Ah, season 2 of Degrassi Junior High. Even the more mundane issues are about to get upped a notch. I mean on the first disc alone, we’ve got Teen Pregnancy x 2, a different kind of child abuse than we saw in season 1, and wet dreams. The wet dreams aren’t in either of these episodes, unfortunately or fortunately. This season also features a bunch of new characters – or a lot of old characters who just never said or did anything in season 1. Hooray…?

“Eggbert”, January 4, 1988

Season 1 started airing in January, too. I guess this means all the kids this season are like a year older than they were in season 1, even though this season takes place in the same school year. Huh.

Spike’s at a support group for pregnant women. One woman talks about how angry she is at the father for not telling his parents. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed or in trouble or whatever. Surely this same issue will not also be relevant to Spike.

They reach the end of the session, and the group leader says that since so many of the girls are still debating whether to keep the baby or do adoption, she has an experiment for them. She makes all of them take an egg, and they have to take care of the egg like it’s a baby. I’d like to know what all the girls were thinking during the group session with that carton of eggs just sitting on the table the whole time.

Spike asks what she’s supposed to do about the egg when she’s at school, and the group leader says she either has to arrange daycare for the egg or take it with her. This experiment is kind of dumb. Taking care of an egg is different from taking care of a baby. You can just leave an egg at home alone all day and the worst that’ll happen is that it will spoil, and if it does, you just throw it out. It’s generally illegal to throw out spoiled children. And who’s she supposed to arrange daycare with? Like, call up a babysitter to watch the egg? Man, I’d love that job.

So the school term has started up. Everyone’s dressed for mid-Spring even though it’s supposed to be January in Canada. Kathleen sees Shane and wonders if he knocked up any other girls over the winter break. Kathleen is cold.

Spike talks to the twins, saying she’s finally through with morning sickness but its starting to get fat. She’s not looking forward to that at all, because people will stare at her more than they already do.

Kathleen says pregnant girls shouldn’t be allowed at Degrassi. They should send her to some home somewhere. Caitlin thinks she’s ridiculous and says they should send Shane to a home as well. Kathleen thinks that’s ridiculous since Shane isn’t the one who’s pregnant.

Shane meets up with Wheels and Joey in, where else, the bathroom. Shane’s upset because Spike won’t talk to her. Shane says something about how he hasn’t told his parents about the baby because he’s afraid they’ll send him to private school, like they did his brothers. Seriously why does everyone on this show have brothers? Arthur is the only person who has a sister, and like 80% of the characters have brothers. What’s up with that? Did Canada just have a problem in the 80s wit men way outnumbering women? Or do all the women live in Vancouver?

Also Wheels’s and Joey’s voices have changed, as part of the benefit of there being a real-time year between seasons. I think Wheels is a bit taller as well. Joey’s not.

Stephanie is throwing out all her old clothes, as part of her resolution to be true to herself or whatever. I have no idea why she had that many clothes in her school locker, and if she had all that in there, why did she keep wearing other clothes underneath her baggy clothes?

Anyway, Alexa asks if she can have some of Steph’s clothes if she was just going to throw them out anyway. Steph’s cool with that.

There’s a little kid looking for class 7C – Avery’s homeroom. He’s a new student even though he looks about 3 years too young.

The girls in Raditch’s homeroom are giggling about the egg. Alexa draws a face on it and says now it needs a name. Lucy thinks that’s dumb, since it’s just an egg, but Alexa says “No it’s not, it’s a baby!” One of the twins suggests Eggbert as the name. Ha, because it’s an egg.

Their class also has a new student, Simon Dexter. Alexa is immediately smitten with him. Stephanie is as well, and believes she recognizes him from some commercial campaign.

Meanwhile, the 7th graders are welcoming Scott Webster to the class. He’s the little kid from a couple screenshots ago. He’s skipped a grade or two because he’s smart. He also goes by Scooter. I wish I had a friend I could call Scooter.

Shane stops Spike in the hall, asking why she won’t talk to him anymore, why they can’t be friends like they used to be, etc. This is like the 5th time they’ve had this conversation. Shane follows up with a new point, though, and says he just wants to help. Spike tells him to take care of Eggbert until Monday. Shane’s like “How am I supposed to explain this to my parents?” Spike just tells him to figure it out on his own. The obvious solution for him is to tell his parents that his health class at school is making everyone take care of eggs like they’re babies. It’s a weird lesson, but not unheard of in television. Obviously.

So Shane heads home. His parents are old. I mean his parents can’t be any younger than 55 (an obituary that seems to be a match for the actor who plays Shane’s dad indicates he was indeed 55 give or take a year when he was on this show). Shane is only 14, so the huge age difference between him and his parents would definitely be an added layer to his reluctance to tell them about the baby. On top of that, his dad’s a reverend. An old reverend.

That explains a lot.

Rev. McKay was on the phone with someone when Shane walked in. When he hangs up, he says “Shane, does anyone at your school do drugs?” Ha. Shane’s just like “No, I don’t think so.” HA.

To be fair, this is only junior high, so probably there’s only a small handful of kids who do drugs. The school is small enough that surely if there were a lot of kids doing drugs, everyone would’ve heard of it. So Shane might actually be telling the truth. Especially since he only ever hangs out with Wheels and Joey who are the types of guys who would lie about doing drugs but never actually do any themselves.

Rev. McKay asks if Shane’s ever heard of something called “crank” (or else “crack”, but I think it was “crank”). Shane says he has heard of it. Rev. McKay disapproves of children doing drugs, but appreciates what a fine young man Shane is because he doesn’t do drugs. Haha, jokes on him because Shane is going to be a father soon!

Shane walks to school and everyone makes chicken noises at him.

Stephanie tells the twins she’s positive Simon is the guy from the commercial, because she paid really close attention when the commercial came on the last night. They’re all too scared to ask him about it, though.

The Zit Remedy makes a series of egg- and chicken-related puns at Shane. Sidenote: Snake’s voice has also deepened. Maybe Zit Remedy’s one song won’t suck so much now.

Lucy announces she’s throwing another party that night because her parents are going out of town. Everybody celebrates, including Spike, even though the last time she went to one of Lucy’s parties, things kind of ended badly for her.

Alexa, wearing some of Stephanie’s old clothes, is chatting with Simon. Stephanie and the twins plot to ask him to the party. They’re too late, though. Alexa asks him out first.

Shane asks Spike to watch Eggbert so he can go to the party. Spike’s like “no, I’m going, you watch him.” Shane’s like “it’s just an egg, why can’t we just both go?” Spike tells him he could ask his parents to watch Eggbert if he really wants to go.

The Zit Remedy show up again and Zoey tells Shane he’s totally lucky because they have to go to the party but he gets to stay home and babysit an egg! Then they make chicken noises and leave. Teenagers are literally the worst.

Shane quietly does homework while his parents play Gin Rummy. Their house doesn’t have enough lights on.

Lucy’s party kind of sucks because one of the tapes got wrecked in the cassette player. Man, next time any of you complain about your Mp3s not working, be glad at least you don’t have to worry about your tape getting eaten and unwound. That’s the pits.

Shane showed up the party. And it turns out he brought Eggbert with him. Then everyone starts playing catch with Eggbert. This scene becomes horrifying if you mentally replace Eggbert with an actual baby. Also a little hilarious, especially if you imagine the baby as clearly not being real.

Spike storms out, and Shane goes after her. He complains that it’s been embarrassing, carrying around Eggbert. Spike’s just like “don’t even play that card with me, I’m the one who’s really pregnant and is gonna get fat and everyone’s gonna stare at me.” Shane’s just like “it’s just a stupid egg, what’s the big deal?” Spike says “The stupid egg’s not the point!” and smashes poor Eggbert to the ground.

She tells him that even though he keeps saying he wants to help, all he really wants to do is stop feeling guilty, he doesn’t really want to help at all. She storms off into the darkness.

Then Shane goes home. His mother is knitting and his father is taking notes out of a book. They still only have one light on. They’re surprised that Shane is home so early. Shane swallows and says he has to tell them something. The show freeze-frames and ends there.

I feel bad for Shane. I mean, I feel bad for Spike as well, but obviously this whole pregnancy thing isn’t easy on either of them. But I think Shane having older brothers who went to private school, and having much older parents one of whom is a reverend really does add some layers to his character. Like on Degrassi: TNG , we have Sean, who has a much older brother, and when we eventually see his parents, they’re clearly pretty old. So you have to wonder if part of his anger stems from him likely being an unwanted, accidental pregnancy. I guess we’ll never know.

“A Helping Hand”, January 14, 1988. Huh, that’s weird. Why did this air 10days after the last episode? And the next episode aired on January 18, which is only 4 days.

Joey got some guy to agree to have the Zit Remedy play for him or something. Snake doesn’t believe it, since they only have two songs. Joey says hey, two songs, that’s an LP! I’m not old enough to remember LPs with fond annoyance like I remember cassette tapes.

Also there’s a substitute filling in for Raditch. He’s supposed to be handsome but he looks like 5 of the former Doctor Who actors got together and had a baby. By that I mean he looks like a weird, middle-aged English man.

But everybody likes him.

Stephanie’s angry that Simon’s into Alexa, saying it’s only like that because she’s wearing all of Steph’s old clothes. If Steph was still wearing them, he’d be all over her. Something to note: Alexa doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous as Steph did in those clothes. I think it’s because she doesn’t go overboard with the 80s makeup that makes it look like she escaped from the Jem cartoon, and her hair looks brushed.

Wheels is getting extra tutoring from Avery. Also he has an eye appointment for the next day. He thinks glasses are dumb and he doesn’t need them, but Avery thinks the reason he’s been having trouble with headaches and not focusing, is because he needs glasses. What a thrilling plotline.

In the bathroom – of course – LD complains how no boys ever notice her. Lucy offers to give her a makeover. Now, on the one hand, LD shouldn’t change who she is just to impress a boy blahblahblahtumblrsocialjustice. On the other hand, she does dress like a slob a lot of the time. I mean if she didn’t talk, I don’t think you’d be out of line for thinking she was a boy sometimes. She sure doesn’t need to go full-on Stephanie or Alexa, but there’s a line between being comfortable as yourself and dressing like you’ve slept in the same outfit for a week.

She’s only 14, though, AND a fictional character, so it’s not a huge issue, I think. Actually, I related to LD. I dress pretty frumpily sometimes, and sure I’d like guys to notice me, but I like dressing comfortably more, I guess.

Meanwhile, Shane tells Spike he told his parents about the baby. Spike – who has a picture of herself in her locker – is shocked and impressed. Shane says they were pretty upset, but they’re not going to kick him out or anything. Huh… Degrassi has actually never done a plotline with a teen pregnancy where someone gets kicked out. Manny got kicked out because her Very Traditional Father was fed up with how wild and loose she was being, but no one has ever gotten kicked out because they were pregnant or got someone else pregnant. The closest thing was when one pair of characters decided they were going to live together and raise the baby and their parents were like “You’re only 16, wtf,” but they never got kicked out. They decided to move out on their own. Glee actually did the “pregnant girl gets kicked out” storyline, but did not cover it very successfully, I think.

Substitute teacher wants to congratulate Lucy for that excellent report on native people… Wait, no, that’s from the “Ms Avery is gay” episode. She wrote an essay on the pain of when a friend moves away. Apparently Voula moved somewhere out of the school district, but is close enough that she and Lucy are going to see a movie on Saturday.

Except Voula calls Lucy’s house and says her parents said she can’t see Lucy. She’s just like “So… sorry.” Geez, Voula.

So here’s something to ponder: What if Voula had remained a character on the show? Would she have remained the stick the mud, strictly-raised character? Or would she have gone the route Manny on TNG did, where she gets really tired of always just being someone’s friend and nothing else, so wears low-rise jeans and thongs to school, or whatever the appropriate 1980s equivalent would be? I could totally see Voula staying as the same basic character for another season or two, and she starts being the victim of bullying but doesn’t tell anyone about it, and it just comes out in one episode that she’s being bullied, and she’s also upset about how everyone else is growing up and getting cooler but she’s still little Voula who dresses in weird clothing all the time.

Oh my God.

Lucy also gives LD a scarf, saying she’s got lots. Good continuity, that’s what she told Voula in that other episode. Because remember, Lucy really likes shoplifting scarves.

At school the next day, the substitute teacher has the class discussing the death penalty. In an English class. Where they study plays and how to spell words. I couldn’t hear what most of the kids were saying, and I’m not opening up a debate on it here.

Anyway, substitute teacher is looking down Lucy’s top.

She doesn’t even have any exposed cleavage. What exactly is he trying to look at?

When LD tells Lucy she saw that happen, Lucy says she’s just jealous that a teacher likes her and that she’s too chicken to wear makeup or talk to boys. LD says “Well at least I don’t shoplift!” …Burn?

Wheels isn’t allowed to play in the band until his grades come up. Ugh, lame. And Stephanie demands Alexa give her clothes back. Alexa rightly points out that Steph gave her those clothes, but Steph denies it.

Wheels has giant 80s glasses.

Joey makes fun of him. “Who ever heard of a rock star who wears glasses?” Wheels replies, “What about John Lennon?” Joey doesn’t know who that is.

Alexa gives Stephanie her clothes back. Her mom found them, and said they make Alexa look like “a lady of the evening,” which means a prostitute to those of you not familiar with the euphemism.

Also it turns out Simon can play bass, which is I guess what Wheels played.

Substitute tells Lucy he connects with her on a deep personal level, and says people like them need to stick together. Lucy is clearly very uncomfortable, especially when she starts rubbing her shoulders. CREEPY.

Wheels, who is there after school for tutoring, realizes he forgot a book. His locker is apparently right next to the classroom, and he notices the weird massage going on.

He stands there for a few seconds and then opens the door.

The substitute is like “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” Wheels says he just needed a book, and then Lucy runs out of the classroom. Ah, man, you go, Wheels.

The next day, Steph shows up in one of her old outfits. Simon and Alexa walk by her, holding hands. Steph sticks out her chest and says “Hi, Simon.” I think Simon says “Hi, Quinn” and keeps walking with Alexa. HA Simon liked Alexa for her personality the whole time.

Creepy substitute tells Lucy they can pick up where they left off that afternoon. Lucy says “No. Not in a million years.” Aw yeah, you go, Lucy! Wheels catches up with Lucy a bit later, and tells her he’s there for her if she needs a witness or anything if she reports the guy. Man, first getting flowers for his date with Stephanie, then telling Spike he’s there to help out if she needs it, now this? Wheels is the nicest 14 year old boy ever.

Oh, Lucy and LD made up, also.

The whole “pedophile substitute teacher” thing doesn’t get resolved at all in this or the next episode. But it DOES get resolved later this season. Stay tuned for the EXCITING CONCLUSION a couple weeks from now.

Also technically he’s an hebephile since Lucy is 14. Pedophilia refers to a preference for prepubescent children, hebephilia is for kids 11 to 14 years old, and ephebophilia is 15 to 19, and then for ages 20 and older I don’t know if it gets a name since anyone 20 or older can officially consent to a relationship and it’s not so creepy.

“Great Expectations,” January 1988

You have no idea the trouble I’ve had writing the correct year on the three recaps I did today. Just now the date went from 2988 to 1998 to 21919 before I managed to get the year right.

There’s a new student, Liz. She hates Degrassi because everyone is a prep. Liz is actually Ebony from the Harry Potter fanfiction “My Immortal”, only without the ridiculous hair or the vampirism. Also Liz appeared uncredited in episode 101 and a few other season 1 episodes but we aren’t supposed to remember that. Joey asks Liz out on a date, and then opening credits play. Voula is still in the opening despite not being on the show anymore.

The Zit Remedy complain that Simon wanted to play soccer instead of playing bass for the band while Wheels is grounded from playing until his grades go up. “What a narbo” indeed.

Then they discuss Liz. Wheels and Snake think she’s weird because she’s quiet and never talks to anyone. She’s a new kid, of course she never talks to anyone. Joey asks if they think she, you know, does it. Then he asks if they think about sex. 14 year old boys don’t think about sex, Joey, that’s ridiculous! Who ever heard of a teenage boy thinking about sex? Just ask Shane! Oh wait.

Arthur tells Yick he’s been having wet dreams. Once a week even! He fears he’s turning into a sex maniac. Fun fact: During his marriage to Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII claimed to still be having wet dreams, and he used this to support his claims that Anne simply wasn’t attractive enough for him in the bedroom, and that was the reason their marriage went unconsummated and it totally wasn’t because he was old and fat and had gout and a festering leg wound that made life difficult and smelly for everyone. Anne of Cleves got out of the marriage the best of any of the wives. She actually outlived Henry and wife #6 Catherine Parr, who gets the “survived” at the end of “Divorced, beheaded, and died.” Errr I better stop here, I could go on for ages about Henry VIII (he’s actually a really interesting and complex historical figure!)

Stephanie’s gone back to dressing like a lady of the night (Alexa’s mom said it first) so she can win Simon over from Alexa. Spike’s looking at herself in the mirror because she thinks she’s getting fat. Steph hasn’t noticed. Then a toilet flushes and it turns out Liz was in there the whole time.

Steph and Spike just stare at her as she washes her hands, and Steph continues watching her as she heads towards the door. Liz is finally like “Why are you staring at me?” Steph says in a mock-sweet voice “I just love your hair, you must tell me who does it.”

Liz says, “Yeah well at least I don’t get dressed in the washroom so my mom won’t know how I dress.” As Liz leaves, Steph says “…Good comeback!” If anyone ever yells “Good comeback!” at you, here’s what you should say: “Yeah, it was almost as good a comeback as ‘Good comeback!’”

Steph is critical of how Liz dresses, and theorizes that Liz probably does it. She says this with disgust in her voice, and Spike glares at her. Steph backpedals and is like “Well not like you, you made a mistake…” I just like that the girl wearing skinny pants and a halter top thinks the girl wearing jeans and two tanks tops must be a slut. That’s a case of the pot calling the kettle a whore.

Steph says she heard that Liz had to leave her old school because of something sex-related. Spike wonders why everyone who looks different always has stories made up about them. Steph still thinks she dresses “very provocatively.”

Some project for Raditch, they have to pair up for. Joey asks Liz if she wants to be his partner. She looks mildly surprised, but agrees.

Alex tries to talk to Stephanie about fund-raising ideas. She just wants him to leave because of some plan to win over Simon. Simon shows up and she dumps her books on the floor, saying “Whoops!” Simon just stares at her and walks away with a kid wearing a Max Headroom shirt. Alex picks up her books while continuing to talk about fundraising. Also Stephanie’s standing in front of one of those “doors of wherever” posters that are still really common today.

Arthur and Yick continue to discuss wet dreams. Yick suggests Arthur talk to his dad, but Arthur is afraid his dad will think he’s a pervert. This is why having the internet is great, you can look up stuff about wet dreams and no one will know as long as you use your own computer or utilize private browsing or incognito mode.

Meanwhile, Spike spots Liz eating yogurt alone. She should get together with Snake, they’re both teenagers who are satisfied by eating only yogurt for lunch. Spike goes over to her and asks if she can sit down. Liz is all “it’s a free country.” Spike asks her how she’s liking Degrassi so far, and Liz says everyone is really snobby. All those snobby intercity kids in a really dilapidated area of Toronto.

Liz asks if Spike is really pregnant, and when she says she is, Liz says she’ll never get pregnant. Spike is like “Maybe you’ll want to someday,” but Liz is like “No, never, and I hate it here, and I miss my old school with all my old friends, and as soon as I turn 16 I’m moving back.” Geez, Liz, no one’s gonna like you much if you keep acting that way.

Next scene, Melanie is still some girl about how the length of the menstrual cycle averages 28 days, but can vary from 20 to 35, especially when you’re still growing. Kathleen’s like “wtf are talking about” and Melanie says she heard it from Dr. Sally, who is a radio sex and health advice expert person. Yick thinks Arthur should call.

Liz and Joey work on their project in the school library. Joey says several times that he likes Liz’s hair. She giggles and tells him to stop it.

She has a really lovely smile, actually.

The study period ends, and Liz realizes they didn’t get much work done. The school closes at 4 so they can’t work after school, and Joey’s grandparents are over at his house so it’s a real pain. Liz says her mom works evenings so her house will be empty. Apparently Toronto doesn’t have a public library.

Joey brags to his buds that he’s been invited to Liz’s house to study. Because she obviously meant that as a metaphor for sex and not that she wanted to work on their project that was due.

Stephanie decides to just ask Simon… something. She begins asking, but then Alex shows up and reminds him he needs to get dressed for the soccer game that’s starting in a few minutes. He apologizes to Steph and runs off. Alex smiles at her but then backs away slowly when he notices she is very unhappy with him. This is possibly the best Alex-related episode ever. Is he trying to mess up her flirting with Simon on purpose, or is it all just a coincidence?

Liz asks Spike what she thinks of Joey. Spike says he’s kind of a jerk, but can be nice sometimes. Liz says she likes him.

Meanwhile, Joey asks Wheels about the time he bought condoms last year, and if he can come with Joey to buy more condoms. Wheels kind of implies he thinks Joey’s overreacting and overthinking things. Joey’s argument basically amounts to “What do you know?!”

Liz tells her mom, who’s going to work as a 19th century German barmaid, that a guy is coming over. It’s just for schoolwork, but her mom still doesn’t like having boys over at the house. Liz is all “Look it’s hard enough making friends at this crummy school already, mom.”

Meanwhile, Joey goes to buy some condoms. He picks up a lot of other healthcare things first, like a bottle of something and Colgate toothpaste. And toilet paper. Then he hops into the family planning aisle and picks up a box of Sheiks. He notices an old guy looking at him and he scoots down the row and randomly picks something else up.

It’s a box of Tampax tampons if the screencap’s too fuzzy.

He decides to just check out, but the cashier stops him, because he’s pretty sure the condoms are on sale but they aren’t ringing up right or something. He calls one of his coworkers to check, and Joey’s just like “Please I’ll just pay the full price.”

Check out the Hostess display.

Meanwhile the old guy and his wife are behind him in line, judging him with their old people eyes as several shelves full of Nabisco products sit in the background. The packaging for Ritz crackers hasn’t really changed much since 1988. It seems to even be using the same font. The Tampax box was pretty similar to today’s design, too. Hm.

Finally Joey heads to Liz’s house. They work on the project for a while, until Joey stops her, saying hey, they both want sex, they should just do it. Liz gets mad and tells him to leave and to not touch her or whatever. Then she lays down on the couch and the camera zooms in on the book on the table for some reason.

Maybe the War of 1812 was all a misunderstanding where the U.S. thought Britain wanted to have sex but it turned out Britain didn’t after all. I should make a book of all the historical and scientific assumptions I’ve made and shared on this blog.

Yick and Arthur tune in to Dr. Sally’s show from a phone booth so their families don’t know about this. They call in, and then Arthur chickens out – what if someone recognizes his voice? Melanie and some of the other kids listen to the show. Yick then talks for him – “I have a friend who’s 12 years old and gets a lot of wet dreams, is he a pervert?” Arthur hangs up the phone and tells Yick he’s not a pervert. Dr. Sally, on the radio, echoes this sentiment, saying that wet dreams are perfectly normal. Indeed, dear readers, although maybe the frequency of Arthur’s wet dreams is a little on the unusual side, some guys only get wet dreams once or twice a month, some get them several times a week, and some guys don’t get them at all. Yay, learning.

In the final scene, Joey and Wheels discuss the events that transpired. Joey figures Liz is really mad, and says the worst thing is that he really did like her. Too bad Joey’s such an idiot, eh?

So, this episode marked the first appearance of Dr. Sally, who actually is the same Dr. Sally who we see in person in two episodes of Degrassi: TNG. And as it turns out, her actress, Sue Johnason, is a sex doctor as well! Er, not a sex doctor, but basically does like Dr. Sally does – talks about sex and whatnot. You can visit her website!

“Dinner and a Show”, January 25, 1988

Carl got a promotion. Who’s Carl??

I think Carl is probably one of Shane’s older brothers. Shane’s dad tells Carl that they’re very disappointed in Shane and are sending him to private school and also Mrs. McKay can’t even face her bridge club because it’s so shameful and embarrassing. What if Carl isn’t Shane’s older brother and doesn’t actually know who Shane is? Ha.

Kathleen and Melanie are on the steps of the school. When Shane walks by, Kathleen says “Hi, Daddy!” Melanie doesn’t think that was very nice. Kathleen doesn’t care. Then Spike’s mom drives up with Spike, and Kathleen says “And there’s Mommy.” Gawd, Kathleen.

Spike says having a baby inside feels weird. Her mom says that’s normal, and also scolds her for not eating.

Melanie wants to go to Kathleen’s house for a project or something. Kathleen says they can’t, because her mom is busy. Melanie complains that her mom is always busy. Then Yick asks Melanie if she wants to go on another date.

He wants to see “Revenge of the Reptiles,” but Melanie is still afraid of reptiles even though she thought that snake was pretty cute, so she suggests “Crying in the Wind” instead. Degrassi has a long history of having absolutely fantastic names for their fictional media, like the “Clown Academy” franchise, “Elimination Round 3″, and the “Fortnight” vampire series, plus The Gourmet Scum which may or may not have been a real band in 1988.

So Yick leaves, and Melanie says that even though she agreed to date Yick, she wants an older man. Snake walks by and they hi to each other. Joey and Wheels are like “She totally likes you, man!” and Snake’s all “What, really?” They make fun of him because Melanie’s so little and if they went on a date they could play jump rope or something. She’s only a year younger but he’s also like 5 feet taller than her.

Shane wants Spike to ask her mom again about having them meet up with him and his parents for dinner. Spike says she’ll ask but her mom is just going to say no again. Shane gets a little angry, pointing out that it was Spike’s idea for him to tell his parents to begin with, so of course now that they know they want to meet with the mother of their grandchild.

Also check out this drawing Spike has in her locker.

Is that supposed to be a drawing of her, or a drawing of someone who she’s basing her hair off of?

“Liz + Joey 4-Ever”

Joey invites the other guys to go play video games, but Wheels is still getting tutoring from Ms. Avery. And Snake has “something to do” so he skips out as well. He asks Melanie out to see a movie. He suggests “Revenge of the Reptiles,” and Melanie grits her teeth and agrees to see it. Snake asks if that Friday is okay, and Melanie says it is, even though that’s when her date with Yick is.

Snake is so cute, I don’t know how half the school doesn’t have a crush on him.

Melanie calls Yick to cancel their date, and Kathleen oddly turns into a voice of reason by saying it’s really not fair, since Yick asked Melanie out first and all.

Spike gets to her mom’s salon to sweep the floor like she always does. Spike’s mom says she got a call from Shane’s dad inviting them to dinner. She’s agreed to it, and tells Spike to just postpone her plans with Liz when Spike protests. Spike’s mom also says that Shane’s dad mentioned they had tried inviting Spike and Spike’s mom before, by sending a message “through the boy.” She asks if Spike heard anything about that. Spike denies it, even though earlier she said her mom had just been refusing to go to the dinner. Spike’s mom says that’s just typical of men, wanting to get out of everything scot-free. Also Shane’s dad wanted them to have dinner at Shane’s house, but Spike’s mom wanted to have it in neutral territory, at a restaurant, where she will be paying for herself and Spike thankyouverymuch.

Shane doesn’t want to go to private school. His dad says Shane’s two brothers did well there. When Shane says he’s not like them, Shane’s dad is all “Maybe you ought to start trying to be like them.” OHHHH.

But Shane wants to stay at Degrassi and help out when the baby’s born. Shane’s dad says when the baby’s born, it’s going straight up for adoption, and Shane won’t even get to see it. WOW this guy isn’t even the father of the baby and he’s deciding what Spike should do without letting her have any input. What a jerk. Shane asks what about if the baby doesn’t go up for adoption, and his parents are like “whaaaaaaaaaat.”

