aka, "Emma meets a guy in a chatroom"
Episode 2, Season 1
Original Air Date: 10/14/2001
Main Storyline Character: Emma Nelson
This is a two-parter because all the boring scenes of the parents looking at class reunion pictures just COULDN'T FIT INTO ONE EPISODE!
Let's get started...
We open on Emma fanning herself from the heat in the foyer of the Nelson household. Her mom, Spike, is frantically running around getting ready, sounding like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland exclaiming that she is gonna be late. Probably for a very important date. Emma genuinely tells her mom that she looks incredible, like seriously, it's scary. Spike is beaming, saying she feels like she's "going to the prom that [she] never got to go to." Probably because she had baby Emma back in high school. And on TV, when you get pregnant, you're bound to miss crucial teen experiences because you better LEARN YOUR LESSON.
Spike grabs her keys and Emma dangles Spike's purse in her face. Spike gets the cue that Emma wants her out. She asks Emma if there's a reason. Emma says in a fake-thrilled voice that her and Manny might watch TV all night and eat popcorn with real butter. She fails to mention "cyber chat with a potential psycho." As soon as Spike leaves, Emma bolts up the staircase, presumably to chat with Jordan.
Back at Degrassi, the adults are getting ready for the reunion. As Caitlin and Keith slap on their nametags, Mr. Simpson explains that Ashley, a student, will give them a tour of the "new and improved Degrassi." Keith, in true d-bag fashion, basically says he isn't into tours and that he'll grab drinks. Oh, Caitlin, you'll definitely need those drinks with a night spent with this dude.
Caitlin walks around the Media Immersion lab (computer lab) as Terri (a student) explains these high-tech grey boxes called computers. The music and Terri's voice dulls to silence as Caitlin spots Joey Jeremiah through the crowd. She smiles and waves, and he does the same.
Emma and Manny are chatting on these huge house phones while doing their nails as Emma explains that she won't be going to see Jordan after all. "Maybe I'll meet him when I'm older." Manny is relieved and asks if she wants to hang at Manny's house instead. Emma says she'd rather watch some super boring documentary about nature n' stuff, trying to brush off Manny's interest, but Manny is such a great friend that she offers not only to watch it with her, but to do RESEARCH on this boring documentary. Emma, you have no clue what a great friend that Manny is. Emma brushes her off again, saying that she'll really "need to concentrate." Oh, the days before DVR.
As Ashley gives a tour to the adults of the new Degrassi, Joey and Caitlin lag behind to chit chat in the hallway. Joey apologizes for the previous night, and says that he wants to still be friends with her. Caitlin loves the idea and begs him to stay for the rest of the reunion festivities. Just as he scrunches up his face to say "no," some former classmate of theirs, Allison, shows up. It's clear that Caitlin doesn't like her, as Allison says hi to both but cuts off Caitlin before she can respond. Allison gushes over Joey's car ad, calling it sexy and asking to buy him a drink. Caitlin pipes in, saying what I am thinking, "I think they are free." Joey's like "whatever" and he is literally dragged off by Allison as Caitlin sadly says bye to the both of them.
Emma gets out of a cab somewhere that looks like a hotel. She makes a call in the hotel lobby, apologizing to Jordan for being early. She is about to describe what she's wearing so he can find her, but catches herself: "You know what I look like." That he does, when you share pics with strangers ONLINE!!! *suspenseful music*
JT and Toby are hanging out at the latter's house when Manny arrives (how do these little kids get everywhere in the burbs? Do they just grab cabs? How do they pay for it?) expressing concern. She went to Emma's, but no one was home. Emma also ignored her cell. JT's like "yeah, and?" Manny said she realized something was up when the nature doc Emma was so eager to watch wasn't on TV that night. Toby leans forward, asking if she went to see Jordan. Manny says Emma was acting weird on the phone, so probably yeah. Toby the Buzzkill mentions some news story about a teen girl getting murdered after meeting a dude she met online. JT said that's not possible with Emma, since she's smart and has straight A's. What JT doesn't know is "book smart" and "street smart" don't go hand in hand. JT's like "if only we could read her email" and Toby, in true hacker fashion, is like "why CAN'T WE!??!"
Joey's meandering through the halls with what looks like 6 drinks (he has that many friends?) and overhears Keith talking to Allison. Keith explains that Caitlin's really pushing the marriage, but he has his strong career in LA and if she moves there with him, her career will take the backseat to his. Allison's tells him he needs to "be free" as she lightly frisks him under the lapel of his jacket. She says she would love to visit him, and he's like "yeah, I could take you out, show you around..." Now things are getting good.
