Friday, December 4, 2015

Episode Review: "Girl Meets the New Year" (#2.25)

I tell ya, when you're right, you're right, Sarah. 

So this is my first watch and I'm just gonna review as it goes. 

X amount of time has passed since Texas, and regardless of what X is, it's too long for Maya not to have told Riley that she and Lucas didn't kiss. That's step one. Step zero. If you want me to believe that Maya and Riley are the best friends in the world, you can't miss the little details. Apparently "Life" wants to know what's going on between Maya and Lucas. I'm honestly sick to my untimely death of the writers trying to be cute by inserting the fanbase into the show. Sick of them being cute in general. I just need you to write the show. Drink coffee, and write the show. That's all I need from you. And the coffee's optional.


Harper's back, and that makes me neither happy nor sad. They at least got the formula right in this episode. What worked about Turner's lessons (and why I think Harper's first lesson worked) is the independence of the lesson. Turner's literature lessons happened to coincide with the kids' lives by the magic of television. Cory's history lessons coincide with the kids' lives by the magic of Cory. He sees their problem and makes a lesson to teach them how to fix it. So this lesson is set up properly. 

Unfortunately, we're still plagued by what I've decided to call The Lesson Faces. You know what I'm talking about.
The faces that say OH GOODNESS. THIS IS SO APPLICABLE TO MY CURRENT SITUATION. I BETTER BE SURE TO LET THE AUDIENCE KNOW SO THEY DON'T MISS IT. The camera always cuts to these faces while the teacher (usually Cory) is still talking. 

Except that kid on the left in Maya's picture. He's just like "Yeah love does come with a cost. Olive Garden is not cheap."

When does this take place? Doesn't New Year's happen during Christmas Break? Who cares, Charlie Gardner is here. CHAHLEH GAHDNAH. And hey, I agree with Lucas, I still like him. He's got his confidence back. His hair looks stupid but he's got his confidence back. C Gard is being bold, implying that he'll be kissing Riley at midnight. And you know what? Bold is good. We know that Riley still likes Lucas, which makes it easy to dislike Charlie here, but you can't blame him for something that we as the audience are privy to. If I were Charlie in this situation, I'd be thinking "If Riley still liked Lucas, she would have told me." So I for one do not blame C Gard at all.
Oh and she responds with this coy "Why would that be interesting?" Listen to the way she says it. If a girl said that to me like that, I'd think it's a lock. Even more certain than the fact that I spent too much money at Taco Bell tonight. The most guaranteed midnight kiss of all time. 

Farkle "The Love Referee" Minkus throws out a red card on Riley. Flag on the play. He's talking a lot of sense, that Riley needs to be straightforward with Charlie, and Farkle's putting a self-destruct timer on it. 

Do you folks at home want to know old Sean's big secret right now? I don't care about any of this. This is the same shit. "But story arcs take time!" This is not an arc. This is the same shit drawn out far too long. Listen to me writers, you have overstayed your welcome. You have overplayed your hand. Yes, I admit, you started with a pocket pair, and that gets you into the game real strong, it does. But you need to buy out the pot early, because if you let it go to the RIVER with a WET BOARD, you probably lost the hand. But that's what they did. They let it go too long, and now they lost.

I like poker.

Charlie brought his mullet to Cory's class too. You're making it hard to root for you, man. 
Rowan is taller than Danielle and that's weird.

Farkle claims (not for the first time) that the Horn of Gabriel will blow at midnight, which is a powerful figure of speech that I might have to start using myself. There's nothing about this story that I haven't said a thousand times. I just want it to be over. And not in a "ooooooh here comes the climax!" sort of way, but more of a "Please let's move on from this" kind of way. 

Farkle and Smackle are somewhat of a relief. Based on this episode, Farkle seems like the best catch for any of these women. Sarah's at the party too, apparently without a date (or with a female date, in which case, kudos.) DO YOU GUYS WANNA WATCH MAYA AND LUCAS NOT TALK TO EACH OTHER SOME MORE? BECAUSE YOU'RE IN LUCK! I'VE GOT JUST THE THING! 

They did it againnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. They set up a tense scene right before the commercial, with our romance rectangle all on the couch, and then after the commercial it just doesn't exist anymore. It somehow resolved itself off camera. Stop doing that. 

What more can I really say? Let's just end it here.

Okay if we're looking at this in a vacuum, where the romance rectangle doesn't exist and Cory isn't a terrible teacher, there is a deep, dying part of me that suddenly springs back to life when I hear Cory and Topanga romance each other. Girl Meets World beats my soul into submission, chains it up in the basement with the cockroaches, but moments like this remind that part of me not to give in.

And even through my bad attitude, Lucas eating the Couples Game card gave me a genuine laugh.

You know what's actually hilarious? This is funny. Watch this episode again from Lucas or Maya's point of view. I would totally think that Riley and Farkle have the secret hots for each other. Farkle keeps talking about LOVE and SECRETS, which makes Riley uncomfortable, and they keep dragging each other off away from the others. And as soon as Farkle mentions midnight, Riley spirits him away up to the roof. It would be very easy to get the wrong idea. Oh okay, it sounds like Smackle might have seen it that way, a little.

At long last, Riley says something meaningful to Charlie, that she is officially not interested. Thank you Riley. Charlie takes it like a champ, so all he's gotta do is go find Sarah. At the very least, we have one plot thread tied up. I will forever prefer Rarlie to this love triangle crap, but if this is the story they want to tell, then I'm glad Charlie didn't get strung along any further.

I know that feel.

Wohoah, what's this!
We got Sarah running the bases with Captain America back here, havin coffee with the Deaaaan woooooo Feeneh!

They made the wise, sage decision not to have Ava here with Auggie, thank goodness. 

Farkle does indeed blow the Horn of Gabriel instead of kissing his girlfriend. What the hell is this ending? A cliffhanger? How MANY. TIMES. Are they going to say THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE ONE. WHERE THE TRUTH. AND THE GABRIEL. AND THE FEELINGS. WE GUARANTEE THE FEELINGS. Well we didn't get any of that. We got a cliffhanger. Pretty sure the writers didn't tweet about no god damn cliffhanger, though I doubt whoever handles that account could even spell cliffhanger. I'm going to end this review as abruptly as they ended the episode. What the fuck am I supposed to say?

Hey, guys. Sorry about the delay. I was insane busy on Friday and Saturday, basically was only at my apartment long enough to go to sleep and wake up, so I had no time. Sunday I had tons of time but I just... didn't wanna. 

Not too much ground to cover. Sean more (I also don't care about any of this) or less (I wouldn't have found four different instances, or even one, to mention Sarah) said what I would have said.

Yeah, you're right, they're being too cute. This show is just so exhaustively and yet uncreatively meta and I'm tired of it. It took something I liked about Boy Meets World and made me hate it. There's just no nuance and finesse here. Just write a show. Stop pointing out how you're writing a show and write the show. And if you're going to do meta, stop doing it in the same couple ways. This conversation about how they need to address stuff that happened earlier because life is waiting on bated breath for them and nothing is happening until they do (and done better) in "Girl Meets the New World." 

And, by the way, they only need to do these little bits of "Okay, stop everything, let's move the main story arc along now and address what happened last time." because this show's chronology is such a convoluted mess that big moments happen, and then episodes just end, and there's no resolution, and then the next episode is some dumb episode about religion that has nothing to do with anything.

It's a problem that will be coming at us next time too. This episode ends with a big revelation that should really rock the foundation of the group dynamic. Riley, Maya, and Lucas sit together as a sad unit unsure of what to say and where to go, and it's unresolved. Stay tuned for the next episode, in a month, for an episode about how girls can do science too, that was written, filmed, and intended to air before "New Year" and thus won't be addressing any of it! Around graduation (WHICH WILL CANONICALLY BE FIVE MONTHS LATER), the three of them will remember all this happened, we promise.

There's nothing wrong with having one-off episodic episodes peppered throughout the season, breaking up the development of the main story. In fact, I think that's the ideal way to do it. But then you need to end those main story beats in a place where characters can continue with their regular lives. Imagine if we got "Heartbreak Cory", ending with Topanga reading that letter, and then the next episode was just, like, "Raging Cory" for some reason. And then a month later they decided they had to get back to that letter and gave us "First Girlfriends Club". 

Harper's back. Did I win a bet? Didn't I bet she'd be back and you didn't? I feel like we bet that. It took a lot longer than I thought. I still don't like her, but she wasn't nearly as grating in this episode since it wasn't all about how awesome she was. And, yeah, literature really works better for allegories than history does. History is on such a large scale that rarely do its dramas actually have much in common with adolescent heartaches. Literature, on the other hand, speaks to individual human dramas. So, using Sense and Sensibility, rather than trying to tie this into Iran Contra Affair was probably the way to go. Though I was a little confused about the discussion. It sounded like the characters were just being assigned the book and hadn't read it yet (and we see them starting to read it later) and yet Harper's standing there synopsizing the story and spoilering up a storm.

And, like, I don't know. I don't agree with the premise here. And I don't agree with how black and white this show tends to be on how life should be lived. Harper asks what's more important, Sense or Sensibility. Lucas answers "It depends on the situation." Harper says that's wrong, they're always just as important as each other and you need both. Shut up. Lucas isn't wrong. There's no wrong answer to a question like that. The way you see life isn't the way everybody should see life, and that's not what you're here to teach. And, yeah, I think sometimes it does depend on the situation, lady. Often you need both, but sometimes one is more important than the other. In certain situations it's more much more valuable to act based on instinct and your heart. In other situations, it's more much valuable to have rational thought. Lucas gave an entirely fair answer. For her to just be like "Nope. Anyone else?" is ridiculous.

Also, the whole second scene in the classroom is pointless. It's about Harper showing them that they need to use head and heart, that both sense and sensibility are important but... Charlie already says that in the first scene. We already got that lesson. You didn't need to spend four minutes for all the characters to discover what Charlie succinctly already stated. Did they forget they had Charlie say that already? They shouldn't have if they wanted it to be a lesson Harper teaches later. 

Still, it was better than Cory's dumb class. "Will this be on the test, sir?" "It will." "When is the test, sir?" "Every day." God. I can hear them high-fiving each other in the writer's room over that self-important bullshit from here.  Can we get an episode without some trite "Aren't I the wisest little dickens?" line from Cory. It's like there's an implied "Eh? EH? How 'bout THAT, huh?" after every other line he says.

You know who pissed me the fuck off in this episode? Farkle. This is none of your damn business Farkle. Get a fucking life and let these people live theirs. You think Riley's doing the wrong thing and want to tell her so? Fine. But it is so not his place to intervene on this, I can't even believe him. What a fucking prick. He was obsessed. You fucking loser, Farkle. Fuck off.

Also, if all Smackle brings to the table is accusing Lucas of being obsessed with her and not understanding affection, I'm losing interest. She was of no value in this episode at all to me.

Maya's desire to make the book be "Hop on Pop" was cute. Sabrina's good in this one in general. I was kind of underwhelmed by Rowan though. 

"Hey, Charlie Gardner just asked me if I was invited to your party. I told him I didn't know about any party. He smiled, like a Charlie Gardner, gave me this bow, and then left. I still like him." is a great line. 

Charlie Gardner seemed to chart a middle ground between his initial characterization and his slightly off Texas characterization. He's bold and take-charge and now as pathetic this time around, but he's also played for laughs as this weird guy who's elaborately and formally nice and turns out to be behind you overhearing your conversation. Like you say, Riley does gave him real reason to suspect she's interested in this one, as opposed to Texas where she clearly didn't want to be on that date. He mostly works, and he's still way more entertaining than any of the other boys. ("Hi! I'm a good person!") Hell, in this episode, he was more entertaining than everyone.

I do like that Riley finally came out with this though. It was clear Charlie was not being written as a guy Riley will really be with, so let's not drag it out anymore. I certainly hope this isn't it for Charlie, though. He's a great character. Let's just have him be part of the gang. If you need to create some room, you can drop Zay. Zay's gotten better, but I didn't miss him in this one, and I suspect I wouldn't at all. 

One improvement this episode did have on Texas 3 despite retreading a lot of the same stuff was that I bought Lucas/Maya a little more. They still had their awkward "Not knowing how to talk to each other." thing, but there were signs by the end that this was improving. And it definitely does seem the issue at hand is that Lucas genuinely likes both of them. This is better than Riley and Lucas like each other, Lucas never liked Maya, and now Lucas is stuck with Maya because Riley's being a martyr.

Lucas eating the card was hilarious. Maya doing it again was not. That should have been a one-off. And it was funnier with Lucas. 

Haha, yeah, you're right, watching it without context it totally looks like something's going on with Farkle and Riley, and she's urging Riley to come clean so they can be together. But really what's going on is Farkle is being a piece-of-shit friend. 

Yeah, I liked Pangers in this one. And Cory after his dumb lesson. As per usual. It's so weird how Cory goes from the living fucking worst to my favorite character on the show almost entirely depending on what room he's in. 

Episode Rating: C
Episode MVP: Tanner Buchanan

 

190 comments:

  1. The constant Sarah mentions are getting annoying. We get it already.

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    1. Sarah is hanging out with Wyatt again. First time we have seen them "together" since "First Date" so I'm guessing that Charlie isn't getting any from her.

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    2. Now THAT'S what I'm looking for. See I didn't even know we'd met that guy before.

