Episode Review: "Girl Meets Legacy" (#2.30)

Neither of us has even watched it yet. It's telling that neither of us has any motivation to watch or review the season finale of this show. Jacobs has managed to disillusion two of his most dedicated fans. It sucks.

The review will be up eventually, most likely later today, but yeah, that's why it's not up yet. There's no guest stars, no Charlie, the shit with Lucas is going to live for another half season, nothing gets resolved... I am excited about nothing.

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Well Christian and I are both desperately hoping for the other to post first, so I guess I'll just bite the bullet. I worked two hours longer than I was supposed to tonight, and I'd really rather watch House of Cards and work on some Photoshop painting, but here I am. This post had ~430 views at the time I'm writing this, which is a lot of people that I have personally disappointed, and I don't want to disappoint a whole lot more. So let's kick this pig.

I just invented a new game. As soon as my delicious Belgian tripel gets cold in the freezer, I will begin drinking. Maybe you can pick out a tonal shift in my writing when that begins.

Anyway.

Woops, wrong blog.

(Hint: That is not when the drinking started.)

Ok I'm pressing play for real now. 

Just... lemme eat a couple more of these french fries... 

Lucas has decided to address The Triangle, which is great for real life, but bad for television. I love that he has notecards. I saw Cryptid stomp his feet in the comments about hating Lucas, but I definitely don't hate him. I hate the writers who made the two leads fall for him, but the character has been funny and engaging once they stopped writing him as a Disney Prince. He still looks a little too perfect, but I doubt Disney is handing out vouchers for Jim's Plastic Surgery down on 4th and 22nd.

If I were watching this with no knowledge of Jacobs's recent interview, I would be excited. I would expect some resolution, at last. You see, I want to discuss this subject even less than Maya up there, if that's possible, but it does need to be done. Unfortunately, "done" is staying late at the office and won't be home in time for dinner. We allegedly have another half-season before this is "resolved," but they also said it would be finished in Texas part 3, so I honestly don't even believe that shit. They'll drag it out again because it draws viewers and because they hate me. 

Fuck, Daylight Savings just hit. That's a real downer.

Anyway this scene is very satisfying. The girls finally ask Lucas what he wants, and we get a quick showcase of his rapport with each of the girls. I've got about six thousand dollars that says we'll come back after the theme song in a completely different location with no notion of how the intro's tension was resolved.

FUCKIN NAILED IT! WE'RE AT SCHOOL! YOU'RE SO EASY, GIRL MEETS WORLD. YOU'RE SO EASYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

Sigh... They just don't know how to make a show anymore. Anyone here can easily imagine Shawn and Cory and Eric and probably even Topanga realizing all on their own that they want to leave a Legacy, to make a mark. But here we are once again with Cory explicitly delivering the plot to his students. 

It's actually almost profound. The Girl Meets World characters are mostly interested in a love triangle, while this last remnant of Boy Meets World is waving his hands in the air, "No! No! Do a real show! Please! Do something important!"

Here it is again, agh, these little hints of a good show, peeking through. I love Topanga's motherliness, I love her exaggerated comforting of Maya's exaggerated moping. This Topanga is magical and it makes me feel like I'm watching the real Topanga Lawrence, but they always WASTE this maternal side of her on characters we don't care about. Like Ava. God damn it, it's just enough to keep me on the hook. I have to watch the rest of the series because something like this might happen again.

"He's the best teacher you'll ever have."

Oh.

"The most important thing you can do in life is give people a reason to remember you."

That does not sound like Cory. Well, it sounds like season 2 Cory. The Thrilla in Phila Cory. How the fuck did pen meet paper and write that as a line for Cory Matthews? It's beyond words. Total utter nonsense. 

I continue to enjoy Lucas here in the classroom, it seems like he's as lost and frustrated as I am with this romance crap. He just wants it to be over, and no one else in the world will let it be over. I can empathize with that. 

Maya thanks the art teacher for believing in her. I'm a fan. This dynamic deserved way more time than the two episodes it received, but it was satisfying nonetheless. I could rant about this "you've been given a real gift" crap, but it's not worth it.

Farkle says goodbye to the science teacher and NOBODY CARES!

Pictured: Real life

"I respect a nice place where good decisions get made." No Squidward this time, that line is awesome. It's original and genuine. He sounds like an actual character, with motivation, which is in short supply on this show. I have learned something with actual weight about Harley in this scene. When was the last time I said that about Riley? I really appreciate that they gave Harley an ending with a certain amount of gravitas. I am satisfied. It doesn't really help Lucas at all, but yeah. This was worth watching simply for giving a Boy Meets World veteran a proper ending.

