Well, it’s over.
I don’t say it to be rude or unkind—it’s merely my main thought finishing up “Girl Meets Ski Lodge Part II.” After a year of build-up (and really more than that, if one tracks the clues before the actual story started) Girl Meets World has finally concluded its love triangle, and not in any surprising way for those who have been paying attention. Lucas picked Riley. Riley is delighted to be picked. No one gets hurt or loses out because Maya’s stepping out of the situation, having realized she never really liked Lucas at all. It’s all been set up these past few episodes.
It’s just also all, unfortunately, still hard to buy. I’ve said from the get that Maya’s search for herself feels constructed to solve the love triangle, but even in the final moments, the answer feels overly complicated. Even as Maya puzzles it out, it feels like the show is piecing it together right along with her how, exactly, this is going to work. Maya needed to know how Riley liked Lucas, because really she wanted to protect Riley from Lucas, and so … Maya decided she liked Lucas? Feels like we’re still missing something here, explaining Maya’s conviction that Riley liked Lucas as a brother, explaining all those moments before Shawn that Maya seemed to like Lucas--assuming this isn't all going to be negated, which I hope the show would have pointed to more strongly if so.
The mechanics of the scene admittedly make it difficult. The conversation needs to happen with Josh, because the show is trying to make a larger point about how people communicate (and in particular, the difference between how she and Josh communicate and she and Lucas do). Due to matters that may not be in the show’s control though (my understanding is that Josh was meant to be in more of last season than he was) Josh is an outsider to this whole situation. He knows very little about Lucas, and even less about what’s been going on romantically between Lucas and Maya.
Any attempt to mitigate this fact by calling upon his older and wiser experience also only reminds us of the life stage gap between the characters. I still find it a little mind-blowing that we’re even allowing the pair to go this far down the path of exploring a relationship—you’d think Disney would shy away from tacit approval of what, in real life, can be a very problematic set up. The show is doing its best however, even suggesting through some magic half-retcon and half-maybe-backstory (assuming Maya might have been left back and assuming Josh is on the young side for a college freshman) that Josh and Maya re only currently two years apart. There’s no doubt the pair have chemistry and I’m more than willing to see this out, but I’m not really sure what to hope for. It’s a little wearying to imagine Maya learning her lesson about him yet again, but it’s hard to imagine their relationship going anywhere—or indeed someone like Maya being as willing to pursue more appropriate options knowing that Josh is so close to being an option.
It all comes down to this: There’s nothing wrong with what we’re being given. I’m just not sure the show isn’t choosing an impossible path. For anyone who feels like Maya and Josh are concerning, I’m not sure the fact they’re waiting will be enough (though I admit that as long as they stick to it, I can accept that). For anyone who thinks Maya and Lucas made an interesting pair, being told that they never were a pair genuinely is going to feel disorienting.
And for anyone who’s never been particularly enthused about Lucas and Riley as a pairing, being told they adore each other is always going to feel a little false—however charming the scene here is. “Meets Ski Lodge Part II” is probably the most convincing they’ve ever been, and it’s an endearing set up. Riley wearing a sunrise-patterned shirt, to give Lucas his own talk till dawn. Lucas presenting Riley with a jelly bean, and Riley freaking out that it might be a ring box. Riley and Lucas, still tripping over their words, unsure how to fully explain their feelings but so tickled to do so. But however well crafted the sense of release, it still feels unearned. I have not been waiting for Lucas and Riley to figure out they’re meant to be for now, whatever happens next. I have been waiting for feelings to out, and with the triangle no longer a triangle, nothing feels outed. We are exactly where we started end of season one, and I’m still not sure, just what it is between then and now that makes them suddenly “ready” to try this. Especially if Lucas is stipulating who Riley talks to and Riley is waving off any big dance asks, and especially when Lucas has been so impassive about his choice till recently.
Beyond all that, there’s not much more to “Meets Ski Lodge Part II.” Lauren’s son (sadly, no Lauren to be found) introduces the theme of conversation, as he and Riley talk till dawn, and that is essentially all we have: An episode of conversations. One pair splits off, and finds two other people to chat with; then they switch, and then they switch, and so on and so forth. It feels like an odd lesson to sit alongside the original ski lodge arc, which was in essence all about how there is more to a match than a good conversation—and indeed, that there is more to romance, to destiny, than sitting with a pretty girl or boy and not getting bored of them.
But then, “Meets Ski Lodge Part II” is just as interested in the one true friendship pairing as it is the romantic ones it locks down. Riley has been gifted with parents who have, in each other, an extraordinary relationship—but, she thinks now, the real one for her will always be what she has with Maya. Maybe Lucas will be forever, maybe he won’t. Maybe Maya and Josh will get together someday, maybe they won’t. But Maya and Riley will always, always have each other—because they are more than just one good conversation. They are that, and the unmistakable impossible Something Extraordinary.
Here’s to hoping we continue to see much more of that than the boys moving forward.
