The Best and Worst of Degrassi's Farewells
I’m sorry to bring up the “d” word in my newsletter, but I tend to see a lot of discourse about endings here on the world wide webberverse. Many have to do with the idea of happy endings versus sad or tragic endings, of which I have very little to contribute. I don’t think one is better than the other; it really depends on the story being told, and both types have reduced me to tears on many occasions.
One bit of “endings discourse” that has caught my attention, though, is the debate over endings for specific characters in long running series. For example, the Marvel movies may be continuing, but Chris Evans’ Captain America’s role in them is over, and I’ve seen mixed, extremely heated reactions to how the character was sent off. And that’s an ending that was planned well in advance — many TV shows, especially long-running ones, don’t have the notice to plan elaborate or fitting endings for some of their cast or characters. Other times, even when they do, they simply don’t have the interest.
I could bring up any number of series to explore this, but I think one of the most fascinating is the Degrassi franchise, because over the decades it has incorporated almost every type of character (and series!) farewell imaginable — rushed, brilliant, happy, sad, indulgent, dismissive, tragic, and completely preposterous — and the way it’s done so has said a lot about both its strengths and weaknesses as a series.
For those not in the know, Degrassi actually encompasses four different television series that aired between 1987 and 2017, all Canadian dramas following groups of middle, high school, and occasionally college students through their everyday trials and tribulations. Series like Beverly Hills 90210 are inspired by Degrassi, but the latter was always more low-key and less glamorous than its successors, generally featuring actors who were actually the same age as their teenaged characters and, at its best, less interested in their romantic drama or dreams of fame than it was the big hot-button issues they faced or the smaller indignities of being young. It quite often felt like an after school special — and, in fact, the 80s incarnation received public television funding, and was thus considered educational, and was often shown in school health classes — except (marginally) better acted. Also, since it followed the same cast of characters over years, viewers could see them deal with various issues over longer periods of time and evolve as characters, allowing it to rise above the usual trappings of after school specials. It could still be pretty cheesy, but the cheese was part of the charm. 90210 or Gossip Girl was for the “popular” kids — kids like me were attracted to the earnest charm and moral lessons of Degrassi.
The first series, Degrassi Junior High, aired for three seasons from 1987-1989, and was immediately followed by Degrassi High, which followed the same set of characters as they moved into high school and ran for two seasons from 1989-1991 (despite the change of title and location, they’re essentially one series). These series were incredibly low-budget, DIY ventures. They featured no professional actors — instead, the crew held acting workshops throughout Toronto, scooping dozens of kids up off the street and training them, and giving the ones who did the best roles in the show. Most of the kids wore their own clothes in-character and did their own make-up. Unlike almost every other show that has ever existed, they didn’t have a set cast of regular and recurring characters — every kid on the show was part of this amateur acting troupe the producers had assembled, meaning that even the extras and background characters stayed consistent from episode to episode, and though a central set of characters emerged rather quickly, almost any character could suddenly step out of the background to receive a spotlight storyline, even if just for one episode.
This ended up creating a fair amount of cast turn-around, especially in the first two seasons as the series found its bearings. Despite that, the writers weren’t much for big goodbyes, and just off the top of my head I can’t think of a single farewell episode devoted to any character, no matter how big or small. In Season One the de facto main and most popular character of the show was Stephanie Kaye, almost always accompanied by former-bestie Voula. Their eventual departure would have been a big deal on any other show, but when Voula’s actress left after season one (to pursue bigger acting roles that never came) DJH brushed it off with a single line about her family moving away; when Stephanie’s actress left after season two (for similar reasons and with similar results) they similarly brushed it off with a single line about her being sent to a private school. While this felt dismissive, at least they got a send-off at all, no matter how small; when several other fairly prominent cast members left between seasons 2 and 3 most were never referenced at all, simply vanishing, never to be seen or heard from again.
