(Spoiler alert: Please do not read on if you have not seen Friday’s Season 2 finale of “Girl Meets World.”)
The cast of “Girl Meets World” has graduated from middle school, but still find themselves as confused as ever when it comes to the show’s central love triangle.
As Riley (Rowan Blanchard), Maya (Sabrina Carpenter) and Lucas (Peyton Meyer) tried to talk through their feelings for each other, no decision could be made as to which girl Lucas should be with, and the plot point is left dangling.
Luckily, the show has been picked up for a third season and the triangle will be picked back up as the gang heads into high school.
“It’s a very fitting season finale,” creator and showrunner Michael Jacobs told TheWrap. “I think what ‘Legacy’ actually is, is a bridge between Season 2 and Season 3. I think people who are coming to look for resolution of the triangle are going to say, ‘hey!’ but I think they’re going to understand, we are lifting what I hope is a rocket of stories to the next stage, the next level.”
Below, Jacobs also talks about how the recurring character of Josh (Uriah Shelton) will have an impact on future storylines, and how big of a tonal shift the show will take as it leads its cast into high school.
When will we see this triangle get resolved?
This will be answered in Season 3. It will span probably a third to a half of Season 3. Not as primary focus, but always as an underlying thing in existence for the characters. And then when we bring it up to primary, we will resolve it in a way that shows an answer to a much bigger question, which is, how do young people at this age perceive relationships? What is the value of them? And what are our friendships, really? If the audience perceives that what we’re talking about is 14-year olds in love, they have missed what we’re doing entirely. All of this will explain itself as part of the season.
Uriah Shelton was in a bad accident and had to be written out of a couple of episodes this season. How did losing the character of Josh from certain storylines impact things?
This boy is so brave and such a good kid. His inclusion in Season 2 would have only made things more complicated and better. That will happen in Season 3. There will be complications. Josh will be the center of some of those complications. Josh’s inclusion in Season 3 will really be what we wanted to do in Season 2, which is nothing is easy. Nothing in life that is valuable is an easy road. We’re going to use Josh to just add what we think is texture and growth to the other characters.
An audience of 6 and 7-year-olds want to know what the 10-year-olds are doing.An audience of 10-year-olds want to know what the 13-year-olds are doing. Well, these girls who are 14 and 15 this year, want to know what the 17- and 18-year olds are doing, and this is Josh. They’ll get to find an entrance, a mirror of what the next steps for them are going to be. They move into high school, and let me tell you high school will not be an easy adjustment for this cast. And Josh will move into college. That will be what’s next for our girls. They’ll be able to look forward and Josh will show them the next step of evolution. So he’s a very important character. I am very, very happy Uriah has recovered completely and it is our intent to make Josh an important part of Season 3.
How much of a shift in tone or subject matter or anything else will there be as the gang heads to high school?
Big shift. If you look at the first year and second year, I think there was a big shift between Year 1 and Year 2. I think there will be a bigger shift between Year 2 and Year 3. I think that this is honest. I think that to do things for the sake of television is a mistake. To do that special episode, that completely takes out of context the honest look at growing up, is a mistake. So what we’ve tried to do – we did it with “Texas,” the three-part episode – we’re starting out with a two-part episode of their entering of high school. What we’re trying to do is give you very intriguing and compelling episodes, but never breaking the thread of truth. Yes, this honestly happens in high school. I think high school is the most confusing, awful, terrible and ultimately – if you do it right – wonderful springboard into college and the rest of your life. But it’s high school we remember. So these are the episodes I want you to remember and we’re trying to do our best.
How will you tackle heavier subjects that come up in high school, like sex or underage drinking?
We’re on Disney Channel. As long as this show runs on Disney Channel, we want to honor the people who invited us to play at their house. They’ve been very good to us, and they have let us push the envelope about as much as they have. We will tackle heavier subjects, and we will explore them, but we will also honor the fact that our demographic starts at 6 years old. If the so-called triangle resolves and Lucas and Riley chose each other, or Maya and Lucas chose each other, and that meant that they decided to further their relationship, which might explore, naturally, what comes next, we can’t do it in such a way that the younger demographic of the audience goes, “ew, I don’t want to watch that,” and we can’t do it in such a way that the older demographic in the audience goes, “that’s not honest and believable.” What we will do is honestly show you within the parameters of what I think and what the staff thinks is correct. Lovely episodes, which will touch on all the same subjects that “Boy Meets World” did.
“Girl Meets World” will return for Season 3 in spring 2016.