“What would you do if I sang out of tune?”
"Kevin Delivers" (Season 6, Episode 8)
"Kevin Arnold: delivery boy" is a storyline no one asked for, but by Season 6 of The Wonder Years, the writers were really scraping the bottom of the barrel. And so we watch Kevin (Fred Savage) square off against an angry dog, get forced into conversation with a lonely old woman, and contemplate drag racing. The conclusion, in which Winnie (Danica McKellar) tricks Kevin into delivering food for their late-night date, might be sweet if it weren't such a slog getting there.
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"Of Mastodons and Men" (Season 5, Episode 15)
The not-so-subtle subtext of this episode is that high school boys are boorish, sex-crazed cavemen, a theme that gets reiterated throughout Kevin Arnold's pubescence. But aside from being repetitive, the real problem with "Of Mastodons and Men" is the way it treats the female characters — Kevin's single-episode girlfriend Julie (Sandy Faison) is controlling, overbearing, and obsessed with the color pink. The backwards gender politics at play are straight out of the Stone Age.
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"Who's Aunt Rose?" (Season 4, Episode 13)
Who is Aunt Rose? That question is never given a satisfying answer. It doesn't really matter, anyway: She's a distant relative who has died, and when a distant relative dies, the family gets together to mourn her. The problem is that because we've never heard of any of these characters, it all feels a little inconsequential. The Wonder Years is good at confronting mortality, as it did with Brian Cooper and Mr. Collins, but this particular morbid excursion is a thoughtless detour.
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"Day One" (Season 5, Episode 2)
Of course Kevin would feel unsettled on his first day of 10th grade — especially with Paul (Josh Saviano) now at boarding school instead of by his side. But it's all a little too much, from Wayne (Jason Hervey) and Wart (Scott Menville) dipping Kev's head in the toilet to comically evil new teacher Mr. Bottner (Scott Jaeck). In trying to show how Kevin feels unsettled, the episode abandons any restraint. Even Kevin's triumphant rebellion at the end is too forced to take seriously.
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