Shawn Hunter Is Back! 'Girl Meets World' Reunites Cory and Shawn

 If you spent any time watching TV in the ‘90s, you were without a doubt a fan of the hit show, Boy Meets World. If not a “fan”, you at least knew it existed. This ‘90s staple engaged kids and young adults of many different ages and helped them relate to the world. This summer, its protégé Girl Meets World (also created by Boy’s Michael Jacobs) premiered, now following the lives of Cory and Topanga’s 13-year old daughter, Riley (Rowan Blanchard) and best friend Maya (Sabrina Carpenter). While it was great news for BMW fans that the hit series was being re-launched in some way, the first season has been almost impossible to stay connected to now that we’ve grown up.

This hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing. The show is meant to relate to kids of the new generation, which it certainly does. It handles modern-day struggles that kids are now dealing with, which is a testament to Jacobs’ societal observations. However, die-hard Boy Meets World fans like myself have still stayed tuned in, mostly for the hopes of seeing our old favorite characters being revisited, and learning where everyone ended up.  So far, we’ve only really gotten to see what’s been going on with Cory, Topanga (Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel) and Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). Kind of. It was a little dark, and left us wondering if Feeny’s even still alive…

While that’s been great and all, I think we’ve all been waiting to hear from the rest of the Boy Meets World crew, Not taking anything away from Cory and Topanga, the couple that made us all believe in love in the corniest way possible, but the excitement of Girl Meets World for me was the idea of seeing Shawn and Eric again. Tonight, our dream partially came true!

In tonight's episode of Girl Meets World, "Girl Meets Home For The Holidays",  the Matthews family hosts a Christmas dinner. Its guests? The original Mr. and Mrs. Matthews (Amy and Alan), their youngest son Joshua, and the one and only SHAWN HUNTER. Alas, no return of the legendary Eric Matthews (Will Friedle) just yet. But have no fear...

As far as expectations go, I tried not to keep mine too high with this episode. I knew there were a lot of familiar faces coming up, but didn't want to get too excited in case it was a just a 5-second cameo return (like Steve Carell in The Office or Chad Michael Murray in One Tree Hill). Luckily, it was awesome. It was everything our inner-90s kids could have hoped for with this particular bunch.

Aside from the sometimes over-the-top mannerisms Cory seems to have developed as an adult, (seriously, Disney, calm down on him. Cory was never that insane) this episode was quite clearly a nice tribute to us die-hard fans that have been sticking with this story for this long. It was awesome to see Cory's parents and Joshua, and learn how their relationships have developed with Cory and Topanga as they became adults. We were given a nice look at the relationship that Topanga and Amy have developed, a somewhat relief after how pissed Amy got when Topanga and Cory first got engaged back in Boy Meets World.

The great connection made in this episode to help new fans understand why all these weird older people are so into this show was the friendships between Riley and Maya and Cory and Shawn. As clearly pointed out, Riley and Maya are "the new Cory and Shawn". While it was cute how they made it seem that Riley and Maya have a stronger connection, let's be honest. There are no better friends than Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter.

Of course, we can't have Shawn Hunter without a little drama. Right off the bat, we can see a little bit of reservation between Maya and Shawn. I secretly always hoped there was going to be a twist where we learned that Maya was actually Shawn's daughter, but unfortunately, no go. Besides, if GMW will be anything like BMW, the soap-opera type drama like that won't start until season 5. Anybody who's seen GMW can tell that Maya is clearly based off of Shawn. From the parental abandonment to the rebel without a cause attitude, the two are one in the same. That's what made their talk in this episode that much greater, because it allowed Shawn to sort of become Maya's mentor in a way that he never had growing up. Hopefully this means Maya doesn't make as many ridiculous decisions as we've seen Shawn make.

All in all, the episode was really a great callback to Boy Meets World fans everywhere. Even if you've never seen the new series, if you liked Boy Meets World at all, this episode was worth checking out. The writers did a great job of bringing back classic BMW jokes, and it made me hopeful for the future of the new series. Luckily, this isn't the only chance we'll have to visit old characters. Will Friedle is set to return next season as well, and by the looks of Ben Savage's Instagram, Mr. Feeny as well! HE LIVES! (Though they are digging holes, so hopefully it's not his grave)