2-15 Breaking Up Is Really, Really Hard To DoSummary by: Laura Orginal Air Date: 1995-01-27 Writer: Howard Busgang Director: Jeff McCracken Capsule Summary: Cory's new girlfriend gets a bit too attached. Extendo Summary: Shawn has the brilliant idea that Cory should ask a blonde called Wendy to be his girlfriend so he can have a date for a "couples only" dinner party some other seventh-graders are throwing. Cory thinks it would be wrong, but Shawn convinces him it's expected. Wendy happily agrees to enter into a couple type relationship with Cory. Over the next week, Wendy acts very maternal and possessive, memorizing his schedule; straightening his clothes and sending him off to class with a kiss; asking him what he's going to be doing this summer. Cory asks Shawn for advice and when he hears they've been dating for a week, he cries, "Oh, break UP!" He thinks one should date lots of different people, and a week is too long to be in one relationship. So, sheeplike as ever, Cory writes Wendy a break-up note to pass during class. But when Mr. Turner reads Wendy's poem called "Leave Me And I'll Die," Cory hastily asks for the note back. Wendy reads the note anyway and runs out in tears, and Cory follows her and convinces her it was all a misunderstanding and they aren't broken up at all.
Coming back from school with Shawn, Cory agrees that it is probably time to end things with Wendy-- she's moving too fast. He decides to call and tell her that. Walking into the kitchen, Cory and Shawn find Wendy standing behind the counter in a darling apron, helping Amy make dinner. They gasp in horror.
At dinner, Alan is horrified, and Amy is charmed, by Wendy, who is a fantastic cook, and who offers to make them Belgian waffles. Cory waffles (ha! ha!) between delight at the prospect of delicious breakfast foods and a sort of detached, vaguely amused horror at hearing about Wendy's plans to grow up with Cory and get married and have three kids and be like her grandparents who have been together sixty-six years. Wendy goes upstairs to play with Morgan and Cory and Alan agree that she's insane. Amy thinks she's a sweet girl playing house, but is swayed when Wendy runs downstairs with a photo of Amy in her wedding dress, declaring that she hopes she'll wear that dress someday.
The next day Cory tells Shawn he tried to break up with Wendy at her doorstep, but instead she just took him inside and he had a sing-a-long with her big family, in which "the men don't say much," Cory observes. He's pretty much resigned to becoming one of them. Shawn agrees Cory's is a hopeless case and leaves. Alone, Cory drifts into a dream sequence about what it will be like when they're all old, and he and Wendy have been married ninety years. In the dream, Shawn is still happily patrolling for ladies on a night-by-night basis, while Cory himself, a wisecracking old klepto, makes fun of Wendy, but deep down loves her and the life she's made for him.
Cory and Wendy eat at Chubbie's. Cory's resignation is colored now with contentedness. He admits, in a here's-a-funny-story sort of way, that when he initially asked Wendy out he wasn't looking for a life commitment-- just for a date to the party. Wendy realizes Cory lied to her, and, loathe to base her entire future on a lie, breaks up with him. She exits; Shawn enters. Happy that Cory's a free man again, Shawn asks him to double-date, but Cory wants to stay in: "I miss Wendy."
Meanwhile, Eric's not allowed to date anymore until he gets his grades up, so Jason introduces him to a dating substitute: a getting his hair cut by a sexy hairdresser.
Meanwhile meanwhile, Mr. Feeny hustles Mr. Turner in a racquetball game. Highlights:
- Shawn's poem, "Welfare", is read in front of the class. I can't decide if this is a continuity, yay thing or not, since he later turns out to be, like, actually a poet. Anyway, Mr. Turner reads the poem:
"My uncle Ralph he does not care
Cause twice a month he gets welfare.
My uncle Chuck has nylon hair
He bought the rug with his welfare.
(skimming) (Old corvair?)... Long nose hair... electric chair."
- Cory asks Wendy, "Is this the face of a guy who wants to break up?" The face he then gives is priceless and involves the raising of various eyebrows.
- Alan (conversationally): "Hey guys, where ya been?"
Eric (unprovokedly defensive): "Hey, I can get a haircut, as many as I want!"
- During dinner Alan pulls Cory aside to talk. The entirety of their conversation is as follows:
Alan: "Nutcase?"
Cory: "Ya think?"
- Mr. Feeny shows up at the end of Cory's daydream sequence as an authoritarian waiter who demands that Oldster Cory pay for the rolls and Sweet'n'Low packets he stole. As Cory drifts back to reality-- where the real Feeny is standing with an annoyed expression on his face-- Cory cries deliriously, "This is coming out of your tip!"
Continuity, yay! When Alan warns Eric he can't coast on his looks all his life, Eric protests, "But all I want to be is a weatherman."
Oh for gay! Eric describes Leonardo da Vinci as a "raven-haired beauty." Episode Themes: Rating: 3. I really don't have much to say about these season 2 episodes: they're consistently watchable, if low on the fantastic moments. The problem really lies in the fact that Eric hadn't quite come into his prime yet, I think. Back | Back to Season 2 Episode Guide | Next | |
