Who’s Who: Degrassi

People who were nicer AFTER tragedy struck:

PAIGE was a bitch until Evil Dean date raped her. Then she gave Spinner the chance he deserved. She harnessed her anger in a song that drove her attacker running from the Battle of the Bands and before long she was being nice to Ellie and taking responsibility for her actions.

JIMMY was kind of a douche before he got shot. He wasn’t evil or anything (he did help Marco after he was the victim of a hate crime), but as a result of being shot by the kid he once bullied, Jimmy got in touch with his artistic side and learned there was more to life than basketball.

SPINNER'S role in the school shooting caused his friends to abandon him. It wasn’t an easy road to redemption, but he dealt with his anger and grief by throwing himself into the Christian Friendship Club. When his new friend Linus exposed himself as a bigot, Spinner stood by Marco and earned back his trust.

People who nicer BEFORE tragedy struck:

EMMA was so sweet and innocent. Then she almost got shot by Crazy Rick and she responded by hanging out in the ravine with Jay and catching Gonorrhea. This would be kind of awesome if she didn’t also start dating a sociopath and acting like a boring mean girl all the time. Emma was once cool and quirky. Now she’s kind of an asshole.

Degrassi: It goes there…Again?

Tonight we learned that the internet can be a scary place, filled with—get this—dangerous older men who are not who they seem.

Wait a second… Didn’t we learn this in the first freaking episode when Emma went to the hotel to meet her internet pal only to be molested by a freak who locked her in his room?

Apparently Darcy missed that episode. I’ll forgive it since she wasn’t a recurring character until the fourth season. But you know what Darcy was around for? Peter taping a drunk Manny as she flashed her breasts, and then attempting to blackmail her before showing the tape to the world via the world wide web.

And yet she totally trusted him to take sexy pictures of her and post them on her “secret” web page. I don’t know about you, but I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to learn that Peter sent the link to her crestfallen boyfriend AND that the friend from private school he introduced ol’ Darcy to is actually a lonely middle-aged man with a sweaty moon face.

Fingers crossed, later in the season we can revisit the ravine of Gonorrhea or learn that parental infidelity is a sure-fire kick start to anorexia. I’m totally psyched. My one request is that we put a moratorium on Peter popping up in these storylines. In a season with such isolated storylines (all of which are tragically lacking any meaningful contributions from Marco or Spinner), why have we had two that prominently feature Degrassi’s most wooden sociopath?

And you thought Manny was dumb...

One of the most refreshing things about Spinner’s redemption storyline in Season 5 (other than the fact that it was stretched over more than two episodes, something we’ve yet to see in Season 6) was Darcy as a level headed Christian. She planned to remain a virgin until marriage, but had no problem with Marco’s plan to have a Safe Sex Rally and distribute condoms to non-abstainers. It was a nice contrast to many shows that only see Christian characters as crazy and uptight or mean-spirited hypocrites.

Darcy stood up to Linus and the Friendship Club when they crossed the line from misguided piousness to flat-out bigotry. Sure, she was a little high strung when Spin revealed his sexual past, but all in all she was a really cool character.

This is why I find it hard to stomach Darcy’s descent into skankdom. Even Manny thought posting sexy pictures of the girls on myroom.com so Peter’s creepy “friend” would buy the Spirit Squad new hot pants was a bad idea. When Manny “My Boobs Are All Over the Internet” Santos is the voice of reason in your storyline, you know something is about to go very, very wrong.

And why hasn’t someone confiscated Peter’s camera?

The O(h Lord will someone not shoot the flailing thing in the head and put it out of its misery once and for all?) C

It’s not terribly novel for me to state that after a nearly pitch-perfect first season and an occasionally stumbling second (the gardener, the self-referencing comic book, Marissa, sigh), this show has gone quickly into the crapper.

I declared it dead after the evil dean and the obnoxious Taylor Townsend decided to make it their personal mission to punish Marissa for saving her boyfriend’s life by shooting her attempted rapist. Every once in a while I would flip the channel back to the FOX to find that yes, Seth was still rapidly on his way to being a total asshole and no, they had yet to explain what the hell happened to Zach.

With Marissa safely dead and buried and Ryan apparently cage fighting in order to get the sad beaten out of him, I decided to give the show another chance. Let’s be honest, I didn’t really expect it to recapture my loyalty. In addition to a stupid montage ripped out of some Canadian movie of the week, I was subjected to the formerly adorable Chris Pratt of Everwood as a walking college stereotype and a painfully stupid presentation of the Chino Kid’s origin story. The last somehow convinced Ryan to move back into the pool house (good life choice) and take Julie up on her mission to avenge Marissa’s death (bad life choice, but excellent use of cage fighting skills).

In my-heart-is-not-frozen news, I was touched that Summer’s only being a politically obnoxious, Che t-shirt wearing poser because she can’t be her old self without being reminded of her beloved Coop’s death and it still annoys the holy hell out of me when Seth refers to Kirsten and Sandy as MY parents instead of OUR parents when talking to Ryan. Screw the pool house. Someone give that kid a room in the main house and a daily hug.

Shows that are dead to me: An Update

Shows that are still dead to me: The OC. Even cage fighting can't save you now, Schwartz.

Shows that are no longer dead to me: ER. Stamos being all kinds of steamy? Well played, NBC. Well played.