‘Girl Meets World’ season 2, episode 19 reaction: Riley spreads a little cheer

For all of those who watch “Girl Meets World” for the nostalgia, odds are that you were probably disappointed with “Girl Meets Rah Rah” on Friday night. This was an episode that was a standalone half-hour that could have really been thrown anywhere that the Disney Channel wanted to throw it. Ultimately, it just so happened to be right after the “Invisible Sister” movie as a proper means to ensure that everyone in the young audience who watched Rowan Blanchard stuck around to see her here.

When you look at this episode as a whole, the main thing to react to is that, somehow, Riley managed to get her way into the cheerleading squad … sort of. It just came through a relentless determination, and then some of the other members of the squad pretending like they would need some sort of alternate in the event they get injured. Riley’s not a great cheerleader, so we should get that out of the way now. Luckily, she does have a lot of spirit, and in many ways that is what matters most.

A common criticism that you could have at the moment is that the show is idealistic, but are you going to really complain about that? Sure, in real life we feel like cheerleaders would not be anywhere near as open to letting Riley join the team, but that’s real life! We don’t really expect this show to be a reflection of that, and think about how many shows out there really try to paint with this brush.

One other thing we’ll say: Zay may be the best character on the show right now. His exclamations about Vanessa are to us the funniest part of the whole episode.

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