The Goldbergs - Major League - Review

On this week’s episode of The Goldbergs Barry learnt a good life lesson and Erica had to fight against the odds for her relationship with Geoff.

To start off with and something we haven’t had in a while; a Barry and Adam story. The Principal decided to draft Mr. Crosby in to coach the baseball team, in an attempt to make them so horrible that the school board would get rid of the team and allow those funds to go to other resources the Principal deemed more important. Wanting some of that said funding, Mr. Crosby agrees to step up to the plate and made some changes to the team, like bringing on board the most un-athletic boys that the school has to offer, which of course included Adam and his friends.

They massively sucked at baseball. That massively made Mr. Crosby and the Principal happy, but it wasn’t long before Adam realized that they were Major Leaguing them.

Have to admit, this is once again one of those times where I don’t get the material that the show is referencing, since I’ve never seen the movie or even heard of the term, given I’ve grown up on UK football.

Adam was soon trying to form a plan with the rest of the guys, which resulted in a rather humorous scene as Barry tried to covertly admit his weaknesses to Adam without anyone else hearing and completely failed. Soon though the guys were getting their baseball on and Barry getting himself a sweet set of glasses to correct his vision issues.

With the team managing to turn around their fortunes, the Principal and Mr. Crosby realized that they were onto them and decided to ramp up the pressure, and bring forward a game with a rival school who also happened to have a rival posse to the JTP.

Catching the gang outside a shop, they were quick to lay into Barry for being a nerd due to wearing glasses. Their insults very much got to him, and Barry realized that they were treating him the exact way he’d always been treating Adam. I’m glad he could have enough self awareness to admit that the insults only hurt because he was being effected by them for once.

Given Barry is always a character who bathes in being ridiculously over-confident as a way to cover up his insecurities? It’s nice for the show to explore that every now and then. It was also incredibly realistic that Barry wasn’t quite able to put his insecurities aside to go through with the baseball match, but he did get his revenge in a typically Barry way by launching all the balls at them.

The other storyline for this week was all about Geoff and Erica. He decided to surprise her with a nice, romantic trip away, that he hadn’t actually asked his father’s permission for, so Erica took control of the situation and told a big fat lie.

His father obviously bought it and it looked as though they’d gotten away with it, except for the car rolling off a cliff. Somehow they were able to get the car and themselves back home, even if the car was completely ruined and Erica told another lie to keep them out of trouble. Unfortunately, at this point Geoff had reached his limit and ended up spilling all the beans, which resulted in his father banning him and Erica from seeing each other.

Their attempts at showing Geoff’s father she wasn’t a bad person didn’t go too well, what with the secret parties and drinking they’d been doing at the house whilst he was away. So Erica turned to her last chance saloon savior, Beverly Goldberg to make all her problems go away. After all, Beverly Goldberg doesn’t let anyone bad mouth her kids, right?!

Except on this one occasion she does, trying to delicately tell Erica it isn’t her place to tell another parent what to do, before Murray spelled it out for Erica; she is a trouble maker and underachiever, and Geoff can do far better than her. It’s not something Erica really liked to hear from her parents, and seeing how devastated she was, Beverly did decide to go against her instincts and get Erica all glammed up to talk to Geoff’s dad.

Learning a valuable lesson though, Erica realized she had to speak up for herself. She acknowledged she isn’t the greatest influence, it is a miracle that Geoff loves her as much as he does, but in their own ways? They make each other better people. Sure in the future she will probably screw up again, but that’s life when you’re young. Whilst he still probably wasn’t wowed by her, Geoff’s father did back down enough to let love see another day.

Given how much the show has been focused on Lainey & Barry of late, it was nice for another couple to be in the spotlight, as we haven’t seen anywhere near enough of Geoff & Erica’s relationship of late and it was good to see Erica back in her own storyline instead of supporting someone else’s.