Of course, maybe that was for the best — when 80s Degrassi did give characters a specific ending or farewell, they tended to be sad. Part of that is because this incarnation never had a graduation (DH ended with the upper class finishing 11th grade and the lower class finishing 10th), the built-in happy ending future Degrassi series would come to employ. The bigger reason, though, is that 80s Degrassi tended to be slightly grimmer and more raw than its successors would end up. That feels a bit strange to say, given that latter Degrassi series would be able to cover subjects that were incredibly taboo in the 80s and seemed targeted to slightly older audiences, but those future series also had a more professional, shiny, Hollywood-ish veneer that sometimes sugar coated things or strove for unearned happy endings to even the most catastrophic of screw-ups, while 80s Degrassi stayed remarkably grounded in those same situations. For example, when Terri in the 2000s Degrassi: TNG was abused by her boyfriend, it consisted of a single slap across the face; on the other hand, in DH Kathleen faced a long and brutal on-camera beatdown at the hands of her abusive boyfriend. Both are terrible and wrong, but the latter was viscerally upsetting while the former, unfortunately, unintentionally, came across as a bit silly.
I actually don’t think Kathleen ever had a happy ending in the entire series. Her mother was an alcoholic who ignored her, her boyfriend abused her, she suffered from an eating disorder, and though she always escaped immediate danger her life never really got better; even when she had a one-scene cameo at the Degrassi High ten year reunion she was still hung-up on her one-sided rivalry with the more-successful Caitlin. Other 80s Degrassi farewells were more immediately tragic. Near the end of DJH Shane McKay took acid at a concert and jumped off a bridge, giving himself permanent brain damage; his one episode reappearances in both DH and D: TNG (as an adult, played by a different actor) existed to show that he would always be mentally disabled and unable to care for himself. Claude Tanner killed himself in the final season of DH specifically as a form of revenge against his ex-girlfriend, Caitlin. Even the final episodes of both series went a sad, dark route, with DH ending with the reveal that their high school would be closing down and the students would all be shipped off to separate schools next year, and DJH ending with the entire school burning down! Literally, the last shot of the series was the building going up in flames as the (safely evacuated) students cried and screamed on the sidewalk. It was nuts.
So yeah, 80s Degrassi seemed to have a thing for darker endings, and that climaxed in the 1992 made-for-tv movie School’s Out, which was, at the time, meant to be the darker and edgier finale to the franchise. Fan-favorite couple Joey and Caitlin are shattered when Joey cheats on Caitlin with the younger Tessa Campenelli, who, unbeknownst to Joey, becomes pregnant and aborts the fetus; the break-up scene has become famous for being the first time the word “fuck” was uttered on Canadian broadcast television, with Caitlin’s venom-filled “you were fucking Tessa Campenelli?!” reaching (Canadian) memetic status. Meanwhile, Wheels drinks and drives and gets in an accident, killing a two-year-old boy and blinding and crippling his friend Lucy and being sent to prison. That’s…that’s ballsy. At least the movie allowed Simon and Alexa to get married, though your mileage may vary on whether the marriage of high school sweethearts is happy or not.
In 2001 the franchise returned with Degrassi: The Next Generation, which ran until 2015. Apparently the original Degrassi crew was attempting to write a reunion special for the original cast and it just wasn’t working; they realized that the missing ingredient was kids, and then realized that Emma, the daughter born to Degrassi Junior High student Christine “Spike” Nelson in Season 2, would now be old enough to attend middle school herself. Thus came D: TNG, initially following Emma and her friends but also a few of the now-adult 80s characters. Over the course of 14 seasons, though, three or four generations of kids came and went, giving Degrassi plenty of chances to craft farewells of all kinds.
(TNG was immediately followed by Degrassi: Next Class, which ran on Netflix for four ten-episode seasons from 2016-2017 and effectively served as TNG’s final four seasons, though it did re-energize the franchise, serving as a new high point after several truly lackluster seasons. Next Class had a pretty consistent cast throughout its run, though, so it probably won’t come up again in this piece, but don’t let that make you think it’s lesser; it stands up with the franchise’s best without ever reaching any of its lows.)
