Girl Meets World: Angela and Shawn

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ Leave a comment

Last night on “Girl Meets Hurricane” Maya harasses Shawn into giving her fatherly advice. I haven’t watched this show since Eric guest starred, so I’m not sure if this relationship is even reasonable. I have a feeling that it isn’t. She starts mock-beating him up and the clucks like a chicken when he won’t give her advice. So disrespectful. Kids these days.

So then Shawn tells her to dress differently and she cries. But she’s only crying because he cared enough to tell her that and no one else has ever cared that much before, which she says right in front of her mother. This leads Shawn to take her out on a massive shopping spree, and Maya’s mom starts worrying about what will happen when Shawn decides to stop playing dad. (OMG perfect timing on a Father’s Day Weekend episode, right?)

But what could possibly make Shawn not want to play Dad, right?? Well, Angela shows up. Corey announces her presence and then she just shows up in Topanga’s bakery. It’s really odd and unexplained. Corey’s kid Riley is a total jerk to her because she’s upset that Angela might take Shawn away from Maya’s mom. Smh. Go to the mall and do kid things and stop being so obsessed with the grownups in your life!

Angela tells Shawn she’s been married for four years, and he asks her why she left him. She says she wasn’t ready for anything so serious when she was dating him, but she was only ready to get married when she did because of Shawn. I think that’s a compliment but if someone said that to me, I think it would be a very Bye, Felisha moment.

THIS is the weirdest television episode ever. While Maya and Riley sit with their parents eavesdropping in the courtyard, Angela tells Shawn that her husband wants to have kids. She’s nervous and needs her ex-boyfriend’s reassurances that she would be a good mom. I don’t know about you but, if I was a Disney Mom I would not want my kids watching this demented shit.

Then Angela starts demanding that Shawn tell her if Maya’s mom is “The one.” And then she’s all like “life knows what it’s doing” and wants Shawn to use their relationship to be ready to like get married to Maya’s mom, or something, wtf?

Is it possible to give an episode negative stars? Where is Will Friedle? Maya’s mom (can someone please give this character a name, already?) and Shawn agree to go on a date. And Maya approaches Shawn and asks him how he will handle such an important moment in his life. Cue: Ghost of Chet Hunter. He tells Shawn that everyone needs hope and “if that little girl can let her guard down, why can’t you?”

Well, I don’t know about the rest of America, but I remember Chet Hunter being kind of a belligerant drunk. I guess he did have a heart of gold underneath it all, but when did he get so eloquent? Is eloquence something that ghosts earn? Like every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings?

I don’t know. Roll credits.

Very Special Lesson: Whatever “hope” we found in the “Girl Meets Squirrels” episode is officially gone. Also, I’m pretty sure these writers operate on buzzwords. And that they have to incorporate the “buzz word” no less than 15 times into each episode script. Today’s buzzword was “hope” it was brought to you by the letter I–am so old and cynical about these people ruining the most magical show of my youth.

GIrl Meets World: The Shawn Episode

December 7, 2014December 8, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 5 Comments

Agh where do I even start? This is the 3rd episode of this show that I have ever watched While it was way better than the other two, it once again demonstrated that it totally fails at having organic heartfelt moments. It seems like Girl Meets World is all about WE ARE HAVING A BIG HEARTFELT MOMENT RIGHT NOW whereas Boy Meets World was just awesome and that is frankly all that I can say about this in terms of a critical in-depth analysis. This show is just so obviously forced and superficial that there is nothing else to say about it.

Except that Rider Strong has made a guest appearance and we need to talk about that. It’s Christmas Eve and Amy, Alan, and their son Josh are visiting, but Corey is most excited about Shawn coming over. Josh is the ridiculous fourth child that Amy and Alan produced in what was (I think) the last season of the original show. The writers clearly had nothing else to do with their characters, so they used a plot tool…ugh. But they did cast a cute actor to portray older Josh and his entire job is just to be “cool.” That makes sense to me continuity wise because two older parents raising a fourth surprise baby are probably pretty chill.

But something that does feel like a bit of a failure to me is that Amy is a total jerk to Topanga form the get-go of this episode. I know that Boy Meets World has committed some egregious character continuity errors over the years, but Amy was always like the best boyfriend’s mom/mother-in-law I could possibly imagine. Even when Topanaga stayed with them in high school and virtually destroyed all of their Christmas traditions, Amy was incredibly cool about it. But in the present day, all she can do it criticize Topanga’s cooking. Like come on people, why can’t we see Amy being cool Grandma with the kids? Why does she have to be a jerk? (Eventually, we learn that Amy is being awful because she misses having Christmas in Philly and feels useless or something like that but whatever.)

So I’ve hated the “girl Shawn character” from the first moment she showed up. But now I extra-super-mega-hate her because she’s so clearly a plot device and also because she is obnoxious. Shawn shows up and like doesn’t know how to talk to children. He talks to Josh who is like only four years older than Corey’s daughter, but apparently those four years are the difference between Shawn being able to form a sentence and well…being rude I guess. But like Shawn isn’t actually rude. You know what he is? He’s your dad’s friend who comes over for dinner and is clearly into hanging out with your dad. And that is totally okay because he is your dad’s friend. Like what thirteen year old girl is offended that a thirty-five year old man won’t hang out with her? That’s messed up.

