After a mixed bag of a Halloween episode last year, Girl Meets World is back with take two, and it’s … well, still a mixed bag. Really one story in three stages, which is a rather interesting structural choice, and really a dance revue of all of one song more than a story, which is not, “Girl Meets World of Terror 2” is as goofy and Disney Channel Friendly as GMW gets, and not to its credit.
It begins as an endearing bit of mythology, as the girls discover the magic of the bay window may be actual magic. A flapper ghost from the 1920s finally makes herself known, because she finally feels as if she’s found people who love her little window the same way she always did. It ends, however, with Riley and Maya in claymation because apparently ghosts can do anything, and that’s a journey handled about as well as you’d expect. While paced well enough, it’s a fragmented and silly half hour for a show that rarely handles comedy as well as it does sincerity, and easily one of the lesser outings for season two.
Part of it may be my own unfamiliarity with the channel. Had I not accidentally caught part of an episode of Austin and Ally last week, I wouldn’t really know what to do with the middle story at all. Their appearance is intrusive, unexplained (don’t they say they live in Florida?), and more than a little forced. Just what is that makes Austin famous? Do both shows share the same universe now? Is that why there was dancing? I know the crossover is a time-honored sitcom tradition, but that never makes it an exciting one, and it only makes an annoying episode tedious. We will never see them again and they had all of the personality of wallpaper.
Part of it is definitely the return of Dewey-Called-Doy, in what seems like a genuine misreading of what worked in his first appearance. While Ava has her own individual charms, it was Topanga’s struggle to correct him despite not being his parent that amused. Anyone who’s ever been near a small kid that’s not theirs knows the pain, and thus the moment. A whole episode built only around Dewey’s screaming, and thus framed more from his end? Really just the pain without any of the relatability. Dewey’s adorable, but Dewey’s got just the one joke in him.
Part of it is again simply the show. While season two has had quite a few solid jokes and set-ups, GMW doesn’t know how to do the broad kid humor, and never has. Every time they try it’s hands reaching for the highest branch when all the fruit is on the ground. The dancing was a bit already barely worth a smirk. It didn’t need to last a minute. Or two. Or five. It didn’t need to return at the end, a failed attempt at the Rake Effect that proves a joke has to start funny in order to loop back around to it. It definitely didn’t need to set up a subplot that went nowhere, or which opened up another failed joke as they all run aghast by what they see in a haunted house that never feels remotely real, given we can’t see a single second of it. The best line of the episode is unsurprisingly a character one, as Riley is horrified to learn that the curfew she begs for is when the festivities she hopes for actually begin. It’s grounded in our understanding of her, our understanding of Cory and Topanga, and our own knowledge of our own transition from kid to adult, with all the curfew shifts that entails. I’m all for the show dancing with its more absurdist streak, because I do think that works often. Even some of the claymation gags in this episode, tired as they were, were a little more worth it even if they didn’t go the full mile on showing us how Riley and Maya view the world. But I’d rather safe and sly than absurdity in childish pandering it doesn’t quite know how to do.
I’ve been tough on GMW’s latest string of episodes, but “Meets World of Terror 2” confirms to me what I always hopes comes through: I generally do enjoy this show, and generally think it has improved. Sadly, I can’t say the same of this one, but hey, maybe next Halloween.
