S03.E06: Girl Meets Upstate

[Drogo]

Riley and Maya are headed upstate and they’ll meet a familiar face along the way.

[Spartan Girl]

The ten minutes of Cory and Shawn horsing around was better than the last 10 episodes.

"I'm Feeny!"

"No, I'm Feeny! You're Feeny's father!"

"CAPTAIN FEENY!"

Edited July 9, 2016 by Spartan Girl

[LexieLily]

I don't think it's good for a show aimed toward tweenagers to hit us over the head with the point that the only qualities that define Maya are her bad behavior and her bad grades and because Maya is now evolving she is somehow deficient as a person. And the implied message that (Cory) and Riley, the good influences, "messed up" Maya (and Shawn). Shawn, of all people, should know that's untrue. Cory, Amy and Alan, Turner, Feeny (!), told Shawn over and over again that he was always so much more than trailer park trash.

Cory and Shawn handshake!!

The Topanga/Katy friendship is forced only because we've literally never seen it onscreen. Same goes for Shawn/Katy's entire relationship. I buy that Shawn loves being a father figure to Maya only a little more than I believe Shawn has deep loving feelings for Katy, which isn't much. What I got from Shawn's proposal was Shawn using that reckless spontaneity Cory said defined him, that Shawn wants what Cory/Topanga have and wants a family badly that he is forcing himself into the role. Notice how Shawn put Maya first in who he loved, not Katy. Also, shame on the writers for reducing Shawn and Angela to "[Shawn] trying to love her because he thought he was supposed to]."

Edited July 9, 2016 by LexieLily

[TDT]

Well who didnt see that final scene coming.. *sarcasm* lol

Is that Carl Winslow appearing in next week's episode?

[Skyfall]

This should've been named Girl Meets Loud Ass Audience Cheering...

im kinda pissed most of their relationship was shown off camera. An episode with just them having at least the first date if not any date would've gone a long way.

[Primetimer]

A quest to end Maya's copycatting once and for all sends the girls to the forbidding wilderness of upstate New York, where their own personal Yoda awaits them in the form of an old fave from the Boy Meets World-iverse.

View the full article

[saylubee]

If there was even a scene where Shawn and Katy were sitting on the couch together with an arm around each other at the Matthews' place would have gone a long way.

Was it just me or did anyone think the reckless spontaneity that Shawn was going to have involved hooking up with Maya?  There was way too much sexual chemistry there for a faux-daddy/faux-daughter relationship.  It was getting kind of creepy to me.

I think that Lucas was going to pick Maya.  I'm pretty sure the only people who saw Maya as Riley were Maya and Riley.  And it looks like we get to look forward to more Riley and Lucas not dating-dating.  

Edited July 9, 2016 by Saytura

[Kromm]

As I said in the spoiler thread, this is just a nightmare of an episode. The art teacher and the stuff he says is the worst of it. The pretentious stuff this jackass is saying doesn't even make SENSE. And a girl is making life choices based on the total poo coming out of this man's mouth.

Don't even get me started on the whole "I can't be me if you aren't you" notion. I'm not sure what's worse. The celebration the show is doing of co-dependency, or the slap in the face it's giving to the idea that someone can evolve.

[Texasmom1970]

The only part I liked was Shawn and Cory, them wrestling was hilarious. Oh and Zay saying that he loved both the girls!

[blugirlami21]

Interesting episode.  There were lots of things I really liked and lots of things I really hated.  Anything to do with Shawn and Cory, I will always love and enjoy.  The flashbacks, they're epic love affair, their childhood handshake, I love all of it.  I love that Cory still thinks that Shawn is the best thing that ever happened to him.  I do think the flashbacks only accentuate how mediocre this spin off is but I digress.  As much as I love all that stuff I just mentioned, I still don't know who this show is aimed at.  The kids watching this show really wouldn't care about what they adults did or are doing.  They wouldn't care about the flashbacks or about Shawn's relationship with Angela.  I'm disappointed that the writers feel like they need to tear down Shawn and Angela's relationship in order to build up the nonexistent relationship between Shawn and Katy.  Whether they wound up together or not, Shawn and Angela loved each other.  I never once felt like he was with her because he wanted what Cory and Topanga had.