Like 80s Degrassi before it, D: TNG let some characters just disappear with no fanfare of acknowledgement whatsoever, with the fans eventually dubbing this phenomenon the “Degrassi Black Hole.” Initially this was because TNG didn’t have that troupe of background actors waiting to be called up, so when a plot needed a character outside of the main cast, a recurring character had to be introduced. While a few did occasionally get upgraded to regulars (probably most significantly Darcy), most of these vanished without a trace once their role was over. However, as the series continued, several regular characters — main cast members who were billed in the opening credits — also unceremoniously vanished into the black hole. Blue Chessex vanished early in season nine, and Leia Chang halfway through season ten; both were new, minor, and unpopular characters who, earlier in the series, would have never been regulars in the first place, but were kind of pushed into the role in the rush to replenish the cast after the mass exodus of most of the original cast after season 7 and never really worked. From there, though, the vanishings got more significant. Derek Haig made his last appearance halfway through Season 8; the character drastically transformed from a weird, silly prankster to a toxic bully that year, but had been in the show for four seasons by that point, so it was a notable disappearance nonetheless. Wesley Betankamp vanished about a third of the way through Season 11, in his third season on the show; his character kind of withered away as the writing took all his friends in different directions and left him, in his last plot on the show, solely interacting with recurring characters, and while Wesley wasn’t tremendously popular, he was a nice enough character that the move garnered him a lot of sympathy. Most notable is Dave Turner, a major character who spent a significant amount of time dating an even more major character. His vanishing about a third of the way through Season 13 was especially strange, as that episode was his only appearance at all in the entire season; why bring him back just to write him off immediately after? None of these vanishings felt satisfying or respectful to characters we had invested ourselves in; we couldn’t even get a “oh, Dave’s family moved?”
(Related: Darcy didn’t disappear, but her character was suddenly written off early in Season 8 when her actress left to, ironically, star in the 90210 reboot. Darcy left to spend a semester on a mission in Africa, which was in-character, but also awkward because Darcy’s younger sister, Claire, was a regular character for seven more seasons after Darcy left, yet Darcy was never seen again, barely acknowledged, and her fate never revealed, even when her parents divorced and her mother remarried.)
TNG had its share of tragic endings too, killing off three major characters. To probably no one’s surprise, the death I think worked best was the one that was planned from the character’s very introduction; Campbell Saunders had a one season arc about his depression that ended in his committing suicide, and I’ll admit that it kinda broke me for a while. I felt like I was grieving an actual friend; one of my real life friends called me right after the episode aired to vent because his girlfriend just broke up with him and I don’t remember a word of what he said, I was in such a haze. It was one of those Degrassi events that was set up in a way to effect the entire school, and continued to effect Cam’s girlfriend, Maya, all the way through the end of Next Class. It was a tragic and memorable goodbye to a complicated, beloved character.
J.T. Yorke’s death, likewise, forever memorialized him in the minds of fans, especially coming at the peak of the series’ American popularity, but the storyline itself never felt all that well done to me. The school rivalry set-up was kinda silly, and after three episodes his death was largely forgotten. It hung over the fandom in a way it never really did the in-universe school, even when it was supposed to. The worst-done death, though, was Adam Torres’. Adam’s death came about when the writers’ desire to kill off a character to demonstrate the dangers of texting and driving coincided with Adam’s actress’s desire to exit the series. Adam’s memorial actually ended up being one of the series’ more moving moments, especially in an otherwise frustrating season, but his death came at the expense of killing off the series’ first and only trans character, a terrible move for representation and for the trans fans who looked up to Adam. It was one of the most irresponsible moves Degrassi ever made.