Emma's reading up on some tree frogs in the paper when some 30-something dude with a pizza box and radical shark tooth necklace says "wait, are you Emma?" and she suspiciously eyes him thinking "oh my God, it WAS an old man I was sharing my soul with." But he's like "Nah, I am just the supervisor on Jordan's excursion, and he talks about you non-stop." Oh really? How did you know what she looks like? Well, he says he has this pizza for the kids to eat up in the room if she wants to come with, or she can wait downstairs until after Jordan is done eating. Mr. Sharktooth Necklace then tries to coax her upstairs with some petition. He sure knows how to bed those ladies, with that sexy petition signage. I'm swoonin' already.
Toby, JT and Manny are trying to hack into Emma's email with no luck. Then Toby uncovers the secret question, "What's mom's favorite rock band?" and now they have something to go off of.
Emma and Sharktooth walk down the hallway as Sharktooth gushes about what an amazing kid Jordan is. They walk in the hotel room as Sharktooth does a suspicious glance down the hallway to be sure no one is around. In the room, he knocks on the room connecting door and says "Hey guys, pizza is here!" Important to note is that it's silent. You'd think teen kids would be making lots of noise. Sharktooth points to a camera on the bed and says it's for a video journal for the field trip, and Emma shows some definite lack of confidence from when she first met Sharktooth. I think those book smarts are turning into street smarts. Sharktooth chit chats about what he's "heard about Emma through Jordan" which makes Emma more suspicious. She doesn't eat the pizza slice Sharktooth gives her, and claims she things she left her bag downstairs in the hotel lobby. She gets up and walks to the door hilariously with the pizza still in her hand, but Sharktooth spots her purse on the chair and is like "uh, it's right here." She then runs for the door and upon discovering that it's locked (who CAN'T open a locked door from inside a hotel room? It's meant for the guest to lock, so there's no way she wouldn't be able to open it), she turns to face Sharktooth, who looks genuinely concerned with the "I just want pizza and video sex" look on his face. She rushes into the bathroom and locks the door behind her. Careful, Emma, you might not be able to unlock that door, either! Through the door, Sharktooth asks why she's hiding. "You're Jordan, AREN'T YOU!?!?" she shouts.
Caitlin goes up on stage at the reunion, giving some generic speech about reunions as Keith, back at the table, murmurs that she's pretty good up there. "SOME of us think so," Joey bites back, then says "Hey Allison, are you planning on going to LA before or after he breaks up with Caitlin?" Keith calls Joey bipolar and jealous (maybe the genes passed to Craig!), but Joey asks what kind of jerk shows up to his fiance's reunion and declares to a hot stranger that he's breaking up with her? Joey justifies his eavesdropping by saying it's totally his business since Caitlin is a friend of his, and voices are elevated during this part of the conversation enough to catch Caitlin's eye from the stage. Things get physical and Caitlin runs off stage after Keith throws some punches at Joey.
Caitlin wants to know what's going on and Joey tells Keith to "let her know before it's too late." Allison blurts out "who DOESN'T have doubts about marriage?" as Caitlin shakes her head and asks Keith if it's true. At this point, everyone in the entire room is listening to their conversation. Without hearing a good enough answer, Caitlin storms off as Principal Radcliffe tries to coax people to dance.
Sharktooth tries to justify his actions to Emma by saying that if he had told her his real age, she would have stopped writing. Instead of shouting "get friends your own age!" like I would in this situation (granted, I hope I'd never be dumb enough to get in this situation), she says that she just wants to go home. He says he didn't want to scare her and offers up that he will go to the lobby and she can either leave (YES!) or stay and
Caitlin and Joey are also hanging out in a bathroom, this one in Degrassi, as Caitlin says she's relieved. She's also not surprised since she's almost 30 and hasn't had a relationship ever go long-term. "[Keith's] not always such an ass!" says Caitlin, but Joey says "he coulda fooled me!" Caitlin was sailing on their relationship that was actually proving to be more than just a fling and thought it would work. Then she shamefully admits that she gave Emma relationship advice last night. HA. She claims to be a fraud and Joey showers her with compliments, as people with unrequited love often do to their crushes.
Caitlin asks Joey how "he knew" with Julia, presumably his dead wife. Joey explains that he liked how she called him "Joe" and how her hair smelled like rain and how she made him laugh. Caitlin apologizes for drudging up old feelings, but Joey smiles and says how he's not, that he was lucky to have her.