I feel like everything between Katy, Topanga, and Shawn was completely unearned.  All of a sudden Katy and Topanga are best friends?  Topanga has never seen Shawn's eyes light up before?  Not even when he was dating her college bff Angela?  Katy is a terrible mother by her own admission, I hate that its swept under the rug whenever Shawn comes around.  This situation reminds me of Jerry Maguire.  You should never be with someone because you love their kid, it never works out.  Its clear that Shawn loves Maya but I've seen very little evidence that he loves Katy to the same degree.  It's going to be a terrible message if the wedding actually takes place.

I also got the feeling that Lucas was going to pick Maya but unlike everyone else I never heard her say that she liked Lucas only because of Riley.  She said she needed to figure out if she liked him of her own volition.  I'm just tired of the triangle.  I too would have liked for the decision to cease with it to be Lucas'.  He never gets to say what he's feeling or what he wants.  I just feel like he's a bone that they girls can fight over and it's starting to be borderline sexist at this point which is also a terrible message.  Almost just as bad as the high school love triangle we had to witness in the premiere.

[TDT]

2 hours ago, Saytura said:

 

Was it just me or did anyone think the reckless spontaneity that Shawn was going to have involved hooking up with Maya?  There was way too much sexual chemistry there for a faux-daddy/faux-daughter relationship.  It was getting kind of creepy to me.

I

There's some slash-fiction out there about this very thing(part of the cringe-worthy stuff i mentioned in the spoiler thread)

[Kromm]

38 minutes ago, TDT said:

There's some slash-fiction out there about this very thing(part of the cringe-worthy stuff i mentioned in the spoiler thread)

Heh. Okay for a moment when I read "slash fiction" I assumed you meant a Riley/Maya romantic pairing. Of which I'm sure there's plenty of, but it's not what you meant here.

It's slightly off-topic, but I will say now that I've brought it up, that I'd never buy a Riley/Maya pairing, because while Riley could quite easily "read" as gay or bisexual, I don't get that read off Maya at all. Aside from "tough girl" lesbian cliches, there's zero there.

[TDT]

2 minutes ago, Kromm said:

Heh. Okay for a moment when I read "slash fiction" I assumed you meant a Riley/Maya romantic pairing. Of which I'm sure there's plenty of, but it's not what you meant here.

It's slightly off-topic, but I will say now that I've brought it up, that I'd never buy a Riley/Maya pairing, because while Riley could quite easily "read" as gay or bisexual, I don't get that read off Maya at all. Aside from "tough girl" lesbian cliches, there's zero there.

Yes thats exactly what i referred to,a Riley/Maya pairing.. and there also a Shawn/Maya one as well(writer had too much time on his/her hands writing it)

[Skyfall]

7 hours ago, Kromm said:

Heh. Okay for a moment when I read "slash fiction" I assumed you meant a Riley/Maya romantic pairing. Of which I'm sure there's plenty of, but it's not what you meant here.

It's slightly off-topic, but I will say now that I've brought it up, that I'd never buy a Riley/Maya pairing, because while Riley could quite easily "read" as gay or bisexual, I don't get that read off Maya at all. Aside from "tough girl" lesbian cliches, there's zero there.

I would and I'm totally on that ship. Just too many small things in scenes that goes beyond just friendship in my mind. Also there is the fact that I think both are trying way to hard to show that they like guys.

[Mabinogia]

I have defended this show for a long time. I loved it for it's fluffiness. But this episode was horrendous! WTF? So Shawn and Katy have been dating? Katy and Topanga are BFFs now? When did Maya turn into Riley exactly? Because I never saw any of that. Sadly even Shawn and Cory's interactions felt forced and painful.

This whole "identity crisis" storyline now feels like a terrible way to get out of making Lucas choose between the two girls. I just don't get the message they are trying to send? Is it bad for a delinquent kid to change for the better? Their whole "meaning of life" schtick is that people change people and now that's a bad thing? It will be interesting to see how they handle Maya going pretty much completely the other direction.

