Cory’s Class: this week on Girl Meets World, Cory is discussing forgiveness and loosely relating it to the ideas of war and peace. Their assignment is to write a note to someone, forgiving them for a past indescretion. Lucas and Riley encourage Maya to take this opportunity to forgive her dad. Instead, Maya writes Riley a note telling her to butt out, which I would do too if Riley brought up my childhood trauma in class.
Riley’s Window: Riley forgives Auggie for biting the face off of Beary the Bear when he was three. Auggie claims that a normal person would have gotten over it by now, but Riley is still sitting with her note, smug as can be. He refuses to thank her for the apology, convinced that she’s not actually trying to forgive him, she’s trying to make him apologize.
Topanga’s Cafe: Katie attempts to teach Topanga proper customer service, but ends up smashing a piece of cheesecake in a customer’s face. Turns out it’s Maya’s dad–he’s here because Maya sent him a note as part of Cory’s assignment. Riley gets nervous: “It was a bad move. Tried it, didn’t work. They don’t apologize, forgiveness is for jerks!” Katie reveals that she protected Kermit’s image in Maya’s eyes, never telling her that he claimed he was going out for a walk and never came back. Maya tells Kermit the story in which a terrified four-year-old Maya’s fears of a storm were soothed by a game in which he pretended that they were exploring Alaska and that the lightning was actually the Northern Lights. She asks if he remembers it, not surprised when he says no. The reason he doesn’t remember it is that it was actually Katie who soothed Maya’s fears–she doesn’t know where he was at the time. After declaring Cory was wrong about this one, Maya takes her leave.
Cory’s Class: the kids report back to Cory, telling him that his project was a failure. Maya ends up reading the note to her father out loud, and we find out that in the letter she asked what she did to make him leave. Cory leads Maya to the conclusion that she had asked for an explanation, but didn’t give Kermit the chance to give one. “Sometimes to forgive someone, you have to understand them first,” Cory explains.
Riley’s Window: Auggie reveals that the reason he bit the bear’s face off is the same reason that he would bite Maya’s face off if she wasn’t bigger than him: he wants to spend more time with Riley. Riley apologizes for her neglect and Auggie forgives her.
Topanga’s Cafe: Riley is now preaching the value of forgiveness, making Auggie sit on her lap wherever she goes so they can spend more time together. Kermit returns to help Maya not be angry anymore. He explains that he wasn’t fit to be around anyone back then–he couldn’t hold down a job, or money, or be available to anyone in a good capacity. It was nothing that Maya did and she shouldn’t blame herself. He can be around his new family because they don’t know his past and they believe in his future self. Maya feels better knowing that she did nothing, but can’t forgive him for not giving her and Katie the chance to allow him to grow.
Topanga’s Cafe: Maya apologizes to Cory for failing her assignment, but it wasn’t Cory’s intent to have Maya forgive her father. He explains that kind of forgiveness takes a lot of time. “Maya, did you forgive yourself?” he asks, nudging Maya to tears and a hug.
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The Apartment Matthews: Riley hands Cory a note saying she forgives him for everything. Topanga hands Cory another three forgiveness notes. The joke’s on him.
This episode of Girl Meets World was slightly odd. They’ve been tackling a lot of heavy subjects recently, and while I’m not a fan of the filler episodes, I think it’s time that they balance out the season with some lighter content. The whole assignment thing was kind of weird–that felt more like something a therapist would assign, not a teacher.
Episode Rating: 6/10.
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