It’s the end of the year in Girl Meets World, and with last night’s transition, it’s hard to deny that the show really is capturing the feel of Boy Meets World. We’re starting to get hints of what a high school Girl Meets World will look like, and it’s nice to see that with the new turn, we really are finally growing up. “Girl Meets the New Year”—like its characters—looks constantly forward to the year to come. With a strange twist of glee and grief, it acknowledges the cliff we’re hanging on is slowly eroding away.
There just, sadly, isn’t really a story. It’s almost a crime that Farkle’s outing Riley, as he shouts out the truth about Riley’s feelings for Lucas when the clock strikes 12, works so well. It’s understated and subtle, and frankly thoroughly surprising. Riley not learning her lesson, Farkle actually deciding to go through it—both seem against the usual kid TV code of do the right thing, and especially GMW’s particularly earnest nature. It’s the kind of moment you remember as a fan, long after the show ends.
Sadly, it beautifully caps a half-hour that does little but remind us of what we already know. Maya is having a hard time figuring out her feelings. Riley is having a hard time asserting herself for fear of leading them to exactly this end. Lucas is hung up over Riley but can’t deny that he likes the idea of Maya liking him. Charlie Gardner is an infinitely superior match for Riley but is for whatever reason not allowed to be an equal partner in this mess—
Oh wait, no, sorry. That’s just the unfortunate writing on the wall. I do try, in these reviews, to compare the show against the best version of itself, but I really don’t mean to try and write the show. Hopefully when I say this, it will be the last time, even if I doubt it’ll stop being true. It just needs to be said: If the show eliminates Charlie Gardner, I think it’ll be a total waste. Tanner Buchanan has always been charming, in a role rarely given much time to develop beyond the occasional scene-stealer of a line, but he was truly in rare form last night. Falling right into step with Riley’s Austen playacting, graciously stepping aside when Riley turns him down, taking Auggie under his wing at midnight. “I’m a good person,” he says, as he introduces himself to Cory and Topanga—and it’s true and quite purposeful. Charlie is a good person. That’s what’s supposed to make it hurt, even though we’re supposed to want Riley and Lucas forever.
But there’s the rub: “supposed to.” Which, I know some do, I’m aware of the shipper wars. In a perfect world, maybe I would too. But right now, all I see is a better character option going the wrong way. When Charlie comments on the new year, with a quiet and respectful hope that maybe this isn’t forever the end of the line for him and Riley, I don’t feel for him. I root for him. I’m not going to say that he and Riley as a couple would absolutely rival Cory and Topanga. I don’t want to give it that pressure and if I ever have, I apologize. It’s just still hard to believe they wouldn’t have a much better chance of measuring up than Riley and Lucas could—not without some serious work on all fronts to make that relationship pop. Their chemistry has improved as Meyer and Blanchard have, and the early stages of season two, prior to this whole fiasco, suggested the show knew there was a problem. They’ve complicated Lucas a little. They’ve tried to actually have the two converse more. Certainly now they seem to love their easy solution to their biggest problem: minimizing contact between Maya and Lucas to downplay the fact Carpenter and Meyer still have more chemistry. Maya allows herself to admit at last that she’s happy that Lucas is considering her, and it’s clearly the most they’ve really talked (chronologically and otherwise) in weeks.
But it’s also the only time they get, and quickly derailed by the reveal of Riley’s secret. Which, this is also purposeful. One could even argue it ambitious for what it’s trying to say about Maya’s psychological make-up. It’s just somehow too purposeful. All television is chess against an unpredictable player. Casting, production bumps, direction, prop choices—all of these things are moves that you as the writer must predict and account for and respond to in order to keep moving toward your goal, even if that means adapting. But Girl Meets World feels increasingly like a precocious child, moving its opponent’s pieces the moment they turn their back so it can do the move it wanted to do all along. Riley has no sensibility with Charlie, using the show’s own metaphor framework, but of course she doesn’t. Riley’s never actually given him a chance or gotten to know him without it partly being about Lucas. Maya’s not talking to Lucas as she’s confused and can’t find the sense in what she’s feeling because they were pushed into dating—but why on earth did she let Riley push her into dating in the first place? Why is Lucas allowing it? The show’s working on too unbelievable a set-up, to the point it doesn’t even feel like a proper explanation, even though everything is accounted for
I am happier with the state of things than I was at the end of “Meets Texas Part III.” I feel like Maya and Lucas are on better ground, even if they still seem to be getting the short end of the stick and seem doomed to failure for it. I feel like everyone’s feelings are getting more space, and are promised to get more space in future.
It might in fact be fairer to say that “Meets the New Year” fails only for not being the episode we got at the end of the Texas arc. It tells us nothing new, but it does tell us the old things better. It’s just also hard not to cringe in expectation for how all of this is going to turn out.
There does exist, I think, a timeline after last night’s episode that ends with the only real couple worth fighting for: Riley and Maya, as friends who can put this aside for now, and see what arises in the future. For as long as we’re still sitting on this side of midnight, that’s all I can hope for.