The art teacher just proves how BS the "art" world is. No, Maya didn't protect that one little corner of hope, she was having a paint fight and that one little corner just didn't get hit with big, giant blobs of paint. It's not art, it's collateral damage. (I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that I am way too old to be watching this show. lol)

I hope the show never goes romantic with Riley/Maya because I despise the implication that two people can't be that close without wanting to screw each other. They are best friends. Why isn't that enough? I've seen nothing they've done that is beyond a really unhealthy, co-dependent friendship between two girls who come across as kind of desperate at times.

[blugirlami21]

I doubt a Maya/Riley ship will ever happen because it's a disney show. And a children's show. Disney is not what I would call progressive on this issue. I personally don't see any sexual chemistry between the two of them. They are just dangerously codependent imo.

While I've always thought that Cory and Shawn are actually in a camouflaged romantic relationship, I never thought it was unhealthy. 

Maya and Riley's level of codependency is off putting to me at times. That would have been a better angle for this identity crisis storyline. 

I also didn't feel any inappropriate sexual chemistry between Shawn and Maya either. I love that Shawn has fallen in love with Maya and she with him in a father/daughter way. It's not something you see very often. And it's the only thing done right with this storyline. Which is unfortunate. If they had left Katy out of it, it could have been really great.

Actually hearing what Lucas decided would have been a breath of much needed fresh air. I don't care what the girls are feeling at this point. Like Zay said it's been two years of that. 

Edited July 9, 2016 by blugirlami21

[ohjoy]

Wow, this show made me feel bad for Lucas. (LUCAS of all people!) Nobody actually cares about his voice. Weeks of "CHOOSE! CHOOSE! CHOOSE!" boiled down to "Oh, you didn't really have a choice to make even if you thought you did, so now nobody wants to hear it."

The less said about the Disney Channel version of Shawn's life and history, the better. I've decided that GMW exists in an alternate reality from the one in which BMW exists. (Because you can't convince me that the Shawn in the BMW episode "Angela's Men" and the Shawn in this episode are the same person. Nope. Not buying it.)

[Kromm]

59 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

The art teacher just proves how BS the "art" world is. No, Maya didn't protect that one little corner of hope, she was having a paint fight and that one little corner just didn't get hit with big, giant blobs of paint. It's not art, it's collateral damage. (I'm becoming more and more aware of the fact that I am way too old to be watching this show. lol)

The parts with the art teacher actually infuriated me. It's as low as this show has ever gone. 

If I were a parent and that pompous jackass was telling my daughter stuff that altered her entire life based on how paint randomly landed in a paint fight? Argh! 

The person or people who wrote this (and probably the last) episode need to never work in TV again. Ever.

[LexieLily]

36 minutes ago, RandomMe said:

Wow, this show made me feel bad for Lucas. (LUCAS of all people!) Nobody actually cares about his voice. Weeks of "CHOOSE! CHOOSE! CHOOSE!" boiled down to "Oh, you didn't really have a choice to make even if you thought you did, so now nobody wants to hear it."

The less said about the Disney Channel version of Shawn's life and history, the better. I've decided that GMW exists in an alternate reality from the one in which BMW exists. (Because you can't convince me that the Shawn in the BMW episode "Angela's Men" and the Shawn in this episode are the same person. Nope. Not buying it.)

It's Disney, so I suppose they can't go all the way with the truth that Shawn grew up in a trailer park with essentially half of a parent between Chet and Virna, and had to be taken in by the Matthews and Turner when Chet ran off. So we get this weird in-between with Maya and Katy when Katy is a neglective mother played for laughs, Maya is the female Shawn even though by all intensive purposes she has a much better life than Shawn ever did, and Shawn - Shawn! of all people! - doesn't take Katy to task for what her inattentive parenting is doing to Maya. Wasn't his entire crisis in the college years being afraid to be with Angela and having a future with her because he didn't want to be like Chet?

[bagert]

Quote

Cory and Shawn handshake!!