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    3. We got his name in "Rileytown", though he has been in class since early season 1.

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    4. Keep the Sarah mentions coming, and the Hunter/Cory lesson contrast was gold.

      Otherwise, I want to watch another time or two before saying anything about the episode or review. Sober might also help.

      A Christmas special followed immediately after GMW, at least up here, and Sabrina and Sarah were in that too. Though recognizing a Disney face or two, I didn’t really know who anybody else was or what was going on, which give the proceedings a vaguely psychedelic aura, like I was 11 and watching HR PufnStuf (to use an obscure reference only 1960 would stand a chance of knowing).

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    5. At least Sarah's minor character seems to have PLOT PROGRESSION. Her story is literally moving faster than that of the main cast. AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE LINES.

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    6. Milestones, the folks on the special were all obviously Disney related. The singers are all on Disney's Hollywood Records and they push them on Radio Disney. Sarah was there because she is Sabrina's sister and her backup singer (You see her in all of Sabrina's videos). The rest of the non-singers were the cast of Bunk'd and Best Friends Whenever. They are Disney's two newest shows and I guess they were trying to get them some buzz. The only other person I remember seeing was Sophia Carson, who starred in the DCOM Descendants and who is co-starring in a DCOM with Sabrina, Adventures in Babysitting, which I believe premiers in February.

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    7. Ha! I didn't even SEE any of this when I chided Sean in the review for bringing Sarah up so much.

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    8. Excuse me for giving a little personality to my writing.

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    9. Hey, personality's great. I just don't know what's so special about this random extra, besides that she's Sabrina Carpenter's sister, which I don't think is even what you care about.

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    10. But then, I was never a Dancing Guy guy either. THAT AIN'T MY STYLE.

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    11. It's fun to watch what happens outside the main focus (like the olive garden kid) and she's the only extra I know the name of.

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    12. It is interesting. The core 4 can't figure out how to go on a single date without hurting anyone, yet Sarah and Wyatt have been together since last spring, the same with Yogi and Darby. Also Dave and Jade were together on the roof in "New Year". Sometimes I actually see WHY Cory needs to direct his lessons towards this group.

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    13. Fair point 1960.

      Speaking for myself, I still think the writers lost a major opportunity (salutes *Major Opportunity*) in not writing Sarah in as an estranged cousin of Maya's. We know that Kermit is a deadbeat, but surely he's not too old that both his parents have already passed away.

      I know neither of our hosts were fond of even the idea Jack Hunter, but I never minded him. I minded the writers not using him as Shawn's brother, rather than Eric's not-quite-as-funny sidekick.

      In any case, as I've said before, I probably wouldn't have brought it up if it weren't for the fact that Sarah the Extra looks a LOT like a brunette Maya.

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  2. I liked this episode a lot. The lack of actual resolution is pretty annoying but beyond that, I thought character interactions were fun and the comedy was great (Lucas eating the card KILLED me). It had the usual GMW issues like heavy-handedness and lesson-faces (and where the hell was Zay? Charlie was blatantly in his seat! What kind of sick vortex does that classroom exist in?), but I enjoyed it a lot.

    And can we start tweeting at that awful writer account to get Sarah some more lines for season 3?

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    1. I'm glad the phrase "lesson faces" is catching on.

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    2. as I say sean I think that if you watch icarly from start to end you can see that riley is not cory maya is not shawn lucas is not Topanga farkle is not minkus

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  3. I agree with most everything you said. I wasn't expecting resolution, but moving the story along would have been nice. The only thing that happened is that Riley's feelings are now out in the open and that could have been done half way through and then had Riley and Lucas talk and Maya and Riley talk and Maya and Lucas talk. They may not have resolved anything, but something would have happened.
    It does make me wonder how different the story would have been if Uriah (Josh) had been able to be in it. Instead we get an episode where nothing really happens. It was a waste of a holiday episode and really did not live up to the hype that was being placed on this episode.

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    1. I did like the interactions with Smackle and Lucas though..."What part of that wasn't I supposed to say out loud."

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    2. His interactions with Smackle are one of the few times I feel like we see a definitive personality from Lucas.

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    3. I'm not on the spectrum, but I could really relate to "What part of that wasn't I supposed to say out loud." It's totally a variation on "I carried a watermelon."

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  4. Boo. Boo to this episode. I literally know the same exact things I knew the last time this "dilemma" was the focus. There is no new information gained. AND WE STILL DON'T KNOW HOW LUCAS FEELS ABOUT EITHER GIRL. All this unnecessary pre/teen angst is making me shout-y.

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    1. Until the writers give that kid a backbone, we're stuck in this hell. They have to make him the one to stand up and say "Enough"! Or else, this whole thing has been for nothing.

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    2. This would be a great way to bring in Rachel. She's in New York on a business trip. Rachel and Lucas could talk about how hard it is be at the center of a love triangle when you like both people. I think Lucas doesn't know what he wants. He likes both of them, and he isn't sure which he wants a romantic relationship with.

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  5. I rewatched this episode live, so to get the full grasp of what they were going for that a poorly shot link can't provide. Glad I did, cause it reinforced some of my original feelings.

    Firstly, I'm actually glad Harper is back. The style and presentation difference between her classroom and Cory's is so jarring that its actually upsetting how they have botched the Teacher Cory character. Harper actually feels like a teacher who is TEACHING, and not someone who is tailoring lessons to his favorites. And Sean, you are dead on right with the "Lesson Faces". Its so dumb, that I have to think the writers are telling them to do that. We know the lesson applies to them, we are the viewer. So, if we know, and they know, then why to they have to physically manifest their apprehension? It's such overkill, that it hurts the scene. We know they're uncomfortable with this situation, the previous scene set that up. So, please, stop that.

    I hope this isn't the end of Charlie Gardner, because the way they ended up dealing with his part of the rectangle, that's what we're calling it now, was actually nice. And I like the running gag with him just appearing out of nowhere. It gives him an actual trait that fans will remember him for, rather than being a cardboard cutout that Lucas has been. And that final scene between him and Riley was direct, and honestly very real. Despite the slight stalker vibe from Charlie, he was never anything but nice. And Riley let him down very easy. Nicely done.

    I liked Lucas in this episode too. His report with Smakle is so fun. I get this old school straight-man/comedian vibe with their jokes that is refreshing. They are legitimately funny. His eating the card got a laugh out of me, and Maya following it up was still funny. The classroom stuff was good from him too. Good all around episode from Lucas.

    Two cons from this episode that I had issues with were the only Cory classroom scene, and the Maya/Matthews scene. Starting off with Cory's classroom, the sheer fact that the season themes were written on the board pissed me off. Granted, the general audience probably didn't read that interview, or tweet, where that was stated. Yet, the fact it was there really struck a nerve with me. Like, they couldn't avoid being super meta with it. Good for you guys, you got a nugget in there. Aren't you clever. Ugh. That brings me to the other thing that bothered me. When Maya was by herself in the apartment with the Matthews', did she have a more legitimate family moment with Cory and Topanga in one scene than we've seen from Riley and her parents the whole show? Was that a thing that happened? Because that's what it felt like. In that one scene, Maya felt more like the Matthews' daughter than Riley. Which was weird, and sad.

    With all that said, my MVP is Corey Foglemanis. Yes, Farkle himself is getting my MVP. He started the episode telling Riley what he was going to do, and he followed through with it. He actually seems like a genuine, caring friend rather than the friend with the creepy crush. The Horn of Gabriel reference was heavy, and heavy handed, but it served the purpose of that ending which did feel like a hammer dropping.

    Episode Grade: B- Despite the overall cliffhanger, I did like this episode. Everyone was pretty good in terms of performance, and I only had issue with what I mentioned above.

    Episode MVP: Corey Foglemanis

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    1. Good mention about Maya and the Matthews.' You're right: that scene was so much more meaningful than almost anything we've seen between Riley and her parents. I don't know if that is the acting or the directing, but either way, I do feel that Maya gets more heartwarming, family moments with the Matthews' than she does with her mother or Riley does with her parents. This is a problem, considering how poorly Topanga gets utilized, especially as a mothering role, and half of Cory's scenes are the annoying ones at school. Their only genuine moments usually involve Maya.

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    2. I absolutely agree. And I can only say that in this instance, it was the story. I don't want to hate on the acting, because we want it to be good. And its not the problem. The problem is the writers set this up to happen, and it worked, but it almost worked too well. It forces us to go, "Why can't they do this with Riley?" Because we know Rowan is talented enough to do it, they just don't let it happen. Its frustrating.

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    3. There have been a couple of times where we see Topanga having a motherly moment with Riley. Notably Texas Part 3 when Riley was in Topanga's lap, 1961 when she learned how she got her name, and Mr. Squirrels when Riley and Topanga teamed up against Uncle Eric. I agree completely, however, that Topanga's character is sorely underutilized.

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    4. Patrick, I grant you the the moment in Texas Part III where she had her head in Topanga's lap. That was good. Yet, those other two were touching for the sake of being touching. The scene we got in this episode had all the writing, sentiment, and acting that we've wanted the actual Matthews' family to have. They took care with that scene, and it showed.

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    5. I think Riley has had her fair share of fatherly scenes with Cory, but I do think topanga/maya bond seems stronger than topanga/riley. Probably because the Mathews pratically adopted Maya and she is the "trouble child" out of the kids. Riley is too nice and normal to warant the attention.

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    6. I actually thought Corey delivered his lines really strangely... They didn't feel organic at all. His lines were lengthy and delivered supremely quickly... I guess that was how he was interpreting urgency? But it felt like he was acting his half of the conversation whereas Rowan was more believable.

      Charlie is supposed to be in the season finale, so I'll be curious to see to what degree and if they bring him around for another year. I think there are interesting things to be done with his character. I honestly still really enjoy him. Although based on the episode stills I actually thought there was going to be more of an interaction between him and Auggie? I was half expecting Riley to reject him and then see him interacting adorably with Auggie and feel some sort of regret? I don't know. I will say I think his character feels like one of the most intriguing. He's got this weird need to be perceived as adorable, he has a bunch of sisters (are those things related), pays supremely close attention to things, and has a quirky trait of quietly appearing and piping up when something of interest to him is spoken. Aside from MAYBE Farkle, I think that's the most actual *character* of any young male character on this show.

      I was also disappointed Josh wasn't there. Love pentagon? Except Josh isn't interested in anyone else so... love candy cane? Or love ladle if you flipped it upside down?

      M------L
      | |
      J R
      |
      C

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    7. Ugh. It killed my formatting.

      M- - - -L
      | . . . . |
      J . . . R
      . . . . .|
      . . . . .C

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    8. So the theme of Season 3 is "Feelings?" D'oh.

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    9. Milestones, the theme is "Feelings" but there may be a glimmer of hope.

      And "Feelings" might not just mean romance. "Feelings" could refer to passion as in romance, but it could also mean passion for a cause.

      If one of the kids decides on some big goal for the next season, something really big like Farkle going for some science-y internship or Riley getting behind an issue her Uncle Eric is vouching for in Congress, that could be really good.

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  6. This episode was so bad it retroactively makes me question - but for the fact this show is still the Mouse Network's highest rated - the renewal of the series

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    1. First, editing.

      This episode was as poorly edited and paced as the Texas III episode. The cuts were whiplash.

      Second, acting.

      The line readings were shit. And the script quality since Texas II has dropped off like a rock; half the lines should be cringed at visibly by the actors. Surprisingly Lucas and unsurprisingly Maya were the only really natural acted and remotely funny lines. The adults' lines mostly were shameful even in the context of Girl Meets World; on Boy Meets World, William Daniels would have smacked the writers upside the head until they rewrote this dreck

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    2. Third, and most important, the "moral".

      I'm sorry, but this entire episode was even more reprehensible than Belief. Farkle should be fired out of a cannon into a volcano. What he did was *utterly* douchey, and should have warranted a split in friendship alright - but between him and the girls and Lucas.

      He was an absolutely unrelieved prick.

      I am pretty shocked that the writers of the show thought he was remotely in the right here. He did *not* do the right thing; at best he did something necessary and morally ambiguous, and his smug Writers Onboard approach was crap.

      The last, like, four episodes are a fucking graveyard of Broken Aesops

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    3. Oh, and fourth, but this is as much applicable to Texas III as to this one.

      RILEY IS FUCKING PREPUBESCENT AND NOT EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL. SHE IS NOT ROMANTICALLY IN LOVE WITH ANYONE LET ALONE LUCAS. SHE HAS NOT HAD A SINGLE REMOTELY MATURE PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE OF SUCH AS HER FATHER AND HIS BEST FRIEND WERE ALREADY ENGAGING IN BACK THEN.

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    4. I should note, pwfan, that I fucking loathe this ridiculous and overused theme in shows - and adult shows are as prone to it as anything - that we should congratulate someone on "sticking to their guns"

      That's horseshit. Sometimes people are wrong. No matter how fervent someone is about their "following through" with their bullshit threats should conceal the fact that *their threats were bullshit*.

      Farkle had no justification - none - for pulling what he did, beyond the writers finding themselves, almost inevitably, in the exact position they were in with Minkus. Namely, he's the weakest plot link in the show and should be written out

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    5. And Dan'l, she's not going to have an experience like her father and Uncle Shawn had. She's not. This is "love" DC style. She's already kissed Lucas, so obviously she's in love. That's how this works. She may be prepubescent, and she may just have one door out of middle school, but this is how it is. It's how its always been.