So at school the next day, Arthur asks Yick if he wants to see Revenge of the Reptiles with him since his date with Melanie got cancelled. Uh-oh wanna bet they end up at the same showing as Snake and Melanie?

Wheels tells Snake he’s ridiculous for taking Melanie to a gory guy’s movie. Snake points out that she did agree to go see it. And then Joey and Wheels decide to crash Snake’s date.

Shane finds Spike and asks her what she’d think about keeping the baby. Spike thinks that’s ridiculous. She’s just a kid, not somebody’s mother. He then scolds her for drinking orange soda, since it’s bad for the baby. Spike gets mad at him for telling her what to do. Man, Shane just can’t win. If he stays out of everything, Spike gets mad at him because it’s his baby too and he ought to be involved, but then when he tries to be involved she tells him to keep his nose out of her baby business.

Melanie says she likes to sit in the back of the movie theater, but Snake likes to sit in the front, so Melanie says she also likes to sit in the front. Snake is like 6 feet tall so that’s really rude of him to sit in the front.

Joey, Wheels, and Godzilla are jerks.

At the restaurant, Shane’s mom complains that they had to go to a restaurant because she cooked a perfectly fine meal at home. Even though Spike’s mom said yesterday that they would eat at a restaurant so Shane’s mom shouldn’t have cooked anything for dinner today.

Shane’s dad says, as a reverend, he has experience dealing with things like this. …Weird.

Yick and Arthur show up and decide to sit in the front instead of in the empty seats in the back. Melanie tries hiding but eventually Yick spots her. How embarrassing!

Back at the most awkward dinner ever, Rev. McKay says he knows of a lot of fine homes they can send Spike to until the pregnancy’s over. Spike doesn’t want to go away, and Spike’s mom doesn’t want to send her away either. Rev. McKay says they’ll be sending Shane to private school, but Shane says no, they aren’t. They never listen to Shane, and Shane’s really mad that they just want to shuffle him out of the way so they don’t have to be so embarrassed by him. Shane’s sorry he’s not as perfect as Carl, and his dad is like “We never said anything like that!” and Shane’s all “But you were thinking it!” He asks if he can keep the baby, to prove himself as being responsible or whatever.

Monday, before school, Kathleen asks how the date went, and Melanie says she hates herself.

Spike and Shane meet up. Shane apologizes for the awful dinner, but says his parents aren’t bugging him so much about private school anymore. Spike asks if he was serious about wanting to keep the baby, and Shane confirms he is. He ends the episode by saying it’s not as easy being the guy as everyone thinks. That’s what I’ve been saying! Kind of.

So now our “end of disc” bonus, Degrassi Talks… On Abuse

Of course this episode was included on this disc because of the creepy substitute teacher from episode 202, but Degrassi has a lot of abuse. There was Rick in season one, and some relationship-related abuse later on (very notable on Degrassi: TNG, with… Rick. A different one.)

As always, just the highlights. Er, if you can say “highlights” in reference to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.

• They talk to one guy who is in jail and was in the drugs episode. He talks about his step-father who would whip his behind until it was black and blue. He doesn’t (or didn’t) necessarily think of it as abuse, just physical punishment, but he says if he his step-father hit him again today (1992 today), he’d probably hurt the guy really badly. He says he started using drugs to escape the problems he had with the physical abuse.
• One woman got pregnant at 16 and had a miscarriage about three months later. After that, her boyfriend started beating her up. Her next few boyfriends also beat her up, and she thought that was just how things are supposed to be. She still figures that’s just life in the Yukon, getting beaten up by your boyfriend.

The screenshot minus the caption is from a later episode, it’s not actual footage of someone huddled in the fetal position.

• One woman who has cerebral palsy talks about how her parents always tried to shut her away. They made her stay in her room for 8 months and wouldn’t let her out of the house, not even to go to school.
• Another woman, who is clearly very nervous and uncomfortable, talks about how her boyfriend came over one day and started moving too fast and forced himself on her. I feel bad, because her body language suggests she’s uncomfortable talking about it, or just talking on camera, but she’s still sharing her story so it can be heard. I guess that’s the first step or something.
• Siluck asks one guy if he thinks men can be abused by women. The guy definitely thinks they can, and talks about how this one girl he knows will hit him pretty much any time he says anything she doesn’t like.
• Another guy shares a story about how he was raped by another woman. He remembers he wasn’t aroused at all and didn’t really know what was going on.
• Yet another guy talks about being sexually abused by his father. He drops a mega truth bomb about double standards and weird things people say – like people asked if he was gay when they found out he was molested by another man, or else they say “only girls get sexually abused!” He also talks about how when girls are victims of domestic abuse, people will say stuff like “Oh, you should’ve taken advantage of it!”
• One man, whose identity is obscured, talks about being abused as a kid, and how he now abuses other people. This is sadly not a unique occurrence.
• At the end, they start addressing what people do when they’re victims of abuse. One girl made a list of her feelings, and a pros/cons list for committing suicide. The guy who was abused by his father eventually told what was going on, and he and his parents started going to family counseling and group therapy. He liked going to group therapy because he learned there are other male victims, and basically that he shouldn’t feel like he did something wrong. The girl whose boyfriend raped her talked to her mom and her friend about it, and the friend said she had also been abused. Rebecca Haines, the actress who played Kathleen, then reveals that talking to that woman helped give her the courage to share that she was also date-raped.
• A few months later, that same girl is in a happy relationship with a guy who doesn’t abuse her, and they’re actually engaged. The girl with cerebral palsy is also doing well, feels a lot better about herself.

I’m not the greatest dispenser of advice, but just by going off what was said in this episode, it seems like just telling someone, anyone about being abused can help a lot. Here’s a quick Google search I did for support groups, many of which I imagine are online forums where you don’t even have to meet up with anyone in-person if you’d rather not. You’re welcome to share your story here if you’d like. I’m no therapist, but I can listen pretty well.

Shawn’s making out with some chick again.

And by “some chick” I mean LARISA OLEYNIK.

She’s not a huge star, especially these days, but she was friggin Alex Mack, okay?

Shawn says he really likes her. But she (her character is Dana Pruitt, just by the way) isn’t really cool with how much Shawn likes to just make out with girls and stuff and doesn’t want to date him anymore. Why the heck did she agree to date him in the first place, then??

Eric’s trying hard to not suck at school so he can get into college. Turner suggests he apply for the internship “at the station.” Eli doesn’t think that’s such a great idea, since Eric is a slacker and there’s going to be actually good students who apply and will get the internship. So what’s the problem with letting Eric apply if there’s no chance he’ll get it anyway? Eli is a terrible teacher.

Meanwhile, it turns out Dana Pruitt wants to date Cory, not Shawn. Shawn is obviously disappointed. I mean they were such a cute couple in the 30 seconds we saw them dating in this episode.

Shawn has been waiting for Cory to come back from his date. Cory is surprisingly dressed for New England winter weather. No one on tv is ever dressed appropriately for winter, so this is interesting.

Shawn asks Cory about the date – just stuff about how much he liked the date, Dana, etc. Cory suspects Shawn may really like Dana. I already know he does, so let me tell you this scene is absolutely thrilling. One of these days I’ll be able to refer to a scene as “thrilling” without being completely sarcastic about it.

Eric talks to the one other kid going out for the station internship. He has good grades, award-winning documentaries, and a recommendation letter from Ted Turner. He says he could go into the interview without pants and still get the job. Eric advises against that, having seem him too many times in gym class. The other kid is Danny Strong, who has a lot of random bit parts but also played a recurring character in Saved By the Bell: The New Class, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Clueless, and also he wrote and produced The Butler and wrote the screenplay for the upcoming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay movies. [Or rather, wo-wrote and co-produced, probably.]

Dana is running the school’s blood drive sign-ups. This is weird, because 1) the schools I went to, you had to be at least 18 to donate blood, and 2) you could just show up to the blood drive donation buses, you didn’t need to sign up.

Shawn has some blood to donate. He siphoned it out of his uncle’s arms while he was sleeping. It’s in some jar or vial or something in a paper lunch bag.

Shawn talks to Dana about her date with Cory. All you really need to know is that Dana said Shawn isn’t really boyfriend material. She has a point.

Shawn shares this information with Cory over lunch. Topanga sits down with them, and they’re like “You’re a woman, what’s Shawn doing wrong?” Topanga at first resists telling Shawn anything, but finally spills the awful truth: Shawn does not understand women.

You don’t know what we are, you don’t know how we feel, and you don’t know what we think. You see us as dating objects, and the faster we are, the more you want us. And until you can grow up and see beyond that, no matter how many girls you go out with, you will always be lonely.

That speech was awesome, but the best part was how the audience couldn’t agree on how to react to it. Half the audience did a sad “awwww”, the other half laughed.

Feeny is talking about presidents, or whatever. Shawn asks Feeny if he would consider Kennedy a great president, and if him (Kennedy, not Feeny) being a total babe magnet affected him being great or whatever. Dana Pruitt basically says he was terrible because he cheated on his wife, and “less of a husband, less of a leader.” All of the women in the class agree. Shawn rebuts that it’s hard for a guy to change who he is, and all the guys agree. Dana says you can’t change if you don’t try, Shawn says he can’t change if he doesn’t get a chance. Feeny likes this debate and tells everyone to write an essay on it.

Here’s my essay: Why should him cheating on his wife diminish his accomplishments as a president? Like, Tiger Woods cheating on wife doesn’t change the fact that he was a great golfer (or still is?). I do understand the logic behind this though – like “how can we trust a man with the whole country when his wife can’t even trust him?”, BUT that is just the way of the world, that sometimes there are awful people who still managed to do good things. I suppose I’ve just led myself back to the beginning now, as I wonder if the terrible things should diminish the accomplishments, or if the accomplishments can make up for all the bad?

Hmm… That actually could make for a pretty interesting essay.

Eric finishes up his internship interview. He sweated really badly during the interview, and says “I’m not gonna get this thing, am I?” The interviewer says that everyone has an equal chance of getting the job. When Eric says “Really?!” she says, “Oh, don’t do this to me,” and goes back into her office.

Eric stands in front of one of the cameras and says “This just in, Eric Matthews is a huge loser.” This casually dressed old man who’s cleaning up the craft services table starts talking to him. Eric says he did poorly because he wasn’t himself. He really wanted the job, but some guy with straight A’s who just wanted another thing to put on his resume will get it instead. He’s very disappointed in himself for screwing up in front of the most important person at the station.

Except it turns out the old guy is really the most important person at the station and not a janitor or whatever. He’s the station manager, and Eric is the new intern. Yay!

Shawn set up a picnic outside Chubbie’s. In the snow.

He asks Dana why she won’t give him a chance. Dana says she’s afraid of him.

PIC

Shawn’s like “don’t be” and then Dana’s like “let’s go out again”. PLOT RESOLVED.

Actually their whole conversation for some reason made me think of like a reverse Twilight situation, where the girl is like “you’re a monster!” and the guy is like “I don’t care, I like you!”

Morgan’s helping Eric prepare coffee. Amy and Alan come downstairs, Amy saying it’s sweet that Eric made coffee. Alan says, incredulously, “Yeah, for the next three years!” There’s only about 20 cups of coffee, so I guess Alan only drinks coffee once every two months or so.

Eric explains that it’s part of his job as an intern to get coffee for the station people. His parents are all “I’m pretty sure that means bringing the coffee to them, stupid.” Joke’s on them, though.

All the station people come in to partake of fine Maxwell House brew and homemade muffins. I guess they must all work for the noon news since the morning newscasters have to be at work by like 4 am most of the time.

If you couldn’t tell, I haven’t been wholly invested in these past few episodes.

Sue and Schue are arguing in slow motion. Schue monologues about being ashamed of how ridiculous he’s being. Sue monologues about how majestic she looks with an angry-face on. Schue’s monologue interrupts her and comments that its’ ridiculous how even their voice-overs don’t get along. Random meta, fourth-wall moment.

So in flashback… maybe… Schue asks if there’s anything the kids want to do at sectionals. Mercedes asks if they can do “something more… black.” Kurt agrees, saying they’ve done an awful lot of showtunes.

I haven’t been keeping a good track of the types of songs performed, but I think they’ve actually performed way more pop and rock than showtunes. There were a lot in the first episode, and most of the rest were sung by Rachel outside of the club, as part of the musical she was supposed to be in.

Rachel argues that it’s “glee club, not crunk club”. Mike offers to pop ‘n lock. Schue says that’s not what they’re looking for. Since when does the glee club not want people to dance? Eh.

Quinn gets an ultrasound. She tells the doctor lady to be careful not to get any of that ultrasound jelly on her uniform. If only Quinn owned any other clothes. And it turns out the baby is a girl.

Schue took Quinn and Finn to the ultrasound appointment, and looks kind of sadly at the one other couple in the waiting room – the guy puts his head on his lady-partner’s stomach to listen to the baby or something. Kind of weird to do in a clinic waiting room.

Jacob ben Israel pops out from behind Rachel’s locker at school. He says rumor in the halls is that Quinn Fabray is “in trouble”, which is a weirdly outdated thing to say about a pregnancy in 2009. Rachel plays it cool and asks where he heard such a thing. Jacob doesn’t elaborate much, but does go on to say that rumor also has it that Rachel’s jealous that Finn chose Quinn to bear his “litter” rather than her. Rachel cuts right to the important part and asks what it’s going to take to get him to shut up.

Meanwhile, Sue wants to split up the glee club into “Sue’s Kids” and the other losers. Schue objects, pointing out if they split up the club no one will have enough members to compete at Sectionals or whatever. Sue says according to the rulebook, each school must have at least 12 members but not all of them need to perform at the same time, so what she’s doing is perfectly legal. For God’s sake, Schue really needs to read the show choir handbook already. This is ridiculous.

Sue then surprises Schue by taking: “Santana, Wheels, Gay Kid, Asian, Other Asian, Aretha, and Shaft.” She says she doesn’t want to be part of a group that ignores the needs of minorities. Technically Rachel and it turns out Puck are also minorities, since they’re both Jewish, but Sue didn’t select either of them. If we want to be really ridiculous, we could also count Finn as a child from a single parent home (1 in 4 kids come from single parent homes, that is a minority although not a racial one, but Artie and Kurt weren’t racial minorities either). You could also throw Quinn in as a minority as a pregnant teenager, although I guess Sue doesn’t know she’s pregnant yet. That’d be awesome, Sue just has all the glee club kids except Brittany. I want to see an episode of this show that’s just Schue and Brittany locked in a room for 2o minutes.

Later that evening, Terri’s on the phone with her crazy sister. Kendra advises Terri not to let Quinn vaccinate the baby, since she’s pretty sure vaccinations made her own kids stupid. Terri thinks that’s a good idea, asking what the odds are of the kid getting polio anyway. Schue hangs up the phone right then. Terri tells him not to take out his bad day on her, and Schue gets mad that he never gets to do any baby things with Terri, and demands to go to her next doctor’s appointment. Terri gets an “oh crap” look on her face since, as we all know, she’s not actually pregnant.

Finn asks Rachel what she did to get Jacob to leave Quinn alone. Rachel won’t say anything more than that it will probably cost her dads a lot of money to pay for her therapy. Finn says she’s pretty cool and then leaves. Then Jacob shows up, saying he needs “another pair.”

Turns out Rachel gave him a pair of panties, but he’s dissatisfied because she gave him new panties rather than a pair of old, used ones. Gross.

If he doesn’t get a pair by tomorrow morning, his story about Quinn hits the whole school. The whole school’s gonna find out eventually, but I can understand Rachel… wow I don’t even feel like finishing that sentence.

Sue’s Kids perform “Hate On Me”. Mercedes is excited to finally be performing an R&B song. I don’t know, this is like the third one they’ve done. Like in earlier episodes, it sounds like about 20 people are singing even though there’s only like 5 of them (Matt Rutherford’s barely even moving his mouth. Maybe he’s a ventriloquist).

Sue sent the piano to be “dry-cleaned” even though it was Schue’s turn with it. Also she burned all the sheet music. No wonder they never use any sheet music ever again. Sue says she’s determined to take down Schue, and she throws Sad Ginger Kid’s drink to the ground for no good reason.

Later that evening, Schue is grading papers. He hesitates and then turned a B- into a B+. Aawww, Schue is nice. Then Terri invites him to her next doctor’s appointment, because she doesn’t want to be like her crazy sister whose husband never gets involved in anything.

The next day, Sue walks to the football field to start cheerleading practice. Some interviewer wants to talk to her about being successful, but Sue cuts her off as she notices only three Cheerios are on the field – Santana, Brittany, and Quinn. Quinn tells her that all the other Cheerios are not academically eligible because Schue flunked them all. OHHH IT’S ON NOW.

How did they all end up as academically ineligible overnight? I don’t recall that the rule is that if you get one C on one assignment you can’t participate, it’s usually supposed to be that your average for each class can’t be that low. How much did those Spanish tests count for that their GPA’s dipped low enough overnight that they can’t participate in extracurriculars anymore?

Also there’s sometimes discussions about why Quinn, Santana, and especially Brittany didn’t end up flunking, usually with people pointing out that Quinn is pretty smart so she probably just well on her own, Santana is fluent in Spanish already, and Brittany’s her best friend so maybe she just learned Spanish from Santana. This is all probably true, but that’s ignoring the more obvious point that if Schue flunked them, they couldn’t participate in glee club anymore.

Sue objects to this, but Schue says that one of the cheerleaders misspelled her own name and answered every question with a picture of a sombrero on the last test. Figgins says that apparently almost all the Cheerios are functionally illiterate. At the last football game they spelled “TO GAME” instead of “GO TEAM.”

Sue threatens to put that incriminating video of Figgins in that airline ad for pulmonary embelism stockings, but he tells her he put it on Youtube himself and it only got 2 hits. Man, that’s embarrassing. The two videos I have on Youtube have like 5000 combined views. People love penguins, I guess.

Finn has come up with the best baby name ever after hearing that Gwyneth Paltrow named her kid “Apple.”

Quinn reacts with the best face ever.

Quinn gets really angry at Finn for thinking of baby names when he knows she’s not planning on keeping the baby. No sarcasm, that is a completely understandable thing for Quinn to be upset about. I mean, some women like to give the baby a name even when they’re going for adoption, but some women don’t want to even see the baby, let alone name it. Quinn is obviously ashamed and embarrassed by her pregnancy, and if I were her, I’d be really pissed at Finn for doing that too. Plus, “Drizzle”?? The only way that would be a worse name is if it was for a boy. But it is kind of cute how excited Finn was about the name, plus his reasoning for it was that he likes it when it looks like it’s going to rain but it just drizzles instead. Ugh, I think “drizzle” is making me feel the way other people feel about the worst “moist.”

Also when Quinn finishes yelling at Finn, he tells her he wishes she were more like Rachel, because Rachel doesn’t yell at him and gave someone her underwear so he’d leave Quinn alone. As if Quinn wasn’t angry enough, finding her boyfriend saying he wishes she was someone else really upsets her. File under “examples of why I don’t think Finn is as good a character as everyone else seems to think he is.”

Later, the glee club – all 12 of them – sing “Ride Wit’ Me”. This has been cited as a favorite performance by a lot of people, and I can understand why. There’s no autotune, nothing overly orchestrated or synthetic. It’s just a group of kids singing a song together, and having fun. The best thing about this is apparently the cast really used to just hang out and sing songs randomly between takes.

As a special treat, here’s a medium-quality video:

Also I think they accidentally filmed Ryan Murphy in this scene.

Although he doesn’t have that hat on, so who knows? Maybe it’s a ghost. Headcanon – the Glee set is haunted by a snooty middle-aged man.

The kids all say how much fun their little song was, much better than being with Sue.

They leave, and Schue comes in. Rachel says she’s not sure about the whole “two glee club things.” Schue says that’s just what Sue wants them to feel. He says Sue’s Kids are singing about hate, so they’re going to sing about togetherness or something. He gives the lead parts to Rachel and Finn, and Quinn says “So much for togetherness.” Preach, sister.

They sing “No Air” and Rachel randomly has an echo on her voice immediately.

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN ON THIS SHOW. WHY IS THERE RANDOMLY A WIND TUNNEL IN THE HALLWAY WHAT AAARGH.

I mean this show has had bits before where it’s like half the person actually singing and half fantasy, but this song has literally no reason to be a fantasy. Like when Rachel sang “Take a Bow” it was half her on the stage and half her singing to Finn in her imagination because she was mad at him. This is just them singing in the choir room and then Rachel and Finn are walking into a fan in the hallway for no reason. Maybe it’s a metaphor. A metaphor for the scene blowing.

They finish singing and Schue congratulates them on a job well done. Quinn says, “What about us, hm?” She objects to just swaying in the background behind Finn and Rachel. Yeah, good luck changing that over the next three years, Quinn. She gets really angry at Schue and says something about minorities.

Next scene has Puck and Brittany in Sue’s office. She’s ashamed of herself for neglecting two more minorities – Puck is Jewish, and Brittany is Dutch. Yeah. Again, Rachel is also Jewish, so she ought to be included in the minority group if Puck is. Plus Rachel’s definitely in a minority for 1) having multi-racial or multi-cultural parents, and 2) having a pair of gay men as parents.

I don’t know if I’m sick or if it’s just this episode that’s making me light-headed.

So later that evening, Schue comes home. He asks Terri where dinner is. She’s just like “…?” Schue’s all “I don’t expect you to cook every night, but as long as you get home first you should be the one who takes care of dinner.” He has a point, but the way he says it is kind of “domestic abuse-y”. I mean the tone plus the way he phrased it was like “if you continue to not make dinner even though you’re home first, I will hit you so hard”. Don’t know if that’s how they meant that scene to come off, but it sure felt that way to me, and I’m a person who generally doesn’t read too much into line delivery.

Terri comments on this new, forceful Schue, and he says it’s all thanks to her telling him to stick up for himself against Sue.  Also he made an appointment for them at the doctor’s on Friday.

So Kendra and Terri visit Dr. Wu. He doesn’t get why they’re there, since neither of them are pregnant. Kendra says that all of her kids have ADD, and also even though neither her nor her husband have red hair, all three of the kids are “creepy ginger freaks.” Wu points out that it’s due to a recessive gene, but Kendra says it’s because he gave her too much pitocin during labor. If that sounds crazy to you, it should, because Kendra is crazy. I remind you that she earlier said that vaccines made her kids stupid. Kendra is not a medical doctor.

Later or meanwhile or something, Quinn tells Rachel to stay away from Finn. She calls Rachel “treasure trail” and “stubbles.” I don’t know why, but people point this out as a contradiction in insults somehow, even though “treasure trail” usually refers to that weird line of hair that goes from a man’s belly button to his genitalia, and “stubbles” is usually slang for a man who has stubble on his face. People usually don’t use “stubbles” to refer to, say, women with leg stubble.

Rachel tells Quinn she’s right that the reason she’s been helping is because she’s into Finn, but says it’s Quinn who’s the cheater, even though Quinn didn’t say Rachel was a cheater so that’s a weird distinction to make. Quinn objects to this nonsensical insult.

Rachel has a theory, you see, that Quinn is Sue’s mole and is sharing secrets or whatever. But Rachel thinks Sue’s only out for herself, and as soon as she finds out Quinn’s pregnant, will drop her like a hot potato or whatever Rachel actually says. Quinn then sings “You Keep Me Hangin On” as a weird combination of cheerleading practice and fantasy stage number. Even though all but three of the Cheerios are temporarily suspended from extracurriculars due to low grades.

The 3 Directions begin singing “No Air” for Sue’s Kids. Sue gets up to leave after two seconds. Schue yells at her. Sue says something about disadvantaged minorities who are probably on food stamps. Mercedes says her dad’s a dentist. Makes the season 2 episode about dentistry kind of weird knowing that.

Schue and Sue get into the argument from the beginning of the episode, Schue saying she’s disrespectful of the kids and all she does is terrify children to make herself feel better. Sue says no one cares about the glee club. All the kids have expressions like kids always have when people are fighting.

Finn interrupts them, saying if they wanted to listen to mom and dad fight, “those of us who still have two parents would stay home on pay day.”

Mercedes agrees, and adds that she doesn’t like this whole “minority” business. She may be a strong, confident black woman, but that’s not all she is. She’s out. Tina’s out too, and Rachel tells everyone that if they want to see how a real storm-out’s done, she encourages them to follow her lead. All the kids then leave.

At the doctor’s appointment, Dr. Wu puts up a curtain to obscure that Terri’s not really pregnant. So he makes like there’s a real sonogram, when he’s actually just playing a DVD of Quinn’s sonogram, and also he says that the baby’s really a girl after all. Schue is moved to tears to finally see his baby. Terri thinks he’s sad because he really wanted a boy, but Schue says he doesn’t care what the kid is. That really smarts. I was really rooting for things to not end up as terrible as they did in episode 13.

Sue gives up on being glee co-director. Schue admits that Sue was right to shine a light on the minorities, and then says all the kids are minorities, because they’re in glee club. He gives a little speech about it to the club as Sue watches, about how it doesn’t matter that Rachel’s Jewish, or Finn can’t tell his rights from his lefts, or that Santana is Latina. He says “Or that Quinn is-” and Sue interrupts with “Pregnant.”

I wonder what Schue was actually going to say there. “Smart”?” She’s not the only blonde, not the only Christian, not the only cheerleader, not the only Caucasian. Maybe he was saying “Or that Quinn has literally nothing about her that makes her a minority besides her being pregnant but I can’t say that while Sue is here oh oops I just said it.”

So it turns out that Sue found out about Quinn’s little Eggbert after doing a routine locker check and finding a pair of white granny panties in Jacob’s locker. She asks if he has the panties because he’s really a woman, but he says it’s that Rachel gave them to him so he wouldn’t tell everyone that Quinn is pregnant. Sue doesn’t believe him, sure that if her head cheerleader were really pregnant, she would trust her (Sue) enough to come and tell her. Jacob has two sources confirming it, though.

The glee club sings “Keep Holding On” – which I’ve noticed is a really similar title to “Keep Me Hangin On” -  because Quinn is sad.  At the end of the number, Finn holds both Quinn’s and Rachel’s hand. What a douche. Like “Oh we’re all trying to comfort my pregnant girlfriend how about I just hold this other girl’s hand“. What does Rachel need comforting for? Sheesh.

Song count: 38 total songs / 30 full-length performances [Mashups are counted as one song]

Best Song/Worst Song: “Ride Wit Me” for best song, because it was fun, energetic, and pure, without all that autotune. For worst song, I’m going with “No Air” because the vocals were nothing special and the whole extremely random “hallway wind tunnel” thing.

Enter, Karofksy.

Or at least the back of his head.

The first appearance of Dave Karofsky. Karofsky tells Finn and Quinn they’re losers, even worse losers than the hockey team. Karofsky also says HE’S on the hockey team, even though later on he’s on the football team.

Also the Cheerios have on long-sleeved uniforms in this episode, and there’s a lot of sweaters. I assume it gets cold in Ohio in October, so good for the costuming team.

Emma and Ken Tanaka want Schuester to come up with a mash-up of the Thong Song and “I Could’ve Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, because Tanaka wants something he can dance to and Emma finds the latter song romantic or something.

So Will decides to give the glee clubs a mash-up assignment as well – come up with something unexpected to put together with “Bust A Move”. Finn won’t sing since he has corn syrup in his eyes, and Puck doesn’t want to sing since he doesn’t really feel like grooving to a song like Bust A Move. Rachel is appalled at the lack of leading mana mbition in the room so Schue decides to take the lead without giving Artie, Kurt, Mike, or Matt a chance to take the lead.