With Cory still having those longer sideburns which I thought in the season opener was an Easter egg for the first time we saw the handshake on-screen, which had Shawn wearing fake sideburns.

Quote

Is that Carl Winslow appearing in next week's episode?

Yes, and he's playing a cop, of course!  Cory: "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"  Winslow: "Yeah!  At the TGIFriday I used to frequent." LOL

I'm disappointed about them Shawn's age being stated as 32.  I mean, his classmates Cory and Topanga have an almost-15-year-old daughter!  I'm hoping that will be fixed.

[vanillamountain]

Quote

I'm disappointed about them Shawn's age being stated as 32.  I mean, his classmates Cory and Topanga have an almost-15-year-old daughter!  I'm hoping that will be fixed.

I may have misheard, but I thought Shawn meant that he first met Maya when he was 32. Since that was roughly three seasons ago, that would make him 34 or 35 now (per Wikipedia, Rider Strong is actually 36 in real life.)

This wasn't one of the better episodes, but it was OK. It was never really explained what happened to Shawn's job where he was traveling the world, or why he is suddenly living in upstate New York. Does anyone know if Rider Strong has signed on as a semi-regular now? If he hasn't, I'm not sure how they're going to keep explaining his absences if he and Katy get married.

[Skyfall]

10 hours ago, vanillamountain said:

I may have misheard, but I thought Shawn meant that he first met Maya when he was 32. Since that was roughly three seasons ago, that would make him 34 or 35 now (per Wikipedia, Rider Strong is actually 36 in real life.)

This wasn't one of the better episodes, but it was OK. It was never really explained what happened to Shawn's job where he was traveling the world, or why he is suddenly living in upstate New York. Does anyone know if Rider Strong has signed on as a semi-regular now? If he hasn't, I'm not sure how they're going to keep explaining his absences if he and Katy get married.

Math still doesn't add up as that puts Topangansse at 20 when pregnant.

[KaveDweller]

10 hours ago, Skyfall said:

Math still doesn't add up as that puts Topangansse at 20 when pregnant.

That's pretty close to accurate though, isn't it? If you use the timeline from the original show. When BMW ended, Shawn, Cory, and Topanga were a year older than me, which has them either 36 or turning 36 this year. If Riley is turning 15, Topanga would have had to have her at 21. They really should have started GMW with Riley 11, but I guess they wanted her a little older to do the romance stuff.

[TDT]

21 hours ago, vanillamountain said:

This wasn't one of the better episodes, but it was OK. It was never really explained what happened to Shawn's job where he was traveling the world, or why he is suddenly living in upstate New York. Does anyone know if Rider Strong has signed on as a semi-regular now? If he hasn't, I'm not sure how they're going to keep explaining his absences if he and Katy get married.

Maybe theyll be on "an extended honeymoon"..

[bagert]

55 minutes ago, TDT said:

Maybe theyll be on "an extended honeymoon"..

Unless Shawn gets a new job, he will still be traveling a lot, explaining his being absent so much.

But you also have to just assume the viewers are aware of the cost situation - I mean, just think of the episodes Smackle has missed so far this season, and Zay during Seasons 1 (after being introduced) and 2.

Edited July 11, 2016 by bagert

[bagert]

Quote

I may have misheard, but I thought Shawn meant that he first met Maya when he was 32. Since that was roughly three seasons ago, that would make him 34 or 35 now (per Wikipedia, Rider Strong is actually 36 in real life.)

You're right - I stand corrected :)  However, it was less than 2 years ago in GMW-time: they met at Christmastime in Season 1 (and I don't think Shawn said he would always be there for Maya until later in the season) and now in Season 3 I don't think we are even at Riley's 15th birthday on December 8 yet.  This makes Shawn 33 or 34, the latter being the age of Cory, Shawn and Topanga after they were "SORASed" (aged) two years during BMW (they went through 4 years of high school in only 2 seasons of the show.)  

So, Cory, Shawn and Topanga should have been "unSORASed" to 36 to match the earliest possible age Shawn could be that still corresponds to Topanga's pregnancy with Riley.