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    6. No, I made my peace with that the moment the show was announced. But it's atrocious writing, honestly almost insulting to the audience, for Farkle or anyone else to say that she's "in love with Lucas"

      She has a crush.

      Where I am furious is Michael Jacobs et al trying to shoehorn back in the Cory Topanga dynamic when both actor chemistry and simple logic would dictate they should avoid redoing this

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    7. foot* Damn it!


      Also, look, I'm happy Farkle revealed it. You know why, its just one more step to ending all this. Like I said above, Lucas is the only one who can end this triangle. The writers are obviously feeling themselves with this triangle. They're popping for their own shit.

      And also, I don't think this warrants him getting booted from the show.

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    8. He deserves booting because he's becoming superfluous and a 20ish minute show with this level of attention span can only handle so many characters. Which is why they booted Minkus

      But I agree with you in the sense the greatest sin here is the writers denying Lucas any agency. The stupidest part was that this dumb shit cliffhanger was almost resolved in a really sweet and natural way - Maya and Lucas's wonderful little exchange.

      Why the writers needed to throw a cliffhanger on us when we could have seen Lucas gradually begin to connect with Maya is beyond me.

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    9. Yeah, but Minkus wasn't a core character, who made up a part of Shawn, Cory and Topanga. Farkle is. We call them the Core Four for a reason. You remove one of them, some of the dynamic is gone. Also, they just revamped his whole character, which is something DC rarely does. Actual growth.

      Yup. That exchange was nice, and it worked. Just like the Riley and Charlie exchange. The whole point of this episode was to remove Charlie from the equation. And that's what they did.

      It'll be a long ride to Legacy, the S2 finale. They have to trim away the fat from this love triangle, or whatever it is, and settle it by then. We can't go into S3 still dealing with this. And again, Lucas has to step up, or he goes from being cardboard, to basically a shell of a person.

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    10. Farkle's excuse for both Texas III and here was that Maya "didn't know what she wanted"

      *Because she is 14 and clearly hurt by circumstances of her family life that Farkle has no true frame of reference to understand*

      That minute to Midnight exchange was an exceptional example of Showing rather than Telling, and then these idiot writers decided to ruin it by ratcheting shit back to their idiot plot instead of working with the organic development those two young actors demonstrated

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    11. Dan'l, I think you're hinting at one of the most important issues with this show, which in my opinion is that the writers are so self-involved with their own agenda in reconciling this plot (or withholding the resolution altogether) that they don't give the story or the characters the chance to grow organically based on the interaction and chemistry between the actors or even the written characters themselves. Even authors of short stories and novels know that you let the characters dictate the plot, not the other way around. They don't give the material the chance to breathe on its own before they've already got their sights on an ending so far in the future, that we cannot possibly know how the characters will develop by then, thus the stilted scenes with no growth due to a deathgrip on a set ideal.

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    12. Self involved is right. Self absorbed may be even more accurate. Regardless of what we call it, they're fast approaching being simply a bunch of hackish dicks.

      Also, it's funny that Farkle, who acts as their insert again this week, wasn't on the spectrum, but the writers forget that you don't have to be autistic to be an asshole. They should take a long look in the mirror

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    13. I agree with everything you said about Farkle, he was such a prick and the show aparently thinks he was right, which makes things even worse.

      And I agree that Riley can't possibly romantic love anyone at her age, but I'd argue that at her age a crush does seem like being in love, simply because you have no frame of reference.

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    14. la texana-Yes!! At that age a crush seems like love, because there's no experience table. To her it's the real thing, but her parents know it's something else that may change over time, or never develop into anything at all.

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  7. Let me preface this by saying: I hate the love triangle. I do not care about Riley/Lucas, or Maya/Lucas, or any of the 'ships', so this episode was particularly eye rolling for me to sit through. But even I'm feeling annoyed at the fact that it looks like the season is going to end with some sort of Kumbaya, 'we're all best friends and friendship is so much more powerful than love!' resolution for the 3 of them, because there's no way Lucas can end things with one girl and establish a relationship with the other in a 20 minute finale. Which leads me to think: what is the point? Seriously, what has the point been of these past 4 episodes (if we look at it in production order)? I just don't understand the purpose of building the romantic relationship between Maya and Lucas all season and dedicating an entire 3 part special to revealing her feelings, if it's just going to end up being "We're all friends!" Yeah, Maya and Lucas were already friends. If they wanted to move Riley/Lucas to just a friendship (where they work way, way better than they do romantically, since the actors who play Riley and Lucas have absolutely 0 romantic chemistry together, while at least Maya and Lucas have plenty), including Maya in it is just so pointless. They already had Charlie as an 'obstacle' or way for Riley to realize that her feelings for Lucas might be only platonic, so why use Maya as a plot device? Wasting all these episodes on the worst love triangle ever is completely pointless if the plan is for them to just be friends. I've never wanted any combination of the 3 to end up together, but Jesus. The way the writers are going about this is really, really stupid. I did laugh at Lucas suddenly, randomly being jealous over Riley/Charlie, though. I mean, the guy has never been proactive in their relationship, ever (he couldn't even be bothered asking her to the semi-formal, when she said "I just want to be asked to the dance!" IN FRONT OF HIS FACE), and now he suddenly is all jealous and posturing? And don't even get me started on this "Riley still loves Lucas!" "Is it possible to love two people at the same time?" stuff. These kids are 14. None of them are in love with each other. Jesus Christ.

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    1. Agreed. When can we see them just be kids dealing with problems that actually kids have at this age? Homework, classes, balancing school and fun, learning who they are and what they want outside of romantic relationships. I would like to order some characters with goals, please. I want the goals included. Also, an extra side of age-appropriate plot development.

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    2. They think they're in love. It's middle school. They have feelings and are figuring out how to deal with them and when to act on them. Middle school kids have romantic relationships (granted it's mostly handholding at that age and going out in groups, but relationships are a part of life at that age). I would also like to see plot and character development that is not part of the love-triangle/relationship drama

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  8. I agree with posters above that Legacy will end with them all being friends, however I think it'll lean towards/hint at an eventual Lucaya romance in Season 3 once all the Riley stuff is properly cleared up. Because I agree, it makes NO SENSE for them to have invested all that time building up Lucas/Maya (even very early on in Season 2, when Eric asked Lucas why he lets Maya tease him and it was left unanswered, it was obvious where the story was headed) just to have them be like "Nope, we're just friends!" and shut the door on them entirely or, God forbid, revert back to Rucas, who have so little chemistry that their "romantic" scenes are painful to sit through.

    But onto, this episode: it was bad. Like, really bad. This and Texas Part 3 have just felt like the writers were treading water. If you're going to have Farkle reveal Riley's feelings for her (he kept saying he doesn't know how Maya feels... so why doesn't he just ASK her? Or ask Lucas how HE feels?), do it halfway through the episode and let Riley/Maya/Lucas have an actual conversation about it. Also, was Lucas being serious when he said Maya's NEVER said anything nice to him? Uh, dude, are you forgetting when she flipped out about you riding a bull, said she wouldn't know what to do if you got hurt, that she likes you, and thinks you're a good guy? Is that not nice? That was weird.

    One interesting thing is that Rowan did an interview saying that Josh was meant to be in the episode and they wrote him out ON THE DAY OF FILMING. That's bizarre, and makes a lot of sense as to why the episode was so weird and choppy. I think Maya's card was relating to her feelings towards Lucas and Josh and her confusion was meant to be more explicit (I guess she was meant to 'choose' Lucas at the end, then? I'm almost positive the rooftop conversation was going to be in the episode regardless of whether Josh was there or not), but without Josh there it just felt strange. I can't wait until this love triangle business is dead and buried, seriously. What a waste of an episode.

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  9. LOL@ the lesson faces. That's so perfectly applicable. Rowan's expression in that picture cracks me up every time.

    This episode was nonsense, but I found several parts of it pretty funny so it somewhat salvaged the experience for me. Charlie Gardener is the best and I hope they don't drop his character now that he's no longer involved in the love triangle. His banter with Lucas was great and he just has this strange charisma to him. I'd like to see some more done with him later down the line, although admittedly, the cast is already pretty crowded as-is and if plotlines like this are going to be dragged out forever then eh.

    Maya's comment about never saying anything nice to Lucas also rubbed me the wrong way, as an above poster pointed out, considering this is supposed to follow along the same plotline as Texas where they had their deep campfire conversation.

    My biggest problem with the episode, though, is that Lucas STILL doesn't get a perspective or get a chance to voice his thoughts on the matter. I like Peyton, he's grown a lot and he gives Lucas a pretty likeable persona that has made me gravitate towards him despite the poor writing, but I find it REALLY hard to be invested in his character when they continually portray him as this bland guy that never gets a chance to say how he feels and lets other people continually dictate it for him. Right when he would logically get his chance to ask some questions or give some input... CLIFFHANGER!!! WAIT TILL THE FINALE SUCKERS!

    Speaking of that, I dunno, man... does anybody know when Legacy airs? Because we have a good couple weeks/months of unconnected nonsense to look forward to before we can get a resolution to this love triangle arc.

    Good review Sean, looking forward to hearing Christian's comments as well later on.

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    1. I'm trying very hard to avoid the trap of shipping and whatevers this show is pulling. However, isn't what we had this episode instances of Lucas being into Riley, or at least, unwilling to accept her dating someone else?
      He hears charlie and Riles talking about playing a couple's game and he jumps in; he finishes and confirms Charlie's pseudo-stalker observations; a cute girl who's into him asks who's spot he was saving and he says he doesn't know. I thought i knew where the writers were going with this, but now i'm not so sure.

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    2. It would be great to see a conversation where Lucas and Farkle talk about relationships. I know they're guys, but something along the lines of, "How did you know Smackle was right for you/How do you know when it's love and not friendship." Love as in middle school love, not grown-up relationship love, because those are two different things.

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  10. First, I grew up in the 90's, so I have nothing but fond afection for Charlie's hair. It's not a mullet, its floppy hair, Sean!

    Charlie was acting like such a creepy "Nice Guy" I was afraid he was going to pull some friendzone crap when Riley rejected him, but he took it like a champ. Lets hope he tones down the obsession so he can hang out again.

    Whatever at this ep though, there was no resolution! I really doubt Maya bought for a second that Riley was okay with Lucaya, she is smarter and more sensible than that, so the love revelation was only a revelation go Lucas, who continues to have no opinion about his own love life. Boy, I know your motto is that your are okay with everything, but grow a spine. Interject at least once.

    And on to Farkle, when being right is more important than being friends, that's the end of being friends. That's from his own show and he should learn from it.

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  11. I haven't seen the episode yet, since I worked the late shift at my second job and didn't get home until a quarter to midnight.

    But, given what Brother Shipping Wars told me, and what Sean has said, I would like to say something:

    I have said since the beginning that Cory should have been their English teacher rather than History. My English teachers in middle school and high school had a tendency to be able to easily connect their assignments with our lives, or else ask us what we personally thought of the material assigned through our own philosophies. And two of the best teachers I ever had were my English teachers.

    And I remember distinctly that in "Boy Meets World," Turner went out of his way to try to connect the material to his students' lives. Remember when he had them read "Pigmallion" in "Turnaround"? (One of Sean's favorites, as I recall).
    "How you speak, how you look, the clothes you wear. It changes the way people think about you. You guys can understand that right?"

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  12. I agree with everything you've said and appreciate the review between Harper and Cory's lessons and how the girls need to learn a better poker face.However I have questions!
    do you think sense and sensibility would be taught in middle school?
    If farkle was your friend how do you think you would handle his complete disregard for riley? In Texas i hated how riley through Lucas under the bus by sharing information that wasn't hers to share and now farkle is doing the same thing. He's cute as a button and agree he is the best catch out of the three boys (Charlie can suck it and die, he's a stupid character) but it's bad form.
    Do you agree we need more smackle and Lucas interactions?
    I think Danielle Fischel got plastic surgery, thoughts?

    I love sarah so keep that going!

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    1. I can only respond to "Sense and Sensibility."

      I didn't read Austen until high school, summer before junior year. And even then it was "Pride and Prejudice."
      While I enjoyed it immensely, I can say I probably wouldn't have been interested in eighth grade. More to the point, that large a book you'd easily spend a month or two on.

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    2. I agree! I wish some lessons were prolonged a little, not a Jane Austen book in 30 minutes, but then again we fall into the disney recipe for disaster routine.

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  13. How long till josh returns?
    Is Yogi still dating that girl?
    Is it a U.S. thing or were my parents just strict? 'Cause i can't imagine being allowed to attend a party at someone else's home until after midnight when i was 14.
    I liked Harper's class.

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    1. It was a New Years party so rules may have been a little different.
      Josh was supposed to be in the episode but got in an accident.
      I think they are still together because we see them in the episode together.

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    2. They are all friends, so that makes it better. The parents know who else is going to be there. The parents knew there would be responsible adults there, which makes it more acceptable. It's also TV and sometimes you just have to roll with it.

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  14. An interview with rowen about the episode! Thoughts?
    What are you excited for people to see in this episode?
    One of my favourite scenes is towards the end. I can’t say what that is. But this episode was kind of a whirlwind because the original plotline involved an actor who wasn’t able to be on set that week. The actor, who plays Josh, got into a motorcycle accident and that week he was in the hospital, so we had to write him out the day we were filming. It was crazy. You still hear the name “Josh” in the episode, but that’s partially because we didn’t know whether or not he was going to be on set that week.

