Cory and Shawn are at a park, where everything Cory sees reminds him of Topanga. All he does is bitch for two minutes, including how Topanga rescued him from the monkey bars when they were kids. Shawn is supposed to be our comic relief, but he's got a whole lot to relieve here and it's not working for me. In particular, Cory explains that he was supposed to go to the new Van Gogh exhibit at an art museum with Topanga, but now she's gone with Angela instead.
Jump over to the exhibit with Topangela, and now everything reminds Topanga of Cory. Angela is our comic relief now, and, well, you know how that goes. The Lauren ordeal is brought up again by Topanga, who can't understand how you can kiss someone and have it "not mean anything." I think everyone has abandoned the "she kissed him" thing, since that would make this way too easy to resolve.
"How could it not mean anything? He kissed another girl. You don't kiss somebody and have it not mean anything."
That's great and all, except that in "A Kiss is More Than a Kiss" in season 3, Topanga explains that kissing isn't always meaningful. I know it's not the exact same situation, they were broken up in that episode in season 3, but specifically regarding the "is kissing always meaningful" thing, we're seeing some inconsistency.
And I know that later in season 6, Topanga and Shawn kiss while filming a commercial, and that time Cory is convinced that they must have felt something when they kissed, even after all of this stuff we're seeing now. Bleh. I'm sure I'll bring it up again when we get to that episode.
A guy we're supposed to think is attractive (even though I'd say Shawn, Jack, and Eric are all better looking) comes over to Topangela to try to make some panties drop. And I spoke too soon, Angela is actually very funny here.
The guy's name is Ricky, and apparently he remembers Topanga from his childhood, because that's the only romance story these writers know how to tell. Angela leaves them to their business, and Ricky drones on about some Van Gogh stuff and how Starry Night is his favorite painting. Ricpanga talk all day at this exhibit and he asks her out for dinner tomorrow night. So obviously we're trying to draw some parallels between this and The Lauren Event.
In perhaps her most confusing move yet, Topanga insists that she find out what Cory thinks of Starry Night before she goes out with Ricky. So she drags Cory out to the exhibit but he doesn't want to play along. "You don't reduce our relationship to what you think about me because of what I see in a painting."
That's just a polite way of saying "gurl dis some bull shit".
They argue about him kissing Lauren again, it's all the same exact stuff we've heard ten times already, and Topanga eventually just asks him again what he thinks about the painting. I can't adequately explain how uncomfortable this scene is. First of all, they were screaming at each other in an art museum. That's like launching fireworks in a library. And now Cory's interpretation of the painting feels so forced and he's managed to make it all about him and his situation. They bring God into it somehow, even though Van Gogh is quoted as saying "The Starry Night is not a return to the romantic or religious ideas." There are still a lot of experts that think this painting has religious undertones, and hey, art is open to interpretation so whatever, but that doesn't change how absurdly disgustingly forced this dialogue is. The actors don't seem comfortable at all and it's just awkward.
I think this is one of the worst scenes in the series. It's trying so hard to be profound, but the dialogue just ends up being word soup, it's a bunch of nonsense. Cory tells her "You'll know where I'll be" and heads for the exit.
We jump to Topanga on a date with Ricky, and he's talking about how he lived in Paris for a year and all this artsy stuff. He is clearly the perfect match for the version of Topanga that's been fabricated solely for this episode. It's funny, honestly, the writers must have been like "shit, Topanga's such a bland character, how can we write a male-Lauren for her when she's so boring?" So they decided that she would be into art for this episode. I think she shoulda called up Nunzio, at least then we could pretend her "I like dancing" phase was actually a real character trait. That's my new fanfiction. Topanga falls in love with Nunzio after breaking up with Cory and Nunzio goes with her to Yale. Hell, Angela is more interesting than Topanga just because we had to dig through her purse for a while. Whatever, I doubt Topanga will ever talk about art again after this episode. On that note, though, I do like the steps they've taken with Topanga on Girl Meets World.
After Ricky and Topanga kiss. it fades to black. At school the next day, Shawn is pretty angry at Angela for telling Topanga to go out with another guy.
Angela explains that Cory and Topanga are, in fact, broken up. She has the whole practical pragmatic understanding of the situation. This episode is far and away Angela's best showing to date. I'm actually going to say that she's the best character in this one. Funny and clever and reasonable, and Trina McGee is having fun with her lines, it's honestly a joy to watch. How bout that.
Just before Feeny's class begins, Shawn overhears Topanga tell Angela how amazing her date with Ricky was.
Cory is convinced that things are still going to work out. On the other side of the hall is the Topanga Dramatica Show. It's very long winded and it's supposed to get the viewer riled up, but the gist of it is that she felt nothing when she kissed Ricky, which made her realize that she's actually truly in love with Cory. The idea is that if she couldn't feel something for someone as "perfect" as Ricky, then she must truly love Cory. I didn't know that was ever even in question. Recall near the beginning when Topanga claims that you can't kiss someone and have it not mean anything, and now she has clearly seen that that can happen. That would make sense as a legitimate conclusion if they even bothered to mention it. But they didn't.
Like, how does this work? "I still love Cory, thus all the problems I had are null." When did she ever stop loving Cory? I just don't get it.
Topanga finds Cory at those same monkey bars he talked about at the beginning, Some nonsense happens, and she explains now that she understands kissing someone without feeling anything. Okay, so they did bring that up, that's good at least. Cory and Topanga kiss, and agree to "start over". If anyone out there is satisfied by all of this, then good for you, I'm glad this episode reached someone, but absolutely none of this means anything to me.
Plot: 0.25 - They tried to give Topanga a Lauren-story, and that sounds good in theory, but they had to invent a new personality for Topanga to do it, and that just immediately stops you from being interested at all.
Character Development: 0.25 - Cory and Topanga are back together. That dictates pretty much the rest of the series, so it's gotta be worth some points.
Humor: 0.25 - Angela and the brief interaction between Shawn and Cory.
Life Lesson: 0
0.75 out of 4.0. Definitely one of the lowest scores I've given. I hate this episode. None of the dialogue makes sense, Topanga is entirely fabricated, there's no Eric to make me laugh, and the resolution almost completely ignores all of the problems that led us here in the first place. It's garbage, but the writers were surely aware that they dug themselves into a hole with this story arc, and rather than having their main love interest split up, they decided to just shoehorn it back together and hope nobody asked too many questions.
Thanks for reading, see you Wednesday.
All images used under Fair Use.