I don’t know where my yearbook is.
It’s a little depressing to realize this, even if the series of events that led to this are totally obvious and were consciously chosen every step of the way. I didn’t bother to get a senior photo. I ran in and out of the pick-up line, and threw it in the backseat when I was done. I shoved it in a drawer, which was shoved in a cabinet, which was shoved in a basement where far more loved things than it have gone to die.
When I was a kid, a yearbook was everything, eternal record of the hip and happening teen I imagined I would be, when I had a two syllable age and a license to drive. Primarily because of episodes like “Girl Meets Yearbook,” which equate everything on the page to everything you are. Sure, with the perspective of age, “Meets Yearbook” might seem silly. Riley’s existential crisis when she finds out the school assumes it’s Maya and Lucas—not Riley and Lucas—who are the ones flirting, Farkle’s dismay that everyone else knows him when he barely knows himself—it’s just a book, just a quip. They know the truth, or think they do.
And yet all of it works within the world of the teen show, where a photo and a blurb can feel life-defining, and particularly this world, with these two. Ever since Riley and Lucas have decided to take things glacially slow, the only affirmation Riley has that they are romantic at all really does come from the school around her. It’s not as clear why it is she retreats into a gothic persona as a response to this—surely the more obvious choice would be to convince everyone how completely right she and Lucas are for each other.
But then, given the understanding Maya comes to in her Riley performance, maybe that’s the point. Maybe Riley doesn’t want to convince anyone. Maybe she just wants to bemoan the fact that in the end, she and Lucas might actually not be right for each other at all. It’s a fascinating reveal for the show, one that’s unexpected not because it’s actually a surprise—I’ve ranted more than once on this subject—but because I genuinely thought the show would fight harder for its founding romance. They’ve played around with it enough, trying to find avenues to open up the chemistry, and not completely unsuccessfully. The basketball speech might be far and away the best moment they’ve had, but it’s still a genuine moment between the pair. While I suppose it’s not completely dead yet, “brother” is a hard label to walk back, and it’s hard to deny the feeling of rightness that comes from Maya voicing it. Riley and Lucas are sweet. They’re just not romantic, not even by Disney standards. Whether the show will sail hard and fast the other way, we don’t know yet—but it clearly knows it’s an option, and really, that’s more than enough.
Farkle’s transformation is similarly predictable and shocking. On the one hand, his shift has happened ever since the show’s earliest episodes. On the other, it’s crazy to think that this is really the last we’ve seen of those turtlenecks. That the show is willing to lose this battle in hopes of winning the war. It’s also a rather daring move, suggesting that sometimes the truest action a person can make for themselves is to not be true at all. To change, to grow, to explore lies and almost-truths. Who will Farkle Minkus be at the end of this? We don’t know. It’s possible the show doesn’t either. But maybe, neither of them have to. Maybe it’s enough to know that a photo, a blurb—these things capture not us, but a thought at one time.
And we are so much more than a thought.
“Girl Meets Yearbook” in the end is not an episode that will be remembered for any of its actual content. It’s amusing watching Riley and Farkle try—and fail—to be something other than what they are, to see Maya and Katie try their hand at being Riley, to see Lucas try for sanity. But in the end, all of these are just cute moments without much of a story to tie them together. In the end, it’s really what happens from now on that will allow us to judge the episode, as either a turning point or false advertisement.
Here’s hoping for the former.
Are you ready for change? Sound off in the comments!
