Why *That* Degrassi Episode Still Holds Up Almost 20 Years Later

When Degrassi: The Next Generation aired, I was 10 years old. I was more or less the target audience for a show about kids who go through the normal trials and tribulations of middle school. Degrassi was an important part of my life through high school, and even moreso in college - my freshman year, when I didn't know how to make friends, I would inter-library loan DVD copies of Degrassi Jr. High and watch while I ate meals in the dining hall alone.

As a student who was close in age to the characters on the series, I related heavily to some issues portrayed - Liberty's learning disability, Ashley's goth phase alienating her from her former clique, other innocuous stuff - I was very lucky in that the more intense plotlines seemed very far removed from my life and the lives of my friend group. Degrassi even opened doors for me to understand certain issues plaguing my friends and gave me resources to help them through these life struggles.

Not every episode hit the mark, true. I remember vividly a mortifying moment from my middle school years - my goth phase had relaxed itself a bit, but I still sported a wrist full of black jelly bracelets. I wore them because I liked them, and they were cheap to buy at Hot Topic. I never took them off and they smelled. I was also, at this point in my life, not even contemplating sex or anything close to it. My bracelet wearing preteen punk persona worked hard, but Lifetime movies and that ravine-bracelet-STI episode of Degrassi worked harder. At a canning drive for my middle school band, while I was standing WITH MY MOTHER, another parent took one look at my wrists, scoffed, and asked my mom if she "knew what those even meant." My mom was confused, I was confused, and this parent went on to explain that my bracelets "represent what someone will do with a boy." Luckily, my mom knew me well enough to know that I was just wearing bracelets, but I'm still a bit salty that a show like Degrassi, that prided itself on being "real" would perpetuate such a false narrative of something so innocent.

All this to say I'm 30 now and rewatching Degrassi: The Next Generation from the very beginning. I'm looking at it through not only the lens of an adult, but the lens of an educator. I'm noticing a lot of things I didn't notice as a kid upon first watch all those years ago, but I am noticing that the episodes that truly "go there" haven't gotten any easier to watch: JT's death and the aftermath, the OG crew graduating while that horribly sad song plays (Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars, if you're curious), and the topic of this musing, Rick's bullying at the hands of Spinner and Jay, and the events that followed.

As someone who graduated high school, college, and then taught middle and high school for four years, I've spent almost my entire life in a classroom. I've had the misfortune of being in lockdown as a student, scared and oblivious to what may be going on just outside the classroom door. I've had the misfortune of being in lockdown as an educator, scared and oblivious to what may be going on just outside the classroom door, while also being responsible for the lives of my students. I've had the misfortune of participating in active shooter drills as part of my teacher training, where my colleagues and I were made to barricade a door with a large wooden table, trying to prevent a cop with a Nerf gun from pretending to kill us. We broke a corner off of that that large wooden table in our haste to keep ourselves fake-safe from a fake-shooter.

I will never forget reading about the events of Sandy Hook, and going to an Education class that afternoon, being taught how to write a lesson plan as if nothing had happened.

My experiences on both sides of this horrible reality is why I think Degrassi: The Next Generation's two episode arc, Time Stands Still pt. 1 and Time Stands Still pt. 2, still hold up to this day. The emotions still hit me, the suspense and anxiety are all still there, even though I know how it ends, even though it aired for the first time 17 years ago, even though I've watched it multiple times since then.

Time Stands Still, pt. 1 opens on a familiar high school television show trope: Jimmy Brooks and Spinner Mason ragging on Rick Murray for his hat, almost bumping him with their car, and then throwing him and his hat into a dumpster. While this isn't an isolated incident - Rick has been the target of bullying before - this behavior from Jimmy and Spinner doesn't exist in a vacuum: for the uninitiated, Rick had physically abused his girlfriend Terri earlier in the series, putting her into a coma; Terri's friends have neither forgiven nor forgotten (and I don't blame them). Rick retaliates and tags Spinner's car, and the car of Jay Hogart, of bad ravine storyline fame.

The conflict looks to be somewhat swept under the rug when Jimmy and Rick are chosen to compete on the same team for a televised trivia championship. While they don't become friends, Jimmy starts to soften to Rick; he won't forgive what he's done in the past, but he is willing to put feelings aside for the success of their Whack Your Brain team.