Also Finn still played the drums even though he had corn syrup in his eyes.

Finn and Quinn ask Emma for guidance on how to be cooler. I think Sue would be the best teacher to ask about being cool, at least she seems to have more experience than Emma, Will, Figgins, or Tanaka.

Emma asks them to think about why they want to be popular,a nd recommends they just be themselves, because you don’t need to hang around with people who don’t like you for yourself. Finn and Quinn mostly take away that wearing sunglasses will make them cooler.

Schue sets up the Spanish classroom for his dance rehearsal with Emma. They could’ve just done this in the choir room which already had floor space available, but we all know Glee and Logic have never been compadres.

Emma’s wearing her cousin Betty’s wedding dress so she can get used to dancing in it. Schue sings and dances to the Thong Song, and then knocks Emma over. Tanaka sees this, and is dispelased.

At football practice, some of the players refused to listen to Finn even though he’s the quarterback, because Finn’s gay and in Homo Explosion and kisses dudes and whatever [no seriously, they really said all that]. One guy, Azimio Adams, is shocked that Finn was even man enough to knock Quinn Fabray up, and wonders if maybe a real man snuck in and did it when Finn wasn’t looking. And technically, Azimio’s right, since Puck is the father of Quinn’s baby, but Finn doesn’t know that. Finn tackles Azimio in a rage.

Tanaka breaks up the fight, angry that Azimio might’ve broken Finn’s arm or something. He then gets really angry when he realizes Puck isn’t at practice, and it turns out he’s missing because he’s working osmething for glee club. So Tanaka is adding an additional, mandatory day of practice to the football schedule, and this practice is on Thursdays. Finn is upset, since Thursday is when glee club meets. Tanaka tells him he’ll just have to choose which is more important.

So, a couple things: Glee club clearly meets several times a week, not just on Thursdays. I mean they’ve already met once this week and will meet several more times before Thursday. I’m sure the guys could just explain the situation to Schue and he’d let them off for that day’s rehearsal as long as they promise to work extra hard at the other rehearsals. Or maybe Schue could work out that Glee’s Thursday rehearsals take place after football practice. And, is it odd that the football team didn’t already have practice on Thursdays? I’m pretty sure my high school football team did. I think that’s why the marching band had to wait like three hours after school ended to practice on Thursdays, because the football team had the field. [I always hated those days. Since I didn't have a car and my mom worked, I couldn't leave school because there'd be no way for me to get back in time for practice, so I'd just have to sit outside the bandroom for hours. Plus, Thursday practices were two hours long. The only really good thing about marching band was that I lost weight while I was participating in it.]

Well anyway.

Rachel sings “What’s a Girl Wants” into her hairbrush as Puck strums the guitar. He cuts her off and asks if she wants to take a makeout break. She agrees.

What a shocking new development!

Puck reveals through flashback that during his family’s annual Simchat Torah screening of “Schindler’s List,” his mom told him he’s no better than Nazis because he’s not dating a Jewish girl. Technically he’s not even dating anyone right then. Also, some fun facts: Simchat Torah was celebrated on October 11 in 2009, so that actually meshes with the show’s timeline quite well. Also, Puck has a younger sister who runs screaming from the room due to the violence of Schindler’s List. This is the only time she’s seen. They don’t even mention her in later episodes that deal with Puck’s family. Like you think they’d include her in the little family reunion they do in season 4 or whatever, but nope. And finally, Puck was eating sweet-and-sour pork over dinner, despite pork not being kosher.

Puck says he had a dream that night where Rachel climbed into his bedroom window, so he decided to go after her.

In present time, we see from Rachel’s perspective that she’s imagining making out with Finn. She stops herself, claiming it’s because she can’t be in a relationship with a guy who’s not brave enough to take a solo.

So the next day at Glee, Puck has a solo prepared! He sings “Sweet Caroline”. Everyone enjoys it except Santana, who looks annoyed and disgusted throughout the song. Santana previously broke up with Puck because he had a terrible credit score.

Things seem to be going better for QuiFinn, until a bunch of the football players slushie them at once.

Finn is understandably upset. Azimio tells him it’ll be even worse if he doesn’t show up to practice on Thursday and quit that glee club. Again I point out that the glee club clearly meets more often than just the one day every week so I don’t see what the big issue is. Or why no one is reporting the slushieing to a teacher or the principal. They do explain this in a later episode, that slushies aren’t included in the list of assault weapons not allowed at school, but there’s no explanation for why no one’s complaining about it now.

Also as all the football players walk away, one of them slips and falls in the slushie mess on the floor. Quinn looks at the camera briefly and smiles really subtly before going back to looking sad.

For a complete change of pace, we see Sue at her tv gig. She’s talking about marriage, and something about equality and marrying your dog or whatever. She says she’s certainly not suggesting you be intimate with your pet, but she feels intimacy has no place in a marriage. Here’s a real-world related rantlet: People often use the “What’s next? Letting people marry dogs?!” argument against gay marriage. You see, though, the key difference between letting two men be wed in matrimony and letting someone marry an animal or a fire hydrant or whatever is that animals cannot legally consent to a marriage. An adult man can. I mean when was the last time you saw a goldfish sign a legal document? Never, because animals cannot legally consent to anything and therefore a marriage to them is not legal, while two men can legally consent to signing a marriage document. That’s it. That’s the thing.

Smarmy news anchor Rod Remington asks Sue out on a date, because his wife drowned so now he’s single.

So Schue teaches her how to dance to the instrumental of Big Band classic “Sing, Sing, Sing”. For once, Sue is nice to Schue. We see a flashback to their first date, when they played Battleship. You know, you don’t really see how absurd some of this stuff is until you type it out in words and realize it sounds like you’re making things up.

Rod Remington mentions that he likes to swing. In present time, Sue says he invited her to some fundraiser for Sickle Cell Anemia. A swing-dancing fundraiser, I guess.

Schue says he’s surprised Sue is being so nice, especially about Quinn’s pregnancy. Sue understands that Quinn’s just a crazy, mixed-up kid. She also mentions Tanaka’s mandatory Thursday practices. So Schue confronts Tanaka about this. Schue claims Tanaka’s just doing this because Schue doesn’t like the Thong Song. Tanaka tells him to stop pretending he’s so naive, since they both know it’s about Emma. Tanaka is unswayed and will keep his practice on Thursdays. For the third time I must bring up that glee has multiple rehearsals in one week, and on top of that IT’S A CLUB and not even an organized sport, so Schue could easily just let four guys out of rehearsal once a week – especially since two of them never sing anyway – or cancel practice on Thursdays and have them do rehearsal on another day. They could probably do one on Saturday, that way they’d have the whole school to themselves.

Karofsky slushies Puck. Rachel helps wash Puck’s hair in the boy’s bathroom. She says he’s lucky since most of his head is shaved, it’s easier to wash it out. Puck says he likes hanging out with Rachel, but he likes not getting slushied more, so he’s going to football practice. Rachel understands, but is sad.

Emma has a new dress that’s easier to dance in. Schue dances with her in the dress shop. It seems like the dress shop owners wouldn’t like that since she presumably hasn’t paid for the dress yet. Also, why did Emma agree to having a real wedding? She’s insisting on keeping her name, doesn’t want to live with Tanaka even after they’re married, and won’t even tell her mom she’s engaged, but she’s cool with having a wedding dress and a ceremony and a reception.

Schue leaves so he can prepare for the Big Confrontation with Tanaka. He basically says if the guys decide to go to football practice they won’t have enough members for Sectionals. It is ONE PRACTICE A WEEK OH MY GOD THE GLEE CLUB ALREADY MEETS LIKE EVERY SINGLE DAY WHO CARES IF THEY MISS ONE PRACTICE. THIS IS SO DUMB WHY ARE YOU ALL SO DUMB I CAN’T HANDLE THIS AARGH.

I got a little steamed up, there. Sorry.

It’s the Big Moment. 3 o’clock. Or 3:30. Whatever. No one shows up.

Until Mike and Matt walk in. Hooray!

Even Puck shows up. But Finn doesn’t. Finn decided that not being bullied and assaulted with frozen beverages every day was much better than being in glee club.

Finn has to slushie Kurt because otherwise the other guys will beat him up. He doesn’t want to, but peer pressure and a lack of proper authority figures in the school has dictated he must.

But Kurt grabs the slushie from him and throws it at himself. Finn is understandably confused. Kurt explains that he’s taking one for the team, because that’s what real friends do. Smart friends look for solutions to problems, like “How about we just have glee rehearsal after football practice ends on Thursdays?” I know that wouldn’t solve the whole “football team thinks you’re gay for singing because it’s not like women will literally throw themselves at singers or anything” problem, but it’s still a solution.

Sue shows up at the news station, to find Rod making out with his co-anchor. Sue is not pleased. She came by to show Ron her zoot suit for the dance competition, and is further embarrassed when Ron points out that only men wear zoot suits. He also asks if Sue thought they were exclusive, because they aren’t. He needs to be free, that’s why he got a tiger tattoo (no really, he has one). He asks if they’re still on for the competition, but Sue says they aren’t.

Puck is sadly watching football practice. Rachel asks if she quit football because of her. He denies it, and asks if she likes Finn. She does, obviously, and asks if he likes Quinn. He denies this as well, but Rachel says she’s seen him staring at her while she (Rachel) was staring at Finn. Puck says it doesn’t matter, since QuiFinn are never going to break up anyway. Puck is sad – why don’t girls like him? Rachel says it’s because he’s kind of a jerk, getting back at him for insulting her a second ago. I think he said she was annoying or something. Rachel hopes she and Puck can still be friends. Puck says they weren’t friends to begin with, and leaves.

Meanwhile, Schue just waltzes onto the football field to play catch with Finn. Is practice over? What’s going on?

Schue tells Finn not to let some people he won’t even remember in three years push him around now, and also that Finn reminds Schue of himself. Ehhhg.

Finn later tells Tanaka that all this mess between glee club and football is hard for him to be a leader like a good quarterback should be. He doesn’t want to have to choose between them anymore. Tanaka tells him Thursday practice is cancelled indefinitely because he has stuff to do, like laundry or whatever.

Sue storms up to Schue and tells him she’ll be needing that setlist for Sectionals after all. I guess the setlist thing came up earlier and I didn’t notice. She says she needs it on her desk by that afternoon, and if it’s not there, well, I present the greatest quote in Glee’s history:

I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat; and then on some dark cold night, I will steal away into your home, and punch you in the face.

Sue finds Quinn, who’s been wearing sunglasses all week, and tells her she’s off the Cheerios. Having a pregnant girl on the squad is a disgrace.

Sue tells Emma he’s been working on it all week, but he just can’t get those two songs to mix together. Emma says it’s because they just don’t go together. It’s a metaphor for her relationship with Tanaka, you see.

Finn bought slushies for everyone. Artie says he’s sorry that no one could come up with a groove for Bust A Move. Quinn is sad that she’s a loser now, but Schue says everyone else is losers so they’ll be there to dry her off. Then Schue complains about brain freeze from the slushies. He can’t imagine what it’s like getting hit with one. So all the kids throw their slushies at him. Haha Finn you just wasted like $30.

There weren’t any actual mashups in this episode.

Song count: Song count: 43 total songs / 31 full-length performances

Best/Worst: I don’t even know/care. There wasn’t one I’d say was especially more terrible or better than the others. I guess I’d go with Thong Song for worst if I had to choose or die, though. Mark Salling (Puck)’s performance of Sweet Caroline was great, I just wish it’d been less autotuned.

Bonus: Here’s a mashup of Thong Song/I Could’ve Danced All Night

They’re right, they really don’t go together at all. Eesh.

Here’s a mashup of Bust a Move and Don’t Stop Believin’ that takes about a minute to really get going.

I was about to say thought I thought Ice Ice Baby would make a nice mashup partner to Busta a move, and then…

I think everyone in glee club was just too lazy to bother coming up with a mashup. I mean making real mashups as a regular person is really hard, but they couldn’t have come up with any songs at least that they thought might work? They were probably all like “Well we aren’t in focus in this episode, let’s just slack off, no one will notice or care.”

Sorry I missed last week. I just could not get motivated to recap Degrassi. Or anything else. I know I would definitely be motivated if I was getting paid, though. >_>

I’m still on the fence about whether or not I want to start splitting the Degrassi reviews so Saturday is DJH and Sunday is The Next Generation, or if I want to just finish all of DJH and Degrassi High before moving on. I’m also considering having the Girl Meets World posts go up on Saturday or Sunday rather than Monday as I’d originally planned, since GMW is supposed to air on Fridays I think. So that leaves the question of whether I’ll continue to have two Degrassi posts each weekend, or just have one on Sundays, or have one Sunday and one Monday. This is very difficult. Also because I haven’t mentioned it in a while, here’s my Patreon account if you have money and feel like this blog is worth spending that money on.

205, “Stagefright,” Febuary 1, 1988

Something something electrodes. Caitlin’s hooked up to some crazy brain machine for some reason.

After the credits, we find out Caitlin has been diagnosed with epilepsy. Her mom doesn’t want her to participate in the school play, but Caitlin’s been preparing for the audition and stuff. Her mom still says no, and also tells Caitlin to remember her epilepsy pills and her medic alert bracelet. Caitlin doesn’t want to, because she finds it embarrassing. She doesn’t want people to know she has a medical condition that EMTs should be aware of just in case anything happens to her.

Caitlin heads into the bathroom, I think to take her medication, but stops when Kathleen comes in. Kathleen asks where Caitlin’s been for the past week or two, and Caitlin claims she had the flu. Kathleen says she never gets the flu because she always eats a balanced breakfast. Kathleen is one of those people who hates subsidized health care because she eats well, completely ignoring that you can still get sick even if you follow the food groups, and keeping junk food out of your diet won’t save you if you get hit by a bus. Or if you’re diagnosed with epilepsy, for that matter.

Kathleen and Caitlin are also auditioning for the same part in the school play. Caitlin better watch her back, Kathleen is no friend to people who oppose her. She’s not even nice to her friends.

Alexa is excited about how she’s going to give a speech on fashion for Raditch’s class. The other girl, Michelle, doesn’t want her to talk about speeches. Then Joey pokes her in the sides and yells, and Alexa tells him to buzz off. She also asks why Michele doesn’t just tell Joey to go drown in a river, but Michelle is too shy for that. Michelle has actually been in almost every episode up to this point, but this is the first scene she’s spoken in, so I think she’s definitely got a point about being shy.

Suzie’s having a birthday sleepover, and Caitlin, Kathleen, and Melanie are invited. Melanie wants Suzie to invite some boys over. All the boys in their grade are losers, and so are most of the 8th grade boys, so I think Melanie’s crazy. Kathleen calls her a sex-starved maniac and asks if she wants to end up like Spike with that attitude.

Caitlin’s just staring blankly into the distance and after several tries, Suzie finally gets her out of it. Caitlin denies day-dreaming. Is this a side-effect of her medication?

In Raditch’s class, one kid is giving a terrible speech on why he enjoys watching tv. It’s because you learn about the world, and also, it’s fun. Thanks, kid.

Michelle is supposed to give her speech on Tuesday. Joey calls her a mouse and asks if she’s planning on bringing a microphone so everyone can hear her. Alexa tells her to cheer up, it’s only a three-minute speech. Michelle claims this is three minutes too long, and declares there has to be a way out of giving the speech. I know she’s nervous – I was always nervous when I had to give a speech, which taking a mandatory speech class in college did not help with at all -  but her speech cannot possibly be any worse than “tv is fun” kid’s.

The auditions for the play, “Love’s Fresh Face,” begin. Rick is part of the backstage crew because Caitlin’s auditioning. Awww. As she gives her auditioning monlogue, Alexa gives Michelle some ideas on how to get out of the speech – a death in the family, or tell Raditch she’s got debilitating menstrual cramps. Michelle can’t even tell her mom about her period stuff, though.

Suzie tries to congratulate Caitlin on her audition, but Caitlin is just staring off into the distance again. She doesn’t hear Suzie or remember her saying anything. Caitlin actually hasn’t had any medication, so the staring thing can’t be a side-effect. She never did any of that stuff before. She gets diagnosed with epilepsy and suddenly she’s just staring into the distance.

At the sleepover, the girls are holding a seance until Melanie says it’s dumb. They argue about cookies and Caitlin starts seeing everything with double vision. Then she has a seizure.

The girls start freaking out, thinking Caitlin’s playing some sick joke. But Suzie has an aunt with epilepsy and realizes Caitlin’s not faking. She tells one of the other girls to get her mom while Kathleen says someone should get a spoon so they can put it her mouth. Suzie says no, you aren’t supposed to do that, and starts putting pillows under Caitlin’s neck. This is actually really important because Suzie is right. DON’T put anything in the mouth of a person experiencing a seizure. You should cushion their head, and try turning them on their side if you can, but DON’T hold them down or try to restrain them. You should also loosen any tight neckwear they might have on. I don’t know if it’s necessary to call emergency services whenever anyone has a seizure, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

At school on Monday, Caitlin’s mom is all “I told you so.” The sleepover was on Friday, I don’t know why her mom waited so long to tell Caitlin the sleepover was a bad idea. Meanwhile, Kathleen is telling Nancy and Trish, who I don’t think I’ve mentioned or screencapped before, about Caitlin’s seizure. She says Caitlin’s a freak and she’s afraid of catching epilepsy from her. Why does anybody like Kathleen?? Nancy went to camp with a girl that had epilepsy and she never caught it, but Kathleen still says she wouldn’t drink out of the same bottle as Caitlin. What’s Kathleen worried about, she eats a health diet so she can’t catch any illnesses anyway, right?

Also Rick overhears this and stands up dramatically.

I have to say, that’s a rather handsome shot of Rick. I’ve never really thought he was that good-looking, but he looks pretty great in that screenshot.

Also Kathleen got the role that she and Caitlin auditioned for. Caitlin got the role of Kathleen’s character’s servant. Melanie got a great part too. “I’m a wench!”

Michelle whispers to Raditch that she can’t do her speech because she lost her voice. Raditch tells her “Then you better get it back by tomorrow.” Then he says that’s the oldest excuse in the book. Ah, yes.

“Come on, Pharaoh Ramses, you’ve got a meeting with the king of Sparta!”

“I can’t, I lost my voice.”

Caitlin thinks Kathleen only got the part because Kathleen doesn’t have epilepsy. She skips out on rehearsal. When her parents ask her about it, Caitlin says since she’s got epilepsy she shouldn’t bother with the play. Her mom says epilepsy is no reason to just give up on doing everything, but her dad says Caitlin has a point about taking it easy.

At school the next day, Suzie confronts Caitlin, who is wearing a very fabulous outfit, I must say. Their argument boils down to Caitlin thinking she should just give up on the play because of her epilepsy, and Suzie thinking she’s just saying that because she’s jealous of Kathleen getting the part.

Michelle delivers her speech in Raditch’s class. She does her speech on being shy. She ends the speech by saying that because she’s shy, she can never stand up to pushy salespeople, and she hates the shirt she’s wearing. Everyone claps, and Raditch announces that Joey’s the speaker for tomorrow. Joey offers to pay Michelle to write his speech. She tells him to buzz off.

At rehearsal for the play, Kathleen is talking smack about Caitlin again, about how she dropped out because of her epilepsy. I’m surprised she didn’t add something about how she’s glad, that way the epilepsy won’t spread to the other people in the play. Rick tells her to shut up.

Rick is my new favorite character. He’s sitting up in the rafters or something working on doing the lightning, which seems illegal since he’s only 14.

He spots Caitlin. It turns out Caitlin decided to participate in the play after all. Also she’s taking her medication like she’s supposed to. Yaaay.

206, “Fight!”, February 8, 1988

Joey Jeremiah skateboards onto the scene, announcing himself. Large teenager Dwayne kicks him off his board. Joey’s pissed, but doesn’t want to get into a fight with the guy who’s like 4 times his size.

Dwayne is proof there are in fact more than two classes at this school.

After the credits, Dwayne helps Smart Kid Scooter open his locker. Scooter gives him a cheesey puff.

Steph has a plan to get Simon to rescue her when she “sprains her ankle” while wearing a shoe that has a broken heel. The twins tell her she ought to give up on Simon, since he’s going out with Alexa. Stephanie doesn’t believe it. And even though the one twin has shorter hair now, I still don’t know which one is which.

In the bathroom, Wheels reveals that, since he got a B on his last test, he’ll be able to play for the Zit Remedy again. The three guys start singing in the bathroom but stop when Alex comes in. Weirdos.

Joey also insults Dwayne. Dwayne is coincidentally in one of the stalls. Pooping, I guess.

Joey tries apologizing to Liz for thinking she wanted to have sex with him. He does a magic trick and gives her flowers. Magic tricks are the best way to a woman’s heart, but Liz is still too hurt by their previous encounter. Her heart does begin to thaw, but not nearly enough for now.

Dwayne helps Scooter get his cheesy puffs off of the lockers. Who the heck threw those up there? Raditch and Snake are the only people in school that tall. Plot twist: Snake is actually a huge jerk?

Arthur wants to talk to Stephanie about their dad, but Simon walks by right then. So Steph collapses to the ground, complaining about her ankle. Arthur tells everyone to clear out of the way because he knows first-aid. He’s going to use CPR to heal Stephanie’s ankle I guess. Who needs the school nurse? Simon, seeing that he’s not needed, leaves without doing whatever Stephanie wanted him to do.

Dwayne is challenging Joey to a fight, to take place the next day. Dwayne wants Joey to sweat nervously all night. He oughtta get his lackeys to do like Helga did in the pilot of Hey Arnold, after Harold challenged Arnold to a fight, so Helga just kept following around Arnold and yelling “Hey Arnold! Only 22 hours, 15 minutes, and 42 seconds until you DIIIIEEE!!” or whatever amount of time was left. Even when she’d been at it for hours and was clearly exhausted.

Um and it turns out Stephanie’s and Arthur’s dad is reopening the divorce. He wants full custody of the kids. Stephanie is angry about this, since things finally got settled for them.

The next day, Joey asks Raditch for some tutoring after school so he can get out of having to fight Dwayne.

Stephanie asks Simon if he wants to be on the school’s music committee, so they’d have to get together and talk about it. Simon thinks that idea’s pretty cool. You know, honestly, I think if Stephanie and Simon did get together, Steph would get really bored of him after a while. I mean their personalities are way too different, she’d probably get tired of him being a total doormat all the time.

Wheels and Snake find Joey to ask why he hasn’t shown up for the fight. Joey lies and says it’s all Raditch’s fault. Wheels tells him if he doesn’t show, everyone will think he’s a wimp. Pretty much everyone in the school hates Joey already, who cares if everyone then thinks he’s a wimp?

Meanwhile, Scooter confronts Dwayne and asks about the fight. Scooter thinks it’s unfair, since Joey is way smaller than Dwayne. But Dwayne says Joey has insulted his honor, and for that he must die.

Stephanie and Simon meet up. Before they go off to talk about the dance committee or whatever, Simon says they have to wait up for Alexa. Steph is at the end of her rope and straight-out asks why Simon doesn’t like her. Simon’s just like “??? Uhh I like Alexa?” Stephanie tells him to just forget the dance committee thing and leaves.

Joey eventually decides to show up for the fight. Dwayne totally creams him, which is a poor choice of words in today’s internet scene. After a while, Snake and Wheels jump in to pull Dwayne off Joey.

Joey’s mom is disgusted someone would beat up her kid. She says she’ll call the kid’s parents, or the principal, or whatever, but Joey insists that it’s all his fault and she doesn’t need to talk to anyone.

At school the next day, Dwayne says hi to Scooter, who calls him a bully. Scooter offers a cheesy poof to Joey while Dwayne looks on sadly.

And Yick Yu also looks on sadly for some reason.

Stephanie’s and Arthur’s dad wanting full custody is probably coming up in another episode.

All right, an Eric-centric episode!

Eric still has his internship at the news station. And he can’t drive Cory to school because of it. If only Cory had two parents with vehicles of their own. I mean Amy doesn’t seem to ever work, even when she’s actually employed.

Also Eric is turning 18 in a few days. This is relevant somehow.

Haha, blizzard.

At school, Feeny warns Eric if he doesn’t do his work, he won’t graduate. Oh no, if he doesn’t graduate, he won’t be able to get a job! Oh wait he already has a job. Well nevermind.

Shawn and Dana Pruitt are still dating. Her mom comes to pick her up from Turner’s apartment. Turner and Dana’s mom flirt. Shawn finds this disgusting. He thinks it’d be weird if Turner started dating his girlfriend’s mother, which it kind of would be if Shawn and Turner were actually related to each other. Like on Degrassi when Claire’s mom got married to Claire’s boyfriend’s dad and they had this whole freakout thing about whether it was okay for them to date or not. I forget what else happens.

Eric kisses up to the head anchor. Then the head anchor takes his pants off.

I got nothing.

Eli gets on Eric’s case about missing school for the internship. Eli even follows Eric to the news station. Now Eli is missing school, and he’s a teacher.

The weatherman is on vacation, and they can’t find a replacement for some reason. Luckily, Eric knows how to present a weather forecast.

So Feeny told Eric’s parents that Eric’s in danger of not graduating, but apparently he’ll fix all the grades and stuff if Eric turns in a 2000-word essay on reconstructionism by 3 pm that Friday. Eric says this is ridiculous and impossible, because he has his work at the station. There are so many things wrong with this.

1. Why is Eric working at the station so much? It’s an internship for high school students, so presumably the hours would originally have been limited to afternoons in the first place. I can understand that since Eric likes working there so much and does such a great job, they let him work more hours, but he seems to be there all day. I don’t think they even keep salaried employees at the news stations all day.
2. I don’t know what day of the week it is, so I don’t know how long Eric is supposed to have to write that paper. But here’s a few things: 2000 words is nothing. I know it’s way harder to come up with enough words to say about a topic you don’t care about, but you know how many entries I have on this blog that are longer than 2000 words? I don’t know exactly, but it’s most of them. That first Glee recap was like 5000 words. And sure, this is 1996, so Eric doesn’t have Wikipedia and Microsoft Word to use, so it’d be a little harder for him, but still. Come on.
3. Eric doesn’t seem to have to work at the station at night. Why doesn’t he just write his paper then? I mean when I was in high school and college, that’s just what you did. If you didn’t have time to do something, you just didn’t sleep in order to get it done. Eric could just spend a couple hours before his job and churn out that essay. No problem.
4. It’s only February. Eric graduates in May or June. Why is it such a huge “OMG YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO GRADUATE” deal right now? Of course he should be working on improving his grades regardless of how close he is to graduating, but they’re freaking out on him like he graduates next week or something.

I know this episode is one of those “complete your education” episodes, but man, screw these kinds of episodes. Eric has a job. He likes his job. He’s good at his job. There’s room for growth at his job. Eric is not an academic person. He’s never been interested in school, he’s not any good at school, and despite applying to a huge number of colleges, did not get accepted to a single one. Look, there are just some people who are not cut out for schooling, like there are just some people not cut out for working in retail or management. That’s just how it is. And, well, especially with the way the economy is right now, it just drives me insane to see all these tv show episodes where they encourage kids to get rid of their paying jobs in order to graduate high school. One in particular was the absolute worst – basically one of the characters said “the job will always be there.” No it won’t. School will always be there. When it comes up several times on Degrassi, I’ll go into this again, but I think it’d dumb to encourage kids to give up on jobs. Telling kids to use cautious judgment when it comes to jobs is one thing – like in Eric’s case, the weather forecasting part of his job is temporary, so I wouldn’t recommend he get too attached to it. But it’s just ridiculous when you have other cases, like in one episode of Degrassi where one character gets a job on a television show, but decides to go to acting school instead. People go to acting school so they can get good enough to land gigs on shows. You already have a job on a show. This is dumb.

