Episode Review: "Girl Meets Commonism" (#2.28)

I know nothing about this episode except that it was filmed before Iran-Contra and it doesn't have Shawn. That leads to the following three questions, in order. Why, why not, and how many more times are we going to have to do this? 

But seriously, maybe it's good.

But probably not.

Pictured: Our lord and savior

Zay is being punished for Robin Hooding lunches. That's actually hilarious and... not-recycled. And fun. They missed the mark a little bit though. Robin Hood doesn't leave the rich with nothing. Zay isn't leveling the playing field, he's just swapping the roles of the lunch-rich and lunch-poor. If he were stealing (or "boosting", as the very very hip and in-touch writers called it) half of each meatball sub to give to the PB&J working class, then we'd be in business.

Oh. Maya must now be punished by The Student Council for cheating off of Farkle on a test. And not just any Farkle, but creepy Farkle. He's back from the past, with a turtleneck and ascended testes. 

This is an excellent showcase of Old Riley as well, with "I am in a slightly uncomfortable situation and therefore must completely lose my mind." And Lucas is on the sidelines looking handsome. Like, he's in every shot with Riley and says almost nothing. This is Danielle Fishel's directorial debut, so... Yeah... It shows...

This is the kind of shit, right, that made the ending of Money so awful, and makes this airing order all the more infuriating. You can't put that moralistic, charitable, "I trust her dreams" beacon-of-guidance Maya back to back with "I blatantly cheated on a test and don't feel bad" Maya. I don't care if you want to air Commonism out of order, just put it somewhere else! 

The fun twist though is that Maya actually does retain the information when she cheats off Farkle. So we're faced with a dilemma. If Cory's one true motive as a teacher is to make sure the kids are learning, then he shouldn't forbid a method that works. But it's still breaking the rules. And before anyone starts in with "Have her 'cheat' in a mock test environment to learn!" or something, that's not the point. It's essentially a thought experiment about balancing success against legality. While I can't stand to have the characters back in their annoying season 1-esque roles, we certainly have a compelling framework. 

The council seemingly does not reach a verdict, and we find Topanga and Auggie doing their usual shtick. Auggie makes some smart alec, faux wise-beyond-his-years comment, and Topanga makes this face:

"Pff, this kid, pff, this son of mine! Such a wit! Ohohoh, my son, and pff, and oh! What a card!"

The scene fades out with her making the exact same face and I wish I was lying about that.

As expected, we rejoin the rest of the cast in class, with no mention of how the previous scene's tension was resolved. I cannot stand that, and this show does it constantly. But it doesn't matter 'cause we got this guy in the very back like "Hey what's up I'm totally on TV."

We're learning about communism, and I'll be honest I don't have high hopes for this. Communism is complicated, and this is a 20 minute kids' show that's simultaneously trying to tell some bullshit Auggie story. I had European History first thing in the morning in high school, and as such learned nothing, so I don't honestly know the intricacies and nuance of communism, but I can't imagine a universe in which Cory's "us vs. them" explanation  is adequate. 

Zay's joke about an exorcism was genuinely really funny. The first one, anyway, but of course they squeezed out four more punchlines from it. I just... I just want the show to be good you guys. Why doesn't it want to be good?

Riley and Maya declare themselves communists, which may very well be the most interesting thing they've ever done. It's very Me and Mr. Joad, where the kids subscribe to an at-the-time appealing philosophy that they think they understand, despite being completely out of their depth. It deserves a chance. I don't like any of the dialogue, but they've got me on the hook. Frankly. I can't wait to be disappointed.

I do enjoy Riley's costume changes when she gets sucked into something. And I definitely enjoy her quoting and worshiping John Lennon instead of Vladimir Lenin, even more so because they didn't explain the joke. THEY DIDN'T EXPLAIN THE JOKE! They almost did, by saying Lennon was a Beatle, but no one mentioned Lenin, so I'm giving that joke an A+ for sure. Honestly, I would have preferred Jacobs standing in front of the camera and giving a 30 second summary of the first ten minutes, and then watching 20 minutes of this. 

But it doesn't matter, because now that we found somewhere that I'm actually having fun, WE HAVE TO GO TO KINDERGARTEN. Or second grade, I don't know what Auggie is in, who cares, there's a frog in the background laughin' like "uhuh uhuh uhuh."