But anyway obnoxious friend gets all plot device-y and accuses Shawn of hurting Riley (the daughter) with his lack of interaction. Then they dramatically leave the room all very special moment like and Shawn is left sitting on a window seat with Cory, thinking about his actions. Then in another scene they wake Shawn up from a nap (rude) and demand to know why he doesn’t like Riley. He’s all like what is wrong with you weird kids? I like Riley just fine. And then Riley demands that he tell her when her birthday is and what her favorite color is as if he is some bad middle school boyfriend. Like when would you ever talk to your dad’s friend like this? And what kind of parent would allow this level of disrespect? But like Cory is all calm and don’t worry Riley, Shawn knows your b-day. And then Riley gets all like offended and doesn’t believe him, so Shawn takes her and the obnoxious friend to a bakery where he tells them about Riley’s birthday. (December 8th. Tomorrow. I won’t be celebrating.) Riley’s birthday was also the day that Shawn left NYC for good.

Then Riley and her obnoxious friend proceed to armchair analyze Shawn in front of his face, and then Riley forces him to look at her. (Ugh this girl would be like the worst girl to date in middle school because look at how she behaves with grown men! Can you imagine if you forgot to cover her locker with wrapping paper for her birthday?) Then she says, “Every time you see me, does it remind you of what you don’t have?” SO OUT OF LINE, MAN! I imagine this is supposed to be some “from the mouth of babes” shit but like no way dude. This is so inappropriate.

After this ridiculousness, they go back home where Riley proceeds to force a bunch of heart to heart chats first between her father and Shawn and then between her obnoxious friend and Shawn (since they’re the same person or whatever). No actual kid has this much authority. And kids that do have an inappropriate amount of authority end up being drug addicts or assholes.

Very Special Lesson: Do not ever watch this show. Except for when WIll Friedle makes his guest appearance. We should all watch the Will Friedle episode.

Boy Meets World: If You Can’t Be with the One You Love

June 30, 2014June 30, 2014 ~ theveryspecialblog ~ 2 Comments

Remember the original Boy Meets World before it was co-opted into a Disney tween show that makes me feel unnecessarily old? It was a great show about growing up with your friends and your teacher who taught you every grade ever. For most of the show’s seven year run, the story lines realistically dealt with the issues kids face while they are becoming young adults. But no sitcom of the late twentieth century was totally immune to the very special episode formula. Every episode of Boy Meets World had a great life lesson, but only some episodes have the magic and schmaltz to be very special episodes. Once upon a time, Boy Meets World taught us all a valuable lesson about alcohol. The “boy” of BMW,Corey, and his long-time girlfriend, Topanga, have broken up. I can’t remember why they went their separate ways, but Corey is so devastated by his inability to non-awkwardly interact with Topanga at a party that he ends up drinking alone. He spends an hour and a half in the bathroom with a pint of whiskey and consumes a surprisingly small amount of it. After his best friend, Shawn, discovers him drunk and alone in a stranger’s bathroom, they decide to finish the bottle together.

Now to even the casual sitcom viewer, it is obvious that the boys are swiftly descending down the slippery slope that is teenage drinking. Corey and Shawn leave the party and pay a random man to buy them alcohol. Then, with cavalier disregard for open container laws, they enjoy a couple of beers on the sidewalk right in front of the corner store where they just bribed that dude…I don’t think they’ve had enough alcohol to be behaving this stupidly, especially since Shawn had the dexterity to walk around on his hands acrobat style like 90 seconds prior. They get arrested, of course, and Corey’s dad bails them both out of jail. Corey’s dad totally blames Shawn for everything because he’s from the wrong side of the tracks. This is super terrible on his part since he’s known Shawn for at least five years and Shawn has pretty much never done anything to warrant this “bad boy” treatment. Corey does not let Shawn take the blame, and instead confesses that he’s lost his heart and has no life. This is probably the point where you should connect your kid with a mental health professional (“the more you know”), but instead his dad just apologizes to Shawn for being such a dick.

Corey: "I just broke up with someone I spent my entire life with. I dont have a heart anymore. Ive lost my life." — Corey: “I just broke up with someone I spent my entire life with. I dont have a heart anymore. Ive lost my life.” …Uhh, maybe the main problem here is NOT the drinking.

Having learned the error of their ways, Shawn and Corey promise each other that they will never drink again, but Shawn quickly breaks that promise. Shawn, who is now apparently an alcoholic, learns from his half-brother, Jack, that their father was an alcoholic and was abusive. Shawn literally lunges at Jack for saying this, which maybe proves his brother’s point. Then Topanga and Shawn’s girlfriend, Angela, arrive and that’s where Shawn’s behavior hits a fever pitch. Shawn aggressively pushes Angela into the door when she tries to get him to stop drinking which definitely proves his brother’s point. Even though everyone just called Shawn an alcoholic, he decides to never drink again. He is totally without any signs of withdrawal and manages to quit cold turkey! This is especially impressive because Shawn also has not obtained any new coping skills since the beginning of this thirty minute episode. But you know, all it really tacks to break a habit is a stern talking to from your friends.

Very Special Lesson: If you get drunk once and you’re from a broken home, you will become an aggressive alcoholic like your dad. If you come form a middle class two parent family, you’ll have one drunken night in high school and never drink again even if you did give an entire speech full of red flags about your inability to handle a breakup.

Further Reading on the new Boy Meets World spin off Girl Meets World:

http://whitehattv.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/girl-meets-world-how-was-the-spinoff-of-the-90s-hit/
http://thehudsucker.com/2014/06/24/is-the-world-ready-for-girl-meets-world-pilot-review/ http://geekalabama.com/2014/06/24/tv-review-girl-meets-world/