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    1. Now I want to read the original script. I imagine a resolution was there before they had to change it.

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    2. I want to know what the script would have been with josh! I will never know but I bet inwouldnhavw really liked it because josh is my favorite.

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    3. I would have loved to see the original script too.

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  15. Fantastic review as always Sean. I for one love the Sarah jokes and the Lesson faces. Keep that shit up.

    There's some good stuff here. I've given it more thought and I'm sort of ambivalent about this episode.

    I'm not gonna do a big review like in that fucking piece of shit "Meets Belief" but..

    Harper's classroom scenes were great. It's nice to see someone other than Cory teach these brats. Then again, WTF was Cory's class?

    I like the Riley/Farkle scenes, but this may have a bit to do with Rowan and Corey being best friends in real life. It adds a sense of realism that the Lucas/Riley scenes don't have.

    I can't decide if I like Charlie or if he's a creep. He does have a cool leather jacket though.

    Smackle is a gem. I love how she hugs Riley first. She's growing up and getting more comfortable around people! Keep her and dump Lucas.

    I'm sorry but why should I feel sorry for Lucas. I keep seeing people say "What does Lucas feel?" Lucas has both "the blonde beauty" and "the pretty brunette would do anything for her friends" liking him? I fail to feel sorry for him. Grow a spine, kid. Make a choice. It's not that hard.

    Reading Sean's review, I change my view that we went a little bit forward. Riley dumps Charlie. While it's good that we got over that hump, we still know nothing else. And that bothers me a lot, since the rest of the episode is pretty damn good.

    I'm sorry but Farkle is a boss. I'm ignoring the fact this is a New Year's episode. My headcannon puts it at around Mother's Day. Let's say it's been a month since Texas. How much longer should he wait? Riley's lying to her friends about how she feels. He can't stand this bullshit and neither should we.

    Grade...eh, probably like a B-. I have this in my top ten, on the lower end, for the season but regarding Sean's thoughts, I can't look past how we could have done this in five minutes. The rest of the stuff was pretty good. I don't know, it's way better than last week's episode. If Legacy doesn't move the plot forward fully though, I'ma be pissed.

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    1. You bring up a great point. In real life, Corey and Rowan are best friends. Peyton and Sabrina are best friends. That plays a huge role in the chemistry between Riley/Farkle and Maya/Lucas, and the subsequent lack of chemistry between Riley/Lucas, since I'm pretty sure Rowan and Peyton don't really spend any time together off set.

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  16. This episode was basically a continuation of Girl Meets Texas. Except we didn't really learn anything new. Lucas still doesn't give any information about what he feels, and there's really no resolution to this. I'm just ready for this love triangle thing to end. It's fine if they end up single or if Lucas and Maya start developing a closer friendship/relationship, but something needs to happen. However, the acting was solid the entire episode and I laughed at a lot of the jokes.

    So going into what I liked and didn't like:

    The first scene with Riley and Maya felt a little off. It was like the episode after Riley and Lucas's date. However, that episode actually did pretty well in that scene, and now it's just repetitive. I also thought it was strange that Riley is only just finding out that Lucas and Maya didn't kiss. That just doesn't make sense because she really should have known by now.

    The scenes in Harper's class were great. It was natural, like the scenes in Mr. Turner and Mr. Feeny's classes in Boy Meets World. She wasn't making the entire lesson about the Core Four, but she could see that it related to them. Also, I liked Maya's Hop on Pop references because that was my favorite book as a kid. XD Also, Lucas's character seems like he's not as smart as he was in earlier episodes. That's fine in my opinion, because it makes it a lot funnier, but it seems a bit of an abrupt change. Has anyone else noticed that? Cory's scene was so forced compared to that, and I didn't really like it at all. I'd like to see more of Harper's lessons and less of his.

    Charlie appearing out of nowhere was funny the first one or two times, but it started getting creepy. His character is decent, but I didn't love it.

    Farkle was amazing, and I loved how he dealt with the situation. Also, seeing him and Smackle together was very refreshing and added a lot of non-dramatic humor.

    Lucas was funny the whole episode. The card eating scene was hilarious and so were the little dialogues between him and Smackle.

    Topanga and Cory's scene was also pretty solid. I like seeing the two of them together, but there isn't a ton to say about it.

    When they played the Couples Game, I kind of wanted a few Boy Meets World references to when Cory, Topanga, Rachel, and Eric played a game similar to it.

    The scene with Cory, Topanga, and Maya was great. However, I really want to see them having similar scenes with Riley.

    Episode Grade: B
    MVP: Peyton Meyer. He was funny the entire episode and has been consistently improving lately. Even though I didn't get everything I wanted from Lucas this episode, that was a writing issue, not an acting issue.

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    1. I agree with your point about Cory and Topanga with maya. It's almost like they have more parenting moments with her then riley and that needs to change. I haven't been a fan of the riley and Topanga relationship is as if they don't like each other and I wish there were more parent to kid moments like in BMW.

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    2. I partially agree with you; I think it's too soon to say that Cory and Topanga have more parenting moments with Maya than Riley because THIS IS CORY AND TOPANGA'S FIRST CO-PARENTING MOMENT. And that really ticks me off because we know through Alan/Amy that Jacobs knows how utilize parents effectively yet, for whatever reason, this show never even tries. Topanga gets to be Riley's mom once every two seasons and Cory is...misused all over the place really. ESPECIALLY when it comes to the Matthews household. I've yet to be convinced that GMW's Cory and Topanga are who BMW's Cory and Topanga would've grown up to be. Operative phrase being "GROWN up". They rarely interact with their kids directly (rarely individually, NEVER together) and when they do, it's like they don't know that they're the parents and that Riley, specifically, is the kid. (Don't even get me started on the dreck that's Topanga v. Ava). I too wish there were more parent-kid moments like in BMW, emily caitlin, but even more so, I wish there were more adult moments period on GMW.

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  18. Have yet to re-watch, but the major flaw with this one for me isn't necessarily what they did (or didn't) do, but how they did it. I can buy into and defend everything they are doing from a story perspective (including Lucas having yet to give indicators one way or another), but the problem is all in the presentation.

    Prime example of that is the "Have I ever said anything nice to you?" exchange. Now, it seems most of you will disagree with this first statement, but I actually really dig that line. What happened at the campfire is its own anomaly to these two. A beyond tender moment that was so real for these two that it probably doesn't feel real at all. I like and "get" that. What I don't like is when Maya hits him with the "I'm happy you're standing here" (I think I'm paraphrasing there) that he suddenly appears to exclusively be Team Maya. His pendulum swings far too rapidly, and although on some levels believable (any teenager in his spot would love the attention), it is difficult to defend from a writing perspective because it is going to make the ultimate resolution to all of this feel very fragmented. Again, I can get behind confusion for the Lucas' character, but at some point that confusion needs to be conveyed with some meaningful exposition, even if it's just literally "I have feelings for both these girls and I'm trying to figure it all out." That one line, for me, would take all of this a long way.

    There are some other small things that I didn't love (the poor line-reading on that first Cory/Topanga scene, no mention of Zay ... like, just give Lucas a throwaway line of "He's with his family for the holidays"), but, with all that said, the good did outweigh the bad here. I think the accident did flip a ton of things around (although, my gut tells me the end scene would have remained the same) and, because of that, I think they, all things considered, did a solid job of turning it around.

    Quick hits:

    - I think Farkle was out of place for that comment, but from a viewers' perspective, I find it more than okay to feel that way. You're allowed to think it was a douche move, to me in no way was the show demanding we see him as some type of heroic figure for it.

    - I too wish that Riley had more interactions with Cory and Topanga similar to Maya here, but holy moly did I love that scene. Simple, effective, well-performed and contributed to both the immediate story and Maya's arc in general. One of my favorite moments of the season.

    - Charlie Gardner is neither here nor there for me. The character alteration from his first appearance is a bummer for me (even though his performances have been strong), as I think this triangle stuff would carry more weight if we saw him as a viable threat to Riley's heart as opposed to just the fodder that he is.

    - The Harper scenes were gold. More please in S3.

    - Sean, disagree with you on not addressing the three + Charlie sitting there before break as any type of scene that needed resolution. Did in Texas, but not here. Gardner's "Awkward" comment tied that one up with a bow for me.

    - It's a tough episode to grade, because I cannot ignore the misses in execution, even though I really did enjoy all the character interaction and still defend the "what" in relation to what they are trying to do and convey. Also, it's tricky for me, because I feel from a pacing and flow standpoint, the show is really starting to figure itself out. Texas II, III and this are not plagued with the elements that have held past good episodes back from being great. If nothing else, the fact that the show now really feels like it's firing on all cylinders from those standpoints (for me) gives me definitive hope that S3 can really be when it all comes together.

    All that considered, B+ for me.

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  19. A word about Charlie Gardner, who Maya seems to always greet with that annoying 50's voice, but it's OK with me because it's a reminder of how awesome his introduction was.

    Charlie's personality seems to be coming along. He still has that fiery confidence he had in "Semi-Formal," but he also still has that overly interested, I-Can't-Tell-If-He's-a-Creep-Or-Just-Really-Idiosyncratic vibe that developed in Texas III. It seems that all these traits are Charlie's and they aren't changing him but adding to him, and the result is this quirky, eccentric, overly eager, charming dude.

    He's got some funny lines like his "It's great how we're all looking at each other" in Cory's class and the running gag of him just showing up unannounced. It's unnerving, but as Riley says, "he doesn't make it easy [to not like him], does he?" Also, the line about how having sisters and a mom has made him sensitive. Now, I'm intrigued to see what Charlie is like around his family which seems to made up of mostly women. I also like the arrogance he displayed during the couples game. See, three episodes in, and I already know a lot about what Charlie is like, and it probably took me a season and a half to reach there with Lucas.

    Regarding the end, anyone notice the knowing look Charlie gave Riley right after he accepted her rejection? There was a quiet confidence displayed on his face when he said, "Let's see what the New Year brings." He could have said anything else, something like, "Ok, I understand we're never gonna happen," or, "It's ok if you're not interested in me," but instead, he's almost challenging her. He's bowing out with grace, but at the same time he's like "Yeah, this isn't over. You're gonna fall for me one day. You just don't know it yet." And Riley seems to notice the tone of his voice and gives him a look like, "wow, ok."

    Yeah...it's over for now, but I think Charlie and Riley are so going to happen in high school. That last scene suggests to me that it's a No for right now, but things will change later, when they arrive to the "Feelings" portion of the show.

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  20. When Lucas asked when the test was and Cory said the test of life, I wanted to poke his eye out with a fork. There needs to be an actual test taken Cory!! That was such a good line from Lucas showing that the kids need to know when they are going to be tested within school. For an actual grade!

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  21. Charlie Gardner looked and sounded so much like Sean Hunter it was erie. His posture, his phrasing, the way he sounded, the way he looked (especially the hair), it was strange. The scenes in Harper's classroom were great. I hope we get to see more of them.

    Charlie, growing up with all those sisters, clearly thinks he understands women. It will be interesting to see if that's right. I would love to see Riley's reaction if he dates someone else.

    Farkle and Smackle are adorable together.

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    1. YES! All I could think of was Sean Hunter when Charlie came into the picture... although, Charlie seems genuinely interested in Riley where Sean would have been interested in the chase of the unobtainable.

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  22. I've not commented before but have enjoyed reading all of this running commentary since I found this blog a couple months ago. I just wanted to chime in to ask if I am the only person who is getting tired of Maya? This shows feels like it is tailored toward Maya's delicate sensibilities, rather than being Riley's story, because poor Maya has such a hard life. Even when she is trying to be a fiercely loyal friend doing what's best for Riley, the conversation feels like it's about only her. Specifically, I disliked the exchange in the episode (forgive me, but I have horrible title/ep# recall) where Riley doesn't defend her from Lucas's short comment. Instead of saying, "open your eyes and see how I always take up for you," she's all, "OMG IM THE BEST. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW STUPID YOU ARE. YOU HAVE ZERO SELF AWARENESS AND I PROTECT YOU FROM YOUR OWN STUPIDITY BECAUSE I AM SUCH AN AMAZING FRIEND." Surely someone else noticed this...

    I genuinely like Riley's character and when I think back to being her age, her struggles are easy to understand. I want to know more about her and to see her grow, but all the plots feel like they lead to ensuring that Maya grows out of her house of horrors and becomes a mature little lady. I want more Riley and, while I am at it, more Farkle. The Riley/Farkle platonic friendship is one of the best themes in the show. Having a best friend of the opposite sex without feeling pressured to consider them as a significant other can be rare. Talk more about that and less about this supposed "love" triangle. Get rid of Lucas, tone down Maya's role, and let Riley shine. And keep Charlie because his eccentricity and confidence are charming. Do give him a hair cut though... I love the 90s but seriously.

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    1. I have a love hate relationship with maya, she's precious and overall I like her but I believe she's a bully in all actuality and no one else seems to see it from my perspective. I think they make her look tough and take no crap from others but it comes across as bullying.

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    2. Oh, you're definitely not alone jessi. I'm with you 110%.

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    3. I have no issues with Maya, as of this comment. Which was one of my fears coming into this love angle on the show. I didn't want the writers to make me hate her in an effort to get Riley over. So far, they really haven't.

