It’s Electives Day on Girl Meets World! Riley is not enthused: “How do they expect us to work and go to school at the same time?” Cory and Topanga are there to remind her that responsibilities never go away. “I hate parent theater,” Riley and Maya agree. They bail on breakfast without cleaning, leaving Topanga to deal with the mess.
History class: this week’s topic is the Great Depression, so we’ve skipped a hundred years since last week’s Belgian independence talk. Anyway, Cory explains the Forgotten to his students, the working class people that suffered from lack of work and were neglected during the 1930’s. He poses this week’s life lesson as a question: is there anyone they aren’t appreciating? If you’ve been paying attention at all, of course the answer is yes.
At lunch, the kids bitch and moan about the lunch lady’s food. Lucas and Farkle use their food to create a volcano and promptly make a gigantic mess. Cory is pissed. He assigns them to their electives: Riley and Maya will be with Jerrilyn on cafeteria duty, while Lucas and Farkle will be on janitorial duty with none other than former bad boy Harley Keiner!
“Welcome to the cafeteria! We have a lot of fun here. And by fun I mean potatoes,” Jerrilyn states. For them, this might be a grade, but this is Jerrilyn’s job. She knows that Riley loves fishstick Fridays and that she needs to send extra food home with Maya, which makes the girls think twice about how they’ve been treating her. The girls are exhausted after their forty-five minute shift and complain to an unsympathetic Topanga, asking for back rubs and ignoring Topanga’s request for help with the groceries.
They go through their first lunch period and are both horrified that no one was grateful for what they were doing. Their exhaustion pushes them to put themselves through the dishwasher, but Jerrilyn stops them. “I want to see that, but I’ve grown to like you both,” she says, stopping the conveyer belt.
“There are two types of custodians. The ninja and the showboat,” Harley explains to his new protégés. He happens to be of the ninja variety. The boys do a wonderful job—it doesn’t hurt that it’s the “least puke-y day ever,” according to Harley. That is, until the potatoes Maya spiced up hit students’ stomachs and cause mass vomiting throughout the land.
Riley and Maya bring Jerrilyn in for their Great Depression/Forgotten presentation, telling the class about the pride she takes in her work and how much she cares for all of them. Lucas and Farkle give a similar speech for Harley. “You may not notice that he’s there, but you’d definitely notice if he wasn’t,” Farkle insists.
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Everyone learns the lesson this week—first, Riley apologizes to Topanga for taking advantage of her. Maya and Riley become besties with Jerrilyn, while Lucas and Farkle bus their own tables so Harley doesn’t have to. Cory, inspired by this success, gives a speech about how underappreciated teachers are. “Are you done, Baboon?” Harley asks. Maybe next time, Cory.
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