For Auld Lang Syne, my dear

So, we're going to try to keep this Special Event posting going. Christmas is certainly the big one, but we have New Year's, Valentine's, Halloween and Thanksgiving. We're also probably gonna do all of the birthday ones on one of our birthdays (I'm January 29th, Sean's February 22nd, so either way you don't have long to wait) and then all of the Anniversaries episodes (and I'm talkin' all of them, "Cyrano" for Alan and Amy in the background, "Chasing Angela" for Cory and Topanga's anniversary that turned out to be the first time they went to that restaurant)

Sadly, there is NO Fourth of July episode of Boy Meets World or Girl Meets World, so we won't get to do that. I can't really think of whatever holidays are worth one of these, but maybe you know of some and have other themes in mind. Let us know in the comments! We reserve the right to decide if it's worth doing one over, but we're doing NYE today, and there's only two, so.... we're probably pretty easy. 

Train of Fools (BMW #3.10): "Cory, New Year's Eve, I got us a limousine." "A limousine?" "Yeah, that's short for limo." Aw, it's early days. In early days, Shawn's an idiot. Let us never forget, for all his soulful angsty poetry, there's a big part of Shawn that's straight-up stupid. And not Eric "he's-got-potential" stupid. Just bone stupid. 

Feeny shows up, in a panic, because his cab to the airport is waiting and all he has is traveler's checks. This is weird. I don't know anything about traveler's checks -- because it's my understanding that they're an antiquated way of using money overseas that more or less has become irrelevant in the days of credit and debit cards -- but it strikes me as remarkable that a man of Feeny's intellect would have straight-up converted all his money into that before even leaving for his trip. You don't have ANY American money? Like, okay, we're still in the days of checks... where's, like, your regular old checkbook? Maybe you wouldn't bring it to the Bahamas, but you're still at your fucking house right now. 

And even though credit/debit cards hadn't surpassed cash and checks as the main way of doing business yet, like, credit cards were absolutely around in the 1990s. They'd been around for decades. But maybe cabs didn't accept them then, I don't know. But the other points stand. This throwaway plot is for no reason and just makes Feeny look like an idiot. What's even the point of him going to the Bahamas? To establish why he's not around for the episode? We know why he's not in the episode, it's New Year's Eve (in winter break) and obviously Feeny is not hanging out with his students, that's why. 

You know what else doesn't make any sense? Eric's whole supermodel date thing (and I had to look it up to make sure Rebecca Alexa was not actually some supermodel in the '90s). She's Jason's second cousin, in from out-of-town and needs a date? That's... thin. This successful super model is, what, just unexpectedly in Philadelphia for New Year's Eve? Why? Why is she not spending NYE wherever she wants to? What's bringing her to Philadelphia on NYE? It's not like she has work, she's free to hang out with whomever her second cousin can scrounge up for her on New Year's. 

And, seriously, that's what a super model  has to do? Ask her second cousin, a high school senior, if he has any high school senior friends she can go on a date with? Don't get me wrong, Eric's a Good-Lookin' Guy, but he's straight-up 17 years old in this episode (we're 2 months out from Stormy Weather) this just wouldn't happen. I feel like, even if Rebecca Alexa got herself into this situation, she'd sooner spend NYE dateless than go on a date with a random minor. 

It's also worthy of note that Jason is Eric's connection to this supermodel, and yet Jason's not even in this episode. So, Jason's worth hitting up for random dates and yet not worth hanging out with on New Year's Eve? It's not like Jason's got better plans. I love the guy, but Jason has no plans ever but being the LeFou to Eric's Gaston. Also, Jason doesn't even appear in the episode, because Jason hasn't appeared since Season 2 and never will again - Jason Marsden left his recurring role on BMW after Season 2 because he became a main character on Step by Step and that woulda been weird.  I hadn't realized they kept mentioning him as Eric's best friend, though. Also, the coolest thing about Jason Marsden continues to be that they just straight up named his Boy Meets World character after him. 

Eric asking for someone to catch him and no one doing it is funny, I suppose.