WELL ANYWAY Eric’s 18 now. His parents are standing around, sipping coffee, not doing their jobs. Alan calls Eric a baby.

He says it’s a big mistake for Eric to be employed rather than to not be employed.

Eric says he’s 18 now and can make his own decisions. Alan says if he’s going that route, than he’s going to treat Eric like an adult, and demands rent, car insurance, etc. Eric says that’s fine and slams all the money in his wallet on the table. Despite my earlier blood-pressure-raising rant, I have to side with Alan here. I mean, he just has a very valid point. If Eric’s going to act like an adult, he ought to start acting like one, and while I think it’s out of line to demand rent and insurance payments immediately, Alan would not be completely in the right to stop declaring Eric as a dependent on taxes, and kick him out of the house. I still think it’s ridiculous to condemn someone for having a job, but point goes to Alan.

According to the forecast, the blizzard continues, and schools are still closed. Except John Adams High. I hope there’s some huge bus crash and everyone sues Feeny for keeping the school open despite the dangerous weather.

The station does a little “happy birthday” thing for Eric. Eric thanks the station manager for all the birthday surprises, and the job. He tells Eric they’ve got a real weatherman coming down to take over the job. Eric’s disappointed, but is fine with going back to work as the intern gofer, especially since he has all this time now since he dropped out of school. But there’s a problem.

The internship was only for students. And now that Eric’s not a student, well, he can’t be an intern. So now he’s got nowhere to go. The station manager tells him to call up after college, even though Eric dropped out of high school so college is probably out of the question.

And the cake is cardboard.

Alan surprisingly shows up, having calmed down a bit. He talks about how after he graduated high school, he went into the Navy rather than college. His dad got really angry, but whatever. Dads, amiright? They make up and whatever.

Eric showed up to turn in his paper even though he’s not a student. He wrote 20,000 words by accident.

Feeny asks if he’s expecting to just turn in the paper and be instantly forgiven. Eric isn’t, but he just wants someone to cut him some slack. Especially because he’s realized that as a high school dropout, he’s very limited in the jobs he can work at. Feeny decides this is enough of a lesson learned and allows Eric to come back to school. The end.

Oh, right, so Turner and Dana’s mom decided not to date because they thought it would be too weird on the kids. During the credits, it turns out Turner is now dating Dana’s aunt.

Why do adults keep going on dates at Chubbie’s? It’s greasy burger joint that’s full of teenagers.

All right, so the lesson learned here is: don’t drop out of high school because there aren’t a lot of jobs available. This is sensible. But you know what would’ve been even better? A lesson about how to balance work and school. Because that was the whole problem, that Eric was working so much at the station that he was neglecting his school work.

Cory had like 3 lines in this episode.

Glee’s final season is reportedly not going to air until the winter/spring 2015 season. This makes me very sad, because that likely means there’s no Christmas album. It’s too bad, because I loved 3 of the 4 Christmas albums. I wish I knew what the heck was up with the 4th one – it had half the songs of the other albums, one of which wasn’t even a Christmas song. Ah, I remember someone commenting elsewhere theorized it was because they had just run out of Christmas songs. Indeed, little known fact that there are only about 40 total Christmas songs that exist in the entire world, throughout all history, so of course they could only put 5 songs on the last album. Because they just ran out of Christmas songs.

But anyway, this episode.

Jumprope routine!

Quinn is watching even though it makes her sad because she’s not on the team. She’s trying to distract herself from the costs of having a baby. She’s mad at Finn for not having a job. Finn’s not even really her baby’s father and she’s chewing him out hardcore for being a 16 year old without a job. Jeez.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the “handicapable” bus is too expensive for the school to rent to transport Artie to Sectionals. The glee club either has to pay for it themselves or someone has to drive Artie to Sectionals. A thought occurs to me – why don’t they just rent a van? There’s only 12 kids, plus Schue. And clearly at least a couple of the kids can drive. I’m sure renting two vans, or one van and borrowing someone’s car, would be a lot cheaper than renting a bus. I’m also a bit confused, because Figgins said it would cost $600 to rent the bus for a week. The glee club only needs it for one day. That’s way less expensive. And I know for a fact you can actually rent buses for a single day, you don’t rent them by the week.

And, now, here’s another huge issue with this show in general – all these kids have parents, yes? The parents can’t pay for things? Rachel, Kurt, and Quinn all clearly come from very wealthy families, and I’m assuming Mercedes is well-off too since her dad is a dentist. They can’t split the costs and ask for like $20 from each of their parents to pay for a bus to Sectionals?

Later, Quinn is chewing out Finn again for being an unemployed teenager with no high school degree. I get that she’s freaking out, but, again, Finn’s not even really the baby’s father, and also, this isn’t the 50s. There aren’t a lot of jobs available for teenagers. Especially Finn, since with glee club and football he’d be even more limited in his available hours than other kids.

Then Schue comes in, saying that they’ve been focusing on pop so much but they want to cater to the Sectionals judges by performing “something more to their taste.”

This show has a huge problem of someone complaining every other episodes that they perform too much this or too much that. This gets really bad later where they’ll complain about singing too much 80s music one episode, then the next episode will be entirely 80s songs and no one says anything.

Anyway the song is “Defying Gravity,” from the Broadway hit musical “Wicked.” This excites Kurt. That’s his favorite musical. He has an entire iPod shuffle dedicated exclusively to Wicked. You’ll recall he has an actual iPod, so this means he has an iPod AND an iPod shuffle. Why doesn’t he just use the regular iPod and just have a playlist of all Wicked songs? Why does he need a Shuffle entirely for Wicked?

But Rachel gets to the sing it. Rachel who was complaining a few episodes ago about NEVER GETTING THE SOLO EVERRR OMG. Schue also announces the club will be putting on a bake sale to raise money for the wheelchair bus. None of the kids want to do this because bake sales are lame. Everyone knows teenagers hate cookies, guys, omg for real. Finn points out that they’re all too busy for bake sales anyway, way busier than Schue was when he was in glee club, because they didn’t have homework or extracurricular activities in 1992. One of the kids asks why Artie’s dad doesn’t just drive him. Schue says that’s not the team spirit – part of the whole thing about competitions is the bonding experience on the bus ride there. Having been on a huge number of team bus rides myself, I have to say, eh. Some of them were fun, like one time we somehow all got singing Disney songs for half an hour, but mostly you got stuck with the loud, obnoxious jerks yelling in the back. I guess it’s easier with only 12 people who get along okay, but still.

Also, teenagers like baked goods. Come on. You know what’s even better, though? Candy. My marching band had an annual candy-selling fundraiser thing. We’d pay $10 for a bag of candy, and carry the bag around school with us, and everyone would be like “OMG YES CANDY WHAT DO YOU HAVE?? I WANT SOME.” I made over $100 one year just from selling candy in school.

Schue apologizes to Artie for the other kids, and Artie says he’s used to it, then asks if he can use the auditorium to rehearse.

He performs a really jazzy, guitar-and-piano version of “Dancing With Myself.”

Artie likes Tina apparently!

Schue observes this, and is sad. Er, he observes the song, not that Artie likes Tina.

Later, Kurt declares he wants to audition for the Defying Gravity solo. But it has a high F in it, which is out of Kurt’s range, apparently.

Kurt looks like a Power Ranger in civilian garb.

Schue also says he’s disappointed in everyone for their treatment of Artie. They say they figured it wouldn’t hurt his feelings, but it did. Rachel tells him not to take it personally, so he says “Well, you’re irritating most of the time, but don’t take it personally.” HA. I wish Artie had evolved in Rachel’s arch-nemesis or something.

Schue bought discount wheelchairs for everyone in the club. They have to sit in the wheelchairs for 3 hours a day. Also they’re doing a wheelchair number at Sectionals.

HA

Puck gives Quinn money from his pool-cleaning job. It’s not much, but it’s more than the nothing Finn is giving her. Then they have a flirty food fight in the home ec room.

Better hope they didn’t throw any cocoa powder, that stuff is really bad for you if you inhale too much of it. I guess.

Kurt tells his dad about his Defying Gravity solo woes. Kurt’s dad (Burt) actually calls a meeting with Figgins and Schue about the issue, and Schue agrees to have an audition for the song rather than just giving Rachel the part. True to form, Rachel feels this is ruining her life. Like oh no she maybe can’t sing one song one time! Poor baby!

Figgins is so inspired by all the glee kids being in wheelchairs, he wants Sue to make the Cheerios more accessible by letting in someone who isn’t hand-picked and perfect and whatever. Also the school doesn’t have wheelchair ramps.

The bake sale isn’t going well. No one will buy from them because they’re losers. Man this is like the least realistic thing on this entire show. What teenagers are so concerned about their reputations that they won’t buy delicious cupcakes at lunchtime?

They do get one customer, though.

Quinn seems concerned and maybe partly disgusted that Brittany is daring to hang out with Becky, who has Down’s Syndrome. Brittany tells Becky to buy a cupcake, and gives her a dollar when Becky doesn’t have any money. Becky also thinks Santana’s cool because she’s a cheerleader.

And also, Brittany lost her wheelchair, somewhere, somehow.

Quinn also continues her tirade against Finn for daring to be unemployed. Finn finally tells her to lay off him, because he’s trying. He gets up and kicks his wheelchair and storms off. Here’s the start of a new Glee tally: Finn 1, Furniture 0.

Schue accompanies Sue during Cheerio auditions… er, try-outs.

Yep, this is Mercedes.

Aaand Kurt?? He did a nice baton-twirling routine until he lost control and it flew behind him.

This is Lauren Zises. She’s on the school wrestling team, which is all guys except her.

Dunno who this is.

Jacob ben Israel. Sue didn’t even let him do anything before rejecting him.

??

????

Becky heard the Cheerios had a jumprope routine, so she’s got a jumprope.

Sue interrupts Becky’s tryout and tells her she’s on the squad. Schue thinks she’s up to something.

Finn and Puck get into a fight in the hallway after Puck calls Finn an idiot who should try selling his stuff to pay for the baby, and also that he doesn’t deserve to have Quinn as his girlfriend.

Artie trains the kids in how to do a turn in a wheelchair.

In the corner, behind Kurt.

Ha, they even gave Brad the piano guy a wheelchair!

Tina tells Artie she has new respect for him now. She didn’t realize how hard it was. Artie says it just takes some getting used to, comparing it to her stutter. He barely even notices she stutters anymore. Considering Tina’s had like 4 lines since episode 1 I can’t say I’ve noticed it much either.

Tina asks what happened that put Artie in a wheelchair. He and his mom were in a car accident when he was 8, apparently. She was fine, but he… wasn’t. He then tells Tina that he wants to make it clear that he still has full use of his penis, and then she looks really uncomfortable and wheels away.

Meanwhile, or later, Kurt works on his range and hits the high F. And also someone called Burt’s place of work and said “Your son’s a fag” and then hung up. This rattles Burt, and he tells Kurt that he can still be great and out and whatever, but to be careful.

Rachel’s sure she’s going to lose the diva-off because everyone likes Kurt more than her. In fact, no one likes Rachel at all. Except Finn. Finn likes her. Also Rachel thinks the judges will find “a female version of Defying Gravity much more accessible.” Yeah, sure, if this was the 60s. Judges love artistic interpretation of songs (and I mean this earnestly, not sarcastically)! Oh, wait, actually, the judges on Glee don’t. Never mind.

Quinn storms in with a past-due notice about the sonogram. Why doesn’t she just go to Terri to help? Tell Terri “If you don’t help me with this, I’m not going to get any medical assistance done before the baby comes, and we could all end up with a sack of potatoes instead of a baby.”

Also, why doesn’t Quinn get a job? Or apply for government assistance? Or something?

Anyway, Rachel has a plan, at least.

Business is booming at the cupcake stand. Puck got some discount marijuana from the Chronic Lady, telling him that a shark at the aquarium crushed his spinal cord, thereby confining him to a wheelchair. He put just enough weed in the cupcakes to give everyone the munchies, so they come back to buy more cupcakes. That is brilliant.

Schue checks up on Sue, who is personally coaching Becky. Sue is being tough on Becky, and Schue tells her to not be so hard on Becky. Sue points out that what Schue is telling her, is to treat Becky differently because she’s disabled. Sue was treating her like she treats everyone else. So who’s really in the wrong here? As someone who has a disability myself, let me drop my opinion in here. I won’t say I speak for all disabled people, but I like to say, treat a disabled person like you would treat any fully-abled person, but try to understand the disability. Like, say, with a dyslexic person, don’t just read everything out loud to them all the time, but let them read things on their own, with the understanding that they might take longer to read it than someone without dyslexia.

Time for the diva-off. Kurt versus Rachel. Kurt has like 9 pimples next to his mouth. That’s irrelevant, but I just noticed it on a close-up. It’s nice to see teenagers with acne on television, like they have i real life and whatever.

Oh, right, the song. They both do well. I hate the pop version of Defying Gravity. It’s different from the one that’s in the show. The show version is way more triumphant and… gravity defying.

Also Kurt messes up the high F. It’s odd, though, because in Rachel’s version of the song, she doesn’t seem to have a high F. She never goes as high-pitched as Kurt does. Why does Kurt’s version of the song have such a higher note in it??

Puck gives money to Quinn. He stole it from the bake sale. Quinn thinks he’s nice and romantic, but he’s such a good person he should realize they can’t steal money from their friend in the wheelchair.

Then Finn rolls up. He also gives Quinn money. It turns out Rachel’s plan from earlier was to bring Finn to a restaurant and demand Finn be given a job, on account of him being in a wheelchair. To not hire him would be discrimination, and also if they don’t hire him, Rachel will get her Two Gay Dads  to sue them on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The bake sale earned $1200. Artie says he’d rather have his dad drive him, and use the money to pay for a handicapped ramp for the auditorium. Apparently there are other kids in wheelchairs at this school. It’s been 5 years and I’ve never seen even one. Not even Neckbrace Cheerio from season 4 was in a wheelchair.

Then it turns out that Sue wrote a check to pay for three new wheelchair ramps for the school. Schue wonders if Sue maybe has a brain tumor, because that would explain her behavior lately. Figgins isn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth, though, and is just glad to have money to improve the school for once.

It turns out Sue has an older sister with Down’s Syndrome, and Sue loves her sister a lot.

Meanwhile, Tina and Artie have a wheelchair race in the school. Tina kisses Artie.

Also it turns out Tina has been faking her stutter this whole time. She started faking it in 6th grade to get out of making a speech. She was really shy and the stutter got people to leave her alone. But glee club encouraged her to step out of her shell so she doesn’t want to fake it anymore. She doesn’t want to push people away anymore. She tells Artie he must know what that feels like.

But Artie doesn’t. He would never purposely push people away, because the chair does that for him. He’s disappointed, because he thought they had something very important in common. But they don’t. But good for Tina that she can just stop being disabled and go back to being “normal”, because Artie can’t. Artie can never stop being disabled.

I never noticed before but seriously Tina’s stuttering doesn’t come up much on this show. I should’ve been keeping a tally, but really, she’s only had about 4 or 5 lines of dialogue so far, and most of them were so short there wasn’t room for stuttering.

Umm and it turns out Kurt threw the competition so his dad wouldn’t get bullied for having a gay son.

The club performs “Proud Mary” in wheelchairs. To say this is the most ridiculous thing to come up on Glee so far would be an understatement.

Fun fact: Apparently several members of the cast had a lot of trouble working in the wheelchairs in this episode. Lea Michele especially was prone to falling backwards in the chair, and most of them had a lot of trouble figuring out how to distribute their weight properly.

Point to ponder: This is the first instance of Celebrity Paradox on Glee. See, the actress who originated the role of Galinda/Glinda in Wicked was Kristin Chenoweth, who you may recall played April Rhodes on this very show. So this begs some questions: Did Kristin Chenoweth originate the role of Galinda/Glinda in Wicked in this universe? If not, then who? If she did, then how did Kurt, a huge fan of Wicked, not notice April Rhodes looking and sounding identical to Kristin Chenoweth? Or maybe Ms. Chenoweth looks different in this universe? If so, then how does she look?

Song count: 46 total songs / 34 full-length performances [I counted Defying Gravity as one song, since it's basically performed as a duet on the show. They did release separate versions of Kurt and Rachel singing by themselves, but they sang as one performance  on the actual show, and that's what I'm counting.]

I apparently never mentioned that Sandy’s drug dealer name is the “Chronic Lady” when it first came up in episode 1. Puck bought the marijuana from Sandy Ryerson.

And finally, re: “disabled” and other terms… Yeah, I don’t get why some people hate that word? I can understand being preferred to not be called “handicapped”, but I know I really hate the term “differently abled.” I get the sentiment behind it, but to me it sounds more like “yes I’m blind but I can ALSO SHOOT LASERS OUT OF MY EYES.”

The theme for the week is “Ballad”. Brittany asserts that a ballad is a male duck. Kurt corrects her by saying it is in fact a love song.

Will corrects both of them by saying a ballad is a story set to music. Sometimes it’s a love song, but not necessarily. Such as “The Ballad of Davy Crockett” or “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”, which are both coincidentally old television show theme songs that utilize the banjo.

Schue goes on to say that a ballad is a way of expressing emotions that you otherwise are not able to convey, which is an explanation that’s on the borderline between a ballad and just a regular song. But anyway, it turns out that they have to perform a ballad at Sectionals. Considering Sectionals is only in like two weeks, that’s really short notice, but okay.

Schue then announces that he’s splitting everyone into pairs and they have to sing a ballad to each other. Schue has to put his name in the hat because Matt’s out sick because they found a spider in his ear.

I just can’t watch this scene and not think about that story where A BUNCH OF SPIDERS HATCH OUT OF THIS GIRL’S CHEEK OH MY GOD

The pairs are as follows: Puck and Mercedes, Artie and Quinn, Finn and Kurt, Tina and Other Asian (it’s unclear if it actually said “other Asian” on the slip of paper or if Tina just called Mike that on her own), Santana and Brittany, and so Rachel pairs up with Schue.

Rachel demonstrates what a ballad is by singing “Endless Love” with Schue. She’s super intense about it and Schue is obviously freaked out by her. Also there are internal monlogues from Kurt, Finn, and Puck, all of them mildly disinterested by the duet, just like me.

Schue should’ve told her it was way too inappropriate for them to sing a love song together and decided to sing “The Ballad of John Henry” or they could’ve taken 10 minutes off the show to sing “American Pie” or something. I do think it was pretty dumb that Schue specifically said that a ballad is not always a love song, and then his example of what a ballad is was a love song.

Quinn’s trying on her dress for the chastity ball. Her mother, sipping a presumably alcoholic beverage, comments that she looks lovely, and also that it’s odd that Quinn’s dress doesn’t fit since they had it sized a month ago. Quinn claims it’s because she had a big lunch, and her mother tells her she’s just not getting enough exercise ever since she quit the Cheerios. Singing doesn’t burn many calories, Quinn’s mom says [apparently you burn 100 calories by singing for an hour sitting down, 140 if you're standing up. They also do a lot of dancing in glee club, to be fair].

This scene serves to tell us, the audience, that Quinn has not yet revealed her delicate condition to her parents, and also that her parents are conservatives, as evidenced by their excitement that Glenn Beck is on.

Quinn’s dad walks in a makes a big show of not seeing Quinn in her dress. Quinn is embarrassed, pointing out that it’s not like they’re getting married. “Speaking of getting married,” the dad says, “How’s that boy you’ve been dating?” Her mother follows that up by making sure he’s not pressuring her. Haa it’s funny because Quinn is pregnant. Also technically she and Finn have never had sex, so… yeah.

The point of this conversation was that Quinn’s dad wants to invite Finn over for dinner. Quinn’s dad offers to refill Quinn’s mom’s glass, but Quinn’s mom finds this ridiculous, saying “I don’t want you to lift a finger for me. I’m your wife!”

No comment.

Rachel wants to rehearse with Schue at 4 pm after school. Also she bought Schue a tie, pictured above. Gold stars are kind of Rachel’s thing, you see, and she thought every time Schue wore the tie, he could be reminded of the star he’s helping her become.

Cut to Schue talking to Emma about the problem. Emma doesn’t think it’s that ridiculous that Rachel developed feelings for Schue, saying “If we were ranking crush-worthy teachers in this school, you’d be number 1 with a bullet.” Schue reacts thusly:

Schue reveals that this isn’t the first time some girl has had a crush on him. He talks about Suzie Pepper (who also wasn’t the first schoolgirl to have a crush on him, but was the hardest).

She asked him how to conjugate the verb “to love” in Spanish, gave him a pepper tie so he could think of her whenever he wore it, and she called his apartment in the middle of the night and just breathed at him over the phone. Terri told her to stop calling or Terri would go crazy and kill her, and so Suzie got so sad she ate the world’s hottest pepper, which burned a hole in her esophagus, even though peppers don’t actually physically burn internal organs.

Schue doesn’t want anything like that happening again, and that’s why he can’t tell Rachel that her behavior is inappropriate and unwarranted, in case she stabs herself with a giant gold star or something.

Finn doesn’t want to sing with Kurt because he’s tired of everybody pushing him to be something he’s not. Wow if only there were any ballads that weren’t love songs that they could sing so it wasn’t so awkward. Also what is Finn even talking about?? When has anyone forced him to be something he’s not? Finn is too ridiculous, ugh.

Finn goes on to complain that it’s hard with the baby and whatever. He’s doing all this stuff and she’s never gonna know him. Kurt tells him he should sing “I’ll Stand By You” to let his feelings out. Kurt has a sudden ability to play the piano that never comes up again, as well as a sudden ability to change his leggings into jeans on a closeup.

SEE?

Finn sings the song to the empty audience and then to the sonogram of the baby. His mom catches him.

He also has the sonogram on his laptop. Also he has a LAPTOP oh my god Finn is more wealthy than I am.

She sits down and asks if Quinn’s pregnant. Finn bursts into tears. What if she wasn’t pregnant, and Finn was just singing to a random sonogram? That would be weird.

Anyone who finds me this coat and buys it for me is my friend for life.

The next day at school, Quinn yells at Finn for telling his mom, assuming his mom is going to talk to her parents about the baby. She storms off, and Kurt hints to Finn he ought to just swear off girls forever because girls are crazy. As a girl, I feel qualified to explain that girls are indeed crazy. I don’t know if it gets better or worse as we grow, but it sure doesn’t stop. We’re born crazy, we die crazy. It’s all the hormones.

Oh also Kurt reveals to us that he’s in love with Finn. Already knew that, so big whoop.

Ha. “Jazz Hands.”

Later, Schue sings to Rachel a mashup of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “Young Girl” to Rachel to hint that she should stop crushing on him. Rachel takes the message to mean that she’s very young and it’s hard for Schue to stand so close to her. Emma, acting as a chaperone, is no help in explaining the real message.

You know, there really aren’t a lot of songs that are entirely about someone being bothered by a persistent young girl. Even “Young Girl” is actually about a guy who’s distressed to find out his lover is underage, and not about him being annoyed by a young girl. I guess “Does Your Mother Know” by ABBA is a pretty decent “You’re too young, leave me alone” song, but I guess that’s not a ballad. Actually, I don’t think Don’t Stand So Close to Me and Young Girl were actually ballads either.

Finn has Kurt helping him pick out something nice to wear for dinner with Quinn’s parents. Finn is ashamed of himself for not being brave enough to tell Quinn’s parents about the baby when his father was brave enough to fight a war in a desert thousands of miles away. Kurt points out that Finn’s dad didn’t go into the fray empty-handed. Finn understandably is confused by this and thinks Kurt is telling him he should bring a gun to dinner. Kurt actually meant Finn should sing again.

Or he could wait for Quinn to tell her own parents herself about the baby. But really, why would you think telling your teenage girlfriend’s parents that you knocked her up through song would be a good idea? Did Kurt suggest that because he knew it would end badly, and he’s trying to sabotage Quinn and Finn’s relationship?

Meanwhile, Schue comes home to his apartment. Terri is nowhere to be found, but Schue can smell some delicious food. He’s handed a bottle of beer, and gives thanks. Rachel says “You’re welcome.”

Terri let Rachel, and was pleased when Rachel offered to cook (venison casserole, despite Rachel being a vegetarian and venison being deer), and also Terri is making Rachel clean the apartment.  Schue tells Terri she can’t use all the teenage girls who have a crush on him as slaves, and drives Rachel home. He makes her sit in the backseat, and she decides to use the time in the car as rehearsal time for their ballad. She sings Jennifer Paige’s “Crush” but Schue cuts her off.

At school the next day, Mercedes meets up with Puck. She tells him that she and everyone else in the glee club decided they’re all going to get together to sing a ballad to show they support Quinn and Finn. Puck gets angry, then reveals that he is actually the father. Mercedes tells him that, no, he’s the baby’s daddy but it takes more to be a father. Mercedes is incredibly incorrect, because all it takes to be a father is your sperm fertilizing an egg. It takes a lot more to be a dad. But anyway Mercedes tells Puck not to mess up Quinn’s life any more than he already has by wanting to be involved in his daughter’s life. Plus I’m a little offended by Mercedes telling Puck off for ruining Quinn’s life like Quinn had nothing to do with it. It was a stupid choice both of them made, not just Puck.

Later, I guess, Finn is at the Fabray’s house for dinner. He freaks out and goes to the bathroom and calls Kurt. Kurt calmly tells him to just do what they rehearsed. Finn hangs up on him really soon after that because he doesn’t want the Fabrays to think he’s pooping (yes, really).

Finn comes back to the dining room with Mrs. Fabray’s kitchen radio. He’s lucky it had a cassette player in it so he could play the karaoke version of Paul Anka’s “(You’re) Having My Baby.” The Fabrays enjoy it less and less as Finn keeps singing, and Mr. Fabray cuts off the second verse and stands next to Finn menacingly. He’s like a foot shorter than Finn, though, so it looks more like a muppet is threatening him, which is only scary if it’s Uncle Deadly or the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Cut to the four of them having a little chat. Mr. Fabray talks about how he took Quinn and Quinn’s unnamed sister to a baseball game when they were little, and how Quinn fell asleep and he spent the whole game hoping nothing exciting would happen so Quinn wouldn’t wake up. Then he says he’s kicking Quinn out. And also apparently Quinn’s mom knew Quinn was pregnant because of woman’s intuition or something, but never did anything or said anything about it even though Quinn really needed her to.

It’s all very emotional and whatever and apparently they submitted this episode to the Emmy’s for their consideration to get Diana Aggron a supporting actress nomination, but she didn’t make the cut. Honestly I think she was better in some other episodes, so I’m not surprised, especially looking at the actress who DID get nominated for the 2009-2010 season.

Suzie Pepper tells Rachel to give up on Schue. And later, finally, Schue tells Rachel the same. Rachel actually was going to apologize to Schue, by singing Schue’s favorite song “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” and giving him a plant.

Schue tells Rachel not to give up, though, because some day she’ll find a boy who likes her despite her being intense and crazy all the time.

The glee club sings “Lean On Me” to Quinn and Finn, rightl ygiving Artie the solo. Honestly if Glee got rid of everyone except Kevin McHale I would still watch it. I’d actually prefer it to all of seasons 4 and 5. Just have him playing all the characters and singing with himself. I would watch the heck out of that.

Points to ponder: All of the ballads in this episode were some variation of a love song despite Schue saying not all ballads are love songs. Also since Sectionals are rapidly approaching, they really ought to be rehearsing their set-list rather than breaking into groups to sing songs that aren’t being performed for Sectionals. But I know they never rehearse their setlist because it would be really boring television to have them performing the same three songs every episode.

