgan sang Loser Freak. If that were today, that song would be on iTunes or something. This is maybe the second Morgan's best or second-best moment on the show.
After messing up Eric's life with her song, Corinna seeks him out. He assumes it is because she wants to apologize. The real reason she is there is to get more material.
Eric hilariously takes away her edge by singing Annie with her, and she goes on to make a terrible fuzzy-wuzzy song. Also, I think the show makes a funny dig at themselves when Shawn gets super offended by Topanga's description of the American family's fall. It is funny, but you can also say the show has treated Shawn's life as a statistic to an extent, and I think that is a little meta-joke.
Onto the B plot, Cory goes to have some fun with Topanga while she is babysitting. They have a hilarious interaction between the parents and Cory. Then Cory and Billy do another meta gag about stations moving showtimes to kill a show. If my guess is correct and that was about Boy Meets World, then bravo, if not, it was still funny. Cory and this kid are comedically great together.
Moreover, while the dynamics between Cory and Topanga are relatable, the argument is ridiculous. Based on what we know of Topanga's parents from seasons 1 and 2, her views now are not reflective of her home life. Which is probably why, at the beginning of the fight, Cory does not pay attention, but he seems to take note when Topanga storms off. He was so unaware in the first place that it makes me wonder how he suddenly understands after he gets in trouble. Also, it seems like Topanga came around and realized she overreacted because even before she saw Cory babysitting Morgan, Topanga was already over, and she had the tacos to make up for earlier when she blew up and stopped Cory from participating in Taco Tuesday. So I do not count that as a lesson, more like they just resolved their conflict.
Side note, I wonder if the Cory and Morgan scenes influenced their choice to have Cory and Topanga's oldest be a girl in Girl Meets World?
It was not easy to grade this episode because nobody really learned anything, and it was not doing that much, but it was a creative Eric story. I loved how Eric was self-aware in his humor and that the episode as a whole was hilarious. Everyone made me laugh.
Grade B
104.The War, Season 7, Episode 15
In this episode, the boys take Rachel's parking spot, and she bans them from the dorms. This starts a prank war. However, the boys take things too far, leading to a split that threatens to destroy the friend group. This is one of those episodes that is remembered fondly by Boy Meets World fans but does not quite live up to nostalgia. It suffered from some inconstancy that is symptomatic of season 7.
Things happen that do not seem natural and instead feel like they are done to protect the plot. Feeny never intervenes. This seems untrue to Feeny's character. Also, If Eric saw it coming, why didn't Feeny? It would have been better if they never brought this to Feeny, so he did not have to turn a blind eye. Also, Eric's role makes no sense. He tells them to stop this prank war, literally the scene after begging to be included.
Then everybody was such a jerk to Eric. I was surprised he was the uniting force. Topanga's arc was clearly just there so that she would be a part of the story. She says she wanted to be included, but when the boys initially get kicked out, Topanga stayed, and she did not leave with them, yet she was mad she was not included.
Also, what did she expect from Shawn? Shawn is his best friend. In this episode, it seems she wants to replace Shawn, and that is just not healthy, and they do not ever really check her on that. Also, the boys definitely stepped over the line, and I think that scene is very well done where you can see everyone else reaction in contrast to theirs. Also, Rachel took it too far. Having Cory, Topanga, and Shawn stuck to their seats in honey with a live bear after them. They could have died, that is basically attempted murder, and it is just laughed off.
I enjoyed seeing them pull pranks on each other, and this episode was funny and entertaining, but I did not feel a lot of this was true to their characters, which was distracting to me.
Grade B
103.The Beard, Season 2, Episode 12
In this episode, Cory and Shawn are learning about JFK, and Shawn's off-handed comment about Marilyn Monroe or his wife actually serves a purpose as Shawn and Cory have a little girl trouble themselves. Alan also has girl trouble when he assumes he knows what his wife wants and finds out the hard way he is wrong. Shawn is between two girls, and Cory is feeling unseen, which follows themes of this season and would be an interesting conflict on its own, but it gets better. Shawn devises a plan for Cory to babysit one of the girls while he dates the other so that Shawn does not have to choose.
Of course, Cory and Linda Develop real feelings for each other. Now the heat is turned up because Eric tells Cory that he will have to choose between his newly found girlfriend (not his first as Cory would claim #TK) and his best friend. So Cory is put to the test, and he does not know what to do. So like Shawn with the girls, he tries to avoid the problem and keep Shawn and Stacy together, so he never has to decide, but just like Shawn, he finds out his avoidance of the problem does not make it go away.