Another disrespectful farewell came for poor Alex Nunez. Alex’s actress decided to leave after Season 6, after the writers had spent two seasons redeeming the character, taking her from a cynical bully to someone who was finally bettering her life, atoning for her mistakes, and learning to be true to herself. It was an awkward time for the actress to leave, sure, but the writers did her no favors by unceremoniously shoving her off in a B-Plot, reversing everything the character had accomplished in the past two seasons and having her girlfriend Paige kick her out because she had become lazy, irresponsible, and difficult to live with. Alex’s character did a complete 180 in an unbelievable way and I’m still upset about it.
But there are happier endings to be found in TNG as well. One of my favorites is Sean Cameron’s, with his farewell episode in Season 4 allowing him to resolve the last of his lingering plot threads and giving him room to say goodbye to the two most significant relationships he had on the show (that said, I refuse to acknowledge his pointless return in Season 6). I’m also fond of K.C. Guthrie’s farewell in Season 12 — though the actor apparently resented being written out of the series, his final plot and episodes did an excellent job of showing his progression as a character over the past four years, revisiting all his important relationships, and granting him the opportunity for a bright, open future.
Many more of these happy endings, though, come in the form of a graduation. Many of the graduation episodes either shined a spotlight on that era’s most popular characters, or dove into the characters being left behind (more students have had to repeat senior year in Degrassi than in any other school in existence, I think), which could leave a graduation farewell feeling like a bit of a backhanded compliment for any of the graduating characters who didn’t fall into either camp. Of the five characters who graduated in Season 5, four continued on as regular characters while only one, Hazel, left the series (of course, and unfortunately, she was not only the least popular and fleshed out character of the five, but also the only black woman among them). The equally sidelined (and sadly so, as the character had been one of the most important in the first two seasons) Toby met the same fate in Season 7’s graduation, leaving the series for good while his central character peers Emma and Manny continued on. Season 11’s graduation suddenly remembered that they had done nothing with Riley and Zane for nearly 40 episodes and attempted to shove the resolutions to their five years as main characters into a single C-Plot.
Yet, despite that all, saying your farewell to Degrassi in a graduation is easily the most ideal way to leave the series. It means that your character survived everything the school could throw at them, and left before they started to overstay their welcome. Some of those more popular characters I mentioned in the previous paragraph weren’t so lucky.
One of my least favorite farewells in the entire series comes in the form of Season Five’s “Together Forever,” a spirited goodbye to Craig Manning, at the time TNG’s most popular character. By that point Craig’s domination of the series had become so overwhelming that I’d started to get sick of him, but his popularity wasn’t without merit — he was one of the more complex and interesting characters in the series, and his actor easily one of the most talented in the cast. So, wanting to give him a fond farewell was warranted. But the execution was tone-deaf. All the happy montages and tear-filled goodbyes in the world couldn’t paper over the fact that Craig — who’s abusive father had just died three years ago, and who had just had a mental breakdown one year ago, mind you — was dropping out of high school to pursue a music career. That’s the exit that warrants one of the most outright celebratory goodbyes the series has ever crafted? That’s what we’re celebrating? Plus, it’s not even a true goodbye as Craig just kept coming back, starring in a two-parter in Season 6, dropping in for a cameo in 7, and headlining the big finale movie in Season 8, where he was, astoundingly, a successful musician palling around with Pete Wentz in some of the series’ most blatant and frustrating wish fulfillment.
Also tone-deaf is the fact that the same episode’s B-Plot is devoted to the birth of Liberty’s child and her handing it over for adoption. Craig’s exit kind of comes out of nowhere, while Liberty’s pregnancy has been a major plot point all season, but it’s dropped and buried in a B-Plot of an episode where it has no room because Craig is crowding it out. Hell, the moment where Liberty hands off her child is inserted into the happy montage of Craig saying his goodbyes, killing the emotion of the moment and any opportunity to explore how Liberty feels about it — and prior to that every plot about Liberty’s pregnancy had been told from the point of view of the father, J.T., making it doubly frustrating that her first chance to explore her own story from her own point of view is minimized and hidden away. Again, it’s because Craig was the series’ most popular character while Liberty was one of the least, and again, I don’t think it’s coincidental that Liberty was one of the only black women in the cast at the time (Degrassi didn’t truly get better about race until Next Class if we’re being honest).