Also, all of the women so far who have been shown to be romantically interested in Schue are all crazy, in their own separate crazy ways. I know earlier I said all women are crazy, but Terri, Emma, Rachel, Suzie Pepper, and even April Rhodes are all specifically different kinds of crazy than normal women craziness. Now let’s be clear, if these were all real people, I wouldn’t be calling them crazy, because if this were the real world it would be more that Terri has some kind of mental illness rather than that she’s just crazy. But they’re fictional characters so I don’t mind calling them crazy.

Best/Worst: “Lean On Me” for best due to the amazing pipes of Kevin McHale and Amber Riley, worst is, let’s go with “Crush” because it was only like 15 seconds long.

Song count: 52 total performances / 39 full-length performances

Bonus: Here’s a Youtube video of Lean of Me that was uploaded the day after this episode aired in 2009 and is miraculously still up on Youtube despite it containing copyright material! Also bonus because of the “Grr Glee does covers of songs therefore it sucks because all bands that do covers are awful!” comments.

Trying to get back in the swing of reviewing things. Huuh.

Before we dive in, I’m going to get hugely ahead of myself. I mentioned in an earlier post that I was already thinking of what I’d review once I finished up Boy Meets World and Glee in two years. For right now, I’ve decided, if I still feel like running this blog in two years, I’ll be switching from “teen issue show” to “family sitcom”. For right now I’m planning on doing Roseanne, because any excuse to watch that show again, and Home Improvement because I realized it’s been more than 8 years since I’ve seen more than a couple episodes of that show. And I think both shows are ones that break the mold a bit when it comes to family-set sitcoms – Roseanne being about a family that’s not really as well-off as other sitcom families, and their money issues take up a lot of the episodes, and also it’s pretty neat that both the parents are overweight, as opposed to the usual “fat dad, skinny mom” (or skinny dad, skinny mom), and Home Improvement, while it’s not a HUGE game-changer, I think is interesting because a lot of the show has to the do with the dad’s job while not revolving entirely around it. I don’t know what I’d do for the third show, if anything (Dinosaurs maybe??). Assuming I don’t totally give up after I finish THOSE, I was thinking of then going into Friends, Mad About You, and How I Met Your Mother, for a theme of “young people living in New York who all get increasingly obnoxious and hard to like as the show goes on”.

Of course, assuming I finish the current reviews relatively on schedule, and then go onto review Home Improvement and Roseanne, and after that I STILL want to do unpaid reviews on here, that means I won’t be starting that third set of reviews until 2020, so I might change my mind by then. But I’m also hoping that by putting it off for 6 years, by then Friends and Mad About You will seem funny to me again, and I’ll be able to watch How I Met Your Mother without the bitter taste of hatred towards the series finale in my mouth.

But who knows? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and none of this would matter.

On a semi-related note, I was wondering, do any of you prefer having a few episodes spaced out through the week (I mean, I guess the Glee and Degrassi reviews aren’t spaced out, they’re three days in a row)? I was thinking of perhaps seriously upping the reviewage and having two Boy Meets World reviews a week, say on Tuesday and Wednesday, two Glee reviews on Thursday and Friday, and then the four Degrassi reviews over the weekend, with Monday still being Miscellaneous Monday.

But I was worried that might be too much reviewing and would put some people off. I’m usually an archive binger – like I put off reading something for a long time then read all 20 updates in one day – so if it were me I probably wouldn’t care much.

All this assuming I get back on track with doing the reviews every week anyway.

Well here’s the review:

Cory’s filming everyone for some project or something. Hopefully this doesn’t turn out like the last time where everyone in the school thought he and Topanga had sex in the video editing room.

It’s Shawn’s dad’s birthday and Shawn misses his dad. Turner has the idea to have Cory film Shawn and all of Shawn’s family as a birthday gift or something. I don’t know where they’re going to send it since Shawn’s dad is currently traveling the country looking for Shawn’s mom and doesn’t actually live anywhere.

Eli sees Cory with all this film equipment and thinks he’s going to enter the amateur news contest or whatever. There’s a big prize or something.

Eric is helping Feeny clean out all his old junk, at the school, rather than at Feeny’s house. Feeny’s hoping to take the stuff to an appraiser and find out it’s worth a bunch of money. Since this is 1996, the stuff probably is worth money. That’s the unfortuante thing about the recession – everybody needs money, so everybody says “let’s sell all these old trading cards/lamps/paintings”, so the market becomes oversaturated, so even the people who have money don’t spend as much on the stuff since it’s not as rare, and also since no one has any money, no one buys anything, so everything is worth less.

Good for you if you’ve got old Tiffany jewelry, though. You can still get a lot for that stuff.

So anyway, Cory and Shawn head to the old Pink Flamingo trailer park, and meet up with Shawn’s extremely tall uncle, Mike.

Shawn says the family filming is going wall, but Cory thinks this is crazy because nobody has said anything. Mike has an idea for how to get the Hunters to open up.

Shawn’s pleased, because now they’ve talked to everybody. On cue, these guys show up.

They’re all “Well well, look who decided to wise up and go back to slumming at the trailer park!” They hover around the camera and Shawn tells them to lay off, they were just filming friends and family. The one guy,Eddie, is all “And you didn’t invite me?!”

Meanwhile, Eric, who calls himself Kyle, is cleaning out the attic in the hopes of finding valuables to sell, being inspired by Feeny. Amy tries to tell him Feeny’s got all this stuff from all over the world and they’ve just got junk, but Alan shushes her, encouraging Eric/Kyle to clean out the attic for them.

Later, Cory and Shawn watch the tape. Cory spots Eddie with a stolen computer on the tape. Cory’s excited by this, saying he can enter this in that news contest. Shawn tells him not to, and then he pulls out the tape… er, the actual tape part of the cassette. The ribbon. The cassette ribbon. DVDs are so much easier to describe, sheesh.

At school, Cory and Shawn fight about the tape thing. Shawn says he was doing Cory a favor by wrecking the tape. Cory doesn’t think so, then they start like actually physically fighting until Eli and Turner break them up. Feeny, who wasn’t in the scene to see the fight, gives them detention, after which, Cory goes back to the trailer park for some reason, I guess to see if he can catch Eddie in action again. He could probably at least call the cops with an anonymous tip, since whatever Shawn feels, that Eddie guy is still stealing.

Feeny gives Shawn a talk that ends with “you don’t have to be blood to be family.” You know, that’s what that “blood is thicker than water” proverb supposedly actually means – it’s “the blood of the covenant” or bonds forged by battles/organizations/whatever is thicker than the water of the womb, so that family ties are supposed to mean less than the bonds of friendship. I actually like that better – like if you were Hitler’s sister, and you had the choice between choosing Hitler or your best friend, would you choose Hitler just because he was your family even though he caused all these terrible things to happen to all these people, or would you choose your best friend because you’ve been through everything with them?

I’m not saying you should throw your family in front of a bus to save your friend, but…

Amy finally tells Eric all that stuff is junk. Eric doesn’t think so. It also turns out that it cost $60 to get all the stuff appraised. Considering how much stuff Eric was actually going to take to get appraised, that’s actually not a terrible price. Some of the stuff he had was probably worth at least $30.

Meanwhile at the trailer park, Cory’s being super stealthy, filming Eddie and the others, except not.

Hurrrrrrr.

Eddie takes the camera and smashes it, then throws Cory to the ground. He does the classic supervillain thing of just saying stuff to Cory rather than actually beating him up. He seriously spends at least one whole minute just talking about how he’s going to beat up Cory rather than actually beating him up.

But Shawn swings in and says he’ll call the cops on Eddie. Eddie’s all “You’d do that to your own brother?” Dramatic music doesn’t play, but Shawn does say he would call the cops. Eddie’s all “fine” and he and his posse leave.

It turns out Eddie and Shawn are half-brothers, and that’s why Shawn didn’t want Cory to turn in the tape. He apologizes for Eddie breaking the camera, but Cory still has the tape intact, so it’s fine.

Shawn encourages Cory to enter the tape in the news contest, but Cory’s confused – what about protecting family? Shawn says he already did that, I guess because Cory’s family. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shawn and Eric are half-brothers, actually. They have the same hair.

Speaking of Eric, over the credits, Alan and Amy tell Eric they’re going to pay him $60 as thanks for cleaning out the attic or the basement or whichever. Alan needs change… for some reason (does he only have fifties in his wallet? What does he need change for??). Eric offers to give him some, but can’t, because he only has hundred dollar bills.

Turns out there was an old wooden mask in the one box and the appraisers gave him $4000 for it.

But it turns out that mask was in a box that Feeny was asking them to store for him because I guess he didn’t have room for it in the gigantic house that he lives in by himself, so that money’s all Feeny’s. That’s sad.

Oh the next episode is a heavy one, too. Blegh.

Hey remember how Shawn had a sister? Her name was Stacey and called Shawn an idiot for not reading the label on the hair-straightening thing. And now he has a brother we’ll never see or hear from again. On one of the episode commentaries on the first season dvd, Ryder Strong makes fun of this very thing.

From what I gather, episode 3 actually leaked online before episode 2. The site  watch this show on has two completely different episodes under the “episode 2″ list, so I’m just assuming THIS is actually episode 2.

Also I’m going to complain again about how stupid these episode titles are. Especially since Riley ALREADY Met Boy. And it makes upcoming episode “Girl Meets Brother” especially stupid-sounding since presumably Riley has already become acquainted with her younger brother. Again I point out that Boy Meets World episode titles were all references or puns. Phineas and Ferb’s episode titles are all references or puns too, so it’s not like they didn’t go with that because it’s out of fashion or anything.

Also apparently there’s someone at Riley’s school name Smackle. Farkle was one thing, but Smackle? From “Girl Meets Smackle” I thought it involved Riley getting addicted to some new soft drink, not giving her classmate Smackle a makeover.

Smackle?? I mean, really? I’m hoping that’s just a nickname, but even if it is, what and why.

Maya wants Riley to talk to Lucas… I think that’s his name, I actually forgot because he’s just THAT bland.

Riley doesn’t want to actually talk to him because they have a good texting relationship.

She responds with “So do I!!!11111:)” which means she sits next to herself.

I always love tv shows that have kids openly texting in the hallways. When I was in school, you’d get yelled at if you were just holding a calculator like a cell phone. Also THERE WASN’T ANY TIME TO HANG OUT IN THE HALLWAY. What sort of magical school do all these fictional characters go to? At my schools, they kept whittling down the amount of time we had to switch classes. I think the least amount of time I had was 5 minutes, and that was for multiple school years, which was totally great when I had classes on completely opposite sides of the school. I pretty much had to run and I’d be lucky if I got to class just as the bell rang. For three years I never went to bathroom once during the school day because there just wasn’t any time between classes, and teachers always have to make such a HUGE deal about if you ask to go during class. And whenever any of the students were like “look there’s not enough time for us to get from class to class, especially if we need to stop at our lockers or god forbid use the restroom”, the vice principal would be like “Well we timed it over the summer and we determined you can easily make to your class in 10 seconds”, which would be fine except they obviously didn’t take into account that during the school year you also have to fight your way past 1500 other students to get to class, and, again, stop at your locker or perhaps use the restroom particularly if you’re menstruating. Plus there wasn’t ANY proof they actually timed it. I guess the budget was just SO strained that they couldn’t afford to pay the staff an extra $0.30 to be there for 5 extra minutes so we could have slightly longer transition periods between classes.

… but then you have these kids on tv shows where they’re just hanging out in the empty hallway forever.

Oh hey by the way I don’t remember if I mentioned this, but the kid who plays Lucas is like 4 years older than Riley even though the characters are the same age. It’s super noticeable because of how young Riley looks but Lucas looks like he’s old enough to buy cigars.

Cory tells the class they’re an unfeeling generation of zombies who don’t know how to emote without emoticons. What class is this??

Riley tells Cory to chill because cell phones have been around for, like, ever. And she has over 300 friends right on her phone. Socially awkward Riley who spent the whole last episode finding her World and learning to Be Herself has over 300 digital friends.

Also, cell phones! I’m certain the majority of you who have a fond nostalgia for Boy Meets World remember when cell phones were roughly the thickness of a steak, with about as many features. I remember back in the late 80s when having a cell phone meant you were REALLY well-off. Frasier Crane on Cheers had one, and of course, Zach Morris had one that he still carried with him even though old cell phones were about the weight and thickness of two George R. R. Martin novels.

I got my first cell phone in 2005 and I had a flip phone until two months ago, by the way.

Lucas defends his use of a cell phone by pointing out he uses it to keep in touch with his old friends and family in Texas. Maya takes the opportunity to make fun of Texas and how they always have hoedowns and square dances and whatever down there. Riley reacts with a stern “Maya!” I know I’m not the only one who thinks this, but so far Maya is actually the most entertaining character on the show. Honestly, Riley’s kind of lame so far, Lucas is bland, and Farkle’s over the top although I still actually like him. At least when Cory started getting bland on Boy Meets World, they took it and ran with it, like it was part of his character so much that he started being less bland because of it.

Farkle talks about how technology matters to his generation, implies he’s going to clone Maya and Riley, so that way he’ll have four whole women in his harem.

…

Cory gives the class an assignment, telling them they can’t use computers, and he makes them all give him their cell phones. Since a lot of people don’t have landlines anymore, I’m sure a lot of those kids’ parents are going to be super pissed about this, especially since they live in New York City and I’m sure a lot of them are latchkey kids. So Cory just took away the only way for those kids to contact their parents at work. Thanks, Cory.

He makes the class split into groups, with Farkle claiming Maya and Riley and Lucas pairing up. Cory just helplessly says “No” over and over again and the bell rings so no one else got paired up with a partner. Also he’s the teacher so he should have some authority to have the kids not just pair up like that.

This show makes me mad.

Later, at family dinner, Auggie tells a boring story that either means he’s growing or he isn’t. Topanga thinks the “not having a cell phone’ thing makes a good opportunity for Riley to have family time. Boy if only Topanga and Cory were her parents and had the authority to limit her cell phone usage the rest of the time OH WAIT.

Auggie asks for a cell phone. He is 5. No 5 year old needs a cell phone. At the most I could see giving a kid that young a phone strictly for emergencies, but presumably the kid is going to be in the care of someone else most of the time, hopefully an older person who has a phone of their own.

Riley, Maya, Lucas, and Farkle head to the New York Public Library. The whole scene is just joke after joke about them being so used to technology they don’t know what a library is. Or books. They regard books like some mystical objects of lore even though they, you know, have textbooks at school. Also presumably a library.

Hey come to think of it, if all these kids are so technology-obsessed, how come they ALL handwrote their homework in the last episode instead of typing it up? I was typing and print my homework back in 4th grade and I was also like the least technologically advanced person in school. All these kids are so used to cell phones and computers that they don’t know what a book us and yet not ONE person used a computer to do their homework int he last episode?

This is too stupid to be funny.

Also there’s no one else in the library. Apparently in ALL of New York there’s not ONE person who actually enjoys reading books, or ONE tourist who wants to visit such a landmark, or ONE homeless person hanging out in the library because it’s warm inside.

Maya – who I have almost called Miley and Riley in this review – and Farkle read a book they pulled off the shelf earlier. They start on a chapter called “Disconnecting to Connect” which is about how unplugging yourself from technology makes for better human interaction. Curiously, that book is supposed to be about human interaction through all of time but the chapter on on modern technology seems to be at the very front of the book.

After the commercial break, Farkle says it’d be cool if there was some device that could put all the information in the library into their pocket. I wish there was a device that could put it all into my brain, personally.

Maya’s poor so she doesn’t have a cell phone. All she has is the moon (no, seriously, she said that). Farkle’s like “Oh well, have you been taking notes?”

Maya says she hasn’t, which I hope is true since she’s not holding that pad the write way to be writing. Farkle’s all “Yeah, what do we need a pad and paper for when we have computers?” Again I bring up that ALL OF THEM hand-wrote their homework in the last episode. You can’t have a continuity snarl this early in the show, or have an episode that is directly contradicting something from the previous episode.

They say something else and it turns out Maya drew the view outside the window.

She did not draw the “Phineas and Ferb” text. Thanks, promo placement.

Maya apparently never knew she could draw because apparently she has never taken any notes in class before, gotten bored, and then doodled all over the notes.

Riley tells Lucas her father thinks that without phones, they don’t know how to talk to each other. Lucas is like “Maybe he’s right” and then the librarian tells Riley to man up and get inspired by all the stories on the shelves near them even though they’re either in the Reference section or Non-Fiction.  The librarian says that every story has this in common: that they start on page 1, and with every page, take you deeper and deeper into the story. Now, having read many books in my day, I have to say that is not true of every book. I’ve read quite a few books where the story just never picks up at all, or gets really interesting but just hits a point where it becomes extremely tedious.

But Riley gets the point and talks to Lucas. He says he owned 24 horses in Texas, and one day one of them was foaling (meaning, giving birth), and no one else was around, so he called the veterinarian (I mean, he called “the doctor”, so I’m just assuming he meant a vet) and the doctor talked him through it. I’ve seen more videos of ungulates giving birth than I care to think about, and I’m not really sure what Lucas needed to be talked through. They mostly kind of shift in discomfort for a while until the baby just plops out in a huge splash. Sometimes the babies do get stuck, in which case they need help, but it doesn’t sound like that was the case here.

But Lucas is all proud of himself. He never mentions why, if they owned a horse ranch, how exactly he was the only person there when one of the horses was due to give birth. Maybe Lucas killed his parents and lived on the ranch by himself until the police figured out his parents weren’t just missing, so he escaped in the dead of night, changed his identity, and enrolled in a school in NYC. I gotta say, that would make his character a billion times more interesting than it currently is.

Lucas decides to share with Riley this super deep dark secret that he’s never told anyone before. I thought he was gonna say he was gay or confess to murdering his parents, but, no, he just wants to be a veterinarian. What a chilling revelation, I can see why he’d want to keep that a secret.

Auggie drew on the walls and the refrigerator. Auggie is my least favorite character.

Riley comes home and thanks Cory for teaching them that talking is good or something. She says he can keep her phone as long as he wants.

Kay.

At school at some point, Cory gives everyone back their phones. No mention if any of them have 35 increasingly annoyed voicemails from their mothers asking why they aren’t answering their phones.

Then Cory says it’s time for the technology reports. Since only the named characters got assigned partners, they’re the only ones who did the work and the only ones with presentations.

Farkle has been keeping Maya’s drawing in his pocket, where his phone used to be.

Riley says she thought all her friends were in her phone, but she learned that you don’t need a phone to connect to your real friends.

That’s a good message, but you have to keep in mind that technology is actually really great for, say, keeping in contact with your extended family who live in Florida or New York, or your old friend who lives three hours away and is really busy so you don’t have all that much time to meet up with each other.

During the credits, Cory meets up with Maya in the library. Cory asks Maya to keep tabs on Riley, to make sure she’s not getting in over her head or whatever. Maya – who I almost called Miley again – says she’d love to, but she doesn’t have the technology to get ahold of Cory of Riley’s ever in trouble.

So Cory gives her a cell phone. He says his motives are entirely selfish, but Maya doesn’t think they are.

Cory then gives Maya a pack of colored pencils, saying if she’s watching Riley and something beautiful happens, he wants her to capture that, too.

Why can’t this show be about Maya, seriously? I don’t think I’ve ever had such a strong feeling of the main character being way less interesting than a secondary character. Oh well. It’s only the second episode.

And now, to be fair, Rowan Blanchard isn’t terrible. She’s certainly improved since the first episode. It’s just that the character stinks. Really, so far only Farkle, Maya, and Cory have real personalities on this show. Topanga doesn’t even one, and by all rights she should since she was on the original show.

Fun fact: I also accidentally called Riley “Angela” at one point when typing this up. “Maya and Angela”. I’m pretty sure after typing “Maya” my mind immediately went to Maya Angelou and somehow that became Angela.

Oh there was this teeny tiny subplot about Topanga not wanting Auggie to grow up. So far Auggie and Topanga have been so insignificant I don’t even care enough to really recap what they do. Like they’re even worse than all the Turner subplots on Boy Meets World where he meets a woman, dates her, and breaks up in the same episode because the main plot didn’t fill enough air time.

Why couldn’t this episode just be called “Sneak Attack”?

And I was just thinking, wouldn’t it have made more sense for the last episode to be called “Girl Meets Communication” or “Girl Meets Analogue” instead of “Girl Meets Boy”, since it was mostly about how communicating face to face instead of with a phone creates a deeper, more meaningful connection with a person, and not really about meeting boys?

Sounds like from the episode description this is yet another episode where all we really learn about Riley is that she likes Lucas. We already knew more about Shawn by this point in Boy Meets World and he wasn’t even intended to be a major character yet. Heck, we knew more about a two-episode pedophile on Degrassi: TNG by this point than we know about Riley. I just don’t have a real feel for her. I mean, what’s she interested in? All she’s done is pine for Lucas and complain that her father is her teacher. And even the way she’s done those things hasn’t been a good indicator of her personality, like she never seems really annoyed at Cory other than when he’s using her as an example for a Life Lesson, which is going to be always on this show.

…Also, the iMDB description for episode 6 is basically the same description of this episode, so let’s hope it’s just an error on their end and not that the show will already be recycling its own storylines by the sixth episode.

Cory and Auggie both have shaving cream beards. Also we FINALLY learn for sure what Topanga’s job is – she is indeed a lawyer. I’m SO glad they decided to drop that thing where they were going to have Topanga run the local teenager hangout, a pudding shop.

Riley’s super happy for some reason, and Maya and Farkle come over for breakfast for some reason. Except Farkle already had a huge breakfast at his house, so I don’t know why he’s there. By the way, I hope this show goes on for several years and Farkle becomes super attractive like… erm… Come to think of it, there haven’t been a lot of male Disney Channel stars who grew up to be dreamboats. The guys in High School Musical are the only ones I can think of, and they were all already attractive when they first showed up on the Disney Channel.

Cory turns on the tv, to Topanga’s dismay, but Auggie says he’s too old for the stupidly named show. Because he has a new best friend, a girl, even. Also Auggie is WAY overacting. I miss Morgan #1. Even Stephanie on Full House was better than this (sidebar: DJ, Kimmie, and Stephanie are by far the only things about Full House I liked)

At school, Riley’s still happy. But then Maya sees some girl playfully touching Lucas in the shoulder, and Riley sees them and gets sad. And the chalkboard in the classroom just says “Pearl Harbor.” Also I think it’s crazy they still have a chalkboard in 2014.

Later, in actual class, Cory says Pearl Harbor was a sneak attack and that’s pretty much all he says. Riley’s confused about where she is, so Maya makes her raise her hand and Cory says she’s excused.

Meanwhile, Lucas and the girl – whose name is Missy – are talking about the movies. Cory continues talking, of course pausing while Lucas and Missy talk. And whatever Cory says is paralleling the situation as Riley spies on Lucas and Missy. Then Riley comes in and says she can do “boop” as well as Missy can.

And of course, Cory does nothing about the interruption to his class. He actually lets all the kids talk for two minutes and then just goes on with the lesson without yelling at them to sit down or anything.

Missy is all snooty and tells Riley, who’s hiding in her locker after class, that she didn’t know she and Lucas were together. Riley says they aren’t, and Missy’s all “Good, then you won’t mind if I ask him out.”

Lucas is so bland I honestly don’t care. I actually don’t even care about Riley losing her love interest.

Auggie won’t put on his Mr. Googly pajamas because his girlfriend won’t like them. Topanga points out she’s the only girl who’ll see Auggie in his pajamas anyway, and Auggie responds “You never know.” The audience chuckles. Actually, the audience only ever chuckles. They never really laugh at anything on the show.

Something else happens and Auggie still refuses the pajamas. And his parents tell him to not grow up so fast, just like in the last episode. YAWN.

Riley and Maya meanwhile decide that Riley needs to start flirting with Lucas to win him back from Missy. But Riley doesn’t know how to flirt. Luckily, Farkle pulls a Zach Morris and climbs into her room at that moment. Farkle is the only person in their grade who knows how to flirt. Besides Missy. So he’s going to teach them how to flirt, because he likes them.

I really like Farkle. I really like that he’s a big nerd, but he doesn’t dress especially geeky or wear huge glasses, and that he’s not afraid of women and flirts with everyone. He’s a little annoying sometimes, but he’s still my second-favorite character on this show, behind Maya. I’ve already said no one else has a personality and that Auggie is extremely annoying so I won’t mention it again. Even though I just did, just now.

At lunch the next day, the trio wonder if Lucas is going to sit with them or with Missy. Lucas does sit with them, but then Missy drags him away to an empty table rather than dragging an empty chair to the table.

Then Farkle decides he’s going to steal Missy from Lucas. He heads over to where she’s sitting and asks her why she’s going out with a boy when she could go out with a man.

Does he shave his legs?? Or does he just not have leg hair? I don’t spend any time around kids, especially involving their legs, but I assume we are all born with some amount of leg hair? It’s not like armpit hair and and pubic hair where it starts growing in later, is it??

Well, anyway, Missy tells Farkle he’s next. Then Missy yells food fight and throws food on herself. So Cory gives her and Lucas detention.

Then I forget what happens by Cory says “Ya do?!” like he did sometimes on Boy Meets World.

Auggie has a date with his girlfriend, who’s apparently an older woman. Her name is Ava and she’s 6. Auggie is 5. Topanga confirms that Ava likes Auggie even though she’s older, and she says yes, because she can tell Auggie what to do. Then Ava decides she’s going to take Auggie’s big stuffed Mr. Googly because she’s older. Mr. Googly sounds like a euphemism for a body part.

Topanga tells Ava to leave because she’s even older and Ava is a bad influence or whatever. I sure hope Ava’s mom and/or dad is still in the vicinity. I mean it’s one thing that they’re letting a 13 year old wander around New York City by herself, but it seems ridiculous to have a 6 year old doing the same.

PIC

Apparently that thing I forgot that happened was Maya and Riley – who I almost just called Miley and Carla, seriously why do I keep messing up their names?? And why do I keep calling Riley names that are SO different from Riley?? – begged Cory to give them detention so Missy wouldn’t seduce Lucas even though Cory would still be in the room, although to be fair, so far Cory’s been pretty awful at controlling his class.

Cory wants to use the detention to teach the kids more about Pearl Harbor. I remember Boy Meets World was WAY less clumsy and obvious about doing the “lesson parallels the character’s problems” thing. Degrassi TNG was SUPER less obvious about it because sometimes it just come down to only mentioning the title of a book they were going to read. They wouldn’t even mention anything about the book in some cases. Good Genius Bonus opportunities, there.

Cory talks about how alliances were forged by battle. Then Farkle shows up.

Cory tells him he doesn’t belong in detention, but Farkle says if his friends are there, then he does belong there. Guys I think Farkle just became my favorite character.

Cory continues, about how America was put to the test and whatever. Then Lucas says that Missy invited him to the movies. Missy says “I think they’re already aware of that.” Then Lucas continues, telling them he thought it’d be cool if they all came too. The audience and I are genuinely amused and pleased at this turn of events.

Missy tells him the invitation was just for him. Lucas says, in that case, he doesn’t want to go. Missy is enraged – no one ever turns her down. Lucas is just like “Well, they’re my friends, and I don’t want to do anything without them.” Man that would be a GREAT lead-in for a Girl Meets World XXX parody. Hey did you know the “This Ain’t Glee” adult film parody of Glee actually won an award? Also that there’s an award ceremony honoring the best of pornography? I got a little too deep into Wikipedia (no pun intended) one day, sorry.

Missy gets mad and tells them to grow up and she leaves. Riley, echoing her mother’s earlier statement towards Auggie, says “Not yet.”

Cory, surprisingly, notices that Missy leaves, but not surprisingly, doesn’t do anything about it. Remember in the first episode of Boy Meets World when he had detention, and Feeny was ignoring him, and he left, waited for Feeny to react, and then came back and was a little miffed that Feeny didn’t do anything?

