The Goldbergs – My Valentine Boy

By: Ariba Bhuvad

It’s Valentine’s Day on The Goldbergs, but love isn’t exactly in the air. Unlike modern times, in the 80s this love-filled holiday was spent by giving each other presents face-to-face rather than through technology. Given how things went with Lainey (AJ Michalka), we see Barry (Troy Gentile) is pretty down about the holiday. Thankfully, the JTP offer to be his Valentine, but he says it’s not the same. Meanwhile, Adam’s (Sean Giambrone) girlfriend gets him Teddy Ruxpin bear for Valentine’s Day that talks and Adam excitedly tells her their plans to eat pizza and watch the film Twins. And while they’re making plans Adam gets a flower delivery from Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) gushing about how much she loves him. This prompts some concern from Jackie (Alexis G. Zall) who is certain that Bev will ruin their plans, and as expected, Bev tries to butt in.

Erica (Hayley Orrantia) is down on this holiday as well, but not for romantic reasons. Their band has been falling apart ever since Lainey left and they need a guitarist. Geoff (Sam Lerner) promises to find them someone and he delivers when he finds the Kremps’ nephew, Evan (Luke Eisner) who can sing and play the guitar.

Murray (Jeff Garlin) never celebrates Valentine’s Day any differently every year and just like always he gets Bev candles. Bev is happy to get them and then mentions her dinner with Adam who says he has plans with Jackie. This makes Murray mad because it means he’ll have to plan a night out when he doesn’t want to. This sparks a war between Murray and Adam where each of them gets presents for Bev and writes the other’s name on it. The presents include moonlight horse trails, making a collage of matchboxes from Bev’s favorite restaurants and so on. When Adam tells Bev that he can’t make it for their dinner, she tries to convince Murray and this is ultimately the start of the war that doesn’t end until she catches on to their games.

After seeing Evan perform Barry gets angry on Geoff’s behalf and says that Geoff shouldn’t let Evan get so close to Erica. To help him out Barry asks the JTP to help set up scenarios where Geoff confronts Evan. It all goes south when he does actually confront him and Evan decides to leave the band because he feels weird. Erica realizes that Barry is behind all of this and yells at him for messing around with Geoff’s head. It turns out that Barry did all this because he doesn’t want Geoff to end up lonely and miserable like he’s been after Lainey left him behind.

While going to pick up flowers that she thinks Murray sent her Bev finds out from the Kremps’ that it was Adam who placed the order. She goes home to confront Adam and Murray, but is more angry with Murray for trying to avoid doing something nice for her. To apologize Murray tries to record her a video, but it goes horribly wrong when it doesn’t actually get recorded. Instead, he has to verbalize his feelings and ends up saying “I love you” when he’s not used to it. All’s well that ends well because Murray takes Beverly out to the movies just as Adam takes Jackie out. Meanwhile, Erica and the JTP surprise Barry with roses and a night out at one of Evan’s concerts.