It’s Halloween season, so it’s officially time for some spooky TV specials! And if I had to choose my favorite of all time, it would be “And Then There Was Shawn” from Boy Meets World.
The episode aired during Season 5 in February 1998 and has been a classic ever since. While it didn’t technically premiere during the fall, it has Halloween vibes written all over it. Let’s break down the episode from start to finish:
The premise? Cory and Topanga have broken up, and Shawn is taking it a bit hard. During class, Cory ends up taking Shawn’s seat, leaving him as a buffer between the now former couple.
Kenny asks to borrow Topanga’s big pencil, prompting Shawn to get a little upset. He even makes a threat, saying he’d stab him with it if he asked again — more on that later.
Then, everyone interrupts the class and starts talking about people stabbing each other in the back, which results in detention.
We soon meet a creepy janitor, complete with the sound of squeaky wheels and spooky music to set a suuuper ominious tone. Mr. Feeny exits the room, and that same janitor pops by again, staring at them through the classroom window.
“NO ONE GETS OUT ALIVE!” soon appears on the blackboard in bloody writing. Angela’s scream is so iconic and has the makings of a final girl.
As the episode continues, it serves as an ode to the original Scream movie, specifically the character Randy Meeks. His character is known for dishing out the rules of horror movies, and Shawn goes into the same spiel.
Shawn calls out the locked door, the scary janitor, and the bloody warning — even saying Kenny will be the first victim. A heartpounding sound then starts to get louder and louder. But guess who enters? It’s comic relief, Jack and Eric!
Eric says blood is coming out of the showers, and Shawn assumes everything happening is all the work of Feeny, but is it?
A person with black gloves randomly shuts off the classroom lights as Kenny is boasting about how he can borrow a pencil from Topanga anytime he wants. Angela screams, and Kenny is found dead with the BIG pencil through his head — the irony.
Cory and the gang run out in terror as the lights start flickering in the hallway. A menacing jingle about how “they’re all going to die at John Adams High” starts to play on a loop.
They run to check all the doors to no avail; they’re all locked! A “strange, shadowy figure” creeps by that of course NO ONE sees, just as Shawn suspected.
The lights flicker again as the spooky jingle continues with Mr. Feeny reappearing. But he’s dead with a pair of scissors in his back. He had zero to do with all the creepy stuff going on after all…
Mr. Feeny was the first (and most obvious) suspect, with Shawn essentially signing his death warrant because of it. He then claims virgins never die, a classic horror movie trope.
They opt not to split up, which is horror movie 101, and the creepy sound of squeaking wheels surfaces again. Cory accuses the janitor of being the killer, aka his ultimate end is coming.
Well, now the janitor is dead, with Feeny’s body also disappearing (yet no one notices…)
With the next most obvious suspect now dead, the group is forced to realize the killer is one of them. And as Eric would say, “DUN, DUN, DUN.”
Eric offers to find a way out of the school since he’s “lived the longest.” The rest retreat to the classroom as he stays in the hall alone, which is breaking the rule of horror movies to NEVER split up!
Jennifer Love Fefferman (played by Jennifer Love Hewitt) randomly appears in the hall. This is another nod to iconic horror movies since she starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer. She goes by Feffy and claims she’s a new student who got locked in the study hall, which seems all too convenient a story…
Angela and Feffy have a scream off as the payphone rings. It’s another callback to the opening scene of Scream as the killer asks, “Do you like scary movies? What’s your favorite?” Jack mentions “the one with the hottie from Party of Five,” which happens to star Neve Campbell, aka Scream‘s final girl.
Eric accidentally breaks the payphone line, but it continues to ring. It’s the killer again, and they all run in fear to the library, where they split up! Wrong move because it goes against every horror movie instinct once again!
Feffy kisses Cory on the cheek in an effort to comfort him as Topanga watches nearby. Could the killer be Topanga? Feffy is then crushed by a pile of books as a person with a skeleton mask looks on.
Eric also gets crushed by the books as Feffy is about to confess who the killer is. Because of that, Jack goes to the window ledge because he can’t afford his apartment without Eric. Angela says Shawn is still his roommate, and together they can make the rent, then they are both pushed off the ledge by the masked killer.
Shawn, Eric, and Topanga are now face-to-face with the masked killer, who makes Topanga and Cory hold hands. Surprise, the killer is… SHAWN! Well, a twin version of him.
And in another twist, it was all a dream. Shawn has a reflective moment and says he disrupted the class because Cory and Topanga’s breakup was impacting him more than he thought. And he feels like, “there’s nothing he can depend on without them together since they had been together before he even knew them.” The feels!
After comforting Shawn that it’s not his fault, Mr. Feeny dismisses them from class, and the masked killer emerges. Was it really a dream? That’s for you to debate.
Stream this episode and even more from Boy Meets World on Disney+.
What’s your favorite part of the episode? Share your thoughts in the comments!