Riley says the best thing about friends is sometimes all you have to do is trust them. Cory then says that after World War II, the United States enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity, then declares detention over.

Over the credits, Riley tells Auggie to hold on to Mr. Googly for as long as he can, because they’re friends. Topanga and Cory also add stuff about friends and staying “this many” for a while.

There really wasn’t a sneak attack in this episode, unless you count how Farkle snuck his way right into my heart.

But man, three episodes in and Lucas is STILL extremely bland. He basically didn’t do anything in this episode until the detention scene. And it came across like he was specifically being a jerk to Missy on purpose, like he planned from the beginning by agreeing to go on a date with her just to make her mad later when he said he thought all his friends could go on the date too.

According to this and the last episode (re: Lucas killed his parents and is on the run from the law), apparently my preferred headcanon is that Lucas is a sociopath. That actually makes him way more interesting.

And I don’t usually say this about anyone, but I really want them to Brother Chuck Auggie or replace him. I mean I don’t like to judge child actors too harshly, but he’s really obnoxious and too over-the-top. Like he would’ve fit in fine as part of Michell’s crowd of friends on Full House, but on this show he’s just annoying. On a related note, Rowan Blanchard is really improved since episode 1.

By the way, if anyone comes along here and protests to me comparing this show to Boy Meets World since they’re different shows, different eras, etc, please note that I also compared this show to Degrassi and Full House, and have compared Boy Meets World to Glee at certain points as well. It’s not wrong to compare things to other things. It would be wrong if I was just like “Well Cory isn’t Feeny in this scene so this is awful.” I do think Feeny was a way better teacher in his worst moments than Cory has been so far, though. All Cory does is just stand around while the kids are having their nonsense and then continue talking when they pause.

OH yeah, I know it’s July 17 and the original airdate is July 18. I guess this episode got leaked early or something. So, er, yeah.

Also the first two episodes got over 5 million and 3 million views respectively. I think that’s pretty respectable for a cable show. It’s way more than Glee got per episode this past season. Also getting over 5 million views for the first episode which was available online in a couple different formats a few weeks before the television premiere is actually amazing.

Most of the episodes up to this point have had some kind of life lesson in them, and now they even have an episode called “Life Lessons.” WHAT WILL THIS EPISODE BE ABOUT, I WONDER??

LIFE LESSONS, MAYBE??

Finals are coming up. They have THREE IN THE SAME DAY.

Okay. So. This always drives me crazy whenever high school students – or even middle school students – on tv are flipping out over finals. I mean, three in one day? Yeah, have you ever been to a high school? Most kids tend to have at least four tests every Friday, so having three tests in one day isn’t a huge deal.

I mean, I do remember the “final exam” tended to be a comprehensive from the whole year, but I also remember not freaking out about is as much as kids on tv shows do – not even during the school year where I almost had to go to the hospital because of a stress fever.

Going back to the episode, hey look! Topanga’s back! I think it’s great how she basically has only been in a third of the episodes of the entire show so far despite ostensibly being a main character. And like I’ve pointed out before, she was barely ever on the show when she and Cory were still dating.

I actually kind of like that, though? I mean, I like Topanga, but it was cool that the show didn’t suddenly swan-dive into being entirely about Cory and Topanga ALL the time when they started dating.

Well anyway, Cory says, as long as they spend the next two weeks doing nothing but studying, they should be fine.

Cut to a quick montage of Cory and Shawn watching tv and eating while leaning on their textbooks.

Suddenly, finals are in two days. And Feeny is the one who arranged the Finals schedule.

It blows my mind that not only is there an actual finals schedule, but that the principal is the one who arranged it. When I was in school, it was just up to the teachers for when finals took place. That was usually how we ended up having tests in EVERY class on the same day, or projects due in EVERY class, or whatever. Personally I think that’s actually pretty cool of Feeny to set up Finals so they’re spread out and they ONLY have three tests on one day rather than tests in every single class, which is what usually happens in school.

Some greasy bullies come along and are mad at Feeny and say they’re going to kill Feeny or something, I forgot.

No one takes this threat as something they ought to tell someone about.

Cory and a bunch of kids try to get Turner on their side. Because Finals are so hard! And all on the same day! Feeny tells him that school isn’t about being easy, but he’s willing to listen to what his students have to say. Turner makes the crowd appoint a leader, who is of course Cory. Greasy Bully #1 tells Cory if he can’t get Feeny to change his mind, the Greasy Bullies will change it for him.

I really dig Cory’s sweater, I tell you what.

Anyway, Cory presents his case: Finals are hard. Space them out.

Feeny asks Cory how long he and the kids have known when Finals were. Cory replies they’ve known for two weeks. Feeny then asks how long they’ve had to study the material. Cory again answers “two weeks”, but Feeny correctly points out they’ve had all semester, and that it’s a big failure on the part of him and the other kids to only come to him just now to complain.

So Greasy Bully #1 is like “All right, we’ll handle this.” And I’m here like, “Wasn’t that curly-haired kid in The Sandlot?” Yes. Yes he was.

Anyway the bullies decide the best way to convince Feeny to change the Finals schedule is to vandalize his house.

They could be studying instead, but NO, let’s just break the law.

The next day, Feeny has a lecture on an abolitionist, emphasizing his night raids and how he was caught and hung by the neck for his crimes. That’s it for the semester and Finals are tomorrow. Which is weird because there’s four episodes after this one that take place in school for at least a little while.

Cory and Feeny have a chat after class lets out. Cory still thinks it couldn’t hurt to spread Finals out. Feeny says the point of having them so close together is that the pressure forces the kids to push everything but knowledge out of their heads, and hopefully it will stick and they’ll have that info forever. And apparently Feeny also has a “final exam”, in seeing how well he handles the students freaking out about the exams or whatever. Then he announces he’ll be retiring at the end of the school year.

Greasy Bullies then come back in the room and tell Feeny if he doesn’t change the exams, they aren’t going to bother taking them. What the heck kind of threat is that? So you don’t take the exam, and then you fail, and you have to repeat a grade. TAKE THAT, FEENY.

Feeny’s reaction is a kinder version of my own, and he tells them he can’t force them to take it if they don’t want.

Then Cory, Shawn, and the Bullies have a disagreement that basically ends with Cory admitting he’s partly responsible for what the other guys did to Feeny’s house because… I guess he was literally the only person in the WHOLE school who objected to the exam schedule. Fff.

Hey, hold on. Exams were in two days when Cory was wearing that blue shirt. So then he was wearing this sweater, which would suggest it was the next day of school, so exams would be in one day. Now he’s wearing a different outfit again but exams are supposed to be tomorrow??

Topanga and Cory are studying in Cory’s kitchen when Shawn runs over. The bullies are at the school! So they all head over there instead of calling the police.

A much larger group of bullies than the three we’ve been seeing are smashing the school. Bully #1 says “We’ll take the exams, all right. We’ll take them right off his desk!” [No, really, he said that]. Topanga asks why they don’t just study, and they’re all “What he teaches doesn’t matter! It’s all about old, dead guys – like him! He doesn’t care about us!” [no, really, that's like 90% what they actually said, including calling Feeny a dead guy].

Cory snaps at this. Don’t you dare say that Feeny doesn’t care!

Also, what? Why do the bullies care that Feeny doesn’t care about them?

Cory and Bully #1 have a little argument, but Shawn unexpectedly says “Freedom of assembly.” Everyone’s all “A-bwuhhhh??”

It turns out Shawn actually read a textbook, and explains that thanks to the first amendment granting the freedom of assembly, all of them have the right to peaceably assemble, but the moment they broke the lock on the school fence, they broke the law, granting Shawn the right to call the cops, which he probably should’ve just done to begin with.

Bully #1 is still all “So? What did Feeny every do for you?”

Shawn says, “You see those bolt-cutters in your hand? And you see how I don’t have any in my hands? That’s what Feeny did for me.” All right, Shawn!

Cue Feeny:

Everyone scatters.

Feeny was there late to finish preparing the exams. Shawn’s all “Yeah I hear Feeny’s making them really tough this year. So he can cram more of that ‘knowledge’ into our heads.” Feeny says that’s the truth, and he’ll making the tests even harder next year. He’s not retiring yaaay!

The trio leave, and Feeny starts cleaning up the place because… Yeah, I don’t know who else would do it. I was going to point out they have a janitor, but that wouldn’t be fair to make him clean up all that vandalism. But they have four witnesses who saw who all the vandals were, so… just get them to do it?

Anyway the trio come back to help clean up.

Over the credits, the gang read their exam results. Cory and Shawn both did well for themselves. Cory declares that studying truly is the way to go. So everyone’s going to go off to study even though exams are over.

And by study, I mean this:

Eric subplot:

Eric’s home alone since Morgan still barely exists on this show. Some woman shows up. She and Eric hit it off, but then she realizes Eric isn’t Turner. But she still agrees to go out on a date with him. Amy is scandalized when she later finds this out. They apparently work together at the real estate office/art gallery/housewife association, and I guess she’s a bit older than Eric.

They go to Chubbie’s, and she’s a little put off because Eric doesn’t really do anything outside of school. Then Turner shows up and Eric introduces them. Boy Meets World has the dumbest, most pointless subplots sometimes.

I feel like this episode would’ve mademore sense to be, you know, at the end of the season rather than the 5th-to-last episode.

And the next episode is one of the weird ones you can bring up as an argument against the people who seem to be under the impression every episode of Boy Meets World was like this one or the one where Shawn blows up the mailbox.

I mean Cory goes back in time due to a microwave mishap and gets mistaken as a Russian spy but sure, go ahead and keep believing every episode of Boy Meets World was super serious and only ever dealt with issues about drugs, abuse, and sex.

Yeah, I know. No one cares about spam. I just like the spam comments I’ve been getting lately.

Hey I am so happy I found your web site, I
really found you by mistake, while I was browsing on Askjeeve for something else, Nonetheless I am here now and would just like to say many thanks
for a fantastic post and a all round entertaining blog (I also
love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read through it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it
and also added in your RSS feeds, so when I have time
I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the superb work.

I like this one because it actually sounds like a real comment, but I’m suspecting it’s spam because it was left on “The Last Temptation of Cory” which has about 40 other spam comments on it too.

Also that it’s suggesting that people still use askjeeves. I thought they changed the name of it to something else?

Yes! Finally someone writes about donate your car seattle.

This was also on “The Last Temptation of Cory”, which is the episode where Topanga’s sick and Cory goes to Missy’s party and she kisses him and Topanga’s just like “don’t do it again!”. It has nothing to do with donating cars in Seattle, is what I’m saying.

I was suggested this blog by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem.
You are incredible! Thanks!

This was ALSO on that same episode post. I do like that the spammer thinks his cousin may have recommended his own blog to him. Smooth, cousin.

continuously i used to read smaller posts which as well clear their motive, and that is also happening with this paragraph which I am reading at this place.

What.

These next two were left on Glee’s “Ballad” episode post.

many does nut muffin have

That sounds like a riddle.

side effects lemonade diet

At least this one sounds more like someone was actually using Google to look up something and it somehow spun off into a spam comment.

I was curious and googled this myself, and apparently the “lemonade diet” is a thing where you cleanse your body three or four times a year by just drinking this mixture of lemonade, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and laxatives. And apparently that’s all you have. All you drink is lemonade and laxative tea and salt water for 10 days straight, and you can’t eat anything. I’m not dietician, but that sounds REALLY bad. Plus, I’ve heard that these diets where all you do is drink beverages is a good way to lose weight fast, but you put almost all of it back on immediately. The best one I think is the “water diet”, where all you do is only drink water, but only for three days. I managed that one for about 16 hours before I ate a bowl of cereal. I don’t know why people decide starving themselves is better than exercising. I mean, I hate exercising, and I have a bad knee and ankle, and I get lost really easily, but I still try to walk about a mile every day. All I do the rest of the day is eat sugar and carbs and sit down and I still managed to lose 10 pounds just walking a mile about 3 or 4 times a week. And I didn’t have to start myself.

Sorry, don’t mean to be judgmental of these “cleanse” diets, but they’re a really bad idea most of the time.

There was another comment that just says “pie crust” and it was so funny I actually approved it even though it was obviously spam. Seriously it just said “pie crust” and that was it.

Awesome blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own website soon but I’m a little lost on everything.

Would you advise starting with a free platform like
Wordpress or go for a paid option? There are so many choices out there that
I’m totally confused .. Any tips? Thanks a lot!

I occasionally get comments like this, or ones asking if I know if there’s a Twitter widget on this site. They’re all reasonably well-written and seem like real things someone would ask about, so I’ve actually responded to a few. But given the fact that there’s SO MANY and all of them are on the same few posts from Boy Meets World, I’m no longer responding to them. I will actually answer this one though:

I guess I’d advise starting on WordPress. I wouldn’t bother going with something where you have to pay but can potentially make money back until you have a good following, or you’re sure you have a great idea. I don’t really know what else to say, since I don’t receive money for ANYTHING I do on the internet. I can’t even sell anything on eBay correctly.

But WordPress has a really easy to figure out format for a beginner, and doesn’t require you to know how to code or anything, so it’s a good place to start.

There was also this hilarious comment that I hope was spam that was just like “I was at the beach with my niece and told her if she held a shell up to her ear she could hear the ocean, and she did, and a hermit crab pinched her ear! I know it’s off-topic but I just had to share!” I mean that sounds so much like something a middle-aged aunt would actually do (randomly post a cute story like that on a forum where no one has expressed interest in hearing her stories) that I’m not totally convinced it was actually spam.

If it WASN’T spam, please note that I do not appreciate hearing anecdotes from people who have never once commented anything relevant to the subjects on this blog. If you do like I do and post anecdotes that are related to the subjects of the posts, that’s cool, but don’t just randomly tell me about your niece being traumatized by ocean life for no apparent reason.

Also of course she could hear the ocean if she held the shell up to her ear SINCE SHE WAS ALREADY AT THE OCEAN.

And finally, is there some spam machine out there that’s sharing Boy Meets World 113 over and over on Facebook? Or are a lot of people just really enjoying that one page? Because it’s gotten 37 views so far today and 24 shares on Facebook and that seems really odd to me that that episode in particular is getting so popular right now.

Also it seems that the Glee and Degrassi posts are WAY less popular than the Boy Meets World posts, partly because the BMW posts are getting so much spam. That’s disappointing to me, especially because some of the Glee posts are actually among the better pieces on here, but at least I don’t feel so bad about not writing them so often now. I mean, I’m sure if I wrote them more regularly, they’d be more popular, but, eh.

And finally-er, right now I’m thinking when Boy Meets World and Glee finish up on here (since Degrassi will NEVER end unless I step it up to like 8 episodes a week and then I might be caught up with the show as it’s airing on tv), to cover Home Improvement, Roseanne, The Cosby Show, and Family Matters. It’ll be over two years before I get to those, if at all, so I’m just giving everyone fair warning now.

Sue asks for the glee club setlist. Schue agrees to give her a copy even though he thought she wasn’t interested in glee club anymore and I was pretty sure he already gave it to her anyway.

Schue suspects Sue is up to something. There’s not really anything from that one thing she just said to be suspicious of, but it’s Sue, so Schue is always suspicious.

You can’t tell from this screencap but Rachel is having a really hard time keeping up with the dancing. Everyone else is pretty good. But for someone who’s been been winning dance competitions since she was two, she sure is an awful dancer.

Anyway, Brittany is filming the rehearsal with her phone, or taking a picture of it, and when Schue asks what she’s doing, she says “Coach Sylvester didn’t tell me to do this.” Brittany’s dumb.

Then later, Sue asks Schue for the names of the schools they’re competing against and their zip codes because they don’t have Google in Ohio.

Schue suspects that Sue is leaking the set list to the other schools. So, I know this is for drama, and maybe it’s different for choir competitions, but when I was in band, typically the set list had to be submitted at least a month before competition. On top of that, there was a list of songs we were allowed to work from. And sometimes other bands would have a song in common with us, and that sucked, but it wasn’t the end of the world. And I mean, we usually went last or second-to-last because the bands perform in order of size from smallest to largest, so it was ALWAYS like “oh crap, the band RIGHT BEFORE US played one of the songs in our set, we have to do ours EXTREMELY WELL now.”

Schue heads to the other schools to talk to them. First up is Jane Addams Academy for Girls or whatever, which is all full of delinquent students. There are security guards and metal detectors at the front entrance! Haha that’s meant to show how dangerous and underprivileged the school is but a lot of schools have started doing that lately because, you know, school shootings.

The school’s principal (or the choir director?), played by rapper Eve,  takes Schue’s words to mean he’s accusing them of cheating. She basically says they have too much honor for that, and also they’re so poor they don’t have costumes or an auditorium, and also she had spies at New Directions’ invitational thing and thinks her group can beat them anyway, even without cheating. Schue’s like “Okay, well you can use our auditorium to practice.”

If they’re too poor for costumes, what are those things they’re wearing now? I guess maybe those are all homebought things or something? New Directions has to use all the costumes that the school already head but fortunately everything is super stylish and manages to fit every member perfectly, so that’s nice.

Also I seem to remember someone complaining that this Jane Addams Academy was racist because it was all full of black girls. Looking at the screenshot, I see three black girls, and the rest of them appear to be white. So, yeah.

They sing Destiny Child’s “Bootylicious”. There’s a ot of slow-mo focused on the girls’ hair – particularly this one girl has a huge afro and it’s spectacular. The girl playing piano in the band has hair that goes down to her THIGHS for pete’s sake.

They all leave at the end of the song even though Schue had earlier said they were going to have a “scrimmage” which implies New Directions would also have performed.

Rachel dispenses some unwarranted advice to Schue. There’s no need to worry, she says. What those girls were doing was called “hairography”, which was not a thing until Glee invented it. She says it’s when a group uses the hair to glamorize people into not realizing how bad their performance was. Their vocals were nothing special and their dancing was subpar. Their dancing was a little off, but the singing was pretty good.

So Schue takes Rachel’s words to heart and decides not to let the Jane Addams girls’ fabulous tresses distract him from his own glee club’s talents.

I’m just kidding he buys wigs for all the boys in the the group so they can perform “Hair” from the musical “Hair.”

Puck looks fabulous.

Meanwhile, Quinn is having doubts about what she should do about the baby. I can see why she might want to keep now that she’s been kicked out of her home and is living in a small house with her boyfriend who is not the father and his poor (as in, not wealthy) single mother. That’s the PERFECT environment in which to raise a child that you’ve already agreed to give to someone else.

Well, Quinn goes on to say that she’s thinking maybe the problem isn’t that she didn’t want to keep the baby, it’s that she didn’t want to keep it with Finn. She wants to spend more time with Puck, the real father, but she knows Finn will freak out if he sees them spending time together. I don’t really know why since it’s not like he’s got fresh memories of being cheated on by Quinn who hooked up with Puck or anything. I mean, that’s what happened, but he doesn’t know that.

So Quinn asks Kurt to give Rachel a makeover so that Rachel will be attractive enough to properly distract Finn. Kurt hates Rachel, and knows it’ll be a challenge to make her look nice (“Rachel somehow manages to dress like a grandmother and a toddler at the same time”). Quinn convinces him by suggesting that the judges as Sectionals might see her and want to take her down a peg or two.

I don’t really get that – the judges will see a girl who dresses like a toddler and a grandmother at the same time and want to knock her down a peg? I’d give her sympathy points.

Terri and Schue are going to bed even though it’s clearly still daytime outside – which is especially weird because I’d have assumed this was an interior set and not an actual house so there SHOULDN’T be daylight coming through the window.

Schue touches Terri, who freaks out. Schue just wants to be intimate with his wife. Terri says “No, you’re trying to have sex!” Terri can’t have sex with Schue, remember, because she’s wearing a fake baby bump and Schue would probably notice that if they were naked together. Terri tells him if he really wanted to be intimate, then he’d ask her how she felt about being pregnant. Schue says she’s right, and apologizes.

Terri has a voiceover monologue, and it’s one that really makes me wonder how anyone can dislike Terri or think she’s evil. She feels awful for lying to Will, see? She really does want to start a family with him, and the only reason she started lying to begin with was to give them a chance. If you’ll recall, she did actually think she was pregnant at one point, and part of why she’s been lying and super crazy is because she thinks Will is drifting off from her, getting distracted by that doe-eyed guidance counselor – which he is.

Terri just needs to buy herself some time for some reason (she doesn’t explain what the time is for – is it just so she can get him to leave her stomach alone until the baby’s born?), so she decides to find a proper distraction for Will. What she needs to do is give Rachel a makeover and – oh no, wait.

Rachel asks Kurt why he volunteered to give her a makeover. Kurt, who appears to be wearing a pseudo-bolo tie, says it’s to distract from her horrible personality.

Somehow they get talking about boys, and Rachel reveals she likes Finn. Kurt likes Finn as well, so this is unacceptable. He tells Rachel that Finn is super attracted to loose women, so he’s going to make her over to look like Sandy at the end of Grease.

Meanwhile, Terri bought an old car off eBay. It’s the same model as the car Schue owned when he was in high school, and it’s super beat up, so it’s a nice project to distract Schue from wanting to sex up his wife.

Kendra and Quinn show up and have to hide really quick before Schue notices. Terri sends Schue to get frozen yogurt and asks what the heck Quinn is doing there unannounced.

Turns out Quinn is keeping the baby. I think it kind of looks like Quinn is Terri’s daughter in that screenshot, and Kendra is the crazy aunt, and like someone off-screen just revealed that Quinn was the one who cheated on the test or something, and so Terri and Kendra are looking at her like “A-bwuhhh??”

Speaking of “a-bwuhhh???”

The director for the deaf school’s show choir is angry at Schue for only inviting the Jane Addams girls to have a scrimmage at McKinley. The director is deaf in one ear so he can’t understand a lot of what Schue is saying. Also the director is played by one of the glee writers, who has the distinction of having written some of the worst episodes in the entire show.

But Schue agrees to let the Haberbrook or Haverbrook choir kids perform at McKinley.

What the heck, the tops of everyone’s heads are cut off.

Rachel, whose clothing is definitely not dress code-appropriate, asks Finn if he wants to rehearse for the Hair number. Finn is like “duhhhhhhhh boobs” or something, but he agrees. Kurt says it’s on to phase 2 of their makeover mission.

Schue confronts Sue for her leaking the setlist or whatever. And she says she’s going to cut “Hair” if it’s on the list.

Finn  is over at Rachel’s house to practice that hairography stuff. They decide to practice to “You’re the One That I Want” from Grease, like they performed several episodes ago. Rachel looks like a sad clown hooker, which is literally what Finn says and the term I use to refer to Rachel’s season 4 makeover.

Rachel says she thought he’d like it, and Finn mentions it’s funny because Kurt was just asking him the week before what kind of girl he likes. Finn said basically the opposite of Rachel’s sad clown hooker look. I knew that Kurt was up to something!

Later or meanwhile, Puck and Quinn are babysitting Kendra’s three demon ginger children. This is Kendra’s doing, as a means to convince Quinn that children are awful and she doesn’t want to keep hers.

Quinn and Puck perform “Papa Don’t Preach” and the kids totally calm down.

Not only that, but they manage to get the kids to take a bath and go to bed early.

Kendra’s husband asks Schue what he’s going to do when the baby comes since his new car won’t fit a carseat. And Quinn just barely wonders about Puck texting someone the whole night. Yaay, scene.

Rachel confronts Kurt about setting her up to be a fool. Kurt’s just like “Well what’s the big deal, we all know you’re just a second choice.” Rachel points out that no matter which place she’s in, she’d still be ahead of Kurt because she’s a girl. Kurt then says it doesn’t matter because Finn only has eyes for Quinn. Except if Rachel had stayed dressed in that cleavage-popping dress from earlier she probably could’ve gotten Finn to rob a bank for her.

The New Directions – which sounds like “Nude Erections” when Schue introduces them – perform a mashup of “Hair” and Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”, which is relevant right now because of its use in the 50 Shades of Grey trailer, which is the CREEPIEST freaking trailer I’ve ever seen. Worse than any horror movie. For real.

The deaf kids are unimpressed by this performance.

The deaf choir performs John Lennon’s “Imagine”. They all sign the song, with only one kid actually singing – since, you know, they’re deaf.

Then Mercedes starts singing “Imagine” with them, and the other kids join in and go up to sing and sign with the deaf choir, which pretends to be a really sweet and touching moment but is actually incredibly rude if you think about it.

I think it would’ve been sweeter if New Directions hadn’t sung at all but just went up to learn how to sign the song and left the one kid to sing by himself. But I guess that wouldn’t have made for a very marketable song.

But Schue, Brad the pianist, and the deaf choir director guy are all moved.

I love how the sign for “applause” is the same thing as jazz hands.

By the way, I can’t speak the whole choir, but at least some of those kids were definitely deaf or hearing impaired. You could see a few of them had hearing aids. I guess it probably was easier to hire a bunch of hearing impaired people who already knew sign language than to just hire any extras they could and go through the trouble of teaching sign language to all of them. Plus I guess it’s nice to have actual deaf and hearing impaired people playing deaf and hearing impaired students.

Also it turns out Puck was sexting Santana during the babysitting… during the babysit. Quinn is furious, but Puck is all “I’m a man! I have needs!”

So Quinn decides to give the baby to Terri. The baby needs a good father, and she thinks Schue will be a good father.

Schue comes home unexpectedly early. Terri explains Quinn’s presence by claiming they’re exchanging pregnancy war stories. Schue has a surprise, but before he can show it to Terri, Quinn hugs him.

And the surprise is that Schue sold the car and bought a minivan. Aw, man. Schue.

Later, Finn confesses to Quinn that he spent time at Rachel’s house when Quinn was babysitting. Quinn is obviously hurt, even though her whole plan from the beginning was to distract Finn with Rachel. But she forgives Finn, possibly because she remembered her whole plan from the beginning was… yeah.

They walk off, arm in arm. Rachel and Kurt see them and are sad.

Kurt, surprisingly, waves at Rachel, perhaps feeling united by their shared pain.

Schue hands over the new setlist to Sue. It’s got Proud Mary, Don’t Stop Believin, and a new song, because sectionals is in two weeks so it’s the PERFECT time to add a new song to the setlist. Sue, unsurprisingly, tells Eve and the deaf choir about Schue’s setlist, and says she’s going to pull strings and make sure New Directions goes last so it looks like they stole the songs from the other groups! That’s so dumb. I mean, obviously if everyone does Proud Mary in wheelchairs that’ll look weird, but I wouldn’t assume that a group stole a setlist from another group just because they’re going last. And actually, like I was saying before, that would be a great opportunity if used right. They’d just have to make sure they do way better than the other schools.

The third song is True Colors, which they sing on stools to get away from the hairography nonsense. Tina actually is the lead solo on this song, and even more surprisingly, there wasn’t a scene where Rachel complained endlessly about Schue always giving everyone else the breaks but she’s totally a team player even though she always complains when anyone else gets a solo.

Also didn’t they already decide to have Defying Gravity and Last Name and like 3 other songs on their setlist in addition to Don’t Stop Believin and Proud Mary?

OH well.

Song count: 58 total performances / 44 full-length performances

Best: Pfff, well… I guess Papa Don’t Preach. It was simple – just Quinn’s voice and Puck’s guitar – and it fit with Dianna Aggron’s voice really well.

Worst: Oh god, umm… Hair/Crazy In Love. All the hair tossing was dumb, and those songs don’t really mashup all that well. The thing is, that was the point. Apparently they intentionally made the mashup bad. But according to the guy who does the music arrangements for this show, well, obviously the mashup couldn’t be ear-splittingly bad, but he said however awful you thought that mashup was, that was actually the best one they made. They made some other Hair/Crazy In Love mashups that were somehow even worse than that.

