Girl Meets World kicks off a three night arc with some enthusiastic stereotyping and Lucas backstory (mostly related), but it’s what “Girl Meets Texas: Part 1” promises that really intrigues, as the show finally comes back to the “Lucas is Riley’s brother” reveal just in time for the cliffhanger.
Unfortunately, it also teases this new information in a deeply dissatisfying way. It’s hard not to hear the pain in Riley’s voice when she breaks up (if it can be so called) with Lucas, or the very firm wording of “you think that” when she confronts Maya with her feelings. But it’s equally hard to take it well. Maya in Riley’s head once told us Riley views Lucas as a brother, and everything about how that reveal was done felt constructed to matter, to shock, to reveal. Everything about its follow-up, as Riley attended the dance, designed to suggest Riley’s beginning to internalize something very important.
Everything about tonight’s episode’s handling of it throws this out the window. Riley might say one thing, but Blanchard’s performance (once again suggesting that her talent lies in drama rather than comedy) says another: Riley likes Lucas. A lot.
And that’s … easily the least interesting way this all could have gone down.
There is a lot to be said for the complicated terrain of knowing a word isn’t right for someone but not really feeling that the word is wrong. Confusion for Riley is understandable. After all, Lucas is attractive, and he’s demonstrated plenty of interest in Riley. If there’s a 1 and a 1, why wouldn’t it equal 2? That’s a struggle plenty of people have faced, and Riley is entitled to be upset, in this case. Riley is entitled to find it harder to let go than she wants it to be, as she forces a grin and slams the two of them together. A brother is, after all, less appealing an option than a boyfriend.
But problem is, when it comes to the show we have been presented, there’s a lot riding on this love triangle to resolve one way, and a lot of difficulty in the show resolving it the other. When Riley tells us she and Lucas were never very good at the hand-holding part of being close, she’s being more truthful than I think she knows. While the mutual admiration is certainly there for Riley and Lucas, and always has been, the tension has not often come along with it, and the show has struggled to make their romance interesting. It says a lot that the show has succeeded most just as they’re on the cusp of not being together. They were mutually supportive of one another this episode, trusting and fun—but while all these elements are aspects of romantic love, they’re not the whole of it versus platonic love, and it’s never been these aspects that the show has failed to sell. Obviously they respect each other; obviously they cherish each other. But that doesn’t mean they spark, that they bounce off of each other in compelling ways—and it doesn’t erase the issue of how Meyer and Carpenter do.
I know my biases. I know what I’ve said. So it should be clear that I’m not against Riley and Lucas winning out, if the show wants to do the work to make them a better option. I was mostly resigned to it until the show started to point otherwise. But while twists are an important part of any story, there’s a difference between a twist and a lie, and GMW feels like it’s edging far closer to the latter with this new installment. After all, a reveal is only a reveal if it tells us something true. Either Riley really did think she liked Lucas as a brother, or she does still but wasn’t expecting to have to deal with it so quickly—or, the show really fumbled, just when it seemed like it was exceeding expectations. I hope for the former; I fear for the latter, which I doubt is the state of suspense I was intended to be in this weekend.
If that’s a lot of talk for things only just barely in this episode, I apologize, but it’s simply the meatier topic. “Meets Texas: Part 1” is fun. Peyton Meyer in particular stands out. He throws a little accent into natural slip places, he snarks, he leads. It’s more than I would have ever expected given his performance in the pilot, and I’m glad to see him continue to evolve. Pacing was also nicely handled—not a small feat when you’re dealing with a three-parter and travel between two states. But this felt and looked like the building blocks to something very different, and I’m eager to see just what that is.