And that kid on the left is such a boss. He's got his stuffed dog, and his juice box, and he's doing his homework not givin a single goddamn. I'm looking into my own past right now with this guy. He's not looking into the camera like some middle schoolers I know, he's not looking for his big break, he just likes his stuffed dog. I don't even care that Ava is in the shot. Between stuffed dog guy and uhuh-uhuh frog over there, this is my favorite thing in the whole show. I am not even kidding.

And who is THAT back there?!

Somebody call Van Halen. 

Auggie's a lawyer or some shit, and it starts to look like that one episode of South Park, I'm not really sure.

They call back the point-and-gasp-and-"Topanga!" at another student council trial, and maybe that's funny if you haven't watched Boy Meets World in a long time, I don't know. It's just a lazy callback, this is not the proper use of the point and gasp Topanga. Everyone knew she was coming. Whatever. 

Apparently Riley was complicit in Maya's cheating, and Maya has learned Farkle's... studying techniques... ? Which is somehow a bad thing because it's somehow turned Maya into Farkle? Which makes communism bad because it "makes everyone the same", as evidenced by Maya turning into Farkle. Okay, purely on the foundation of being an intelligent adult, my Propaganda Alarm is blaring pretty hard right now. Any amount of quick Wikipedia-ing will show you that this is not what Marx had in mind. This is why you don't do communism in a 20 minute kids' show. This is a disservice to history.

The bully at kindergarten is going to murder Auggie, so he dresses up in drag. That's the plotline to What A Drag in season 7 of Boy Meets World. THEY'RE RECYCLING WHAT A DRAG?! IN THE COMMUNISM ONE? WHA... W-!

At least that frog is still in the background I guess. The teacher just watches it all happen too. Oh man.

Back in Cory's class they're doing a Berlin Wall thing, which is awesome, especially since no one uses the words "Berlin Wall." It's not quite right since it was the communists who built the Berlin Wall and here Lucas and Zay built the wall, but that's fine. Cory explains that in a free society like ours, people are allowed to be communists without being walled off, which I respect, but the "communists" aren't very accurate depictions, which reminds me a lot of Meets Belief, where it's like "It's okay to be wrong! But look at how wrong you are!"

Cory then hands back the latest round of exams. Lucas and Zay both got 100% as free spirited red blooded bootstrap pulling Randian individualists. The Union of Soviet Socialist Rileys also got 100% for their collective "sharing" effort on the exam, but since there are three of them, they each receive a C.

That's right folks, you heard it here, loud and true.

Cory Matthews

defeated communism

with division.

I quit.

That's not even the worst thing. As communism falls all around us, we see a close up shot of the room's American flag, and then Riley does this:

She's doing the Pledge of Allegiance thing! And then Cory does it too! The Pledge of Allegiance is our country's most nationalistic, drone-like activity. We just dismantled communism over its mindless-drone-society, and to celebrate, we're going to revel in... our own... mindless... drone... society... Like, until this point, we were just serving an agenda, and I can live with that, but this Pledge of Allegiance moment is so oblivious... I can't even believe this happened.

They tear down the Berlin Wall and THE AUDIENCE CHEERS AND APPLAUDS OH GOD, OHHHHHHH GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD SAVE ME.

I was in probably B- territory until the Pledge of Allegiance moment. I don't even think it deserves a grade after that. Why didn't they use Zay, the only character with a legitimate redistribution Robin Hood philosophy? That was actually interesting! There was a real story hidden in Zay's opening and it was totally abandoned in favor of this propaganda movie directed by Leni Riefenstahl. I'm out.

Holy shit, son! Christian's coming at you with a LIVE BLOG. I'm gonna be blogging out my thoughts LIVE. I ain't never seen this episode before typing this. All I know about it is that it has prompted Sean to make a weirdly scrunched picture of Michael Jacobs with devil eyes and have the communist flag burning in flames, because they were impossible not to notice scrolling down.

Hey, they all have placards with their last names ("Ms. Matthews", "Mr. Friar") and Sarah's is "Ms. Carpenter" which means she's Sarah Carpenter, played by Sarah Carpenter. Now we know why Sean's so obsessed with her, she's the Jason Marsden of this show.

I have a hunch an episode following Zay as the Cafeteria Robin Hood giving good food to those with bad food will have wound up a better use of our time.

Riley's doing her snapping and saying she's got this thing down thing. She did that in... Episode 2, maybe? Been a while. 