Notes: Apparently this episode was supposed to include Mercedes singing “Don’t Make Me Over”. There were a few instrumental cues of the song, but no one actually sang it. But they DID release the full vocal cover on the “Glee: The Music, Volume 2″ set. It’s a pretty good cover, as most Amber Riley/Mercedes covers are. BUT since there were NO vocals of it featured in this episode, it’s not in the song count. But you can listen to it here unless a bot takes the video down:

Well, anyway.

The school is having a funk-themed dance. Oh boy.

Riley and Maya spot a “ninth grade woman” putting on makeup in the hallway, rather than in the bathroom where there’s a larger mirror and less of a chance that someone will bump into her and cause her to stab herself with an eyebrow pencil.

Riley’s freaking out because I guess she’s never seen or heard of someone putting on makeup before. The ninth grader pulls out that eyelash curler thing and Riley doesn’t know what it is. Maya tells her it’s to “bring out her eyes” and Riley, I kid you not, takes this to mean it’s some sort of torture device meant to literally remove a person’s eyes.

Apparently Riley has a second character trait now, and that trait is “incredibly stupid/naive”. I guess maybe that’s two traits, technically.

The ninth grader hears Riley and explains that it’s an eyelash curler and isn’t supposed to hurt. So Riley uses it and hurts herself. I was kind of kidding before, but seriously, wow, Riley’s dumb.

Farkle tries to ask the girls to the dance, they refuse, so he says he’ll be happy if he just gets one dance each with them. They agree to this, and Farkle says that’s actually all he wanted in the first place. Farkle wins.

Lucas comes over and Maya makes a bunch of cowboy and hoedown comments at Lucas in regards to the dance. HILARIOUS.

No, but she starts doing this hoedown dance in the hallway and the other kids in the hallway all applaud her and ask her to keep doing it. That was actually funny.

Spoiler alert: Auggie wears like three layers of shirts throughout this episode.

Riley asks Topanga, who’s reading to Auggie, if she can ask a question. Auggie says Riley can ask him a question. OH MY GOD NO ONE LIKES YOU, AUGGIE.

Riley clarifies it’s a girl problem, and Auggie says he knows about girls. I cannot properly convey my dislike for this character. Riley’s like “Okay, well it’s about-” and then Auggie says ‘I’m out” and runs out of the room. SO GLAD HE WAS IN THIS SCENE, WOW.

Riley tries to ask about makeup but Topanga just keeps deflecting her by basically saying “you’re too young” in different ways. I know Topanga’s the mom, and I totally respect and appreciate that she’s setting boundaries and stuff, saying she doesn’t think Riley’s really ready to wear makeup. BUT it’s my feeling that, if your child comes to you to ask questions, you should answer them. If you go “Not now, honey” too often, eventually the kid’s just going to stop asking altogether and try to figure stuff out on their own. Now maybe that’s not as huge a deal as it used to be, what with Google and all, but still. I don’t think there would’ve been any harm in Topanga just explaining what the difference between daytime and nighttime makeup was, and whatever, while still remaining firm in her decision to not let Riley wear any makeup until she’s older.

But as it turns out, the point of this scene was to let us know that the dance is on Friday but that’s also when Cory and Riley have their annual trip to Coney Island to ride the roller coaster or whatever. Riley says “Maybe he won’t remember it this year” but it’s Cory, so of course he remembers. I always love on sitcoms where nobody has any idea what their plans for the week are until like two days before.

Also Auggie was eavesdropping. He tells Cory that Riley wants to wear makeup. Apparently Cory specifically hired Auggie to be a spy. I really hate the name Auggie. I wish his name was Chewbacca. Chewie is way cuter than Auggie. And I know the actor’s actual name is August, that doesn’t change the fact that the name Auggie is starting to drive me crazy.

Then they tell Cory that Riley doesn’t want to go to Coney Island and wants to go to the dance. Cory lays on the guilt and feigns having a heart attack. Riley’s all “I’m a grown up now, you have nothing left to teach me” because someone they started talking about teaching even though that has literally nothing to do with a father-daughter tradition of going to a theme park.

At school the next day, Cory only refers to Riley with a scathing “You.” He hands back papers on Darwin because I have no idea what class this actually is. I mean, Darwin was obviously a historical person, but he typically figures more in science classes. But then again, Feeny was a social studies, history, English, and math teacher even though they were in 6th grade so he should’ve only been teaching one subject. By the way Feeny’s still alive on this show. Some people got confused by the end of the first episode and though Cory was seeing Feeny’s ghost rather than him just imagining Feeny or something. The writers/producers/etc say Feeny’s still alive, though.

Anyway, Maya got an F on her paper. And after that revelation, Cory immediately says that he thought it was interesting that Lucas made a point in his paper about evolution not preventing people from having a guiding light of wisdom in their life.

I just can’t. They’re in 7th grade. How freaking pretentious.

Also oh my god I’m only 7 minutes into this episode but it feels like it’s been 20.

Then Maya raises her hand and is all “You failed me.” She declares this means there is nothing left for Cory to teach her so she’s just going to drop out of school I guess even though she’s only 13 and too young to do that.

Also, what? Clearly if Maya failed, Cory still has a lot to teach her. For instance, that students in the U.S. are not legally allowed to drop out of school until age 16. Plus it’s pretty dumb to want to drop out of school entirely because one teacher failed you.

But I’m guessing because she keeps repeating “He failed me” to Riley as she talks to her later that it’s going to come up that like Cory is the only person who ever really believed in Maya and if he gave her an F there’s no one and nothing left for her or whatever.

WHY is he dressed like that??

Cory sadly watches a video of him and Riley on the roller coaster. Somehow you can still clearly hear what they’re saying even though whoever was filming it was not on the coaster with them.

Auggie comes over and is like “What’s the matter, honey?” God I freaking hate this kid. I wish when they nixxed Riley’s older brother they also got rid of this kid.

I guess this is as good a point as any to bring up an interesting comment. User Jackie commented on the last episode’s post that it seems like they’ve written Auggie’s part as if he is a 3 year old, when the character is 5 and the actor was 5 or 6 when they were filming, and that’s probably what’s so irritating about him. I replied saying I guess that was better than if they’d written him as if he were older, because when they write young characters/actors as if they’re like 10 years old it gets super aggravating, and lo and behold, suddenly Auggie is sounding as if he’s a much older character than he is.

I assume at least one person on the writing and production staff has been around children before, but you wouldn’t know it from Auggie.

Anyway, Cory comments that he’s “lost the two most important girls in his life.” Topanga is understandably baffled by this comment.

Auggie tries to reassure Cory by saying he’ll always be there for his daddy. He does this while looking back and forth between Ben Savage and someone offscreen.

Auggie leaves, and Cory watches the video of the coaster again. Bizarrely, it’s a different video actually – it’s footage from inside the car – but the audio is all the same. Oops.

Topanga says they can just go next year, but Cory tells her that’s just how traditions end. That’s actually a good point. That IS how traditions end. But Topanga still thinks Cory’s overreacting, but Cory’s still sad about losing his two girls, especially that Riley said she has nothing left to learn from Cory. Cory should’ve just said “You’re 12. I still have loads to teach you. Go to your room.”

Why are THEY dressed like that??

Maya signed up for an online education academy to finish up her middle school degree. The totally legit academy requires $400 to register, which is pretty decent for a totally legitimate online education that isn’t a scam at all. Maya tries to basically not pay for it, and it automatically fails her.

Topanga comes in and they talk and I don’t remember what they talk about but Cory comes in and just takes Maya by the hand and leaves with her. That just reminded me of on Futurama that one time when Leela took Fry by the hand and silently pulled him into her bedroom. So basically the end of this scene on this show really weirded me out.

It turns out Cory’s just having Maya read her paper on Darwin out loud.

Darwin animal studies were thought to be when the travels he took on the boat with The Beatles.

Yes you read all of that correctly.

Maya says she was just trying to sound smart, by writing something that made absolutely no sense. What she meant to say, as she explains, is just that Darwin studied animals. Cory starts quizzing her on Darwin, and Maya says “I don’t know” to everything until Riley says “Yes you do.” So she talks about how Darwin studied birds, specifically finches and mockingbirds, and traveled in his boat named The Beatles, which is the only part of that which is wrong (it was The Beagle).

Topanga decides to make turkey sandwiches even though she was a vegetarian on Boy Meets World. Maybe she’s just not going to eat any of the sandwiches herself. Oh and Maya’s all “Darwin didn’t study turkeys.”

Yeah.

Cory changes the F on Maya’s paper to an H, although Maya reads it as an A, and Cory says he’s only changing the grade to a C+. I love on tv show how no one ever gets number grades on anything. College was the only time in my life where I mostly only got letter grades rather than numbers like 95% or 80% or 4/5 or whatever.

Maya suddenly starts talking about how her dad doesn’t live with her. He has a new family now. And I guess because of this, if Cory gives her an F that means he doesn’t think she’s worth working on anymore, which is coincidentally exactly what I thought the explanation would be. Well, except for the father part.

Um so Cory is like “How could you think I could think that about you?” Maya says she just didn’t want to fail.

Riley says something about Cory being a great teacher and she really does want to go to Coney Island after all. Cory says “No, you want to go to the dance.” She does. Cory says that’s great because he’s a chaperone even though he thought he’d have other plans that night. Riley raises her hand and asks “What’s a chaperone?”

Okay, seriously?? What’s a chaperone?? That’s it. Riley’s two defining characteristics on this show are “Likes Lucas” and “Is surprisingly dumb.” Let’s look at Maya’s characteristics so far:

• worldly and street-smart
• general sense of humor about the world
• low self-worth despite having an outwardly confident demeanor

There’s a few others that I can’t quite put into words as well. But, um, yeah. It’s great we finally had an episode that wasn’t all about Riley crushing on Lucas, but it’s the fourth episode and Riley is still barely a character. Why are Cory and Maya the most developed characters on the show? And why are Topanga and Riley the least developed?

But I mean seriously, she doesn’t know what a chaperone is??

Well they go to the dance. Everyone makes room for Jesus.

The one middle school dance I went to, everyone just stood around except for a group of like 10 8th grade girls who were really breaking it down. I spent most of the night eating Starburst in the hallway outside the cafeteria.

Anyway, bizarrely, Riley compliments Lucas, telling him he’s a great dancer even though all they’re doing is swaying slightly and not moving from their spot on the floor. Meanwhile, Farkle has Maya doing a very quick tango back and forth. At one point they stop and Maya asks Lucas if they wore that hat just because Maya was poking fun at him earlier. He says that is indeed what he was doing, he pulls a flower out of his hat, and gives it to Maya, who then loses it to Farkle.

Cory announces it’s the end of the dance, but he’s noticed some fathers have arrived to pick up their daughters, so he suggests they have a father-daughter dance.

How mortifying. Are there really a lot of 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls who would be like “Oh yeah let me just do a slow dance with my dad in front of THE WHOLE SCHOOL”?

No. No there’s not. No one would be okay with that.

Also why are there dads there at all? Up to this point they’ve been totally okay with letting their 12 year olds take the subway alone at night. Why the issue now? And why aren’t there any moms there? That’s weird.

Um but anyway Cory dances with Maya and then flags Riley over and says he’ll always be a guiding hand or whatever Lucas said earlier that I thought was pretentious.

Over the credits, Auggie suggests that since Riley’s too big for dad-daughter traditions, maybe he and Cory could start one for themselves. Cory’s touched by this, until Auggie suggests they take an annual singles cruise to Alaska.

That line could potentially have been cute, it’s just something with the way August Maturo delivers his lines, possibly combined with his age, that just makes it obnoxious.

Thoughts: So what exactly did the thing with makeup have to do with anything? I was thinking Riley was going to defy Topanga and put on makeup herself and look like a sad clown hooker and get made fun of and then Cory reassures her or something and Cory learns that Riley’s growing up and Riley learns that she still has stuff to learn from Cory.

Instead the episode was about Maya realizing that her friend’s dad is there for her even when it seems like he isn’t, and that she should have more confidence about how much stuff she knows or whatever.

I think Maya and Lucas have more chemistry than Riley and Lucas at this point, by the way.

Despite my criticisms, this show really isn’t awful. It’s got tons of flaws, but I’ve seen worse. I’m hoping future episodes will not include scenes with kids just getting up and leaving class and/or detention with absolutely no repercussions because that has happened in three of the four episodes that have aired so far. That is ridiculous.

The acting from everyone except August Maturo is pretty good, though. Granted, August is only like 6, but I’ve seen plenty of young actors who didn’t overact so obnoxiously – like Elijah Wood or Lily Nicksay. Of course, not everyone could be Elijah Wood, although I certainly wouldn’t mind if everyone were.

Aw man, there’s just one episode after this and then my FAVORITE episode. I mean, my other favorite, since I already called The Monkees reunion one my favorite.

Turner and Eli force Cory to hand out fliers for the school dance even though they aren’t at school. The school dance is “50s Sock Hop” themed. Cory asks Topanga to go with him but Topanga rightfully points out that Cory is the one who broke up with her so it would be stupid of them to go out together.

Meanwhile, the microwave is broken. Eric plugs it in and it shuts off Cory’s computer, so now he has to start his 10 page paper on the Russian space race all over again because he’s an idiot and never once saved his paper while he was writing. Or handwrote the paper and then typed it up. Or just handwrote it.

Amy and Alan talk about Sputnik or something, and Cory tries to fish for more information because they were there when all that nonsense was going on, except apparently they went to high school in the 70s so they would’ve been too young to have a first-hand account of the space race.

Feeny, however, was alive and aware during the 50s. Okay.

Then Cory plugs in the microwave for literally no reason and then goes back in time.

All these screencaps are large.

It’s 1957. And apparently I mixed up THIS time-travel episode for one of the other ones on this show (because there are THREE time-travel episodes).

Cory gets excited when he sees Shawn, or Shawnzie. I guessed he would be called Shawnzie before he said anything but that may just be because I’ve seen this episode before.

Shawnzie had a little prank set up outside of Feeny’s office, where when the door opens a rain of ping-pong… er, table tennis balls fall down. Cory takes the blame so Shawnzie won’t get in trouble, and Cory claims his name is “Brad Pitt, sir” because Shawnzie tells him to make up a name. So Feeny calls him “Mr. Pittsir”.

The bell rings and everyone piles into class. There’s somehow an empty seat for Cory/Brad Pitt even though he’s not really a student in the 1957 school.

The topic for discussion that day is “What will life be like in 40 years?” This seems an odd topic for an English class.

Cory, having come from 39 years in the future, says “Man will walk on the moon, pizza will have cheese baked right in the crust, and men and women will be equals not just in the workplace, but in relationships.” Two of those are true.

Turner is like “… tell us more about that pizza.” Then he has everyone practice their fallout drills. Duck and cover! I know taking cover under a table definitely would not save you in the event of a nuclear war, and probably a lot of people back then knew that as well, but I think maybe they just told people that so they could feel safe? I mean, when you’re living in a constant, day-to-day dull fear that any minute now, a bomb could drop on your city, would you rather feel like maybe you could survive if you hid under something, or be told there’s literally nothing you can do at that point besides close your eyes and pray?

Turned out to be a moot point anyway.

Cory comments that it’s ridiculous to think hiding under a table and covering your butt would save you. Turner is shocked to hear someone utter the “utt-bay” word. Shawnzie claims it was he who said that word, to repay Cory/Brad for taking the fall for him earlier.

1950s Eric is torn between going to Harvard or Yale, as both have accepted him, and it turns out both want him as a teacher rather than a student. Feeny reminds him that there are no females at Harvard. Eric doesn’t want anything to distract him from his studies, so Harvard it is. Haha, 1950s Eric is the opposite of 1990s Eric!

Topanga objects of Feeny sending Shawnzie to a reform school. I forget what Feeny says, but Cory offers to take Topanga to the zoo to look at the giraffes so she can forget her troubles, and then they can go get some rocky road ice cream. Topanga is uncomfortable that this guy she’s never seen before is acting like he knows her.

Then Feeny comes back from somewhere with terrible news – the Russians have launched a satellite, and it might have an atomic warhead on it! Duck and cover!

Cory does the math and realizes the satellite is only Sputnik, which isn’t a spy or war satellite, it’s just for space experiments. Feeny, Turner, and Eric then accuse Cory of being a Russian spy. Cory yells “Flash!” getting everyone to duck and cover, and he runs away while they’re distracted.

It turns out he didn’t run far because Shawnzie and Topanga have him stuffed in a locker, where he’s hiding from the witchhunt. Cory then takes the two of them to his house, even though his parents probably won’t recognize him because no one else does. Also how lucky is it that Cory wasn’t wearing a plaid flannel shirt over a white t-shirt and under a hooded sweatshirt? [Fun brain fart: I typed that as "shootsweart", somehow, at first]

Cory’s super excited because there’s a big plate of homemade brownies on the table. Who WOULDN’T be excited? Brownies are awesome.

Morgan comes from downstairs and tells him not to eat any, because mom said they were for after dinner. Weird that they’re just all sitting out on the table, then, isn’t it?

When asked, Morgan explains that their mom is out currently, but dad is upstairs. Cue dad:

Boy, 1950s Alan sure looks like Tom Bosley who famously portrayed Mr. Cunningham on 1950s-set show Happy Days.

Oh wait, that isn’t supposed to be Alan. There’s a knock at the door, and Cory wonders if perhaps that’s Alan, but doesn’t wonder why his dad would be knocking on his own house door. And of course, it’s not Alan.

It’s Anson Williams, who famously portrayed Potsie on 1950s-set show Happy Days… and also several episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, Lizzie McGuire, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Stark Trek Voyage, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, and one episode of Cousin Skeeter.

Good ol’ Nickelodeon.

Tom Bosley offers him a brownie. Anson Williams tries to cheer Cory up by sharing some advice his parents used to give him, until he remember that he didn’t have parents, or even a house. He just hung out at other people’s houses.

Morgan sees a story about Cory being a spy in the newspaper. Tom Bosley calls the cops, that ratfink.

So Cory gets arrested, but his parents come to bail him out.

It turns out they’re actually Russian spies. Huh.

An air-raid siren goes off and the cop at the station yells “It’s the big one! Duck and cover!” he unlocks Cory’s cell and he and Amy and Alan hide under the various tables in the cell, while Cory runs out. Shawnzie and Topanga set off the siren and now they’re going to escape with Cory, but not before he puts on this clever disguise to avoid suspicion.

Where’s Cory and how did they get that sweater on that chicken?!

They head to Shawnzie’s makeout pad, which is Turner apartment but everything is covered in dustsheets, and also there’s a record player and a cheerleader already there.

Cory tries to convince Topanga his name is really Cory and he’s from the future. He shows her his underwear, because his mo always sews him name in it. Except he’s wearing Eric’s underwear, apparently. Topanga tells him it doesn’t matter who he is or where he’s from, as long as he’s here now.

Topanga likes giraffes and rocky road and stuff, so she likes Cory and whatever.

Feeny breaks into the stereo broadcast to say there’s currently a witchhunt out for Cory’s head. Shawnzie says they ought to go to the Wise Man for advice. Wise Man is conveniently located at Chubbie’s.

Wise Man is also Pat Morita, who famously portrayed Arnold on 1950s-set sitcom Happy Days, and also was Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid franchise. And the emperor in Mulan.

He advises Cory that the best way to go back to his own time is use the method that got him in the past in the first place – a microwave. Shawnzie and Topanga say their goodbyes, although Topanga tells Cory if he stays she can really “make it worth [his] while”.

Eric and the police dogs are outside, having tracked Cory down, and then Cory realizes that it’s 1957, so there are no microwaves.

Except the first microwave oven, called the Radarange, was sold in 1946! If only the cast of Futurama had known that in that episode where they go back in time to a mishap with a microwave oven.

Cory’s realization is still valid, though, because microwaves weren’t sold for home use until the 60s (apparently they were too large and bulky in the 1950s for your average home, rather like the issue with computers). Cory starts repeating “How am I gonna get home?” while everyone else from the episode shows up and chants “Spy! Spy! Spy!” at him, oddly including his parents who were also Russian spies.

Cory’s mom wakes him up in modern times. And Shawn is there because he’s always there for Cory. Either he’s got some sort of Cory radar or someone went out of their way to call Shawn to tell him that Cory had a bit of a shock. Probably should’ve just taken him to the hospital, especially when he didn’t wake back  immediately.

Also Topanga’s there and Cory’s touched. Yay.

I mean, not literally.

During the credits, Cory is typing up his term paper. So they had all their final exams in the last episode, but Cory’s typing up a term paper now? Probably would’ve made more sense for this episode to happen before the previous one. Eric notices the battery on that lapbrick is running low, so Cory plugs it in. The electricity goes haywire like when he plugged in the microwave before. They really ought to look into what’s wrong with that plug if it’s not just the microwave that’s having issues.

Anyway Cory initially worries he’s gone back in time again, but nope. Everything’s fine.

Except for futuristic Mr. Feeny!

He talks into his watch/telecommunication device and announces he has “the earth alien” and will be “beaming up” shortly. Cory tries to protest at first but then is just like, “Aw, who cares?” And then they beam away.

There’s a lot in this episode that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it was all a dream, so I won’t waste time on it. I mean the other night I had a dream where I was attending Degrassi Community School while also being one of Catherine of Aragon’s ladies-in-waiting. THAT doesn’t make sense. It was great, everyone thought I was really boring and plain, but they invited me to court because I knew how to fix instruments. And for some reason Burt Chance from Raising Hope was also there.

Discussion Topics: Any of you ever have really weird dreams like mine, or like Cory’s? Have you ever felt like you’ve gone back in time as a result of faulty wiring? Are any of you old enough to remember when laptops were several inches thick? Have any of you ever been accused of being a Russian spy, or have you accused anyone else of being one?

Random fact: My textbook for Spanish I or Spanish II included a set of vocabulary words for kitchen gadgets – like refrigerator, sink, toaster, and microwave. The example sentence for microwave translated to something like “The microwave is great new invention!” The odd thing is, as I pointed out, the microwave was invented in the 1940s and became commercially available for homes in the 60s.

So obviously when I was taking Spanish in about 2007 the microwave oven wasn’t really a “new” invention. But the really weird thing is, it wasn’t even new when the textbook came out.

That’s the problem with textbooks. College textbooks, they release new editions every 5 months and you HAVE to have the new one even though all they usually do is rearrange chapters sometimes. In lower education, they NEVER give you new textbooks ever, so you have cases like my Spanish textbook, which in addition to the microwave thing also prominently featured a photo of 80s band Menudo.

Again, we were using this textbook in about 2006 or 2007. The Menudo thing wasn’t even in the context of like “Here’s this formerly popular band of all Hispanic boys”, it was like “Look at this hip, fresh, totally new band because this textbook was written in 1989.”

Also featured in that Spanish textbook: Floppy disks and audio- and video-cassette tapes. Which weren’t totally outdated back then… well, except the audio-cassette tapes, even if you didn’t have an mp3 player then you definitely were using CDs at least.

Am I the only tv recap blog that will talk about outdated textbooks and microwave ovens at length?

Oh yeah I think the bit about the sock hop at the beginning of the episode was just to… hm… I was going to say it was probably so there was something 50s-themed in Cory’s mind for his dream, but he already had the Sputnik thing. I guess maybe it was just there for Topanga to tell Cory to move on and then have Cory… not move on.

“Bottled Up” February 15, 1988

Kathleen is excited because she “made the team!” But her mom is passed out on the couch.

Kathleen’s mom is a drunk. Her dad calls right then and Kathleen tells him she made the team for “Quest for the Best” and they’ll be taping the show in two days. But her dad can’t come. For some reason. Viewers of Degrassi: TNG may remember that Ellie had an alcoholic mother and an absent father as well. And of course there was a rather important plot line related to a school quiz show, but this episode’s quiz show isn’t nearly as dramatic as that one.

So it turns out Caitlin, Nancy, and Black Kid Whose Name I Don’t Know are all also on the team. Nancy quizzes Kathleen: “What is J. D. Salinger’s best-known book?” What kind of question is that? I mean, most of his works aren’t all that well-known, but that’s just not a good question because it can pretty subjective. I mean, what if the question was “What is the most well-known chicken breed?” You could answer anything.

Well anyway, Ms. Avery gave Nancy packets of practice questions to hand out to the other kids in the group even though Caitlin and Kathleen were just in Ms. Avery’s class. They talk about how their parents are coing and are going to be embarrassing. Kathleen says her mom is going to buy her a new outfit for the show. Caitlin, annoyed, points out no one will see it under her school sweater.

Sort of like how people have to get dressed up when they graduate even though no one will see their outfit under the black trashbags graduation gowns.

Scooter and some kid are discussing Dungeons and Dragons. Arthur and Yick have the nerve to call them nerds. Scooter and the other kid are rightly offended, because if a nerd thinks you’re being too nerdy, well, that’s it, then. They see Rick and resolve to be cool like he is. I would start by wearing longer shorts. Seriously even Stephanie would call those white shorts TOO short. Also I could see the outline of his underwear as he was walking away. His underwear, as you can imagine, is very small as well.

The quiz bowl nerds are quizzing each other in the library. It’s Nancy’s turn to answer a question but Kathleen knows the answer. Nancy still answers, then it’s Kathleen’s turn. Her question is “Is alcohol a stimulant or a depressant?” This hits close to home, so Kathleen answers correctly that it’s a depressant. Black Kid says alcohol sure stimulates his parents sometimes, IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN, and Nancy says her parents are the same.

Kathleen says drinking is stupid and she’ll never drink. The other kids just roll their eyes at Kathleen being so… Kathleen.

Later/meanwhile, Scooter and Short Shorts realize that Rick smokes. They decide to smoke too, although Scooter says smoking is bad for you.

Meanwhiler, Ms. Avery hands the Quiz Bowl nerds a tape of last years whatever event it actually is. But the school’s VCR is broken, Black Kid and Nancy don’t have VCRs, and Caitlin’s family has company over. Kathleen tells them they can’t watch it at her house either, claiming that her mom isn’t feeling well. Caitlin tells her they’ll be quiet so it’s not a big deal. So, like, if they’re going to be quiet anyway, why can’t they just watch it at Caitlin’s place? I’m sure her company would understand. Plus I think if someone in my group was protesting that much against people coming to her house, I would be suspicious that something was up that she just didn’t want to talk about.

But they decide to go to her house in the end. Sure hope her drunken mom doesn’t embarrass everyone!

Later, Scooter and Short Shorts – who I know is wearing long jeans but his nickname is Short Shorts forever now – go into a pizza parlor to buy cigarettes out of a vending machine while the employees have their backs turned. The machine eats Short Short’s money and the racket he makes alerts one of the employees that there’s two minors trying to purchase smokes. They run away.

Quiz Nerds get to Kathleen’s house. Black Kid comments that the place is a big mess, and Nancy snidely remarks that it must be the maid’s week off. Like, wow, okay, that’s super rude. I mean Kathleen didn’t know she’d be having company, and she did say her mom isn’t feeling well – which is what she tells the nerds again.

Then her mom comes down the stairs, drink in hand. Kathleen tells her mom that they’re studying for the Quest for the Best thing and asks her to please go back upstairs and rest. But no, she wants to socialize. “If they’re so smart,” she says, “why don’t they say anything?!”

The nerds look around awkwardly, perhaps realizing why it was Kathleen didn’t want them over at her house. Kathleen’s mom goes on to say that she used to be smart like them, but then she got married. Kathleen begs her mom to leave, but Kathleen’s mom – who incidentally sounds a like like Lily Tomlin – just keeps saying she wants to stay and talk. The other three kids jump up and are like “Actually, we better just go. Bye, Kathleen.”