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  23. Sean, is Christian going to be adding to your commentary soon? I was holding back my comments/review until I saw what you both had to say, but if nothing is getting added I may get to it sooner rather than later.

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  24. Sean, you had nothing to say about Smackle? She was so awesome in this episode. Definitely some of the funniest lines were delivered by her.

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    1. I mentioned that Smackle and Farkle were a highlight. She was definitely funny, but it didn't seem worth breaking my momentum to mention it since she didn't actually contribute to the story.

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  25. I have to agree with Sean. In terms of development, we really aren't any further along
    in this arc. He hit the nail on the head. I don't know if I've ever agreed more with him in the meat of his review.

    "You have overplayed your hand. Yes, I admit, you started with a pocket pair, and that gets you into the game real strong, it does. But you need to buy out the pot early, because if you let it go to the RIVER with a WET BOARD, you probably lost the hand. But that's what they did. They let it go too long, and now they lost."

    I do not understand poker at all. But I do understand where he's coming from. We could have settled this in the first half of this episode and then have Lucas make a decision for once. But we didn't.

    That's not to say this episode is without merit, though. And I think we need to cut this one some slack. Josh was due to return, but with Uriah's motorcycle accident, had to be written out at the last minute. I despise the very idea of Joshaya, but it would have been interesting to see Josh "You are no Shawn Hunter" Matthews interact with Charming Charlie Gardner.

    There is some good here. Farkle deserves a helluva lot of credit for sticking to his guns. While I would have preferred for him to tell Riley that her attitude is not fair to Charlie, what we got was fine. The show is firmly stating that Riley's behavior is not good.
    The "Horn of Gabriel" was...kind of obscure, to be perfectly honest. And a little heavy-handed. But it would have been worse if the book they were reading in English had referred to it by name. "Sense and Sensibility" is odd enough for eighth graders. "Paradise Lost" would have been way out of their league.

    Speaking of English class, I liked how Harper was teaching a book that the kids related to their lives, rather than relating the kids' lives to her teaching. That is something this show needs. I've said from the very beginning Cory should have been their English teacher. The lessons would be smoother, and frankly, Disney Channel needs to make amends for several of their recent shows be less than good on the school front.

    And Cory is the worst teacher is the history of forever. I don't care if it was the last day of classes. It was still a waste of a classroom scene, even by Cory Standards. Though there is one thing I noticed. Riley says that Cory has always put his friends before himself. Cory says he hasn't.
    Off the top of my head, I can think of a few instances where Cory did indeed put himself first: the time he video-taped the trailer park and caught Shawn's half-brother Eddie stealing a stereo and the time he video-taped the drama of the Apartment, much to Shawn and Jack's chagrin, come readily to mind.
    I'm sure there's more episodes.

    Isadora Smackle is, and always will be, a delight to watch. Seriously, I would watch a show just about her and Farkle. Isadora gets a gold star for funny in this episode.

    Overall, there really isn't much to say here. The Couple's Game wasn't as dynamic as I thought it was going to be. Mercifully, Charlie has been cut loose. Excellent. He's free to get the heck away from this madness.

    Grade: B-. Not terrible. But barely anything happened, as Sean rightly pointed out. This has gone on long enough. We should have gotten a bit more than we did. But I have to be fair--this episode was rewritten literally at the last minute to factor in Uriah's accident. Something definitely had to be cut and I'm betting they had to replace whatever it was with Cory's Classroom.

    Awesome Scene of Awesome: Isadora greeting Riley with a hug. In addition to Farkle having tremendous development this season, I have been pleasantly surprised by the growth of Isadora Smackle.

    Fun fact: Gabriel's Horn, in addition to be symbolic of the End Times, is also the name of a geometric figure with a finite volume, but infinite surface area.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel's_Horn

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    1. Yeah, for the ENORMOUS potential in The Couple's Game, they really didn't do a lot with it. I too would have liked to see how Charlie and Josh work in a scene together.

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    2. And if anyone else sees this, I woke up and there were 80 comments, so I'm just sort of replying as they come now. I scanned all of them, but there's no way I can start replying. Sorry!

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    3. That's okay Sean, you should probably concern yourself with trademarking Lesson Face anyway.

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    4. Hey Cryptid, about the Gabriel’s Horn business. Apparently being asked to behold computer technology and optics in all their glory has moved Farkle from atheism to eschatology. Made me hate Belief all over again.

      Agree about Smackle. I should update my S3 wish list to include "more Smackle."

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    5. Josh's middle name is Gabriel. I think had he been able to be there, Joshua would have shown up at Midnight right after Farkle made the announcement and blown the noise maker and said Happy New Year. Then Yogi would have made his announcement and everyone would have left leaving Maya, Riley, Lucas and Josh all on the roof together. Unfortunately, Uriah was recovering from his motorcycle accident, so we'll never know what might have been.

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    6. Farkle is still an atheist. You can reference a biblical story/figure and still be an atheist. Referencing a greek myth doesn't make someone pagan. Unless there's a joke here that I'm missing.

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    7. Hi Kit, not really a joke, but not serious either. It afforded an opportunity to take another swipe at Belief, and I so rarely get the chance to use the word "eschatology."

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    8. There were other things I liked about the episode. I thought Maya’s disgust with ketchup on mac n cheese was funny, and her only being on page 7, and her disbelief at being asked to consider things not American.

      Though I wouldn’t want to have to defend it, I though British Riley was funny too.

      I can’t help but find funny the lack of relevance Lucas’ opinion has to the triangle situation. The character works better, anyway, reacting to stuff than being a motive force.

      As uses of Auggie go, unwilling Baby New Year was pretty good.

      A topic of conversation in other thread, the episode had a stronger sense of place than we usually get.

      Like everyone else, I liked the scene between Maya, Cory, and Topanga (unlike almost everyone else, it wasn’t a jumping off point for grievances about GMW). However, “about what?” was a question I asked even before Cory did.

      I liked the rooftop fleeing of the suddenly paired off extras.

      I don’t think I was looking for resolution on this one. I’m no champion of the triangle. But it’s like the Soviets in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein, before rushing to get rid of it you have to consider the very real possibility that it will be replaced by something worse.

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    9. Eschatology is a term that refers to theology, as it relates to Endtimes.

      Hi Milestones. Good to hear from you. How's Canada been lately? Heard your Prime Minister said that he plans to legalize marijuana. I'm not going to comment on the politics, but that might be an idea for a Very Special Episode for this show. They can't exactly do smoking cigarettes, ever since Bloomberg virtually made it illegal to smoke in public in New York City.

      Never mind the comments on public policy. Shipping Wars and I were always told not to discuss religion, politics or the Great Pumpkin.

      Sean, I agree with you. The Couple's Game was underwhelming. On the one hand, we did get to see that Charlie knows a few of Riley's quirks and he did say that he had gotten to know her. So we had a bit of showing and telling. And that's a point in Gardner's favor, seeing as it took Lucas an entire year to notice Riley was a Knicks fan.
      On the other hand, it wasn't as dramatic as it could have been and I think I might have liked to see Cory and Topanga play with the kids.
      Riley, Maya, and Farkle are the only ones who really know their story. Neither Charlie nor Isadora would know and Lucas probably hasn't paid that close attention. It could be argued that Riley's views of what a relationship should be have been sculpted, however unintentionally, by the unrealistic standard set by her parents.

      And I think Patrick's right on the money. Joshua Gabriel Matthews blowing a party horn probably was on the original script. Speaking of which, Patrick, are you new to the comments? I don't believe we've met. If that's the case, let me be the first to welcome you.

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    10. Thank you. I've been lurking and made a few anonymous before.

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    11. Hey Cryptid, though above normal right now, it's still winter. There is a brief, funny, but profane, youtube clip of Kevin Hart outdoors in Winnipeg (where I live) from a few weeks ago. Weather apart, and without getting specific, let's say it feels much more like the country I grew up in than at anytime in the last decade.

      Legalization will be interesting. A previous government considered decriminalization, and the Bush Administration all but threatened a border war over it. It won't affect my life. Too old. I tried some a couple of years ago, for the first time in probably thirty years, and it did not go well.

      I didn't really mean to comment on public policy myself. But I couldn't think of a better frying pan/fire analogy that fully expressed distaste for the triangle.

      Yeah, they sure could have done more with the Couples Game

      How are things in your part of the U.S.?

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    12. Warmer than average. Feels even warmer considering we were much colder last year. Wait, I take that back. Last year, our November was snowy, but our December was cold but without much precipitation. And then through March, it snowed so much, I forgot what pavement looked like.

      Then again, I spent most of last winter working on my novel. I was cracking out nearly ten thousand words a week when I finally knuckled down.

      That's about it. I could go into more detail, but I want to remain as anonymous as possible.

      Oh wait, I recently discovered the wonder that is the Harry Dresden novels. As I recall, my Canadian friend, you were once a fan of film noir. Imagine noir in modern times, in Chicago, with wizards.

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    13. Hey Cryptid, my love of film noir survived Fish. I also love science fiction, and am certainly not opposed to fantasy. I've added Storm Front to my wish list, along side Hard Magic. Thanks for the tip.

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  26. I don't know what else is there to say. It was okay, I enjoyed most stuff, but that was BS with Farkle at the end. He has no skin in this game and gets to walk off the roof with his girlfriend. It seems we know Lucas's choice, but we got to hop on board a "Feel-Bad-For-Riley-Train".

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  27. Stray observations from the re-watch:

    Agree with all who said they too were off-put by the admission of there being no kiss in the first half of the cold open. It’s a frustrating miss by the writing staff because all that would have taken was a “I told you already, there was no kiss” from Maya. You get the same exact scene and is a strong way to inform the audience that Texas has still loomed large for these characters since its happening.

    Love the jump cut to Harper’s class in the cold open, both the classroom scene and the actual cut itself. As I said earlier today, the show is really starting to find its literal rhythm. Too often over these first two years promising plots were plagued with poor pacing. Even if we are still lukewarm in relation to the content of the show, the fact that there are less and less marathon scenes is a major positive for me.

    Maya’s “I don’t think this is in America” was money. The ghost of Shawn Hunter lived in her on that one.

    “He never makes it easy, does he?” seems out of place now given what we know in relation to the end of the episode. However, Lucas’ monologue describing his off-screen run in with him was funnier than I gave it credit for on first watch. Peyton Meyer continues to get better each week.

    I loved the callback nature of Farkle taking Riley outside (again, anything that makes Texas loom large is a plus) and I thought the scene itself was one of the stronger of the episode, however, I can’t help but think that the sole one-on-one scene of any significant length (not involving Riley and Maya) in this episode should have gone to Lucas and Farkle (or Zay … who was in Texas with his family for the holidays … that’s canon … I’m making it so) giving us SOME type of actual exposition into where his head is at. No defending of the plot points there, that is just a miss.

    Forgot that the go to the first break with the triangle + Charlie doing the whole tension and confusion gimmick. This hurts the final scene of the episode, which I already had issues with, to a stronger degree.

    I can excuse the Cory-teacher scene because I suppose I could see it as something a teacher (especially one like Cory) would discuss five minutes before … New Year’s break? Which, you know, doesn’t exist in any school system I am familiar with, you typically get off from 12/23 through post-New Year’s, but hey, I’m nitpicking. With that said, it was unnecessary, but I agree that it was probably a last second time-filler after the accident.

    Man, I do love the juxtaposition of Riley going with “Sense” and Maya going with “Sensibility” as the most important word in the title. A very earned moment, especially because as recently as earlier this season you would have only believed that scene if each gave the opposite answer. This episode has its issues, but little details like this keep me believing in this staff long term.

    I also enjoyed the Riley/Topanga scene. More, please.

    More importantly, I thoroughly enjoyed the Cory and Shawn tree ornament’s brief appearance. Amen to that.

    As Sean said, Smackle isn’t crucial to this plot, but was great. Am not shortchanging her, but shy of breaking down each and every joke that worked (which was pretty much all of them), I will simply applaud and move forward.

    Although, Sean, still don’t think the “This is gonna be awkward” deal before break #2 needed to be addressed when coming back. I see where you’re coming from, but scenes reminiscent of that happen in all programs far too often. You’re by no means wrong, as, definitely, imagining the characters just getting up and enjoying variations of cheese and dip with Sarah Carpenter after that is a bit unbelievable, but par for the course in today’s (and yesterday’s) television climate.

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  28. Sandwiching the Cory and Topanga scenes in episodes like this is always tough for me. They inevitably always play awkwardly for my tastes simply because of how shoe-horned they feel (the prime example of this was the Christmas episode last year). Granted, with that said, I’m such a nostalgia sucker I can’t lie and say I want them abolished .. let's just get them happening more organically.

    I’ll give The Couples Game scene a modest thumbs up. As really is the case with the whole episode, it was funny, but just didn’t really advance anything along too severely.
    As I said in my initial write-up, I think in real life terms, Farkle absolutely overstepped his bounds by announcing Riley’s feelings. From a plot perspective thank God he did, I just hope in that vein, there is some type of recognition/frostiness between him and Riley in the next linear episode because of this. Maya didn’t really get on Riley (at least from what I can remember) for busting her spot in Texas, so hopefully we buck that trend here. Granted, Riley didn’t seem super tight with Farkle at any real point during this, but I just don’t want this universe’s norm to be that friends do things that they would really rather they not do, but because it’s the “right thing” they are never peeved off about it.

