In need of a pick-me-up post his break up with Topanga, Cory and Shawn head out to a party where they encounter drinking alcohol for the first time. What starts off as just a fun night, quickly devolves into a lesson about alcoholism and alcohol abuse, as Shawn becomes dependent on drinking.
Tropes:
- Descent into Addiction: The entire episode shows Shawn go from having his first drink to quickly becoming a mean-spirited, careless proto-drunk, showing up to school hammered and even shoving Angela into a door. This trope ends up subverted however when a drunk Shawn shoves Angela into a door. Her walking away and his own horror at what he's done, snaps him out of his spiral and vows to never drink again.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Trying to cover for Cory, Shawn tells Cory's parents that he pressured Cory to drink to help him get over his heartbreak post Topanga breaking up with him.
- Liquid Courage: Cory turns to alcohol just to make him less awkward at the party and this works: he becomes a funny, charming, life of the party.
- Mistaken for Gay: Outside a corner store, Cory and Shawn drunkenly share how much they care about each other and hug, Shawn saying he's not ashamed to say that out loud. A guy walks out of the store and upon seeing Cory and Shawn, says "It's okay, my brother's also chosen an alternative lifestyle," heavily implying that he thinks they're romantically embracingly.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After drunkenly shoving Angela into a door and her rightfully walking out on him, Shawn turns to Cory and Jack in horror and asks them, "How did that just happen?"
- Nature Tinkling: Drunk Cory and Shawn pee on a cop car outside in the street just because.
- Parents as People: Alan immediately accusing Shawn of being a Toxic Friend Influence to Cory despite the exact opposite happening is one of the starkest examples in the series of how the Matthews are just people trying their best to raise their kids. It's such a painful reveal of his own shortcomings that Alan emphatically apologizes to Shawn once Cory makes it Cory clear them drinking and getting arrested wasn't Shawn's fault.
- Toxic Friend Influence: After Cory's parents learn that he and Shawn were arrested for underaged drinking and peeing on a cop car, Alan's first instinct is to blame Shawn and accuse him of always having been nothing but a bad influence on straight-laced Cory. Shawn, who has been effectively adopted as a third son to the Matthews, is so hurt that he doesn't even refute the statement, he just leaves. The kicker, as Cory explains to his parents after, is that it was Cory who stole Alan's whisky on his own and pressured Shawn to drink, not the other way around. Alan looks devastated and adamantly apologizes, brushing off Shawn's attempts to minimize the issue.
- Very Special Episode: The episode is not subtle with its anti-underaged drinking messaging and ends with this very on the nose exchange between Shawn and Angela:Shawn: I don't like me when I drink, either.
Angela: Good. Because I sure like you when you don't. [roll credits] - You're Not My Father: Said almost verbatim by Shawn to Cory's parents when they begin disciplining Cory and him after they were arrested. Unlike most examples of this trope though, Shawn rejects the Matthews as Parental Substitutes with weary resignation instead of vitriol, because he's only doing it in reaction to Alan condemning him and to take as much heat off of Cory as possible.