Alan hassles Amy to hurry up because it's New Year's Eve and they gotta go! Amy yells she's still shaving her legs. Alan talks to Eric for 20 seconds and then Amy comes downstairs all dressed and made up. So.... Amy shaved showered, dressed, did her make up, and decided "What the hell, why I don't shave my legs?" I feel like all I'll do in this episode is point out shit that makes no sense. I'm 3 minutes in. 

Cory's dressed really weird for NYE. I thought Eric was dressed too '90s cool' but Cory's REALLY dressed too. '90s cool, I guess?'. They do a joke where Amy says "New Year's Eve brings out all the crazies" and Shawn shows up. That feels like a rough draft of the joke they do in Season 6 where it's the middle of the night and "only freaks and weirdos are up right now" and Shawn and then Eric and then Feeny show up in succession everytime people say it. (The great thing about this show is that you can say "Only freaks and weirdos are up right now" and then anybody but, like, Amy can show up and you're like "Yeah, alright.") Also, Eric has a car he affectionately names "Lucille" that's a piece of shit but his piece of shit. Somewhere along the way I think Season 3 has become the season I've seen the least of, but I'm confident we've never heard of Lucille before and will never hear of her again. Maybe Lucille's the car Eric's driving in the Season 4 theme song.

I'm straight up not going to talk about Turner and Eli's story. Basically, two of Turner's recent flings show up to spend NYE with him, despite him not making plans withe either of them, which isn't a thing that happens. The basic premise is that girls are annoying cling-y bitches and men are awesome cool guys. It's bad and doesn't belong on this show and a waste of time (which is saying something considering how bad the A-Story of this episode is.) This Turner/Eli story is clearly an example of their trying to make this show hipper and more adult in Season 3 and it not working. I will say that Turner's ex Janine is pretty foxy. (P.S. CHECK THAT! Three of Turner's exes show up, the last one he only dated once. Such is the power of Turner's magnetism.)

Hmm. This is the first early years episode we've done lately that features Topanga in a major way and she is... not good. She's always been weaker than Ben, Rider and Will (a testament, I'm sure, to her being the youngest and the one consistently given the least to do) but she pops up with this "Gee guys..." line in her first scene that is not good. That said, we can go ahead and call Danielle Fishel god-damn Meryl Streep compared to the actress playing Rebeca Alexa. She towers over Eric, has a stilted unnatural delivery (perhaps owing to her performer, Angela Visser, being a native of Denmark) and has very few credits after this episode, and none post 2002. She did, however, appear in 95 episodes of USA High in the 1990s. You remember USA High. It's that show you've never heard of or seen. 

This episode has the same problem of "Santa's Little Helper" of having a lot of important scenes taking place offscreen. "Cory, if stupidity were in the Olympics you'd win the Nobel Prize" got almost no laughs, and though it's a line I distinctly remembered, I still say... good, because it's not very funny. This episode in general, by the way? Not very funny. I did enjoy Topanga's "Hey! Light bulb! Why don't we have our own little party right here? It will be so much fun making popcorn and--" being cut off with Eric's "Cory, make it stop." It is a little obnoxious that Rebecca Alexa (I call her by her full name because Eric consistently does) suggests taking the subway to get to their party as a joke and it's seen as repulsive. I can't speak to Philly's transit system, but I take Chicago's all the time, and was just in DC for the holidays and did the same, and it was fine. Rebecca Alexa sucks, but I also don't know why she hangs out with them all for as long as she did. She does eventually leave once Cory outs Eric as being a superficial jerk (which has been evident since jump, but okay) but it takes way too long and I still don't get what she's doing there in the first place. 

Hey, it's the origin of the Feeny-Poster-in-a-Subway gag which is used again in GMW. Also, here's my prediction right now. Eric's line of "He said 'Cory broke the train'", halfway through, will be the funniest of the episode. I do like that Topanga says "Buck up, buckers..." and is constantly trying to cheer them up and when Cory calls her on it she's like "You try being the positive one all the time and using words like 'buckers.'" Yeah, Cory. You jerk. YOU'VE KILLED HER SPIRIT. 