    Still really do love everything about that Cory, Topanga, Maya scene. It advanced nothing in the short-term, but I don’t know, just made me feel good. Very BMW-esque. It does raise the question of “Does Maya even really need Shawn?” but that’s another conversation for another time. It also gave the first Cory/Topanga scene merit, so I’m with it.

    Will be interesting to see how they proceed with Charlie Gardner going forward. Personally, I think any eventual payoff with Riley will now feel forced, but I suppose I’ll see where it lands in Legacy + S3.

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    1. "As I said in my initial write-up, I think in real life terms, Farkle absolutely overstepped his bounds by announcing Riley’s feelings. From a plot perspective thank God he did, I just hope in that vein, there is some type of recognition/frostiness between him and Riley in the next linear episode because of this."

      There probably won't be. The next linear episode is "Bay Window," which is the penultimate episode before "Legacy."

      We have three more episodes that are going to be filler. "Commonism," which is pre-Yearbook, "STEM," which is next in line to air and focuses on Riley being angry at being left out of a science project the boys are working on, and "Money," which guest stars Mark Cuban.

      "STEM" is pre-Texas in the canon, and I think it'll be weaker because of it. Judging from the promo images, Riley and Farkle are going to be butting heads on a science project. Apparently the role of women in science is going to be an underlying theme.
      While that's alright on paper, I have misgivings. It's a good enough idea, but the execution is what I'm worried about. The promo images reminded me more of "Creativity" than anything else, and I hated the last third of that episode.

      More to the point, Riley being furious with Farkle because of "New Year" would make it stronger. Her nursing a grudge could allow for a deeper, more personal argument.

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    2. Riley would be the biggest hypocrite if she stays angry with Farkle, since she did the same thing to Maya in Texas. To add to her list of wrongdoings, she lied to her friends and she used Charlie for a rebound. And she suffered no consequences for all this. Why should Farkle be punished for doing the only sensible thing in this whole arc?

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  29. The writers would probably say Lucas saying he doesn’t know who he was saving the spot for is enough of an admission of where his head is at, but I am going to strongly disagree with those words I just put in their collective mouths. It’s at least something, but nowhere near what we need as viewers. Which, again, I don’t even think we need THAT much, but we do need one solid scene picking this kid’s brain and getting a firm admission that he doesn’t even know what he wants. I very much want to say that him just liking the attention of both and not wanting it to stop is canon, but in no way can I suggest that without even a hint of dialogue from the young lad to confirm it. Fleshing out Lucas’ feelings has been a total miss spanning Texas to New Year’s.

    Too much shock and instant belief from Lucas and (specifically) Maya on Farkle’s announcement. A bit odd that they would just take it as unadulterated fact immediately off rip.

    The little guy with “Thank you for a wonderful evening” and then the mass scurry was clever, chuckle worthy and almost makes up for the statement above.

    From an artistic standpoint, that bumper scene is really well done. Line delivery, playing off the midnight angle, all of that really works and in a vacuum is great. However, as pretty much all of you have said and I now agree with more firmly upon re-watch, yeah, just not enough happens here. The writers’ room put far too much stake in thinking that this re-reveal of Riley’s feelings would be a big deal. Now, if we knew a little more about how Lucas was feeling or if Maya was being written a little more consistently in relation to all of this, maybe this would have been a bigger deal and something we could all sink our teeth into. Yet, it’s not and these are the circumstances we are working with.

    Granted, if I (hopefully) end up being right, I can put up with all of this for the two more sequential episodes if it means that Season Three can live up to the rather lofty expectations I think it can reach. But, after this outing, I really need all of this to be tied up in Legacy, even if that means I get less of the general emotional pull that a sap like me would want from a graduation episode. Before this, I thought I could be okay with no firm resolution on this until a few episodes into S3, but now I know for the sake of the program’s growth we need it wrapped up by February. I think we will get there, but I would be fronting if I said I thought it was a sure thing.

    I am downgrading this one to a B. It is guiltier of plot-stalling than I initially wanted to admit, but am still pleased with the show’s growth from all the technical, pacing and overall performance standpoints. We are getting there.

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  30. Going to do my review now and wait to comment on Sean and Christian's views until they are finished:

    So we open in the Matthews’ dining room and Riley and Maya dive right into the exact same opening as “Meets the New World”, but with Riley and Maya’s roles reversed. I love that they duplicate a scene when they (believe) have something important to show or tell us. This is the second time they have done this with the first being the Pilot->First Date subway scene. Maya telling us there was no kiss lets us as an audience know that the rumors of there actually being a kiss that simply wasn’t shown on screen is just that, and that Riley shouldn’t be as worried as Maya thinks she is. The two of them discussing “good moves” and “I didn’t hate it” was a pretty mature conversation for them to have. Remember that both girls have had about 5 dates between them (that we know about) and none of them would I classify as “successful”, so actually talking about how things went on them seems like a step forward. I actually believed that Maya was going to toss her cookies when Riley put ketchup on her mac and cheese. That was some impressive acting.

    Off to school and it’s good to see Harper back. This book and the class discussion is exactly these kids need to maybe make them realize that they have an issue that they really need to address. Charlie explaining what he learned about this book from watching the movie seemed to be more about impressing Riley than anything else. That doesn’t seem to be going well though.

    At Topanga’s and it becomes apparent that Maya has academic issues that haven’t really improved since the pilot or “Meets Father”. Hopefully they will use that in the future. Now Charlie, who I have loved in his previous two appearances, arrives and his character takes a turn for the creepy, at least for me. Charlie’s first appearance had him seem like the best kid in school not named “Lucas”. Then in Texas he was written to be a little desperate to get Riley to go out with him. Now he seems like a stalker and that is surely a disturbing turn for his character. Lucas is refreshingly great as he is worried that Riley may be separating him from her circle, having a party he knows nothing about. It’s also funny that Farkle doesn’t care if he is a last minute addition to a party guest list or not. I do like that he took the time to remind Riley of his threat from “Texas 3” and to let her know he will make sure that she ends this charade or he will, for the good of them all. As an aside here, Farkle and Riley have now gone outside and talked privately in the last 2 episodes (Texas 3 directly preceded this in story order) and yet neither Lucas nor Maya seem the least bit concerned that they haven’t told them anything at all about those conversations. With all the weird shit going on since they left for Texas, shouldn’t they at least be curious? It doesn’t seem like Riley and Farkle would have secrets from the other 2, especially Maya whom they have known since first grade. I liked the “Horn of Gabriel” thing, but it seemed strange coming from Farkle, who just a few episodes ago was pretty adamant about not believing in anything he couldn’t see.

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    1. Now on to Cory’s class. I usually like his classroom scenes, which many of you don’t, but this one was just blatantly ridiculous. First the meta joke with the themes of the first 3 seasons, then another lesson pointed at the core 4 and seemingly no one else. The joke about the test being every day reminded me of the scene in Turner’s classroom in BMW when they were talking about how men didn’t understand what women wanted in romance and how Turner told them that they would be tested on it in ways they couldn’t imagine at that time, so I didn’t mind that too much. However they should have cut this scene and used it to flesh out almost any other scene in this episode. Just because they are in school doesn’t mean I have to see Cory’s class. And Charlie seems creepy here as well. The line about your friends happiness not always coming before your own might have been one of the few nuggets of wisdom Cory has actually given the class this season.

      Harper then gives the kids a real lesson, both in terms of their class and their life. Great scene - short, to the point, and actually something worth learning in school.

      Party time! Great to see the “Cory and Shawn F4-Evah” ornament hanging on the tree again. Nice to see some improvement from Isadora in terms of personal contact. Smackle calling Riley a spinster was pretty funny. And her running jokes with Lucas are getting better and better. If they keep this up they may be what I miss the most when the series ends. Creepy Charlie shows up again. We all understand he wants Riley to date him, and we all understand she will not as long as she has feelings for Lucas, but it’s one thing for the kid to try earnestly but desperately, but another to turn into a creepy stalker. The former can lead to some good dialogue, the latter not so much.

      Now game time. Cory was pretty funny here – “no Twister” and “I done what I can” were solid. This was fun all around. Charlie and Riley know each other pretty well, Lucas and Maya are just seemingly afraid of everything that may have to do with their feelings, and Farkle and Smackle are adorable as the only real couple there. Maya’s line of “why are you interested?” to Lucas seemed to be her showing real concern that Lucas might still have real feelings for Riley, regardless of how he was “supposed” to be feeling. Probably a realistic concern as it is apparent to all that Lucas and Riley are just lying to everyone about all of this. At least Lucas is only doing it because he is trying to placate the 2 girls.

      As everyone goes to the roof we get some heartfelt parenting from Cory and Topanga. But as is usual for this show, it isn’t for their children, but for Maya. While they have shown C&T being good parents for their kids, more often than not their best parenting scenes have been saved for Maya, who apparently needs it more. While that may have been the case at the beginning of the show, Katy has more time for Maya now and they have reconciled. It just seems like they don’t want to pay for Cheryl to be on the show whenever Maya needs guidance that should come from a parent. I’m not a big fan of this. When the story calls for Katy, she should be in the episode or the script should be written to not need her..

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    2. Farkle and Riley have the same talk again about the truth, and they continue to disagree about how to proceed. Once again the two of them run off alone and no one questions them about it. Then Charlie and Riley have their talk, and at last Riley is honest about something. She and Charlie aren’t happening, no matter had badly Charlie wants it. Riley was really nice to him and Charlie finally stopped being a tool and took it well. Considering that was probably the first time either of them had to deal with something like that, they both handled it well. Maya finally gets the courage to start a conversation with Lucas where she actually wants his opinion and his feelings, but sadly the question isn’t exactly what we as the viewers want to hear. Lucas however finally gives in and realizes that if this is the option he has been given, maybe it isn’t so bad, and they have a real moment. But then Farkle keeps his word and the whole thing blows up, and everyone else has the good sense to leave. And we are left at the same place we started “Texas 3”. Nobody is sure how this can all go forward without hurting the people they care about.

      Grade B - In a vacuum, this should be a B+ or an A- as the acting was good and apart from the scene in Cory’s class, nothing was bad. However because it was part of the current story arc and ultimately we are in almost the exact same place, I marked it down because they didn’t do more to advance the arc. I cut them some slack because Uriah was hurt and they had to rewrite this script at the last minute to cut him, but I didn’t give them too much as I can’t believe things would have been much different. It isn’t like Josh was going to profess his love for Maya and she was going to drop Lucas back into Riley’s lap. I can’t believe these writers could do anything that bad.

      MVP – Taylor Buchanan I loved Charlie’s character in “Semi-Formal”. I liked him in “Texas 3”, but here he was such a creepy stalker until the end, and I bought it all. He was excellent. I’m glad he will be back in “Legacy”

      What I Liked I liked that we used the English class again. I liked that Charlie got some development. I liked what they did with Auggie, just enough to remind us he is part of the family, but not enough to distract. I loved the question that Lucas got in the game “library or campfire”. The 2 scenes where he had his first real conversations with Riley and Maya – well played there. And I like the opening, bringing back the opening of another episode that related to this. I also thought that Riley letting Charlie down easy was handled well. I also love the Smackle-Lucas jokes. I’m betting that as Smackle becomes more and more “normal”, she and Lucas wind up being THE couple at the end of the series. You heard it here first.

      What I Didn’t Like The scene in Cory’s class was pretty much a waste of time. I hated that the writers pretty much wasted our time when they could have had Farkle reveal this at the end of Texas and either move the arc along here or just give us a holiday episode. I also hate that sticking the arc here screws with the timeline more than can reasonably be explained. And I’m also not a fan of having to wait until the season finale to pick this story up again. While I also know that Shawn’s time on screen is directly related to how much time Rider wants to act (which apparently isn’t much anymore) Katy and Shawn should have been over at the Matthews house to celebrate with their friends. It's not like Topanga's bakery would be open at midnight on New Year's Eve and Katy would be working.That would also have given the parenting moment to Katy, where it should have been in the first place.

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    3. Count me down as a Lucas/Smackle shipper. They're banter is gold and is the most personality Lucas ever shows. Also it would be the least expected. And Farkle is such a shitty friend, I bet he is not that great of a boyfriend anyways.

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  31. Did you catch the small BMW reference Cory threw about the games. He told the kids what games they had and follows with "NO TWISTER!". I see this as referring to how Cory and Topanga had sex wrapped in the twister mat.

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    1. Totally missed it! Nice catch.

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    2. I see it as cory the equivalent of carly and Topanga the equivalent of Freddie had sex

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  32. A couple of other things not about this episode, but about GMW in general since this is where the conversation is currently going on.

    This past Thursday the Writers Guild of America announced their nominations for this past year. The category we care about:

    CHILDREN’S SCRIPT – EPISODIC AND SPECIALS

    “Endless Night,” Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street
    Written by Gretchen Enders & Aminta Goyel; Amazon Studios

    “Girl Meets I Am Farkle,” Girl Meets World
    Written by Mark Blutman; Disney Channel

    “Gortimer and the Surprise Signature,” Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street
    Written by Garrett Frawley & Brian Turner; Amazon Studios

    “Gortimer vs. the Relentless Rainbow of Joy,” Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street
    Written by David Anaxagoras and Luke Matheny; Amazon Studios

    “Ranger vs. the Fabled Flower of Normal Street,” Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street
    Written by Laurie Parres; Amazon Studios


    So it seems GMW is unlikely to win if one other show got the other 4 nominations. Those writers must really love that show. It is an Amazon show and apparently you can see it with Prime membership. Good for GMW though. "Meets Farkle" was a decent episode.