"I've been trying to teach you to keep your feelings inside." I'm not doing Squidward again, but WHAT THE FUCK MAN? No he hasn't! Who wrote Cory's lines for this episode! In fact, Topanga said the exact opposite earlier at dinner. 

Oh good, let's relive all of Michael Jacobs's brilliant, you heard me, brilliant life wisdom. I mean, in all seriousness, "people change people" is pretty damn solid. Probably the only real lesson I've taken from this show. But this scene feels like "Hey in case you guys forgot, I'm a genius." Oh and of course Maya is on the verge of tears, it's, mmm, just checking those check boxes, huh? Just checkin em off, one at a time. Check check check.

I apologize for the gifs if you're on your phone, but I have to follow my heart when I write these things.

Oh come on, you might as well do a clip show at this point, with all this yesteryear crap. You already did it in Brave New World, Jacobs, just do it. Do a clip show, I won't be mad.

I'll be a little mad. But not as mad as watching this forced god damn Riley crying CHOKING BACK THE TEARS BECAUSE THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH PAIN! 

Will they ever not cry in an episode for the rest of time? When is the next episode where they don't cry? 

Suddenly Cory brings up "how will the school remember you," which, again, none of the students ever cared about on their own. It's middle school. Who the fuck cares? The characters don't care! Why does Cory care!?

Apparently the incoming class at JQA middle school consists of six students. But don't worry. They're ethnically diverse, so they can still do a McDonald's commercial. This bench unveiling is pretty standard Girl Meets World forced-sentimentality. They Chekov's Gun'd us with the bench and I really wish they hadn't. Where is everyone else in the school? How did these children get here? How will they get home later? In Harley's van? No thank you.

From Riley, "I think everybody should leave their mark." And by "everybody" you mean you. You personally Riley Matthews. What about, like, Yogi? Does Riley think Yogi should leave his mark on the school? What's Yogi's long lasting legacy at JQA? 

Oh right.

This is hilariously insensitive though. Harley gave this emotional speech about how he takes care of this bench, and he loves what it symbolizes, and I love what it symbolizes and how it's meaningfu- FUCK IT! LET'S JUST REPLACE IT WITH A NEW ONE! At least it's not a bay window... They probably had to beat Joshua Jacobs away from the writers' room with a stick, "Guys guys what if they donate a Bay Window to the school, guys please my dad makes the show!"

I'm glad Zay made it back for the ending. This dialogue between Zay and Lucas feels organic, like two relatable characters having a real conversation. Dare I say, I had fun. Riley and Maya used to feel organic, they used to be fun, until they starting trying to turn EVERY SINGLE SCENE into the ending of god damn King Lear. I'm so HAPPY, I'm so SAD, the TEARS THE TEARS they just won't stop, WE'RE THE BEST FRIENDS AND CORY IS THE BEST TEACHER. But we snapped back to reality for a minute with Lucas and Zay. It was nice. It was refreshing.

So the kids JUST A PRANK BRO'd Cory into high school with them. Riley refers to Turner as "Uncle Jonathan," and "Jonathan" sounded wrong at first, but on second thought it's the right decision. "Jon" is reserved for Shawn. Even Kat Tompkins called him Jonathan. Eli might have called him Jon but Eli's not canon *cough*. 

In the final scene at the Bay Window we see that we have, unsurprisingly, made zero progress. My favorite thing about this episode was the bench and they replaced it with a new stupider one, so I don't even know. 

Oh, also, that scene from the theme song where the girls are doing Jazz Hands on the dishwasher conveyor belt, did that ever actually happen? I feel like I've been waiting for that scene since the beginning of the season. 

By the by, you should be very excited for our "Season in Review/Looking Forward" post because I, Sean Of Golden Text, have solved it. I had an epiphany today and figured out why I don't like this show. And this is something no one on this blog has ever said, or even implied, really. I think I'm going to blow everyone's mind. It is the discovery of a lifetime. And this isn't some setup for an elaborate Sean-joke. I'm completely serious, I figured it out, and it is elegant. 

Hey guys. Sorry for the delay on this, it's been kind of a hectic time in my life for a variety of reasons (some good, some bad) so, honestly, this just wasn't a priority for me. With us being a week out from the airing of this, seems silly to go too in depth, but I have just watched it.