So, yeah, everyone looks a lot younger here. Riley most obviously, and I know Farkle will be the same, considering he's the one who's sprouted up most this season, and I already know he's gonna be in his pre-Yearbook Amazing Technicolor Dreamfarkle clothes. Generally, if this show held onto this one so long, it means they knew it was a weak episode, and wanted to save it until the end of the season when ratings start to drag. This is another Daddy Jacobs and Baby Jacobs joint. Not a good sign.

Okay, I'll give this episode this. When Riley tried to end the episode immediately, I thought to myself "Hey, it'd be funny if she threw a paper airplane." and she did! That's not bad, Jacobs family. I'll give you that one. 

Farkle's back to being obsessive and creepy. This is sad to see.

My initial thoughts on the issue at hand: I believe that cheating did help Maya learn. But you can't cheat. Maya knew she couldn't do that. She did it anyway. So did Farkle. They both deserve detention or whatever and Maya should get an F. BUT maybe Maya should try to utilize whatever it was about this method to help her study in the future, and Cory should facilitate that. But, no, you can't cheat. 

"Very good, Farkle, I didn't even see your lips move." was pretty funny and scathing on Cory's part. I like that Cory is, so far, not taking an above-it-all-I-already-know-what's-right-I'm-just-God-watching-from-on-high role here. He has an opinion all the way on one side of the issue, he's sticking with it, and I'm *assuming* the episode will come down on some sort of middleground and Cory won't have been right all along. But I'm probably assuming sillilly. 

You know what, I know Sean's going to get bent out of shape about Cory decrying communism and defending capitalism and tying it all up in the American dream, but let's not forget this is the same kid who gave an impassioned speech about how you should say the Pledge of Allegiance because it's the Pledge of Allegiance and this is America and that's what you do. Cory's an All-American Joe. His dad was in the navy...probably. I don't agree with his political philosophy, but I like it because I think it's probably what Cory would think. And ultimately I'm not a communist either, because ultimately communism didn't and doesn't work. Mainly because no society really gave it a serious try and just devolved into totalitarianism, but nonetheless... democratic socialism is where it's at. Sanders 2016!

Anyway, I think a story where Riley and Maya decide to try to be communists is funny.

Whoa! It's Auggie's class! Auggie's world and all his friends! I'm not gonna talk about any of it! I did like his mumbling crush on his teacher though. Also, Dominick Falconi sounds like a mobster in the Nolan Batman trilogy or something.

Oh... well... now they're going down a weird.... Communism makes you lose your personality thing.... that was weird.

Oh, Auggie's dressed up like a girl. And the bully's into it. And they're all 5. Well, I don't like that.

Hmm... yeah, Cory's point has gotten into, like, Ayn Rand territory now, and he's lost me. Also, I don't buy Zay got 100%.

Ugh, yeah, this is ending bad. An emotional moment where Riley looks at the flag and puts her hand on heart and now her dad approves of her? Yowza.

So, I dunno, what do I think here? It just completely went off the rails in the last five minutes, and really made me uncomfortable. For a while in the beginning I was fine with it... so, I dunno...

Now to read Sean's take!

Holy KRISHNA, she IS the Jason Marsden! The pieces are coming together like the end of a Dan Brown novel, except with slightly higher writing quality. It all makes sense now, and I refuse to be ashamed. 

You were indeed wrong about middlegrounding. Commies bad, Mister Gorbachev. 

"That's who Cory is" doesn't make it less annoying. It's... not a defense, at all. Cory's quirks like that are great when they're fun, but he wasn't fun in this episode. He was Fox News.

But we agree on the important things. There was definitely a story to tell with the girls becoming communists, especially if they had included Zay's lunch banditry, but they failed, especially at the end. I don't know why communism makes you lose your personality. It's nonsense, we're all in agreement here that it's offensive to our intelligence.

This isn't in response to Christian, but how truly ironic that Joshua Jacobs wrote this episode with his father. Let's preach the individualist spirit as a man whose only remote success is due to the charity of his father. Joshy would not be here if daddy didn't let him get involved with the family business. Joshua Jacobs is Maya cheating off his dad's exam. But noooo he didn't need help! No sharing allowed! What a joke. That says more about society than anything in the script.

That is a good point, Sean. I had a little more to say on Friday, but meh. Gotta finish up though.

Episode Rating: C-
Episode MVP: I thought Rowan Blanchard had some good moments.