While continuing the positive trend in the episodic quality department, “Girl Meets Triangle” is an episode I’m still struggling to understand. Not because I inherently disagree with its concept—it’s fair to say that Maya’s gone through a lot of change recently, and there’s value to the show exploring the flip side of its main lesson. People change people, and that’s mostly for the best.
But sometimes people change people because it’s easier to be someone else than to be ourselves. Sometimes, in young girl relationships, the line between inspiration and replication can be particularly thin. There’s something real and genuine in Riley and Maya’s dedication to being one another, to their friendship being built on their fundamental admiration of who the other is. There is, however, also something fundamentally false about how all of this is presented here.
In fact, there are a few things that make the reveal in "Meets Triangle" hard to stomach. Riley is horrified to discover that when confronted on her art, one of the few areas Maya excels at, Maya doesn’t jump to defend herself—except, would she? Maya is brash, but Maya is also insecure, and only recently has gained any confidence in her art. It seems reasonable that her initial instinct would be to retreat when pushed in a new high school setting. In middle school, she was the best and unquestioned in that. In high school, her teacher expects something more, and Maya's rarely been truthful enough with her feelings to be able to stand behind her brush. Girl Meets World has stumbled before in telling versus showing, it's true—but this in particular feels unearned. It's even shouted, repeatedly, as if they're on a deadline to force this plotline out into the open, long before it's reached its peak.
Which brings me to the second issue. The idea that Maya is copying Riley is well supported—she’s always followed Riley’s lead, we’ve seen her be particularly submissive in the past few episodes, and much of Maya’s arc has also, to this point, revolved around the idea of her being a bad kid brought to Wholesome Matthews Family Standards. But where does one draw the line between character development and copying? I assume next week will help to clarify this, so I don’t want to harp, but Friday’s episode is problematic in defining it, brushing every new feature of Maya with the same purple stroke. Maya is copying Riley’s fashion sense? Valid. Maya is copying Riley by getting better grades, however, strips her of her very Maya reason for earning her A in Spanish, suggests unwarranted intelligence in Riley (who, as far as I can tell, seems like an average if hard-working student), and undermines Maya's genuine interest in bettering herself. It’s true, Maya should be the best version of herself, not simply a copy of the best person she knows. But it's not like Maya's changed completely. She still doesn't care much for academics. She's still flippant to authority figures. Just how far back does this show plan to go on this? How much of what’s been Maya’s journey to her best person has been apparently just a slow slide to Rileytown?
That answer will be key moving forward, but also key is the answer to this: Is "Meets Triangle" genuinely suggesting Maya’s feelings for Lucas are just a reflection of her attempts to be Riley? Between the parallel to the girls in the bathroom, and Riley’s dramatic reluctance that the crush is another thing they have in common, when Maya demands proof that she’s losing herself, the show certainly seems to be hinting it—but this is an insulting idea on almost every level. Like the character development problem (and indeed, much of this triangle storyline) it retcons all our perceptions, and not in an additive way. Maya liking Lucas as a result of Riley is not a new perspective. It’s a slap on the wrist to anyone who’s picked up on the chemistry between the two from the series’ start, and a cowardly way to back out of a messy plotline the show never had to create. The tides were changing long before the triangle ever started in earnest. Riley and Lucas struggled to find romantic sparks, Maya crushed on an impossible boy. If all of this so far has been just to end up at square one, in a way that asks us to pretend like we never left the square at all, it’s hard to imagine ever trusting the show again. A reveal is one thing. A lie, as I've pointed out in regards to this show before, is another.
It should be said: “Meets Triangle” isn’t a bad episode. It’s funny, it’s energetic, it’s decently paced. The use of the purple cat in the reveal, as we finally understand Maya's painting problem, is delightfully painful. And on the flip side, there’s joy in watching Maya and Riley judge shoes from the hole, in the boys having a genuine conversation among themselves. There’s a focus on dynamic and natural character in season three of GMW that’s been sorely missed in the show’s first two seasons, and I look forward to seeing more of it.
There’s simply also no escaping the sins of the past, when it comes to the triangle, and it’s a shame to see the show may be giving up on meeting the challenge. Some might hope for a master plan in which Riley is headed for a big fall, and it’s not out of the cards. I just wish, like much of “Meets Triangle”, that it’d been written clearly in this episode if so—because as things stand, the newfound spark in character is the only thing I’m looking forward to in the hours ahead.