Kathleen’s mom asks her to turn down the tv because she’s got a headache, but instead Kathleen runs upstairs to cry.

The next day, Short Shorts it turns out bummed two cigarettes from his dad. Scooter and Shorts try to smoke the cigarettes in the boy’s bathroom after school. There’s a lot of coughing and regret.

Caitlin asks Kathleen straight out if her mom is an alcoholic, reminding her that they learned in Family Health class that there’s some center kids can call that helps deal with alcoholic parents. Kathleen still says her mom isn’t an alcoholic and tells Caitlin to butt out.

Later, the Brain Quest thing is about to start. But Kathleen forgot her sweater! But it’s okay, she says she’ll just call her mom and ask her to bring it when she comes to the show’s taping. While she’s using the office phone – since this is 1988 and only Frasier Crane and Zach Morris had cell phones at this point – Rick and some other kid, who look like huge nerds in their school sweaters, try to buy tickets to the show. But it’s sold out. Rick is bummed, since he was going to take Caitlin out for a cheeseburger after the show. Luckily, Scooter and Shorts feel really ill after smoking, so they give their tickets to Rick and the other kid.

At the actual taping, Kathleen’s mom still hasn’t shown up, but the show’s about to start. So Rick, surprisingly, gives her his sweater so they won’t look so foolish.

They end up winning, and no one got paint dumped on them, angering them enough to bring a gun to school! Small victories! Oh I just made myself sad, there have been so many school shootings this year.

Well anyway, Kathleen’s mom STILL isn’t there, and Rick offers to walk her home, since it’s late, and apparently Kathleen can’t just ask Ms. Avery or someone to give her a ride home and I guess Rick doesn’t care about his date.

Kathleen is a full head taller than Rick.

Rick asks about Kathleen’s relationship with her mom. She says they get along great. Rick asks, “Even though she’s an alcoholic?” This enrages Kathleen. She asks where Rick heard such a vicious rumor. Rick flares up back at her – “Nobody’s parents are perfect!” Remember, his dad beat him pretty good, so he knows what he’s talking about. He tells Kathleen as much and asks if she’s considered getting help.

Kathleen’s mom forgot the taping was that night, because she was just so tired. She’ll be there the next time, she says. Kathleen snaps and says, “No you won’t!” Kathleen really goes off on her mom, about how she never takes care of Kathleen even though she’s just 13, and she’s a drunk. Kathleen’s mom says SHE’S not the one who just walked in, causing problems. Kathleen is like “I’m not the one who’s causing the problems!” Kathleen’s mom slaps Kathleen. Kathleen goes upstairs to cry.

At school the next day, Caitlin apologizes to Rick for her dumb parents. I guess they wouldn’t let her go out with him. Kathleen gives Rick his sweater back and thanks him for walking her home. Caitlin’s like “???” and Kathleen gets all smug. Then she says she’s looking into getting help for dealing with her mom. It’s not much, but it’s a start, she says.

I wonder if Rick hadn’t just disappeared without a trace on this show if Caitlin and Kathleen would’ve grown to have a rivalry for his affections.

And haha I just realized Degrassi Junior High’s and Degrassi The Next Generation’s quiz show episodes both involve Rick saving the day in some way. Although in DTNG Rick also sort of ruined things in the end, but we’ll get to that later. Probably.

“Sealed with a Kiss” February 22, 1988

There’s some dance coming up that’s being held with some other school. One of the twins is excited to dance with some fresh boys. The other twin calls her a sex maniac. The short-haired twin goes to the office to get something, and Doris, the receptionist, scolds her for not turning in her late slip. Whichever twin is like “No I didn’t, I’m never late.” Doris scolds her again for pulling the old “twin switcheroo”. Apparently both of them actually have short hair now, so my initial argument of “But their hair isn’t even the same length!” doesn’t work anymore. The one twin’s hair is like one inch longer, though.

After class, the twins gossip about Alexa and Simon. Shorter-haired twin wonders if they’ve like REALLY kissed, and the other twin thinks kissing is gross because of all the diseases and stuff. They find Stephanie in the bathroom and ask her if she’s going to the dance. Steph’s just like “No,” and when they point out her shirt is untucked in the back she just shrugs sadly. The twins then gossip about Stephanie’s home life, and point out she’s been acting really weird lately.

Erika, who’s the shorter-haired twin I’ve finally found out, is picking out a dress for the dance. Then Heather, the other twin comes in.

They have the same dress.

Joey, Snake, and Wheels – who doesn’t need tutoring anymore apparently – are really annoyed that all the Degrassi girls are getting picked up by the boys from the other school.

Erika goes off into the stairwell with Some Boy, and complains about being a twin. Boy I’m sure there’s a lot of 14 year old boys who really care about the woes of some girl he just met at a dance. I’m pretty sure this particular boy doesn’t because he’s just like “You know what? You’re beautiful” and they start making out.

Alexa and Heather spot them and Heather, the prudish twin, is scandalized.

That night, Erika’s gushing about the night. They French kissed. They’re going to start dating. Heather’s just like “Ewwwww” and Erika’s all “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Heather points out that Erika’s only 6 minutes older, but Erika says it still makes a difference. She’s mature, and romantic, while Heather is dull and boring. Heather retorts, “At least I’m not easy.” This angers Erika, who yells at Heather and throws a pillow at her. Then their dad yells at them to go to sleep through his very thick Canadian accent.

At school, Joey tells the other Zits about this awesome dream he had where they were playing their one song in front of a fanatical audience. Snake and Wheels don’t react much and walk away. Joey picks up on their lack of enthusiasm, but Snake says there’s nothing wrong.

Erika has a sore throat so she’s wearing a silk scarf, since silk is good for a sore throat. I don’t know about that, but apparently wearing a scarf is actually a decent remedy for a sore throat – you know, on top of medicine and soothing beverages.

Also I think this episode is the official start of “Heather and Erika only ever wear black and white clothing.” It’s something I noticed around the third time I watched Degrassi, and they seriously pretty much only wear black and white clothing for almost the entire series. It’s weird.

Erika gushes to Alexa about how awesome that boy was. Apparently he’s super rich and his family has four cars. Man, Jimmy on DTNG didn’t even have that many.

Raditch is lecturing on diabetes. What class is this?? Well, before everyone leaves at the end of class, he says not everyone has a partner for the health project, so he pairs up Heather and Erika, and Alexa and Stephanie. How did it happen that 4 people weren’t assigned partners or a topic, and ONLY four people?

Well, Erika doesn’t want to be with her twin right now and says she’ll take Alexa, and Heather agrees to take Stephanie. Raditch is like “…Okay…” and asks them who wants smoking and who wants mononucleosis. Alexa says they’ll take mono, saying “I love diseases.” Raditch then says, “Okay. Now everyone has a disease.”

I swear, they actually said those things. I didn’t make those last two quotes up.

Heather complains about Erika while Steph tries to work on the project. Steph’s like “Okay I don’t care, let’s work on the project.” Heather apologizes, then Stephanie apologizes. Stephanie looks like a Yorkshire Terrier.

Meanwhile, Alexa reads out the symptoms of mono. Erika then complains about being really hot and she realizes she’s got lumps in her throat. Alexa then realizes that Erika has mono.

But at least he didn’t give Erika AIDs, says Alexa. That’s a good point, I guess. Erika doesn’t know what she’s going to tell her parents. Well, even though it’s called “the kissing disease”, mono can spread through mucus as well as saliva – and tears, oddly enough – so Erika could always lie and say someone with mono sneezed on her or something. And apparently it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the symptoms of mono to become active, so it probably wasn’t that guy that gave her mono in the first place unless that dance was seriously a month ago.

Snake’s too tall.

They finish playing “Everybody Wants Something” and Snake says he has to leave. Joey’s all “How are we ever gonna get famous if we don’t practice?” Snake says, “Famous? Tch.” Wheels suggests they go get a burger or something, since they can’t practice with just the two of them. They totally could, but whatever. Joey complains that they finally get Wheels back and now Snake doesn’t want anything to do with the band.

Erika’s boyfriend, whose name is Eric for crying out loud, shows up, wanting to give Erika a ride in his dad’s convertible. Erika’s sick and is really angry at Eric for giving her mono, so she tells Heather to brush him off. When Heather goes to tell Eric this, Eric’s like “Well, why don’t you come? It’s basically the same as taking Erika since you’re twins.” Heather isn’t sure about it, but when Eric’s like “Erika told me you were a prude” she decides to go with him.

They drive off to the middle of nowhere and Eric lowers the top. He asks her what she thinks of being a twin. She doesn’t mind it. Eric’s like “I bet people think you’re interchangeable.” Considering he mistook Heather for Erika twice and invited her to go on a ride with him because “it’s basically the same” as taking Erika, he’s sure one to talk about people thinking they’re interchangeable.

That seagull on the right side cracked me up way harder than it should have. It just walked into shot, disappeared for a bit behind Heather’s head, then showed up again on the other side. “YES HELLO I AM SEAGULL AND I WOULD LIKE TO STAR IN YOUR DEGRASSI SHOW.”

Eric tries to pull Heather in for a kiss, but Heather doesn’t think they should. But then they kiss anyway.

Snake finds Joey and Wheels at the burger joint. He confesses that his mom has been making him take classical guitar lessons twice a week after school. He likes the lessons, but Joey and Wheels are upset. When will the Zit Remedy practice?! Apparently the 5 other days in the week are unavailable for them to practice.

By the way, Snake means classical guitar as in Classical Music, not as in Jimi Hendrix.

Eric drops Heather off at home, and Heather storms out. He says maybe he’ll call her sometime, then follows this with “Maybe all three of us can go out!” Haha gross. Heather calls him a creep.

Erika’s all mad at Heather, and Heather confesses that Eric kissed her. She didn’t want to kiss him, but still says she’s sore-y. Erika tells her she’ll be a lot more sore-y, since he’s been spreading mono.

It turns out Erika actually only has tonsillitis. Heather tells her to look on the bright side, if she gets her tonsils out, they’ll finally be really different. They were pretty different when only one had short hair, but whatever.

Also apparently that guy’s name was Aaron, not Eric. I thought that was weird, that they’d have someone named Eric dating Erika and no one commented on it. But it really sounded like they called him Eric earlier. Oh well.

But anyway, Erika only having Tonsillitis explains why she got the symptoms so soon after kissing Aaron. Stephanie’s plot line is still mysterious and unresolved. AND WHAT GRADE DID EVERYONE GET ON THEIR HEALTH PROJECTS???

So on the website that I totally don’t stream this show illegally from, the title is “Girl Meets Brother”. Both titles are terrible. According to imdb, “Girl Meets Brother” is supposed to be the season finale.

Also according to imdb, the next episode is about Riley learning to be herself. Which was the plot of the pilot. And also dumb because Riley still doesn’t really have any personality. Besides liking Lucas and being dumb, as I pointed out in the last episode.

We start with a class production of Romeo and Juliet. Of course, Lucas is Romeo and Riley is Juliet. Farkle objects to Lucas going to kiss Riley, as happens in the play, so he’s all “I thinkest not!” He’s playing the spear-carrier, which I don’t believe is a part that’s even really in the play, and certainly not in the catacombs scene at the end. Why would there be any sort of guardsman just hanging out in the tomb for no reason? Farkle asks the audience if they think he should be the one who kisses Juliet/Riley, and they all applaud, and then he calls Maya up on stage.

It’s a little early to go on a tangent, but UGGGH ROMEO AND JULIET. I mentioned long, long ago that I appreciated that Feeny had the class study Hamlet for a change of pace. Because seriously, like every single other tv show that features kids in school, they just HAVE to do Romeo and Juliet. I guess GMW gets a bonus for just jumping in with them already doing the play, and not the whole thing with auditions and stuff. But that’s still weird. That’s always weird when these shows have productions of Romeo and Juliet and the one character is freaking out about the kiss at the end on opening night, like they didn’t already rehearse the play. Plus the fact that Romeo and Juliet do kiss about three times before the “thus with a kiss I die” scene. Hey Arnold is the only show I think has an excuse for any of this – the final Juliet, Helga, was like the fifth understudy and had been systematically getting the other girls to drop out of the play until the night before the show opened, so she wouldn’t have had any rehearsal time anyway. And it also seemed to me like they were doing a highlight reel of the play rather than the whole thing anyway.

But just UGGGH.

After the play, in the hallway for some reason, Lucas, Riley, Maya, and Farkle come out to applause. I guess they were the only people in the play. Oh and no one actually applauds for Farkle. Riley tells him he was great, even though he was terrible. Honestly I don’t know what he did wrong besides disrupting the play. His character probably wasn’t supposed to be in that scene anyway, so… Plus, he didn’t do anything worse than Maya, who wasn’t even supposed to be in the play at all.

Maya chastises Riley for lying. And oh look what today’s lesson is.

What class is this??

Cory talks about how people through history were prosecuted for telling the truth. And then the class ends. Very short lesson.

Maya has a gold locket. Riley keeps asking where she got it, and she keeps changing the story, partly because Riley keeps asking. Maya at one point says she got it in France. Riley says that can’t be true because if it were, Maya would’ve brought her back a croissant. Maya happens to have a chocolate croissant in her jacket.

Riley comments that it’s “piping hot.” That really ought to concern her, that a croissant that made a 9 hour flight is still as hot as if it came out of the oven. Also that Maya’s too poor to have a phone or anyone to check her homework somehow made a round-trip flight to France.

It turns out Maya found the croissant on the street anyway. By the way, the chocolate croissant in Innoventions Plaza in Epcot are my favorites.

Riley keeps hounding Maya for information, and Maya says she’ll tell the truth if Riley tells the the truth about how she feels Farkle did in the play.

Commercial break!

We come back to Riley asking her dad if it’s okay to tell a little white lie to spare someone’s feelings. Cory says no. Okay.

Then Topanga brings him his dinner. She says it’s chicken but he’s freaking out and doesn’t want to eat it. It looks like it’s just a Cornish game hen with some odd garnishings, I don’t get the big deal. But Topanga and Riley are like “Eat it, and tell the truth about how it tastes!” This is a really terrible parallel to Riley’s situation, if it’s supposed to be one.

Cory eats it, and says he knows how the chicken died – it died of eating this chicken.

I wish this were an audio review so you could hear my exasperated pauses after I tell you this stuff.

Auggie tells Cory that sometimes, when there’s stuff he doesn’t want to eat, Topanga feeds it to him with the “airplane” trick. This kid is five years old and Topanga’s still doing the “airplane” thing? I’m not expert, but that seems a bit old to me. Also Auggie is eating spaghetti and meatballs while everyone else is having chicken, so…???

Maya, being pursued by a crafty pigeon (yes, seriously), climbs into Riley’s window. Riley immediately asks where she got the locket, and even says this time that she hopes she didn’t steal it. Maya says she got it out of a lost and found box. Some store she walks by every day had the locket in their lost and found box for months and she thought it wasn’t fair that someone would just go and lose something so beautiful, so she took it. It looks like it came out of a gumball machine, but okay.

See?! Pigeon!

Maya thinks Riley is ridiculous for lying to Farkle but not accepting a lie from Maya. Riley says something about fungusy shower shoes, and then says she thinks Maya’s a thief. Maya gets mad and leaves.

At school, Riley starts to tell Maya something but Maya goes “I CAN’T HEAR YOU” and starts singing and dancing to pad out the show’s run time and then lets Riley talk. Riley tells Maya that the locket doesn’t belong to her, and she’s a thief, and she’s upsetting the universe.

How?

I’d understand if there was anything going on that was wacky and unusual to make Riley think that, but Maya having that locket has had no effect on anything. I mean, I guess technically Maya’s a thief, but she said that thing had been in the lost and found for months. I’m sure its original owner is probably no longer looking for it, and in a month or two the store owner might’ve just donated the thing to Goodwill, or pawned it, anyway.

Cory observes Riley saying “sooner or later, the truth will come out”, which is what he said earlier during his one minute lecture on the truth.

Maya then again points out Riley lying to Farkle, but Riley doesn’t think her little lie is upsetting the universe at all. Funny, I don’t see how Maya’s locket is upsetting the universe, either.

Farkle then enters the scene, announcing he’s quit the chess club because he’s an ACTOR, and he says the chemistry club are losers.

Topanga’s reading a “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” book, by the way.

But Cory’s like “Look at all these chicken recipes! With pictures!” and he reads a bunch of recipe titles out and Topanga goes “And your point?”

Cory pulls out Auggie’s dinosaur book and tells Topanga the chicken she cooked was actually a pterodactyl. He reads off a bunch of facts about pterodactyls and this whole scene is WAY too long for how stupid it is.

Long story short, Topanga locks Cory out of the apartment.

Cory tells Riley he doesn’t know anything about the universe. Riley says the universe is all upside down: she lies to Farkle, he loves her, she lies to Maya, she’s out the window. Erm… okay? It’s not like Farkle fell in love with Riley because she lied to him, he already liked her. And Maya’s already gotten mad at Riley about things before, so…?

None of the points on this show ever make any sense.

Maya shows up just then, and Cory compliments her on the locket. Riley’s all “It looks like SOMEBODY ELSE’S expensive gold locket!” Cory says “Well the funny thing about lockets is it’s usually what’s on the inside that matters to someone.” Ooooh, good one.

Cory goes to leave but Topanga’s standing in front of the door. He closes it and goes out Riley’s window.

Then Maya opens the locket.

They don’t know who that family is, but Maya’s keeping the locket.

…

Cory comes back.

Riley asks Cory if maybe it was wrong to lie to Farkle but okay for Maya to keep the locket.

No. No, look. Okay, first of all, I don’t think Farkle did terrible in the play either. Lucas sure didn’t do well. Not one person kept in-character. And it’s not Riley’s fault that Farkle took her praise to heart and decided to quit all his hobbies to get into acting. Maybe he just really likes acting. And sure he wasn’t great or professional or anything, but he’s like 12. He’ll improve over time, especially if he takes acting classes or stars on a sitcom where he’s one of the most entertaining characters, certainly more entertaining than the main character.

Ahem.

Auggie comes in with a plate of spaghetti, offering it to Cory. It’s cold, and they refer to it as “cold sgetti”. Auggie apologizes for it, but Cory says the fact that he went to the trouble at all is good enough for him. Auggie then says “You said that very nice. Why didn’t you say it that way to mom?”

Well… good job, Auggie. Points for you!

Cory, Riley, and Maya are all like “Wait so you’re saying it’s not about telling the truth, it’s about how you treat someone?” They praise Auggie for his philosophical depth. Auggie then says “Do you people realize that I’m only this many?”

Yeah I’m taking all those points back.

Farkle’s dead. He auditioned for the next play, and he was so bad he’s not even allowed to watch the play. He blames Riley for building up his confidence falsely. Riley apologizes, but says it was just because she cares so much for him she didn’t want to hurt him. Farkle’s cool with that so he makes out with her chin.

You read that right.

Maya’s all “Haha your first kiss was with Farkle!” Riley’s all “No, it doesn’t count!” which I don’t think it does, since their lips didn’t touch. Lucas then appears out of nowhere, reciting that one monologue – the “Eyes, look your last” one. Riley jumps up to be dead on the thing so they can kiss or whatever, but Lucas cuts off partway through, saying he saw the whole thing with Farkle.

He’s mad at Farkle for “stealing him moment” and Riley’s like “Your moment??” Riley’s hoping he’ll kiss her. But Lucas doesn’t, saying “My moment will be my moment.” Good. Having your first kiss on an empty cardboard set with your friend watching would be weird.

Haha speaking of, poor Candace Cameron (D.J. on Full House) had her first kiss on the show. I’d be so mortified if it were me.

So, later, Maya is convinced to return the locket to the lost and found box at the store. Surprisingly, the family pictured in the locket is just randomly standing in the subway.

Look at the sweatshirt on that guy on the stairs. I want it.

Yeah, they’re just standing there, not looking for anything or waiting for a train or anything. So Maya gives the locket back. Yaay I guess. Riley declares that all is right with the universe now, which would be a more profound statement if literally anything had happened to indicate the universe was objecting to Maya having the locket.

Cory tells Topanga it doesn’t matter what she makes for dinner, all that matters is that she’s there with him, and that’s the truth.

The only good thing about this episode was the pigeon. Also, despite my utter hatred for Auggie, I have to admit, he has some AWESOME pajamas. Like you know Ms. Frizzle from The Magic Schoolbus? Think her dresses, but in onesie pajamas form.

Also I guess it was nice to see Cory and Topanga more involved with the plot, even though Topanga still doesn’t do anything and Cory’s just insane.

I think Riley was overreacting to Maya keeping the locket. I mean, at first it was okay, because she was just worried Maya had started stealing. But then Riley just got really annoying by constantly saying the universe was out of whack (again, there was NOTHING that really indicated it was, aside from maybe the pigeon – which by the way had more on-screen charisma than Lucas). It’d be one thing if Riley had been more clearly saying these things because she genuinely felt it was wrong, but it came off more like she wanted Maya to give the locket back because her dad said “the truth will come out” which doesn’t even make sense when it comes to pilfering the lost and found box.

I’m also getting really tired of every episode ending with Maya revealing how poor and sad she is. In THIS episode she reveals that her dad hasn’t sent her anything in a long time.

I don’t know if Maya is getting the stronger bits because she has the better actress, or if Riley’s parts are falling flat because of the writing rather than the actress, but whatever the case, it’s definitely a problem that is apparent to MANY viewers, that Riley is just not a great main character. And, again, that pigeon had more charisma than Lucas did in this episode, although to be fair, I have developed a fondness for pigeons recently (apparently they actually have an extraordinary reasoning ability, despite being so stupid).

By the way, I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but Maya has some fabulously stylish clothes for apparently being sad and poor. I’m not saying she should be wearing a burlap sack to school, but I’m actually offended she’s better dressed than I am.

Final show notes: Farkle and Riley have better chemistry together than Riley and Lucas do, and Maya and Lucas have WAY better chemistry than anyone else does. Interesting.

Discussion: What if Riley was the bad girl and Maya was the straight-laced, boring friend? That would make things a bit shaken up from Boy Meets World, and would allow for at least one scene where Maya would chew out Riley for acting like a little punk even though she has two nice parents and a nice, loving home.

Shawn is calling the answering machine at Turner’s house to check to see if his dad called. I was going to make some crack about how in the 90s you had to actually call an external machine to check your messages… but these days even though you can access your messages from your cell phone, you do still have to call a different number to listen to them.

Shawn and Turner are going apartment hunting for some reason. Shawn doesn’t like any of the apartments they’ve looked for. He doesn’t understand why they have to move to begin with. I’m with him.

He points out that they also have nice neighbors there. In comes Eli, escaping from the lecherous eye of Ms. Dubcek.

If only it made any sense for it to be THAT Ms. Dubcek.

At school, Feeny compliments Eric on his newly reenergized self. But he got a D on his paper. Why are they still turning in papers even though they had final exams already??

Feeny then suggest tutoring. The last time Eric was tutored it didn’t end so well, but it turns out Feeny means for Eric to be a tutor. There’s some dumb jock that needs a C average to get into college, and if Eric can work on him, he’ll get extra credit.

Meanwhile, Shawn doesn’t want to go apartment hunting because he moved around so much as a kid. This is the first we’re hearing about that. But okay.

Later(?), Eli is sampling Turner’s duck, which I intentionally phrased to sound vaguely dirty. No, Turner made duck a l’orange, but Eli says it tastes weird and wonders if he used Tang. Turner yells at him for eating so much of it. They’re such a cute couple.

Eli asks what got into Turner’s grits, and Turner says he’s just excited because in 48 hours he becomes Shawn’s legal guardian. Shawn comes in then, Eli leaves, and Turner reveals he has a date that night. I’m sure that date will only lead to wonderful things for Turner and we’ll be seeing his date so often after this we’ll all get sick of her.

Shawn goes through the mail, finding a letter from his dad, who’s at a truck stop outside Reading, which some of you may best know as the name of one of the railroads in Monopoly. Shawn throws out the letter without reading it, being upset that his dad is 50 miles away and didn’t bother to come visit Shawn.

Also Turner mentions that he’ll officially be Shawn’s legal guardian in two days. Shawn’s confused because he thought Turner took care of that stuff months ago. Turner explains that he got the paper work but didn’t get around to filling it out. Shawn’s all “Didn’t ‘get around to it’?” Then Shawn leaves in a huff for like the third time in 7 minutes.

The guy Eric’s tutoring doesn’t know the name of the king who came before Louis XIV (it was Louis XIII). Maybe the study session would work better if they weren’t in a burger joint but were in a library or something.

Shawn shows up and tells Cory to go with him to visit his dad. Shawn stole Turner’s bike. Shawn says “What’s the worst that can happen?” Shawn gets arrested.

I accidentally wrote a children’s book there.

So Turner bails him out and scolds him. The gist of their argument is that since Shawn has been reluctant to help Turner look for a bigger apartment, and Turner has been putting off taking care of the guardianship papers, they were both secretly hoping their living arrangements wouldn’t be permanent.

So Shawn decides to move in with his Uncle Mike and asks to store his stuff at the Matthews home.

Eric’s upset at how stupid that kid is. The one he’s tutoring, not Shawn. He’s especially p.o.’ed that a kid that dumb has 20 colleges climbing over each other to get him but Eric can’t even get into one. Eric also casually drops some obscure history knowledge so I think perhaps this was all a ploy of Feeny’s to get Eric to learn so he does well on his paper.

Cory tells Alan about Shawn and long story short he decides to go find Shawn’s dad to convince him to come back himself.

This lady thinks Cory would make a wonderful boyfriend. Topanga, who came with Cory for some reason, drags the lady outside to “chat.”

Wherever they are, there’s a sign that says “fluffy pancakes with bacon” which is all anyone should ever want in life.

Cory finds Chet (Shawn’s dad) and tells him that Shawn needs Chet to come back. Chet thinks Shawn is doing fine without him, actually even better than he had been doing. Cory’s like “But you’re his father!” Chet says he loves Shawn, but he’s just not what Shawn needs right now. Now that’s responsible parenting. Recognizing that even though you’re immediate family, sometimes you aren’t the best person to be taking care of your kid.

Topanga and the lady come back, now friends, and the lady tells Topanga if she teases her hair she could probably be six feet tall. Topanga’s got a good two feet of hair so the lady’s not wrong.

Eric tries to talk to Feeny before he grades the mid-terms about – wait, MID-TERMS?? Don’t they usually take mid-terms in the, you know, middle of the term? Didn’t they just take finals like two episodes ago? And it’s almost the end of the school year anyway. I can’t even justify this at all.

Well, anyway, Eric wanted to talk to Feeny about that kid he was tutoring, but Feeny already graded the mid-terms. Eric still tries talking to him, saying Feeny knows how hard it can be to teach someone who doesn’t want to be taught.

But the kid actually got a C+ on the mid-term anyway. Good job, Eric! And Eric got an A. Eric’s very pleased, and also realizes this must’ve been Feeny’s plan all along, to get him to teach himself. I don’t know if I should be pleased that Eric and I both figured that out.

Uncle Mike’s trailer was gone so Shawn slept in the park. A cop found him and brought him to the police station, where they called Chet, I guess. Chet says he got close to finding Shawn’s mom a couple times but she dove off a river boat at one point. He’s pretty much given up on her – “If she wanted to be caught, I would’ve caught her by now.”

Shawn makes his case that he wants to stay with his dad – Shawn needs Chet, and Chet needs Shawn. Chet’s still not sure, because Turner’s such a good influence, but they decide to live together again anyway. Turner shows up, having bailed out Shawn, and he’s pretty okay with the situation.

What a weird and emotionless ending.

Turner and Shawn didn’t really do much together anyway, so I guess no big loss.