Degrassi sweeps the competition, winning the trivia tournament, but their victory is overshadowed when a torrent of yellow paint and white feathers rain down on Rick, Carrie White style. The episode ends with Rick going home and opening a briefcase that contains his father's gun.

Time Stands Still pt. 2 opens on that same gun, now in Rick's backpack, and Rick returning to school, still paint-and-feathered. The school day goes on as if nothing happened - Ms. Kwan literally turns from the television announcements where Principal Raditch is decrying the event and tells her class, "So, back to 1984..."

Outside on the basketball court, Jimmy and Spinner fight, physically, over the incident - Jimmy imploring Spinner to fix the situation. What Spinner ends up doing, however, is making Rick believe Jimmy is to blame for Rick's humiliation.

Wee see resident mean girl Paige in a rare moment of grace when she apologizes to Rick for what was done to him. While she speaks, Rick is reaching into his bag for the gun, and the anxiety is still palpable all these years later. You feel scared for Paige, who has no idea how close to death she is; you feel scared because you start to feel sorry for Rick.

Rick approaches Jimmy, who he believes is the mastermind behind the paint-and-feathers. The image of Rick pulling out the gun, Jimmy running through the hall, the gutteral scream he lets out as he is shot and falls. The scene is playing as I write this, and I am crying; after all these years, I'm still crying.

Sean wrestles the gun away from Rick, but it goes off in the fight. We never know who pulled the trigger. Rick is dead. Sean has to live with the knowledge that he may have killed him. Emma has to live with the knowledge that she was going to be shot next. Toby has to live with the knowledge that he watched his friend die. And I am still crying.

We see the aftermath: parents rushing to Degrassi hoping to find their children safe from harm, families crowded around the television watching the news of their own trauma unfold.

As an educator, I find myself now heavily invested in how the adults handle this tragedy. Earlier in the episodes, Principal Raditch refused to mediate between Rick and Jimmy, telling Rick "it takes two to tango" and to let him know if "something serious happens." After the shooting, Raditch asks Mr. Simpson to try and find "warning signs" in Rick's email account. Simpson rightfully tears into his friend and superior, reminding Raditch that there were warning signs every day that teachers and administrators ignored; Simpson insists that this could have been prevented.

And he's right. I can't count how many times myself or my colleagues have, throughout the years, gone to those with more power than us with concerns about student safety. I have seen credible threats (not necessarily gun violence threats, but threats nonetheless) swept under the rug for "optics;" I've watched students who brought weapons to school walk across the stage at that same school's graduation ceremony. I've seen violence so egregious I've had to make statements on-record, only to be told the violent student will return to class after a (very) brief suspension. I have felt unsafe in my own classroom, I have felt unheard by those in charge, by those with the power to make change.

One thing Degrassi does perfectly is weave music into their scenes, seamlessly creating mood and tone with the lyrics. The final two minutes of Time Stands Still pt. 2 features the song Rooftop by Melissa McClelland. The lyrics are heart wrenching.

I am playing God... A memorial has formed on the steps of Degrassi; students gather and light candles, embrace each other. A picture of Jimmy is shown on a poster, accompanied by one word: "why?"

I am all alone... Paige and Hazel keep vigilant at Jimmy's hospital bed, waiting for news of their friend's condition

Alone in this world... Spinner cries alone in his room, realizing the weight of his actions

Alone... Emma and Toby embrace outside the memorial, grappling with their myriad emotions.

What I find to be fascinating, now, watching it as a 30 year old adult, is the completely innocuous B-plot of Caitlyn Ryan buying Joey Jeremiah's house. Peppered into these two episodes are scenes of the most mundane scenes surrounding two adults no one cares about, having issues no one cares about. What teenager cares about two grown people fighting over buying and selling houses?

But now, watching with renewed perspective, of course the absolutely mundane and everyday nonsense of life is going on while an absolute tragedy is happening inside the walls of Degrassi. That's how it happens. Tragedy strikes when we least expect it, when we're so caught up in the minutae of life that we never in a million years could expect our world to be thrown into such turmoil. School shootings, children dying, it's not natural; there's no way to prepare for it.

All this to say, it is both a great testament to Degrassi that these episodes still hold up to modern standards almost 20 years later, and a great tragedy that these episodes still ring true, almost 20 years later. Those feelings of anxiety, shame (have I ever been a bully? Do I act like that? Do I have the capacity for this sort of hate?), sadness, fear, it is all still there.

And I am still crying.