It’s also interesting to look at Craig’s goodbye in contrast with another character who’s intrinsically connected to him, Ashley Kerwin. In TNG Season 1 Ashley was the most important character in the series behind Emma, and though she was often written to be unlikable, selfish and playing the victim, I thought those flaws made her interesting (especially since the series seemed to acknowledge them, unlike Emma, whose flaws were often celebrated or papered over). In Season 3 Ashley and Craig started dating, and though she still got a large amount of screentime, it all became connected to Craig. Season 4 found Ashley returning to Craig after their break-up and becoming even more consumed by his problems, and the character left the series at the end of the season, fleeing the country to escape their drama. While the writing didn’t necessarily paint it as a selfish decision, Craig certainly did (and the audience is going to be on Craig’s side), but it’s one that makes sense from Ashley’s perspective and position, and while I resent a bit Ashley becoming a character solely defined by Craig, it’s also somewhat clever that her character arc would be resolved by her escaping that toxic dynamic that had so consumed her.
Except then Ashley returns in Season 6 and promptly becomes an object, her only role in that season to be Jimmy’s girlfriend (and there’s no real reason given why she and Jimmy get together other than that they used to date in Season 1, who why not?). Season 7 at least gives us a classic Ashley moment, her decision to remove Jimmy’s rap from their song being clearly cruel and wrong but also totally understandable from Ashley’s perspective. But then her perspective is never explored again. The incident is used solely to break them up and send Jimmy off with someone better, and Ashley doesn’t appear again until a two-parter near the end of the season where she hitches a ride with Emma and Manny on a college road trip and promptly abandons them, vanishing until the end of the episode where she meets up with a touring Craig and runs off with him. There’s some symmetry with her returning to Craig, sure, but it’s never explored why she does it, and next time we see Craig Ashley’s nowhere to be found, so it’s not like it did anything for their relationship. Not to mention we never know how Ashley feels about dropping out of school, or how her family feels about her essentially running away from home (her step-brother was still a regular character at the time, not that the writers seemed to remember their relationship anymore). It’s a mess, and another sign of how Degrassi treats the characters its invested in in comparison to the ones it’s not.
This is getting long, I’m sorry, but there’s one more kind of Degrassi farewell I want to talk about, and that’s them not saying farewell at all. After Season 5, when the upper class of the main cast graduated, the writers weren’t sure what to do. Should they introduce new characters, or follow the current ones to college? They decided on the latter, creating a new college set for Marco, Ellie, and Paige, but the problem is that these characters don’t really work outside the confines of the Degrassi school. Paige’s plot about burning out of college felt like classic Degrassi, but nothing else did; Marco and Ellie’s college-era plots made them look pathetic at times, and some of Emma’s college plots in Season 8 — especially the infamous “blaze” one where Emma smoking weed leads to a classmate almost dying in the most contrived fashion — were downright embarrassing and damaging to the character. These characters didn’t need to continue on past their graduation; their character arcs were done. They were overstaying their welcome, and sullying their reputations in the process.
In one way Degrassi learned from these mistakes — after Season 8 they dropped the college plots and started introducing new characters every season to replace the ones who graduated instead — but in other ways they didn’t. Claire, for example, was introduced in Season 8 as a freshman, and graduated in Season 14 as a senior. That’s a full seven seasons to cover four years, and it’s vital to mention that Seasons 10-12 were forty episodes apiece. That’s way too much time for any single character to be on Degrassi, especially ones as central as Claire and some of her contemporaries. By the time she graduated I truly didn’t care anymore, which is a shame because she was my favorite character when she was introduced, but by the end of her tenure she was overexposed and had been through a ridiculously unreal amount of highly-dramatic events that strained the limits of believability even for a show like Degrassi.