Cory is super nervous that everything will go wrong. He will lose his girlfriend and his friend, and all that seems to come true when Linda catches Cory in the booth next to Stacy and thinks he is cheating. Then Shawn comes in, and it is revealed that Cory has been seeing Linda seriously and appears to be making moves on Stacy (which Cory clears up).
They have built a complicated, interesting scenario, but here is where the episode falls apart a bit. Linda and Stacy choose to be with Shawn, like both of them. It makes no sense to be mad at Cory for supposedly two-timing them, only to both date Shawn at the same time in the next moment. In the end, the girls come back and overhear Cory talking about the babysitting plan and get upset and dump Shawn.
Shawn and Cory should not have played with their feelings. I mean, they literally thumb wrestling for them like objects. They deserve to be dumped, but the whole Shawn can two times us, but Cory cannot part distract from the sound point they were trying to make.
Shawn and Cory talk it out, and Shawn is okay with all this, even gaining respect for Cory. Which again kind of sends the opposite message of the one they are trying to send with the girls. However, I will say buried in here is a golden nugget about problem-solving. It is better to face your problems head-on than to make them worse by trying to avoid them. If Shawn had just picked a girl, he would not have been dumped by both in front of everyone at Chubbies, and if Cory had just talked to Shawn, Shawn probably would have understood he was very understanding and did not seem to care much for Linda. Furthermore, if Alan had just let Amy do her thing instead of trying to avoid her process, he would have been better off.
Grade B
102.Hair Today, Goon Tomorrow, Episode 2
In this episode, there are two conflicts. The side one is Eric being in a slump and sitting on the couch eating cocoa puffs as his family tells him to get a job. This led to the iconic good-looking guy theme. Eric goes on a date to get out of his funk, and he meets a fellow towny who is raising a son. He gets his privilege checked and realizes that he has it easier than most cause his parents are helping him financially while his date is raising a kid without any help and working doubles. This is a good revelation that was made almost meaningless by the fact that Eric's behavior does not change after this. He goes back to lazing at the houses, and his parents have to make him leave and find a job twice.
On Cory's end, he has trouble with his body image, which I think just about everyone can relate to. Topanga tried to teach him that beauty is only skin deep, but she realizes she is vainer than she realized when cutting her hair. She freaks out over her appearance and goes to the salon to get it fixed. She starts wearing makeup and changes her attitude a bit, and starts to focus more on her appearance. Shawn eventually reminds her of who she used to be and the things she use to care about and also reveals how Cory is feeling really insecure right now. She realizes she was just like all the other plain-wrapped kids obsessed with their appearance. Topanga goes back to how she was before(pre-make-up).
Meanwhile, Cory is at the salon trying to glow up like Topanga did. Topanga runs over to stop him, fearing he will change like she did. However, he comes out looking the same. In the end, Cory and Topanga learn that beauty is skin deep and that it is what is on the inside that matters most. It was pretty good, but some things kind of slipped like Eric's progress. Also, the degree to which the cast cared about looks seemed exaggerated for this episode.
Grade B+
101. Singled Out, Season 4, Episode 7
In this episode, Eric pretends to go to Harvard to date college girls. He goes on Singled Out and matches with a girl going to Columbia. However, she admits that she does not really go to college, which causes Eric to admit the same. Here, Eric and the young woman learn a charming lesson about being yourself and the revelation that they are not the only ones that do not have everything figured out, and that is ok. A valid lesson I think a lot of young adults can relate to. The B story was hilarious. Cory is getting his tonsils removed, and I really commend the writers for how much they squeezed out of this tiny B plot. It was hilarious.
Shawn scares Cory (who is already scared about his first big operation )with an article from the New York Times Trailer Edition. It is about a kid who vanishes in a routine operation who is Cory's same age. They bring in Feeny as Cory is on painkillers, and he does a hysterical bit about him being brilliant and understanding everything Feeny has taught him. He gives Feeny convoluted treasure hunt directions ending at the airport, where Feeny will find five years of homework. To which Feeny replies, what is the capital of Montana?
Later they do a dream segment where Cory has dispersed, and his family is on We Are Not Making This Up. The whole thing was incredibly funny and stole the episode. This episode was hilarious, and it had a lesson, but the lesson was a little too subtle for my taste and was not explored as much as I would have liked in the episode.
Grade B+