It was mainly bad. It's amazing how they could have spent so much of an episode (a season finale, no less) focusing on a triangle without anything in the triangle actually even occurring. It's astounding the degree to which they're willing to spin their wheels on this. It seems like the show is just as uncomfortable with the lack of progress as we are, they call it out all the time - how they keep doing the same thing and sitting in the same spot and feeling the same way and not doing anything, how their last conversation about this was New Year's and it's now graduation - and yet it doesn't keep them from continuing to not advance it. 

Are they network mandated to keep this going or something? Do they just not know how they want to end this, and so they're stalling? I'm confused. This can't be the story they want to tell, because they're deliberately not telling a story here. I honestly think there's something else going on here, though I can't think of a plausible example of what that could be. 

Either way, I now don't want either of these couples together for a new reason - the same reason I was ardently against Farkle being with them. If Lucas' feelings for them are this equal, if he truly can't decide who he likes more, than he doesn't like either of them enough. No matter who he chooses, he just took way way way too long to decide so obviously his feelings for her aren't that real. Lucas had the right idea - this obviously is meant to be on either front. Just stay friends. Yes, it was awkward at first, and it may be awkward for a while, but you'll get over it. 

The legacy stuff was all pretty stupid. I agree leaving a legacy is important in life - one should always try to leave the world better than they found it. But, honestly, the legacy one leaves to their middle school is pretty minor. You're only there a couple years. And you're not enough of a person for it to be important that you leave something behind. It's really not that important that John Quincy Adams Middle School be profoundly changed by the fact that Riley Matthews and her friends attended it. And how did they renovate that bench? With whose money? Is this what Maya did with the charity foundation she's apparently running now?

It was nice to see all the teachers get a bon voyage, but I was surprised we didn't see Harper - certainly the most prominent non-Cory faculty member besides Harley. I guess they wanted to do individual goodbyes, and the only person Harper would have made sense talking to was Maya, and the art teacher made more sense, but still. Oh well, guess that's it for Harper. Thanks for making us watch a whole dumb episode about who you are. 

Harley's goodbye was nice, and while I've said that I haven't really understood the reasoning behind making him such a prominent part of this revival, I do think if this is his ending (and it should be, don't make Harley follow them to high school. Jesus Christ.) it was nice. Though I'm not sure I remember him having a particular relationship with Lucas.

It was weird that they went out of their way to not have Zay be in the school scenes and even explained an absence for him, if he was in the episode anyway. It's weird how little we see him. They have to fish or cut bait in Season 3 - either he's on the show, and we see him all the time, or send him back to Texas. I've warmed up to him, but he doesn't matter to me, so either's fine. But this half measure is weird.

The one thing I will give this episode is that I'm glad they set up Cory going to high school here, and not in the premiere of Season 3. In both instances of Feeny following them to the next school, the kids all went there first and we were led to believe that it was it for Feeny as their teacher, and then they found a way for him to show up. This was better - though Turner should have delivered this news in person. Would have been nice to see him.

All the major problems I didn't touch on are the problems they always have. The characters are too impressed with the seriousness of their own dialogue, and every situation is made incredibly overwrought. There were some good performances - from Sabrina, from Danielle, from Ben, and even from Peyton - but it was a boring episode and I kept checking to see how much I had left.

We'll do a more complete look at Season 2, but this bottom half of it was weak, man. If we broke up the show in to four quarters - Season 1.0, Season 1.5, Season 2.0, and Season 2.5, then Season 2.5 is the weakest of all (followed by Season 1.0, with Season 2.0 as the strongest)

Episode Rating: C
Episode MVP: I'll give it to Peyton, actually, he had some moments where I was impressed. He was funny in the cue cards bits, and I actually really felt it when he was talking to Riley and Maya in the classroom about how friendship's not working anymore either.

Lucas and Harley bonded a bit in Girl Meets the Forgotten. What did you think of the exaggerated comforting between Topanga and Maya in the apartment? I haven't seen any comments agree with me about that. 

I don't have anything else to add. 

I give this episode a C because there are actually a few hints of a good idea in here. But Christian's right. Ultimately, the major problems are the same problems they always have. 


I liked it, it was fun. Topanga was good in this episode, from the little we saw her, and Maya's exhaustion with the situation entertained me a lot more than Riley's prim earnestness about it. 

Yeah, Lucas had interaction with Harley in the Forgotten, but Farkle was there too. Meanwhile Farkle and Harley had a meaningful chat in whatever the one he was being picked on was. I think Farkle may have been slightly more deserving, especially than the random science teacher from STEM, though I get that having Farkle talking to a science guy (like Maya talking to an art woman) has more to do with him. But then I guess that would have left Lucas with no one since Harper doesn't make sense with him either. 


Word.