Semi-formal has always seemed like a weird dance to me. Dress up, but not too dressy. Have a date, but don’t be too datey. Dance, but don’t be too dancey.
“Girl Meets Semi-Formal” isn’t very different. Riley/Lucas realizations were had by Maya and Maya alone last episode, leaving us yet again in the strange and often clumsy position of waiting around for Riley to come to the obvious conclusion. What could be used for dramatic tension mostly feels like a weight around the neck, sapping the energy right out of the night. It’s to the point that Jack (Jack!) and his Rachel (Rachel!) tale as Eric drags him to the dance feels like one long sigh of relief, as we’re mercifully saved from suffering through a stream of these. Riley knows now too—and judging by Maya and Luca’s little banter-flirt, Lucas is probably not going to be far behind. The long national nightmare is over: Riley/Lucas is dead. Long live …
Well, there in lies the problem. Ideally, the show is now going back to mostly working with the group as friends, but more realistically, I suspect some sort of build up to Lucas/Maya, as the show tries to work out fast what kind of character Farkle will become and what kind of show it wants to be. Is it a school comedy? A family one that happens to float often into school? A coming of age tale? And what about the subplots—romance was always a big part of BMW, but can you really have a flagship romance with your femmeShawn and not your femmeCory? This isn’t to say that questions are bad. In fact, most of these questions I think are pretty grand ones for the show to tackle, as it reaches the next stage in its seemingly never-ending quest to solve season one’s problems. They have to set the stage for what’s to come, and better to know what pieces they want and need than to spend half a season again hammering down boards with whatever’s on hand. And while to a certain extent, some of it is natural—the dance perfectly demonstrates how the group’s dynamics are changing, and that these changes are survivable so long as they work at it—it is just a tad disappointing from a show that has been perhaps most unique for its commitment to friendship over teen love. In the show’s current single-minded focus on the last major issues remaining to be fixed, it has forgotten just what it was did work last year—hopefully only temporarily, but even so.
Meanwhile, in the part of the show now allocated to being Man Meets World, apparently: JACK NO SERIOUSLY JACK. Every the straight man to Eric’s insanity, it was pretty exciting to not only have young Mr. Lawrence back, but in a way that suggests room for more. It’d be particularly interesting to see if and how he interacts with modern day Shawn and his inroads into Maya’s family, given his genuine awe that Cory had produced a daughter. Would he be proud? Critical? His life’s been no easier for growing up in a different household, given his apparent current career choices, and it’d be grand to see the ever complicated relationship be thrown for another loop. Also to see more exactly how Eric feels about their past relationship and their current one, a subplot the show never really managed to resolve before rolling credits (God forbid we don’t stop all momentum to have whatever the hell that band was play). As reunions go, it was certainly less memorable than Feeney or Shawn, but a great deal less awkward than Angela.
Maybe in the end, that’s all we can ask for. “Meets Semi-Formal” is a growing pains sort of episode, vital for what it inches us towards but strange and halting in its inability to take us home. Certainly there have been worse episodes; certainly there have been better, if perhaps not many as ambitious. Maybe in the end, this is all we can ask: Is the show that might come out of this worth watching? Is it the full formal, the prom, everything you can want and more?
I think, just maybe, yes.
Thoughts of your own? Sound off in the comments!