Holding onto characters too long also lead to the single strangest farewell I’ve ever experienced, maybe not just in Degrassi, but ever. In the Degrassi Takes Manhattan movie that closed Season 9, Emma and Spinner end up getting drunk, getting married, and then deciding to stay married. Kinda cliche, but is it really that bad? Well, yeah! Besides a single episode earlier in Season 9 clearly meant only to set this up, in their entire nine years together as regular characters on Degrassi: The Next Generation Emma and Spinner had only interacted once. ONCE! In Season 2! To talk about junk food! It is truly one of the most bizarre and random pairings I’ve ever experienced, especially because the series decided not only to make it endgame, but also to confirm six or seven years later, in Next Class, that they’re still married and happy! I’ll admit the two actors had some chemistry, so I’d understand if the writers had wanted to hook them up just to expand their horizons before having them go off their separate ways into separate sunsets. But marrying them is such a truly bizarre move that satisfied nobody! I just don’t get it! That’s how they chose to write off the series’ two longest running characters? By creating a plot thread out of thin air that has nothing at all to do with the rest of their time on the series?
Yeah, I’ve complained a lot about Degrassi in this newsletter, but that’s my right as someone who’s made it through 23 seasons and come out the other side alive and kicking. Like Glee, only true fans are allowed to complain about Degrassi. For whatever jokes I make, Degrassi is a truly special series to me. It taught me a lot growing up. Watching Degrassi was the first time I ever saw a character that represented me, the first time I ever felt truly seen. Looking into its various farewells helps emphasize how it’s smart, addictive, tightly woven and respectful of its history. It’s just that it also reminds us all of all the times it’s let us down. That’s an important part of the Degrassi legacy as well.
CHECK OUT
Degrassi is an addictive binge, so if you want to watch it, the official Degrassi YouTube channel might be the best place to go. The complete runs of Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi: The Next Generation are available to watch for free on this channel (Degrassi High Season One is available as well, but not Season Two for some reason). Besides TNG Seasons 13 and 14, they’re also all available on DVD. Degrassi: Next Class is streaming on Netflix.
It’s actually been quite a while since I’ve rewatched Degrassi (I knew quarantine would either find me revisiting One Piece or Degrassi, and One Piece won out), but the Twitter account “Degrassi” No Context has had me feeling nostalgic; every day they post a few screenshots of random scenes from the series with no context given, and it’s been a fun little reminder of some of the series more bizarre or memorable moments.
Over the past couple months I’ve also been listening to a podcast called I’m In Love With a Girl Named Spike, in which DIY Punk legend, Asian Man Records founder, and longtime Degrassi fan Mike Park and a couple friends watch every episode of the franchise in order, and — starting with their coverage of TNG — force various punk figures to watch an episode for the first time as well. It’s a riot, and you could enjoy it if you were a Degrassi fan but not a punk fan, or a punk fan but not a Degrassi fan, but that intersection just hits such specific sweet spots in my brain. Episode 99, which features guest star Dan Andriano from the band Alkaline Trio and his teenage daughter, had me cracking up. Any Degrassi fans reading, though, might appreciate Episode 100, which drops the usual format to instead interview Jake Goldsbie, who played Toby Isaacs in TNG’s first seven seasons and who is also a massive punk fan (he and PUP guitarist Steve Sladkowski regularly chat on Twitter, and Mike Park actually once sent Goldsbie a care package of Asian Man samplers after being informed he was a fan). Goldsbie doesn’t necessarily have a lot of hot gossip about Degrassi — though what he has to say about the cast reunion on the set of alum Drake’s “I’m Upset” music video is great — but a lot of what Goldsbie leaves unsaid, or just hanging around the margins, says a lot about his experience with the show.
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!