Cult Fiction

So I recently discovered that ABC Family shows Boy Meets World in the mornings, which is pretty great, because I love that show. Only it turns out that I had bad taste in television as a child, because this show is actually pretty weird, guys. It's not quite on the Saved By The Bell level of strange, but it's still pretty bizarre. This here blog is where I will be dissecting the morning's episode, every day that my schedule permits. Here we go!

Cult Fiction:

What an episode to start with! So Shawn got a bad grade on an assignment, which led Mr. Turner to pretty much tell him that he is unloved in front of the entire class, which really sounds like a pretty good teaching tactic. A nearby girl (who apparently is in the class with Shawn even though he doesn't even know her name) takes Shawn that afternoon to meet her friends at The Centre, which turns out to be a cult run by Styles from Teen Wolf. Styles brainwashes Shawn, who turns into a wishy-washy hugging machine, whose behavior changes based on whatever point the writers were trying to make about cults at the time.

So after Cory is alarmed by the fact that Shawn is happy, he and Eric go to The Centre to investigate. I guess they looked it up "crazy teenage cult" on whatever version of Mapquest existed in 1997? This is never explained. But they somehow find this cult, and Shawn gets upset that they're there, which is weird, since he had told Cory he should check it out the day before, but apparently brainwashing is hell on the short-term memory. Styles tries to convert Cory, but it doesn't seem like he was trying very hard, which is certainly understandable. But of course Cory is too boring to even be in a cult, so he is able to resist. For a show called Boy Meets World, he sure does seem reluctant to actually have any sort of real-world experiences!

Later that night, Cory discusses the cult with his parents and Mr. Feeny, who announces that he's been trying to shut the Centre down for some time. Umm, it really shouldn't be that hard, Mr. Feeny! It is a man living with minors in a co-ed environment without written parental consent, and that is probably a thing that the police could shut down pretty easily! Of course, police involvement would possibly lead to them investigating why this man is so closely involved with his young neighbor that he has somehow been his teacher for the past 5 or so years, so maybe it's best that he just try to handle things with his own brand of vigilante justice. But while trying to figure out how to get Shawn out of the new cult and back into theirs, Mr. Feeny's phone starts to ring. In a stunning example of how to be a good mentor, HE STOPS TRYING TO SAVE SHAWN FROM A CULT TO ANSWER HIS PHONE. Classy, just classy! But it's a good thing he did, because Mr. Turner has been in an accident! And I guess he has Feeny listed as his emergency contact? That's really the best-case scenario I can come up with for how he got that information so quickly.

Of course everybody goes to the hospital, but uh oh! Here comes Shawn, and he's brought Styles with him for moral support! There follows a pretty boring scene where the adults all try to get Styles to stop brainwashing Shawn, although they don't seem too concerned with the other children he's stolen from their homes, and Cory gives Shawn a magic hug, which makes him realize how much he cares about Mr. Turner and quit the cult, but is it too late for him to let Mr. Turner know how he feels?! Who knows! The episode ends with no sort of resolution; we don't know if Mr. Turner survives, and Styles never gets his weirdo teenager cult shut down. Sure, they successfully deprogrammed Shawn (not really though, he kind of did it himself when the only other person in the room was comatose), but that's as much closure as we get on this. Presumably, the "responsible adults" just forget about the whole cult and make no effort to save anybody that they are not already friends with. WHAT KIND OF SHOW IS THIS?!

The best, that's what kind.

Quote of the day:

Mr. Turner (to Shawn): "You can count on one hand the people in this world who care about you."

Ouch, Mr. Turner! Way to help a troubled youth with low self esteem!