TV Review: Girl Meets World (2×16) “Girl Meets Cory and Topanga”

The Apartment Matthews: Riley walks into the kitchen around midnight, pretending to sleepwalk so that she can eat cold pasta in front of her parents. When she asks what the Parents Matthews are up to, she discovers that Topanga is trying to protect the city from the clutches of yet another fast food conglomerate, while Cory is grading essays and shaping young minds. Thus begins an episode driven by Riley’s inferiority complex when it comes to her parents.

Cory’s class: this week’s lesson is about Magellan and how people in his time would avoid going outside because they thought the world was flat. Cory asks his students to write something they think is an impossibility on a piece of paper, then crumple up the paper and toss it in the recycling bin. Their assignment: challenge their impossibility. Farkle’s was becoming an athlete, so now he has to try sports. Riley’s is being as good as Cory and Topanga, which Cory doesn’t really have a response for.

Riley goes to a bunch of nuns in order to become one of them. “I’d like to renounce all my worldly possessions but keep all my stuff,” she says, requesting that her name become Sister Riley of Perpetual Bleh. They already have one, so now she’s Blinky. The nuns explain to her that human beings can’t achieve worldly perfection–only one has come close. That person is Topanga, who just saved her orphanage. The nuns turn their sympathy on Riley for having Topanga to live up to.

Next, Riley attempts to join the circus. WHY CLOWNS WHY. Jingle the Clown tells of a teacher who takes time out of his own life to enrich the minds of his fellow clowns. When it’s revealed to be Cory, Jingle extends his sympathies to Riley.

Riley’s Window: after Maya makes the argument that Riley’s parents can’t always have been perfect, Riley instructs her to concentrate hard on her parents’ stories to see for themselves. They first explore the memory of Cory teaching Topanga to shoot socks into a laundry basket, then the one of Topanga drawing on her face in lipstick. She learns that both of them were as weird as she is, and that she’s a unique combination of the two.

Farkle attempts to become a better athlete using physics. “Don’t you mess up America’s favorite thing with America’s least favorite thing!” Lucas exclaims, horrified at the idea. What follows is a montage that echoes Danny Zuko trying to find what sport to play in Grease. In the end, Farkle helps Lucas enhance his game with the power of science and learns that it’s the fun that counts.

I didn’t love this episode of Girl Meets World, but it was fairly innocuous. I’m not a fan of when we put Cory and Topanga on a pedestal, and Riley spent the entire episode talking about how perfect the two of them were. Diving into the past was an interesting concept to explore, though I’m not sure how successful they were.

Boy Meets World Throwback Factor: High, considering we saw two scenes ripped directly out of Boy Meets World seasons one and two.

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Episode Rating: 6/10.

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