Toby and the team are hacking away and see a pic of Spike from high school on Emma's website. Toby looks closely at the shirt Spike is wearing a tshirt that reads "The Pogues." Manny scoffs and is like "She would NOT make her password that easy. Really? That easy? You guys sure are taking a looooong time to get this password. Like you would honestly guess some celtic punk band was her password? Right.
Toby types in the band and WE'RE IN. "If I can do it, so can Jordan." Aha, so that's why Jordan can "read into Emma's soul." More like read her email!
Emma listens for a moment to be sure the coast is clear as she opens up the bathroom door to the hotel room. She struggles for a moment with the hotel room door, just enough time for Sharktooth to sneak up behind her and slam the door in her face. She's stuck in the hotel room as Sharktooth says "One noise, and I tape your mouth." As creepy as this is getting, it's getting very generic. Not specific enough to be a CSI episode, but definitely not friendly enough for the young ones.
Toby, meanwhile, is breaking down the concept of reading email to Manny and JT. He explains that Jordan must have been reading her email since every time he wrote her, he not-so-coincidentally mentions things that are in other emails to different people. She emails Manny about a movie, the next day Jordan emails Emma about how great that movie was. Get it?
We see Sharktooth through a camcorder viewer as he adjusts the camera to point to the hotel bed. Emma sits very still on the edge of the bed, mouth clenched shut, staring into space. Sharktooth tells Emma that Spike is at her reunion and doesn't even know that Emma is missing. "We have hours." Ok, officially creeped out. You succeeded, Degrassi writers.
Toby finds an email with the hotel and room number that Sharktooth is at, and he and Manny and JT run off to save their friend. The gang runs to Degrassi where they crash the reunion and Spike/Mr. Simpson's romantic dance. The kids babble that Emma's in danger and Spike calls the cops. She has the kids wait behind. She doesn't even give them a ride home! They are just left on the school's front stoop, late at night, alone. Tunnel vision, I guess. Spike and Mr. Simpson drive off in a Jeep to the hotel.
Sharktooth creepily sniffs Emma's hair and ear as Emma blankly stares straight ahead, hoping for the nightmare to end. He reaches for her hand to hold and she keeps it tightly clenched.
We see a shot of Spike and Mr. Simpson running through the lobby.
Back in the room, Emma nervously taps her feet (she's still fully clothed, thank GOD) and Sharktooth touches her lips with his hand. "I feel so close to you."
Spike and Mr. Simpson run through the hallway looking for the hotel room.
Sharktooh continues being creepy as all hell as Spike and Simpson arrive at the room. Upon hearing her mother's cries, Emma screams "MOM!" and Sharktooth covers her mouth with his hand. She flips around over the bed and manages to rush to the door, open it (finally!) and get to her mom. Spike eyes her carefully and probably takes note that Emma is still fully clothed and nothing is unbuttoned. Just in time! Simpson grabs Sharktooth and slams him up against the wall, threatening to break his neck if he moves. The cops roll in just in time.
At the Nelson household, some detective is hauling the computer modem (it's huuuuge) down the staircase explaining that Sharktooth is a repeat offender. Sharktooth is going to jail with the modem as evidence. Apparently email can't be accessed from anywhere with internet? The detective also points out that when the modem comes back, that Spike should keep it downstairs and not in Emma's bedroom. "Keep the cyber stalkers out of her room."
Spike walks up to Emma's room, where Emma happily apologizes for interrupting Spike's reunion. First, you make her miss prom when she's pregnant with you, now THIS!? You'll never hear the end of it. Spike angrily yells at her for being stupid and Emma says it was a mistake. "You could have been--you could have been killed." Dead or tortured for life, I don't know which is worse. Emma says that her mom's made mistakes before, like having Emma when she was a teenager. "I screwed up, I'm a dumb kid!" Spike says she isn't dumb, which makes it more confusing. Apparently Emma kept Jordan a secret for 8 months. Emma, in typical tween fashion, is like "you're my mom!" and "You don't remember what it's like being 12!" Spike softens and says "actually, I do." Spike explains that even if she's her mom, she'll always care and always try to listen. It moves into "after school special" territory when Spike tells Emma that they "have to keep talking, okay?" Spike tells Emma that she loves her, and Emma cries as she says how scared she was. They hug.
THE END.
Lesson Learned: Don't real-life meet your online chat buddies, don't make easy email passwords, practice unlocking doors in case of emergency.
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