The Goldbergs – Hersheypark

By: Ariba Bhuvad

It was 1980-something and The Goldbergs remind us just how epic going on field trips was. Remember waking up that morning knowing you’re off to an adventure away from the mundane and boring environment of the classroom? There was nothing quite like it and this week’s episode of The Goldbergs takes us back to those moments in “Hersheypark.”

Adam (Sean Giambrone) and his class are set to go to Hersheypark, the land of chocolate and candy galore. However, there is one slight problem–his smother, Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey). Since the beginning of time, Bev was always a chaperone at every one of Adam’s field trips. But since his class is now going to an extremely cool place, he doesn’t want her to be there. But if anyone knows Bev, this is pretty much an impossible task to accomplish.

Adam decides to lie to her and say the trip is canceled because there is a chocolate war going on between the companies and it caused the park to close temporarily. He succeeds in convincing her that this is truly the case, that is until she bumps into the other kids’ parents who tell her otherwise. She learns that Adam lied to her and that she should consider herself lucky because their kids banned them from chaperoning a long time ago.

During career night at school, Geoff (Sam Lerner) realizes that he may not want to take over his father’s ophthalmology practice after all. During the fair, Murray (Jeff Garlin) convinces Geoff to come intern for free at the furniture store, which upsets Geoff’s father greatly. Instead, Barry (Troy Gentile) ends up at his Geoff’s father’s practice, and seems to excel greatly there. Future Dr. Barry Goldberg, M.D., indeed.

Meanwhile, Bev teaches the other parents the art of the guilt letter (something the real Beverly Goldberg actually did). She teaches them the intricate points they have to make in this letter that will guilt trip their kids into oblivion. And boy, does it work.

Geoff realizes that he is the doormat in every relationship he has, and is tired of being pushed around. He doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps, he doesn’t want to fold Erica’s (Hayley Orrantia) laundry and he doesn’t want Barry to be the leader of JTP. In an effort to be more bad and rebellious, Geoff decides to change his personality and stand up for himself. Something Erica seems to really admire and be attracted to, might we add.

Eventually, Geoff realizes this is not how he should be handling things, and even his father realizes that he needs to respect Geoff’s career path, whatever it may be (as long as it is not furniture). It’s another sweet moment brought to you by the deceptively soft and emotional Murray Goldberg.

Bev’s plan of using the guilt letters works and her and all the other parents end up chaperoning the trip anyway. The kids eventually realize that they all used the same letter to emotionally blackmail so they decide to turn the tables on them by writing letters of their own.

Bev and Adam both get on a rollercoaster as they hash out their grievances with one another while simultaneously passing out from fear of the ride. It’s actually quite hilarious and entertaining to watch!

The two come to an understanding which involves Adam being more receptive to Bev when she asks how his dad was and in exchange, Bev will try and stop being so overbearing (good luck with that!). At the end of the episode, Wendi McLendon-Covey and the real Beverly Goldberg are seen discussing the actual guilt letters that Bev would writer–and they were hilarious!