Degrassi: The Next Generation
"Friday Night"
Season 1, Episode 11
Originally aired: June 3, 2002
What is wrong with us as humans, that we constantly assume that other people dislike us? We're so defensive, in general. To imagine that someone actually cares for you and likes you requires a certain amount of trust, and that's scary. You don't want to assume that another person likes you and wants the best for you, because what if that ends up not being true? You'd end up with egg on your face. So, occasionally, to protect ourselves from embarrassment, we succumb to the temptation of literal eggs and the destruction they bring.
Some of our favorite characters at Degrassi come to a realization this week that, whether they like it or not, there are other people who care about them and just want to do right by them, no matter what. In our A-plot, the romantic mechanisms of Emma and Sean's will they / won't they finally grind into motion. In our B-plot (or maybe these are dual A-plots?), Spinner and Jimmy get "revenge" on a teacher who didn't really deserve it. In both cases, the "victim" assumes that the opposing party must hate them, and can't imagine that the other party has any other feelings other than disappointment. In both cases, our characters may have served themselves better to consider the other person's true feelings more closely.
Though the general theme of misinterpreting others' feelings ties the two plots together, the similarities end there. Let's take them one at a time.
Emma is surprised to find Sean approaching her and asking her out on a date. At least... she thinks it's a date. So convinced is she that Sean is fucking with her that she tries to murder him in dodgeball. It takes another wise lesson from Paige (my god, she is the M.V.P. of this season) to help Emma understand that it's OBVIOUS that Sean likes her, like painfully obvious, and if he is having trouble making his feelings plain, that's only because he is a troglodyte teenage boy who couldn't string two syllables together if he tried.
So they go out on their date. Sitcom hijinx ensue, including an embarrassing mom, bird shit on a new jean jacket, and Sean digging through the trash to find Emma's wallet that was in her pocket the whole time. I could see why Emma might be embarrassed by all this, especially in culmination, and maybe even understand why she would choose to run away then laugh it off. But c'mon, Emma, you know better than this. Sean has been slow-burn flirting with you all school year; there's no fucking way that he's going to "hate" you just because some bird decided to shit on you. Hopefully Sean's kind words and kind smile Monday morning have shown Emma that it's easier and more satisfying to believe that people like you, despite silly mishaps.
It says something about Emma that she obviously cares so much about the world and the people in it (remember all her global warming activism and protectiveness when it came to those less fortunate "squeegee kids"?), and yet when it comes to her own personal relationships, she can't imagine that others would care about her in return. I see a lot of Pam in Emma. I married Pam in no small part because it's obvious that she cares about the people around her greatly. But often, Pam will ask me "Are you mad at me?" when I am not mad at her, and "Do you hate me?" when I certainly do not hate her. Good people sometimes love and care deeply about others and just simply can't imagine that they too are worthy of love and care themselves.
And if that's true of Emma, then maybe the opposite is true of Spinner and Jimmy, who absolutely deserve all the shit that they get from his English teacher, Ms. Kwan. Spinner especially is decidedly not the model student—blasting music in class, making fun of the teacher behind her back, that whole thing with the bugs last week—and yet his own selfishness prevents him from seeing that when Ms. Kwan snaps back, that it's mostly deserved. Spinner is convinced that Kwan hates him. It's clear to any adult that her disciplining of Gavin is completely warranted, because the dude acts like an asshole. How else is she supposed to deal with these bozos?
But because Gavin and Jimmy are human beings (teenage ones, at that), they cannot possibly comprehend that Kwan holds anything but hatred for them, and so they enact a plan to get back at her. If she hates them, then they are justified in their actions towards her, is their thinking. Whereas Emma imploded inward at the thought of someone disliking her, Spinner and Drake act out. And because their actions are in fact not justified, that Kwan doesn't actually hate them, that their discipline (a simple detention) was totally warranted, then their outward "revenge" plans just come off as cruel (as Ashley points out at the end, even before the hammer drops about Kwan's home life).
The boys' revenge is three-fold. First, they hijack the intercom system and make obnoxious chewing sounds over the speakers, which is more annoying than anything. Next, they order 144 honey buffalo wings to be delivered to Kwan's nighttime ESL class that she's teaching. She doesn't have the money to pay for it, but the genial immigrants who populate her class all chip in to eat the wings, so no harm no foul I guess. But then the boys take it a step too far, egging Kwan's car. She sees the damage, and immediately breaks down crying.
J.T. speculated a few episodes ago that "teachers aren't people, they're teachers," but of course that isn't true. Teachers are people, and it turns out that Kwan was an especially vulnerable person these last few days. Apparently her husband is gravely ill, and she's been working overtime to pay for hospital bills. She's so stressed out from being overworked, let alone arriving to a car that has been egged to shit, that she decides to take the rest of the semester off. In other words, Spinner and Jimmy are completely and total fucking assholes who thankfully come to the realization that they are irredeemable when they hear about Kwan. Their selfishness led them to believe that they were the ones being treated unfairly, but as it turns out, Kwan was treated unfairly by life, having to deal with a sick husband and mounting bills and on top of that two fucking losers who won't give her a break.
I think the key to this episode is Toby. It's been made clear in the past, and it's briefly underlined at the beginning of this episode, that he cares romantically for Emma, and so one might assume that he could be jealous or spiteful of her relationship with Sean. But Toby is not like Emma, and he is not like Spinner and Jimmy—he is able to acknowledge that caring about the people surrounding you means that they can reflect that love back at you. When Emma comes in Monday morning upset about her Friday night date, Toby is there to comfort her, and to say that if Sean really likes her, that he won't let some bird shit fuck it up. Toby is right. Toby is right because he believes that people care about each other. He has put his faith in the general goodness of humans.
I wonder if Spinner would've acted differently if he had had a Toby in his life during this week, if he had someone to tell him that it's worth caring about others, because other people will and can care about you. Spinner does not have a Toby, however, and so he is trapped in a losing game of chicken with a fragile teacher. Everyone loses. Perhaps every character on Degrassi has a series-long arc in which they eventually realize this unshakeable fact: humans succeed when they care about each other and accept care from others. Spinner still has a long way to go.
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
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