[augmentedfourth]

Unnnnnnngh. Like everyone else has basically said, there were parts of this episode I loved and parts I hated.

 

Cory and Shawn, the bromance of the ages, will bring a smile to my face until the day I die. The vast majority of their scenes were as good as expected/hoped for. Zay and Farkle were also great, as usual.

 

Even though the show usually casts Angela in a negative light, I can sort of buy that part of Shawn pursued her as much as he did because he thought he was supposed to be in some great romantic relationship early on in his life, a la Cory and Topanga. However, what bugged the crap out of me was him saying that he spent all this time trying to catch up to them (and then thought it was impossible after they got married and had kids right away) and failing before realizing it was impossible...and then that's exactly what winds up happening at the end. All of a sudden, he has the perfect ready-made family and he's on even footing with the Matthews, after the point (I think) was supposed to be you should go do your own thing and not try to be someone else. And that's not even touching the invisible relationship with Katy and how in love they supposedly are.

 

I avoid spoilers, so I don't know what, if anything, has been leaked about how this is going to play out. If Shawn and Katy do actually get married, the show's going to have to do a lot of work to convince me it's a good idea. On the other hand, I think there are ways to have them realize it's not a good idea and do a halfway decent job of writing/showing it, but since this is Disney, I'm kind of expecting the big fairy tale ending for that storyline at this point. :-\

 

Also, despite not loving the proposal scene, I do have to say Sabrina Carpenter nailed her reaction shot there and warmed my cold, black heart of tar.

[ohjoy]

13 hours ago, augmentedfourth said:

Also, despite not loving the proposal scene, I do have to say Sabrina Carpenter nailed her reaction shot there and warmed my cold, black heart of tar.

Yes, totally. That was precious.

[Indy]

14 hours ago, augmentedfourth said:

Cory and Shawn, the bromance of the ages, will bring a smile to my face until the day I die. The vast majority of their scenes were as good as expected/hoped for. Zay and Farkle were also great, as usual.

Yup. This is why I still watch this show.  For Cory and Shawn, wrestling and handshaking like they did as kids, and for the random Zay and Farkle quips. I put up with the rest of the crap for these gems.

[Clemgo3165]

On 7/10/2016 at 9:56 PM, augmentedfourth said:

I avoid spoilers, so I don't know what, if anything, has been leaked about how this is going to play out. If Shawn and Katy do actually get married, the show's going to have to do a lot of work to convince me it's a good idea. On the other hand, I think there are ways to have them realize it's not a good idea and do a halfway decent job of writing/showing it, but since this is Disney, I'm kind of expecting the big fairy tale ending for that storyline at this point. :-\

 

Also, despite not loving the proposal scene, I do have to say Sabrina Carpenter nailed her reaction shot there and warmed my cold, black heart of tar.

I'm really hoping that they'll decide not to go through with it. It's obvious Shawn loves Maya to bits but I don't see the same with her mother. And if there's going to be a marriage it would have been good to show some build up to that relationship.

[KaveDweller]

Yeah, I don't really get Shawn and Katy's relationship. If Shawn's been living upstate how have they been dating? Why hasn't he at least been mentioned lately.

[Say BabiNo]

Shawn and Katy forever!

[AmandaPanda]

Finally got caught up on this episode. I feel like every episode that airs has about four episodes that are supposed to be left to my imagination. They keep telling me that Shawn & Katy are in love, but they've never actually shown it. They tell me that Maya lost her voice or whatever bullshit that was, but they've never really shown it. These writers are the epitome of telling and not showing. 

[AntiBeeSpray]

On 7/16/2016 at 9:41 PM, AmandaPanda said:

Finally got caught up on this episode. I feel like every episode that airs has about four episodes that are supposed to be left to my imagination. They keep telling me that Shawn & Katy are in love, but they've never actually shown it. They tell me that Maya lost her voice or whatever bullshit that was, but they've never really shown it. These writers are the epitome of telling and not showing. 

Not totally. That 'honor' goes to CC and the XF. But GMW comes in at a close second to me though.