    The other thing that caught my attention was the last episode of Liv & Maddie - "Ask Her More" As Liv was in a red carpet situation, she was being asked questions by fake TMZ types. One of the reporters talking to her was "Jacob Michaels" from News Meets World. Not sure if the L&M writers are friends with Michael Jacobs or if they were just giving a shout out to GMW for their Emmy nomination last year.

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  33. The writers gave us this today.

    Girl Meets Writers ‏@GMWWriters · 2 hours ago
    A season of friendship complete. 4 left in a season of growth. Then a season of feelings.
    GMWJanuary: Riley at war/Mark Cuban brings peace.


    They said 4 left instead of 5. They talked about "STEM" and "Money" and we know they aren't dropping "Bay Window" and "Legacy". Is "Commonsium" dead or did they just screw up? With these guys who can tell.

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    1. I thought "STEM" was supposed to be pre-Texas, which was one of the reasons I wasn't looking forward to it. I had no ideas about what to expect for "Money" other than I heard a rumor about Stuart Minkus.

      Are those episodes supposed to be after New Year then? If so, then I might change my mind about "STEM." Riley resenting Farkle for an episode or two over him blowing the Horn of Gabriel would be excellent to see. And it could add a layer to the conflict we'll see in "STEM."

      Maybe "Commonism" is the new "Fish," and they're going to have it held over till next year for a weekend all about political episodes for the election.

      Delete
    2. "STEM" and "Money" are both before "Texas". "Commonism" is before "Hurricane". Maybe they are gonna hold "Bay Window" as a between seasons episode like they did with "Demolition"

      Supposedly in "Money" Minkus loses his money and Mark Cuban is on to help him recover.

      Delete
    3. Since the synopsis for "Bay Window" only talks about Riley getting ready for high school and it does not deal with the triangle, it is possible they use it to bridge season 2 and season 3 instead of showing it before "Legacy" as they had said they were going to do.

      Delete
    4. That's what I assumed about "STEM" and "Money"; I just mentioned a prolonged argument between Riley and Farkle because it would have made those episodes stronger.
      A prolonged feud is something you almost never see in children's television.

      Delete
    5. Well this clears up the confusion.

      Girl Meets Writers ‏@GMWWriters 6 hours ago
      5 left. The one I forgot is Bay Window. Which was written by my kid. Which is why I forgot. Because I think he's going to be better than me.


      Apparently Michael Jacobs just forgot. Much better than holding one episode back as a bridge between seasons.

      Delete
    6. Which son is it? Josh Jacobs, right? The one who wrote "Cory and Topanga."

      That wasn't a great episode...or rather it had a very good first half and a bad second half (Flashbacks were handled weird, and didn't fit. If it was "You are you. I am I," I'd have loved the episode), but I have to say I do think that Josh Jacobs has a pretty good handle on writing Riley.

      I am officially excited for "Bay Window."

      Delete
    7. His son wrote that episode? That's a level of meta I missed, and probably won't dwell on now.

      Delete
  34. The continuity issues really get to me here. Texas takes place aftr Semi-Formal, which took place in spring, but this episode takes place around New Year's and they're still in 8th grade. For some reason I just can't get past that.

    If you think GMW is getting too meta try watching the last season of Glee. That got to the point where people were personally insulted by it.

    If they weren't gonna do anything more with C Gard I'm glad they (hopefully) ended it here instead of drawing it out for nothing.

    Wasn't Josh supposed to be in this episode? Or is his tba one I heard about still on the horizon?

    And I've come to not expect much from the writers' promises anymore tbh.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Okay so this was filmed right when the accident happened. I thought it was before he was injured but alrighty then. Not the first time someone missed an episode I heard they were supposed to be in. Wasn't Rider set to be in "Forgiveness"?

      Delete
    2. Rider will be in Money. He doesn't want to be on camera. The writers said they would use him a lot more but he doesn't want to appear, he wants to direct.

      And while Semi-Formal should have taken place in the spring, having that entire arc hit this episode pushes it all back to the first half of the school year. As I said in another comment, 27 episodes before "New Year" then 2 ("Bay Window" and "Legacy") after. The rest of the episodes they have to show except for those take place before "Yearbook".

      Delete
  35. I agree with you Christian. Farkle really annoyed me in this episode.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Cory actually asked Farkle to get involved in Texas part 3,so yeah it kinda is his business. Are you even paying attention to the episodes Christian? Cory told him to fix it and that's what he tried to do. If anything you should blame the adult. Farkle is a 14 year old boy and was just doing what he was told. And why is Farkle getting so much hate, when Riley did the same thing in Texas part 2. I don't understand the hatred people have for Farkle, is it because he's a nerd?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I do pay attention to the episodes. Clearly I've struck some sort of nerve with you by insulting Farkle but I find it completely warranted. Riley also doing the same obnoxious thing doesn't absolve Farkle from doing it now. And Riley was at least way more involved in that situation than Farkle was.

      My recollection is that Cory didn't understand the exact details of the situation, and they discussed it in generalities. At no point did Cory say "Hey Farkle, if you know a closely guarded secret of my daughter's, you should definitely tell everyone, even if she begs you not to." And being a 14-year-old boy does not give you carte blanche to be a crappy friend. Farkle was very much acting on his own accord here. He was already champing at the bit to spill the beans in Texas 3. No one had to tell him to do anything. This is clearly something he wanted to do, because it bugged him that he was keeping a secret. And that's not his place. If he didn't want to know this secret, he shouldn't have harangued Riley to drag it out of her.

      Farkle thought he knew best and had the right to spill his friend's secret that she practically begged him to keep to herself. He was wrong to do it. As far as I'm concerned, that's the end of the story.

      And accusing people of disliking him for being a nerd is an idiotic strawman thing to say. It's like if, after saying something negative about Zay, you said "Is this because Zay's black?!" No, it's not because Farkle's a nerd. It's for the reasons I just said. I explained quite clearly what my issue with Farkle was in this episode. Other issues I've had with him center on him being kind of annoying sometimes and being really sketchy and harassing with Riley and Maya, which are aspects of him that they've toned down. For you to suggest that it's a nerd, absent any evidence that my issue with him has anything to do with that, is, frankly, cheap. It's a way for you to attempt to win an argument by shaming me into appearing like a bully when that's not an accurate depiction of me.

      Delete
    2. While I agree with our host's distaste with the timing and place of Farkle's "proclamation", I personally think that it needed to happen. I just think he could have talked to Lucas and Maya without all the prying eyes around.

      Delete
    3. The only reason I can think why he blurted it out was because Riley was leaving the roof at midnight. Not excusing what he did, just a possible explanation about the timing and manner. As for the prying eyes, it's not as though the rest of the class hasn't been front and center for all the drama including, but not limited to, the "lessons" Cory "teaches."

      Delete
    4. Nobody is trying to shame you. I simply pointed out that you are disregarding crucial events from previous episodes and acting like Farkle just up and decided to butt in for no reason at all. When that's not true. An adult pulled Farkle aside and told him to fix the problem. He was entrusted with this task. And Farkle did what he thought would fix it. That doesn't make him a shitty friend. It makes him a 14 year old who had good intentions but doesn't really know what he's doing, because he is a kid and he doesn't know everything there is to know about life and relationships. Kids make mistakes. It's not you thinking he was wrong that bugs me, its the way you worded it in your review. If you had mentioned the Cory and Farkle conversation, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. The fact that you completely left out is what made me think you weren't paying attention. That was an important part of the arc and you acted it like it never happened. Just because you don't think Farkle has a role in this triangle doesn't mean he is not a part of it. Clearly he is more important to the story than you realize or the writers wouldn't have written him to do that. Maybe you should ask yourself why they did that and where they're are going with it.

      And even though my nerd comment wasn't specifically directed at you, I still stand by it. Farkle gets called out for a lot of things that other characters get a pass for. There's a double standard. He would never get away with even a tenth of the awful things that Maya has done. And yes, I think it's because Maya is a pretty girl and Farkle is an unattractive nerd. That's my opinion. Just because you don't agree, doesn't make it a strawman.

      Delete
    5. That's because Farkle isn't supposed to get away with the things Maya does. They are two totally different characters for a reason. Your argument is invalid on that basis alone. I'm not saying that can't be your opinion, but to compare the Maya and Farkle characters is utterly ridiculous.

      Delete
  37. Ratings are in for "New Year" Only 2.067 million viewers. I assume it's the time of year though more than the episode itself. It seemed a lot of people were looking forward to it. Disney did release it early on their app and on demand and those views do not count for the ratings so that is one explanation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eh, the promo literally showed Farkle blabbing the secret. That also probably had an effect.

      Delete
  38. Great stuff, Christian. You got a smirk out of me with your Iran joke, great stuff.

    That said, while I don't necessarily agree with your assertion of Farkle, I fault no one who thinks he acted like an ass...and he did. But if it was up to Riley, we'd be stuck in this triangle bullshit for two more seasons.

    Thanks for all you and Sean do for this blog. You guys have to put up with a ton of shit and are total troopers. See you all for STEM or whatever else comes next.

    ReplyDelete
  39. Word on every single thing you said about Farkle, Christian. He has no horse in this race and he is just being shitty for being shitty. And also about continuity. Since I actually know about the bts, and that is disney channel's fault and not GMW especifically I cut them enormous slack, which I shouldn't tbh.

    ReplyDelete
  40. Two thoughts five minutes into the episode and one from the blog.

    First of all, the writing here Sean and Christian is as good as ever. I look forward more to this than the show at times, to your credit.

    As for the show, as others have mentioned above (though I can't read all those reviews by non bloggers) these kids talking about Love at 13 or so is silly. I suppose we aren't the demographic and at that age maybe it feels that important, but I'd like to see the show be more comical with the relationships.

    Secondly am I the only one that would like to see Season 3 have Harper as the main teacher and maybe slide Cory to principal. It would make more sense for him to come up with Feeny-esque life lessons and let the classrooms be with Harper. English really does apply better. That's all folks.

    TQ

    ReplyDelete
  41. Oh look another tweet no one is going to like.

    Girl Meets Writers ‏@GMWWriters · 2 hours ago
    Minor issues resolve quickly. This won't. Because if you know us, you know we'll do much more than a triangle. This all began in the pilot.


    In the pilot a lot of it was Farkle liking Riley and Maya. Please tell me we aren't going back there.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "My So-Called Life" had this incredibly complicated love triangle. I think I remember someone calling it a love decahedron. What if it's Farkle realizing he has feelings for Riley and Smackle. On the other hand, I like the idea of Farkle being in a stable (at least for teenagers) relationship with Smackle, as a contrast to the confusion and uncertainty of Riley/Maya/Lucas. Farkle and Smackle are adorable togther.

      Delete
    2. I agree Kit, but these guys seem intent on dragging this out as long as they can and making it as stupidly complicated as they can as well.

      On the other hand, all this story arc had definitely finally given this show something of its own. No more standing on the shoulders of returning BMW actors to get people interested. Mind you I'm not saying it's a great idea, but we have no need to see Shawn or Eric now. This gives GMW an identity that is very different than BMW for better or worse.

      Delete
    3. "Much more of a triangle." I am going to pray that doesn't mean some geometric shape that one almost never sees--if we count Charlie and Josh, this *insert swear word of your choice* triangle is more of a pentagon. Toss in Farkle and Smackle and we're looking at a heptagon.

      The pilot might just mean the start of the story. In fact, that probably is what it means given that Michael Jacobs already has the ending mapped out for Riley and Maya.

      Of course, the pilot had also established Cory as a teacher who, while easy-going, was also an authority figure to be respected (Remember when?) and, originally, that Riley had a one-year-older big brother who liked teasing her, and did not have Crazy Hat Rand as an eccentric millionaire.

      Delete
    4. This triangle business and Jacobs continually saying that it has been obvious from the pilot is just bothering me. Before "Yearbook", the only time Maya had shown anything like romantic interest in Lucas was in "Secret of Life" when he was about to go all Texas Lucas on that bully's ass. Then she just about melted. It is such a pile that they keep saying this.

      However this thought occured to me. Cory is clearly tailoring his lessons towards his daughter and her group of friends, trying to help them grow up. The rest of her class however, seems to be doing just fine without his direct involvment. Yogi and Darby are a couple and Sarah and Wyatt seem to have been together for a while now. Dave and Jade were together on the Matthews' roof in "New Year" as well. No special help required.

      Is it possible that the rest of the class, who all say they like Riley and friends, are really jealous and/or fed up with the special treatment? What if they all got together and said "you know what would be funny - we vote Lucas and Maya best couple for the yearbook and see what happens to their perfect little lives then?" That would be a great thing to find out after this all plays out.

      I should be writing this shit. Sometimes I think I couldn't do worse.

      Delete
    5. I hate the GMW Writers account. I actively hate it.

      Delete
    6. The triangle. I think of Texas as one piece, and assume New Year was supposed to be the episode to follow. It didn't resolve the issue, but good friend/jackass/kid who doesn't know what he's doing/spreader of Cory's magic pixie dust Farkle seemingly brought it to a head.

      Compared with other TV triangles, does this even register on the meter for being drawn out?