The gang then befriends their first black friend. WOW, way to forget about the guy from the beginning of season 1 who I don't think has a name. Please don't whitewash history on our blog. He is, I believe, unnamed and there's a lot of jokes like him saying "partay" and everyone's like "What is this word?" and he's like "party" and they're like "Oh." He's played by Wesley Jonathan, who I know from the TNBC sitcom City Guys. He was, like, the main City Guy. I actually already knew him from that show by the time I first saw this episode and thought for a while this was a Boy Meets World/City Guys crossover episode. It's not.

Shawn is enjoyable throughout this entire episode, blithely coming in and out of train cars to report on shenanigans happening in other car. He's eating crab cakes, he's dragooning pizza delivery boys to deliver babies (Why is the pizza delivery boy taking the subway to deliver his pizza? I feel like he's supposed to be taking a car, but he takes the subway to save money on gas, and he's been getting away with it, but because the subway broke down he's finally going to be outted and lose his job. That's my backstory for him.)

Once midnight hits, Eric randomly kisses a... french maid (who's way hotter than Rebecca Alexa, I'll mention, because she's played by freaking Charisma Carpenter) which, like, you shouldn't do. I guess Eric's okay because she seems to be into it, but this is imparting a bad lesson like.... that any strange woman on a train would appreciate you doing that. 

Feeny doesn't have any money AGAIN? What the fuck, dude? I feel like this is just a scam now. He probably didn't even go to the Bahamas. Except he's tan and Alan says "Well, George Hamilton Feeny" a reference to famously tan actor George Hamilton which, for some godforsaken reason the internet community has globbed on to as his middle name even though it's clearly not. To this day, the characters page for Boy Meets World on Wikipedia says his full name is George Hamilton Feeny, as do Boy Meets World Wiki and Girl Meets World Wiki. Years ago I tried in vain to remove the Hamilton from Wikipedia because it's obviously not his middle name, and it always gets changed back, so I had to give up. I'll try it onnnnneeee moooooore tiiiiime, see if it sticks.

Episode Rating: C-. If you can't tell, this episode sucks. It's got some saving graces in Eric and Cory's interaction at the end and Shawn being funny, but all in all, not good at all. 
Episode MVP: Rider Strong. Will is also a good candidate (and is runner-up) because he's given more to do than Rider is, and has some moments where he's serious, but he's pretty annoying and unremarkable in the first half. Shawn is great throughout, even in the dumb Feeny scenes. 
New Year's Rating: 4 Glasses of Champagne (A lot of New Year's things going on and an obsession with having an awesome NYE, something all of us go through, but a lot of it hinged on Eric being sad he was stuck on a train and missing his date, which could have happened at any time, so it loses a glass of champagne)

BMW: I appreciate Shawn welcoming Feeny to rock bottom and giving him a little karmic payback. You know Christian, you may be rewriting history slightly. Eric is REALLY dumb in the early seasons too, and not "he has potential" dumb, just bone dumb. He thanks Alan for giving birth to him at the beginning here. We probably ought to do a deep dive on who's really the dumbest of the boys over the first three seasons. I'm game for this. Still, I think Eric comes off smarter in this episode at least. Not smart, but smarter than Shawn. He has the occasional dumb joke (and, hell, Cory gets them from time to time too in this era, although not nearly as frequently) but his general demeanor and attitude feels smarter than Shawn. He seems to have more cognizance about the situation. He's more douchebag than he is idiot.

I agree completely with Christian's assessment of the Turner and Eli story. Honestly here, honestly you guys, just kill me. Absolutely kill me. I'll take Cult Fiction every day, gimme the speech from Cult Fiction, I don't wanna watch this.

See this is something that seems very 90's, is caring about super models, or even knowing who super models are, or like, swimsuit models. I can name zero models. As soon as I hit puberty, I already had access to infinite porn on the internet, so this is just completely foreign to me. Movie stars, TV stars, those I understand. But it seems like by about 2005 teenage boys were pretty much done with this. Also she's a bad actress.  Yeah, I can only name the models that have transcended modeling into more - Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks, Brooklyn Decker, Kate Upton, etc. And, hell, Klum and Banks likely haven't been primarily models since the '90s, they're both better known as TV hosts now. 

