‘Girl Meets World’ season 2, episode 29 reaction: A bay window’s past, present, and future

Sure, Friday night’s new episode of “Girl Meets World” (entitled “Girl Meets the Bay Window”) may have contained almost zero information regarding the Riley – Lucas – Maya love triangle of sorts, and it also was close to a bottle episode, spending the entire half-hour in a single location. It was not an episode that leaned heavily on “Boy Meets World” nostalgia, just as it was also not roll-on-the-floor funny.

Yet, at the same time, we may be convinced that this was the best episode of the season, if not the Disney Channel series as a whole. It dealt with a topic that was universal, and something that viewers of all ages could extract some sort of meaning from: Change, and how to handle it both before and after it comes. The story was told through the lens of Riley, who had determined that with high school coming up, she wanted to change the iconic bay window in which she and Maya had so many wonderful experiences at growing up. Maya was resistant, and had little interest in evolving past where her life was. She was happy, and was also scared of what was on the other side.

Rather than just telling us this measure of fear and what Maya was so afraid of losing, the writers did something different in this episode and crafted a unique way of showing us just what these two went through together. We saw the early days of their friendships, and present-day Riley and Maya eventually met up with their former selves to let them know that it was going to be okay. Then, the two of them eventually saw their future selves as they started to realize that they would be living in different parts of the city.

Were future Riley and Maya the real deal, or mere projections of what the two wanted for each other years down the road? Either interpretation works, since it doesn’t change the narrative that things are going to happen in life. It’s inevitable, and you want to be prepared for them. However, and as Topanga said so eloquently in the episode, that doesn’t mean that you have to abandon your past. You store those memories away for another day.

In a word, this episode was poignant. It captured the spirit and the emotional process that comes with growing up better than so many other shows that we’ve seen over time. It really doesn’t matter who you are or your own life history; there is probably something within this episode you related to, and that’s a beautiful thing.

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