Girl Meets World – Girl Meets Her Monster

By: Kim Olson

Everyone is OBSESSED with the show “Red Planet Diaries!” Riley (Rowan Blanchard) and Maya (Sabrina Carpenter) can’t stop binge-watching it and the boys are having a watch party for the finale, to which Lucas (Peyton Meyer) is bringing S’mores. The girls are so obsessed with their favorite show it cuts into their responsibilities, like school and, for Riley, having to help out at Topanga’s bakery.

Believing she is “entitled,” Riley picks her priority over Topanga’s, which gets her grounded for three weeks. “You sit here and think about how maybe you are a good person now, but it’s because your parents raised you right and we helped you make all the right decisions, except for this one. You sit and you think. If you think correctly, at the end of three weeks, I’ll get an apology,” Topanga (Danielle Fishel) says. But Riley fights back against her mother, ignoring her, and keeps watching her show. This forces Topanga’s hand and makes her take away Riley’s computer and phone. To make matters worse, according to Maya, “Godzilla knows no boundaries! She’s Godzilla,” so she takes her phone, too. “You can do this?” Maya asks.

Maya, who I am not sure if Topanga sees her as her daughter or not, is scared of “Godzilla.” But Riley is enough of an “idiot” to stand up to her and thinks, for some reason, that’s a very big moment for all the kids of the world. Riley says, “You don’t care about what’s important to me. You only care about what’s important to you,” to which Cory (Ben Savage) replies, “You are on the corner of Entitlement Avenue and All About Me Boulevard. Guess whose house is there? Godzilla’s house.” Adding to the moment Topanga states, “You think you deserve an award for being a good person. That we should celebrate your goodness? Would you like a parade? …I don’t wanna see you right now.” Sadly, it gets worse from there.

Not wanting to live under Topanga’s rules and restrictions anymore, Riley runs away from home to become a poor homeless orphan, living in Maya’s bedroom. “Hi, honey. I’m home,” Riley says, entering her new residence. She borrows Maya’s old clothes (Riley: “How do I look?” Maya: “Desperate.”) and prepares to get her first job. All Riley wants is to go home, for her parents to love her and for her mom to be proud of her, but she thinks her parents don’t love her anymore. “I want to go home. I hurt my mom. But I can’t go home…. because I don’t want her to win,” Riley says. This could have been a great moment to have Maya’s mom and Shawn (Rider Strong) care for Riley. Shawn could have called Topanga and Cory to tell them Riley was there and how she feels. Instead, Maya appears to live alone, when she is supposed to really live with her mom and her new step-dad.

Without Riley, Topanga is dying. She has no will to live. Not even Auggie (August Maturo), nor Cory are enough for her. Topanga whines, “Riley is my entire reason for being,” to which Cory replies, “Well, you still have me.”) Honestly, I hate what “Girl Meets World” has done to Cory and Topanga! What happened to “epic love/soulmates/ideal couple that ruins everyone else’s expectations?!” Now, they’re just average/typical/normal parents/couple, who I am not even sure like each other.

Eventually, Riley and Topanga do go to each other because deep down, even when they are mad at each other, they still love each other. Riley confesses, “I would never want to hurt you” and Topanga says, “When something’s important to you I should really respect your feelings. I should never have let it get to this point, even though you were wrong. That doesn’t matter. Yes, it does.” Sweetly, Riley replies, “I hope being wrong or right doesn’t matter as much as remembering how much we mean to each other.” But Topanga still grounds Riley because she is a good mom. Topanga and Riley’s friends watch on lovingly, waiting for her prison time to be over with because it’s not true that “nobody cares about you when you’re grounded.” They all still love her and cannot wait to spend time with her again.

Overall, Girl Meets Her Monster was a really great episode to finally showcase Topanga as a mom and focus on her relationship with her daughter. Personally, for me, the episode hit a little too close to home for comfort. It was too relatable to my life and too real because I have literally been Riley in this situation and my mother has literally been Topanga. (Eerily, I am pretty sure my mom has even said the exact same words Topanga does!)

Best Lines:

• Riley & Maya (glued to their show): “It’s Friday night. We can do whatever we want. We can stay up as late as we want.” Topanga: “It’s Monday morning!”
• Cory: “Godzilla vs. Japan.” Farkle: “Japan loses Riley.: Cory: “Really loses.” Farkle: “Tell her how bad they lose.” Cory: “They lose so bad their voices come out of their mouths three seconds later.”
• Riley: “Mommy is not a hammer.” Cory: “I know what I married!”
• Maya: “Whole Maya Heartedly!”
• Cory: “The thing human beings are entitled to is to make a wrong decision every once in a while.”