The subway poster is legendary and actually almost validates the whole episode. I wish they'd drawn a parallel between Shawn admitting to be at rock bottom earlier and his ability to turn this subway into a party. What really makes this for me is how casual Shawn is about it. He didn't plant a flag and say "I'm going to make the most of this!" He just... does it, he accidentally has a bunch of fun on a broken down subway, because that's who he is. It's nice. Big surprise, here I am talking about Shawn while Christian focused on Eric. Same old party lines. Haha, as soon as you started talking about wanting to see a correlation between Shawn's rock bottom comment and the subway thing I was like "Okay, we get it, you like Shawn, but this isn't his episode, we don't need him to have an arc..."

Eli's gettin laid tonight. Aw, no he's not. Honestly, they seem to be treating him more as one of the girls. I feel like he's thinks this is where he's heading and he's sadly mistaken. 

The "paaartay" thing is the worst joke in the season. Come on, Jacobs. Also, why is everyone thanking Cory? I feel like Shawn is responsible for most of this, but whatever, it happened offscreen. I appreciate Christian's analysis of "George Hamilton" Feeny. Now I know, and I'm better for it. Update: So far so good on Wikipedia not reverting my change! 

GMW: Feels like I'm watching Big Bang Theory or something at the start here, the audience is laughing just from seein the girls eat god damn cereal. All I wanted was for this episode to get off to a good start and I'd have the energy to get to the end. Ah Christ, yeah, this is the Triangle arc. I appreciate Maya's disgust at Riley putting ketchup on her mac and cheese though. 

It's this "Life wants to know, Maya" crap, the constant personification of life and thinking that it gives a shit about them, I can't stand it. Life doesn't want to know, Riley, because life doesn't care, that's Boy Meets World 101. Intro to Meeting Worlds, first lecture with Professor Sean. This show sucks. I forget their English teacher's name, but who cares because Maya's being obnoxious. Does Maya have a crush on Lucas? Almost definitely. Is she in love with him? Absolutely not! Why did we just raise the stakes so much here? Why is love suddenly in the conversation? And just as an aside, whoever made the decision (probably the network) to not have Lucas kiss Maya at that campfire should be crucified. Topanga kissed Cory in episode four, up against some lockers, and it has been universally praised for almost 25 years. The campfire was perfect, and a kiss would have made some of this drama actually compelling. I hate this so much.

WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST DO IT? WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST PAIR RILEY WITH CHARLIE AND BE DONE FOR A MINUTE? He's great, and Riley obviously has the hots for him, what's the big deal? That's the question that defines my perception of Girl Meets World as a series. Why is all of this shit such a big deal, all the time? Can't people calm down for 20 stupid minutes? 

In history class, Cory teaches a bunch of stuff that is not history. Riley is wearing some killer boots to her party, that's cool. And like, again, they're treating a kiss at midnight like it's a marriage proposal. We were fine, Farkle! Why do you have to come in and tell the audience that kissing someone at midnight is suuuuuuuuuuuch a big deal! Oh my god you guys it's suuuuuuuuuuuuch a big deal. Real big. Thank you, Girl Meets World, for explaining to me out loud why you think I should be invested.

Smackle hits on Lucas which is dumb. Lucas instantly ruins the party by sitting next to Maya and acting awkward instead of acting like a human being. Then Riley does the same thing by sitting next to Lucas. They obviously care so much about each other that they can't even talk. 

Topanga and Cory step outside of the series for a minute and have a little moment for the veteran fans like us. It's not very well written to be honest, but the heart of it is more important, and the heart of it makes me happy. 