      Delete
    7. Milestones, as an episode count, maybe not so much yet, but in terms of actual time, it started the beginning at October and will still be going strong when the season ends in February and probably for a while after that. In terms of a 30 minute sitcom, that seems like forever.

      Delete
    8. Part of me hates watching the show because I'm actively supporting the people who write for that fucking twitter.

      Delete
    9. The constant repeating of "It's clear from the pilot" is annoying. Of course it's clear from the fucking pilot for you. You wrote this stuff and know where you plan for it to go. If it was clear to everyone else, there wouldn't be all this debate. There are so many things in the pilot it could be...Maya's 30 second relationship...Riley's "I love it"...Farkle's "How can you love 2 people equally"...Lucas' "You're better than that"...Riley's "If it's my world now the first person I want in it is you"...Ms. Rand's "You ain't got no hunk you ain't got no story." It's a clear as fucking mud.

      Delete
    10. Jacobs repeatedly saying, "it's been obvious from the pilot" is getting pretty annoying.But I don't think that actually has anything to do with Lucas. The pilot was all about Riley and MAya's unbreakable friendship. Therefore this is a show about their friendship and whatever ending they have mapped out is almost certainly the girls putting their friendship above everything. I like that a lot so I'll tolerate him on this one. Unless I'm wrong in which case they suck.

      Delete
    11. "I should be writing this shit. Sometimes I think I couldn't do worse."

      I would watch that show, 1960. In fact, I think quite a few of the ideas we've pitched around would make great episodes.

      One other thing, it finally hit me a few hours ago. What would our impression of the classroom scenes be if this was a CIVICS class instead of History?

      Delete
  42. I think in Graduation, Riley and Maya are going to decide they don't want to be in a relationship at the moment. They are going to be the ones that end up together (as friends). While Lucas is probably just going to be the friend to everyone. I don't think Riley's future boyfriend has been introduced on the show yet. I think the constant references back to the pilot have more to do with Riley and Maya always being there for each other rather than a reference to feelings involving Lucas.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would appreciate that outcome in real life, but for a tv show it's terribly boring. I've sat through two seasons of Riley being annoyingly awkward around Lucas, so if it turns out that was all for nothing, I will not be happy.

      Delete
  43. You guys said pretty much everything that needs to be said about the episode. I will throw in here that the biggest problem with this episode is the fact THAT THEY GAVE THE WHOLE THING AWAY IN THE FREAKING PROMO. what the heck?? I mean granted more could have happened but Farkle making that announcement could have been a big shocking moment and they gave it away! And I assumed they did that cause something major would happen after but no! that was just it. that was the ending. Honestly if they didnt show it I probably would have expected farkle to back down and that could have been a good ending. Dammit they just keep sabotaging themselves left and right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is an excellent point that no one else has made. The cliffhanger was literally in the commercial. We watched for NOTHING.

      Delete
    2. Actually Sean, although we saw Farkle blurt out Riley's secret on the promo, until we watched the episode we had no way of knowing that it was going to happen with 1 minute of air time left. It could have happened earlier in the show and then had some resolution.

      I know now looking back it seems an unlikely way for these writers to play it out, but we had hope. I mean they have strung this along since the end of "Texas 2". Nothing in BMW ever took this long to resolve except the Lauren storyline and that took place when the characters were much more mature than this. At this age these kids should be getting together with each other and ending things pretty quickly. This seems like an aberration in that respect.

      Delete
    3. Well yeah, going INTO it we didn't know, but I'm saying that it's doubly insulting after the fact because not only did they show us the actual ending, but showing us that ending made us think there might be more.

      Delete
  44. New tweet from the writers.

    I woke up this morning and felt very grateful to our audience for its affection and loyalty toward our show. You are very appreciated.

    Are they just buttering us up?

    ReplyDelete
  45. Hey Shipping Wars, it's IHeartGriff. Thank you for what you wrote about me in the Belief review. I appreciate it. I went on a vacation and am just now getting caught up on this blog so I'll be around in the future. Excellent review as always Sean and Christian!

    ReplyDelete
  46. Just a random comment for Cryptid because I know he doesn't like this: I was watching "New Year" again tonight and in the first scene in the Matthews house when Auggie walks out into the kitchen doorway you can see behind him a picture of Cory and Topanga dressed in 1940s clothes in a picture from "No Guts, No Cory". It must be canon man, I can see the picture.

    The Matthews also had a menorah on their fireplace mantle. While I know Ben is Jewish, it certainly has always seemed that the Matthews family is Christian. I personally have never seen any family with a menorah and Christmas tree in the same room. I'm not familiar enough with any of the other religious holidays that happen this time of year to know if there were any icons pertaining to them in the Matthews home as well. So I'm not sure if it is something some of the actors wanted or Disney just being all inclusive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi 1960, long time no chat. Good to see you, friend.

      First, in response to the picture from "No Guts, No Cory." Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo! That cannot be! Does not compute!

      Wait a second....

      If that episode is canon then that actually makes me happy. Because if Cory and Topanga live in the same universe as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Salem the Cat, then that means that the abomination from the depths of hell, the episode from Dante's tenth level, the episode that was so awful, I could feel my IQ drop as I watched it, "World of Terror 2" is not canon! The world of the DCLAU includes "Wizards of Waverly Place," whose mythology directly contradicts that of "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." We're free, my friend, free! Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
      For pointing that out, 1960, I will mention you in the dedication page of the novel I write.

      And on to your second point. While the menorah is interesting, I'm inclined to believe it's more of a thing for Jacobs and Savage being Jewish. I don't give Disney Channel that much credit to actually be authentically multi-cultural. If the channel did it, it's for an inclusive checklist. I hate inclusive checklists.

      From a story perspective, there's not, to my knowledge anyway, any scene in the entire franchise of "Meets World" that establishes that the Matthews are practicing Jews. If anything, Cory's speech in "Belief" reminded me of Quakerism, with its sense of God's inner light being in every person.

      Besides which, the Festival of Lights is about half-over and assuming "New Year" takes place in December 2015 (which is mathematically impossible), there'd be no logical reason to still have one out that late.

      Delete
    2. I take both World of Terror's as stories that Auggie tells...he is the narrator in both. As such, I don't take them as things that actually happened. There probably was a Haunted House the gang went to, but the ghost is entirely from the mind of Auggie.

      Delete
    3. I would agree with you Patrick, but there's nothing in the first World of Terror that is the least bit supernatural. It is entirely in-character for Farkle to be afraid of being hit by the ball in gym, for Riley to be apprehensive about Maya's neighborhood, for Auggie to have a conversation with a figment of his imagination. So I accept World of Terror 1 as canon. That's not to say the episode wasn't pretty pathetic.

      Delete
  47. Today's Rider Strong's birthday!! And he still looks like he's in his 20s...https://twitter.com/RiderStrong/status/675525330107404288

    ReplyDelete
  48. Disney made their announcements for new episodes for January the other day and the only GMW episode on the calendar is "Meets STEM" on the 8th.

    Perhaps because they waited so long to announce season 3 they are spreading out the last 5 episodes as long as they can so we don't have a prolonged wait between the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3. At this point I would bet we see "Money" and "Commonism" in February and "Bay Window" and "Legacy" in March and a special between season episode in April just like last year.

    http://www.disneyabcpress.com/disneychannel/shows/girl-meets-world/episodes/girl-meets-sludge/

    Even though they changed the episode name, they didn't change the URL of the episode page.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Can't say I'm looking forward to this one. This may be post-Yearbook, but I remember you telling me that it was pre-I-Am-Farkle. And it was originally meant to air in November with "Belief" and "Forgiveness."

      It's a shame it's so early. The set-up itself is okay but Riley and Farkle butting heads because Riley's holding a grudge over the events of "New Year" and Farkle's being self-righteous would have been excellent.

      Delete
  49. Fresh Tweet, hot off the presses:

    Girl Meets Writers ‏@GMWWriters 37 minutes ago
    So, we're mapping out Season 3. We want to beat a wonderful Season 2. Some good ideas came up. One I like is called Girl Meets Ski Lodge.


    I'm not sure if that is a terrible idea because they've done it before or because it sounds like the romatantic situation would get more entangled.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dang it, I was just about to post it. Yeah, I don't think that would be a good idea.

      While it would be nice to see the kids go outside the city and do something--that was one of the nice things about Texas--I'm not sure I would like to see the ski lodge.

      Like you said, it's been done. And then the whole love triangle stuff...yeah, I don't think so.

      I was never fond of the Lauren Arc until the last few weeks, when I realized just how much more fluid it was than this arc. But I do not have any desire to see Lauren again whatsoever.

      If they bring back characters, then it is of the utmost importance that the characters advance the story. I don't see Lauren advancing the story.



      Having said that, if the kids do go skiing, then there'd be a good chance for Riley to try and do something new, take a risk in a moderately dangerous sport--skiing's actually very safe if you pace yourself and don't show off. Then again, considering how clumsy Riley can be...should I save some time and just call an emergency e-vac helicopter now?

      Delete
  50. The writers keep recycling the same shitty cliffhanger again and again. You suck at this relationship drama, do something else. At this point I'd rather the main 4 agree to be friends and future seasons can have them date outside the group.

    ReplyDelete
  51. Well guys, it's been two weeks and I'm bored. So, this is a bit off-topic but I found this gem from William Daniels.

    https://twitter.com/MrBillDaniels/status/598972860565164032

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeny and the Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeean!

      Delete
    2. How can you be bored when there's all this iCarly to talk about

      Delete
    3. wow sean you mencion icarly

      Delete
    4. I can answer that question Sean. Shipping Wars despised iCarly after the third season or so. That's why he's bored. And he's trying to stay away from Star Wars 7 spoilers so he's been avoiding a good chunk of the Internet.

      Delete
    5. I think that both of you want to talk about icarly someday

      Delete
  52. Hey everyone. Got the data for the new episodes for January.

    "Girl Meets Stem" will air on January 8, 2016. It's 2.19 in production number, so it's before Texas but apparently after "I Am Farkle."

    "Girl Meets Money" will air on January 22, 2016. It's 2.26 in production, largely due to Guest Star Mark Cuban's availability. Also, Mark Cuban.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Cryptid, thanks for the info. I'm heading west tomorrow for my annual stint as weird uncle. Doubt I will get much of a chance to check in here, and it looks like the guys are letting it lie fallow for now anyway, so I'll wish you, and your brother, and everybody else a Merry Christmas.

      Delete
    2. Thanks, Milestones! I wish you well. Merry Christmas!

      Delete
  53. Hey, looks like the writers are still working and trolling us at the same time. Here is their latest:

    Girl Meets Writers ‏@GMWWriters 3 hours ago
    Girl Meets: High School/Permanent Record/Jexica/She Don't Like Me/Triangle/Upstate/Ski Lodge.
    Yeah, that's a map.


    I would assume that they might be giving us the themes of the first 7 episodes, but that seems awfully early in the season/school year to be going to a ski lodge. But based on the first 2 seasons, I wouldn't be surprised if the timeline just bounced around with no coherent concept of the school year presented. Because you know after they go to the ski lodge in winter, they will come back to Halloween and then Christmas, etc. Can we just have 1 season that actually presents time as it actually passes please?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have given it some thought and have come to the conclusion that those seven episode titles are not grounds for resorting to profanity. Edited below:

      "High School" Simplistic. But with the whole idiotic naming sequence, I can't be too surprised.

      "Permanent Record" Riley and/or Farkle does something actually bad? Good idea. Took way too long to get here in my opinion, but hey, this might be the "Danger Boy" episode Sean wanted to see so badly.

      "Jexica" Words fail me.

      "She Don't Like Me" Rejection by a peer, if I could guess. Could be something decent for Zay to do. Actually, given the Protagonist Privilege and the Kids Rule! aspects of this show, this might actually be pretty good.

      "Triangle" If I ever build that time machine, the first thing I'm going to do is go back and make sure that romance is never the focus of this show.

      "Upstate" ?

      "Ski Lodge" Is this meant to be a two-parter with "Upstate"? If so...what's the plot twist? The Twitter said something huge was coming in Episode 7. Does Lucas turn into Dead Lucas after trying to show off on the slopes? God, please don't let Lauren be on the show.

      Delete
  54. Hey folks - in the spirit of the holiday season - here is a video of Disney's stars from last year singing a song from Frozen. It is pretty good.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1APv9t_LyOY

    Apparently they do this once or twice a year. I have to dig around for more. Sabrina and Rowan are among those featured.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Rowan, Sabrina, and the dude with the fro were easily the three best singers.

      Delete
    2. Not as often as that, 1960. I can't remember any times between the original Circle of Stars, when Hilary Duff was still on the Channel, and this last bout for Frozen.

      Circle of Life:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHr_jqGTu_Y

      A Wish is A Dream Your Heart Makes:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZrr2r67bwo

      Christmas Version of Circle of Life:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSWNpkqH9tU

      Apparently, there was a couple of other times they brought more than one or two singers together, but I couldn't find any other Disney movie songs.

      Delete
    3. Shipping, the kid with the fro is Jordan Fisher. He was in both Teen Beach movies and has a recurring role on Liv & Maddie. He will also be in the new version of Grease that will be showing on FOX at the end of January. He has real talent.

      Delete
    4. I might be wrong, but I think Fisher was also in the pilot of Girl Meets World. The dude who asked Maya who the "new chick" was, when the girls are on the subway for the first time.

      Delete