Lucas eating the game card made me laugh pretty hard. Didn't see that coming. Riley and Charlie got a good question, asking the other's favorite movie theatre snack, which gave us some fun character flavor for everyone, and I was really hoping for more of that, but the show decides to go up its own ass instead. Farkle, buddy, you're supposed to be the smart one. You cannot possibly think this shit is that important. It's, what, 8th grade? IT DOESN'T MATTER. NONE OF IT MATTERS. And yes, I know it mimics real life because 8th graders think it matters, but that makes for a god awful show that I don't want to watch. There's no perspective. Boy Meets World almost always tries to include the perspective of someone who isn't a stupid kid. That ought to be Cory in this series, but instead he always validates the kids' problems by devoting entire lessons to it or making some big speech. He's saying boy, you kids sure have stumbled into something meaningful here. How wise and enlightened you kids must be, to be having these problems. I get it if you want to fabricate some drama with this love triangle because you're on Disney Channel. But can we please stop having Cory validate this stuff? Can Cory pass on any of the advice he got from his own father? 

Riley rejects Charlie like a big dumb idiot, and Charlie continues to be the best character by chilling out with Auggie even though he just had his heart broken. I can't believe they wrote him out of the show just like that. What a waste.

This episode is bad and the show is bad.

Man, this episode sucks. I invite you all to check out our original review, because everything stands. I'm so annoyed I don't even want to write about this episode, so I will leave you with some choice excerpts of mine, in lieu of me reviewing it.

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.

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.

Some other thoughts. This has been the first episode with Peyton Meyer I've seen in a WHILE, because Lucas isn't in either of the GMW Christmas episodes. And you know what? I don't know. It helps this is post-Season 1, but he's really not terrible in this. Like, Lucas isn't a great character, but Peyton Meyer does fine. And it helps that Farkle is so infuriating, because Lucas is made better by comparison. It really is a marvel that by the final season of this show I definitely liked Lucas better than Farkle. Sure, neither mattered to me, and had been eclipsed by people like Zay, Charlie, and even Josh as better young male characters, but I grew to loathe Farkle while Lucas was just whatever. Lucas had some funny moments in this -- his befuddlement by Charlie, his wondering why the class didn't continue the "Why?" thing, his eating the card in The Couples Game (though, I reiterate my concern in the original review, it was funny when Lucas did it, it was not funny when Maya did it too ten seconds later)

I just looked up the kids to see who's been doing stuff post-GMW. I mentioned, Rowan Blanchard is currently on The Goldbergs, I believe as a love interest to.... one of the Goldbergs? Tanner Buchanan's been doing a lot. I just recently saw him as a recurring character on the newest season of Fuller House, and he also plays Kiefer Sutherland's son on 24 Designated Survivor. Corey Fogelmanis has been active, Peyton Meyer much less so, Amir Mitchell-Townes has done hardly anything. The interesting one to me is Sabrina Carpenter though - she's mainly done voice work post GMW. Is she the Will Friedle of the show? I actually kind of see it, Maya did do a lot of funny voices and Sabrina does have a good voice 

I love that in the original review we somehow managed to never bring up Auggie dressed up as Baby New Year. You know who you do bring up a lot? Sarah. This was in your "obsessed with Sarah" phase. I thought it was funny. A friend of mine told me his favorite parts of BMWR were when I talked about weird stuff in the background.

Episode Rating: My original review was C, and while it's baffling for an episode this infuriating to get a stronger rating than a Boy Meets World episode that was bad but harmless, I actually do think this is probably a stronger episode of the two. It had less important things take place offstage, it's premise was less stupid, and I actually think it features better performances. What was bad about it was often, like, an ethical revulsion to the moves they make and a feeling they were compounding issues we already had with the show. As an individual episode unto itself, it is better than Train of Fools. 
Episode MVP: I gave Tanner Buchanan MVP in this one, and I think maybe that was subconsciously a consolation prize because I suspected it was his last episode (and it proved to be). He's a lot of fun in this, but he doesn't do too much. This is Rowan and Sabrina's episode, I'd give it to Sabrina in retrospect. 
New Year's Rating: 3 Glasses of Champagne There's a New Year's Eve party and some talk about maybe kissing at midnight, but really this is just about the relationships and this party could have been anything.