"Watch Out Now"

"Watch Out Now"
aka, "Reeling from yet another major Degrassi-disaster. Degraster."
Episode 13, Season 14
Original Air Date: 7/20/2015
Main Storyline Character: Winston Chu, Zoe Rivas, Becky Baker

Apologies as I'm doing a huge time jump to the current season, but this is the FINAL SEASON OF DEGRASSI!* Gotta cover this before it goes stale!

The summer premiere of Degrassi begins with new rules and a new regime. Before the episode begins, we even got a bit of a refresher of what happened in the previous half-season.

Previously on Degrassi:
-the Degrassi Nudes plan, on the Oomfchat app (ripoff of snapchat, where the cheerleaders raised money by selling pics of their boobs) was discovered by the school administration and these girls are in Trouble with a capital T.
-Miles gets mad that his dad is abusive and sets a poster on fire leading to a major fire at Degrassi. No one is hurt.

Much like Degrassi did after "All Falls Down" (ep. 24, season 10), the school is trying to make up for its students getting out of control. In that episode it was blowjobs in the boiler room and catching kids having sex during the Las Vegas-themed fundraiser (hey, they were just sticking with the theme). This time it is students selling nude pics aka child pornography and the school catching on fire.


Mr. Simpson is out and a new principal, Mrs. Pill, is in. Just like when Mr. Raditch was out after that school shooting episode. Either the principals just hit a boiling point after their students run amok or they're fired because MY LORD THERE IS A CHILD PORNOGRAPHY RING IN YOUR SCHOOL. Get it together folks.

Under this new regime, cell phones aren't allowed in the school. No PDA in the halls! Drew and Clare are appointed hall monitors in charge of checking on PDA. Yes, a hall monitor who doesn't check hall passes...but is instead in charge of "hall passes." Hey-oh! Also there are security cameras being installed. Only now is this school considering security cameras. Not after that school shooting like 6 school years ago. Also those metal detectors weren't even installed until kids were caught having sex? How about the time a kid brought a gun to school? Seriously, the administration of Degrassi is severely messed up.

Mrs. Pill announces that students can sign up to create clubs/activities, so Becky and her guyliner musician friend Jonah propose a lunchtime variety show. It gets denied because Drew Torres is also in charge, and he and Becky broke up and he's so sad. So Imogen and Jack tell her to sex herself up, flirt with Drew, and get her way. It was all very weird seeing as that Imogen and Jack are the two feminist lesbians at this school and are telling a fellow female that she needs to show off her body to get what she wants. And also because Becky's version of sexing it up is turning her short-sleeve shirt into an off-shoulder shirt and touching Drew's bicep flirtatiously. Gosh I just love Becky. What a perfect character.

Drew gives her the variety show, but now thinks she's interested. Imogen and Jack realize they give horrible advice and tell Becky to cut it off with Drew. Becky talks to him in the hall and Drew flips out because he was so looking forward to the "no rules about PDA in the Torres basement" with her (yes, that is an actual thing he said to a girl to lure her to a makeout sesh) and was surprised that Becky would flirt with him just to get her way. Jonah walks by, Drew gets mad, and tattles to Mrs. Pill that he caught Becky and Jonah making out (but Becky hasn't even held hands with him, let alone exposed her shoulders!) so they get in trouble. Becky admits she likes Jonah, and Jonah says cutely how it's sad he's in trouble for kissing her without actually getting to kiss her. So they kiss. Then put their arms around each other. And walk right past a school security person. With no repercussions. If this is how smoothly it's already going under the new rules, this school is screwed.



Meanwhile, Zoe is possibly going to jail for being the ringleader of a child-pornography site with her cheerleader gal pals. Only her gal pals are no more, since, ya know, last time they hung out with Zoe, things veered towards selling nude pics. Understandably the cheerleaders are like "no thanks" to all things Zoe.

Zoe and the cheerleader gang are all in detention for what they did, and Zoe's happy because at least she isn't in prison. For running a child-pornography ring. I have to keep saying that because it's so freaking ridiculous. Zig's ex-buddy Damon sits behind her and has a smoothie straw pre-loaded with spitballs to aim at Zoe and the other cheerleaders' heads. He's also an asshole who creepily says how much he enjoyed her "business." He wears a black shirt and a gold chain necklace so you know he's bad news. This (the spitballs, not his taste in clothes) annoys Zoe so she gets back at him by putting chocolate pudding on his chair. He sits down and oh snap he is PISSED. Those were new khakis he was trying out for his business casual-punk look!

Later, while walking home, Zoe runs into Damon and he starts grabbing her and talking about how she was better as a voiceless set of boobs and Zig and Tiny come and save the day. Except Damon stabs (read that: STABS) Tiny before running off. I audibly shouted "WHAT THE FUCK" at the TV. This show never ceases to amaze.



Speaking of amaze, that's what Winston's storyline wasn't doing this episode. His whole plot revolved around how he wanted to be funny, but was he "Louis CK funny, or Carrot Top funny" (he wanted to be the former). He accidentally reveals a comedy musical to Frankie who says it's brilliant but he thinks it's dorky. He instead tries stand-up at the lunchtime variety show, upsets Frankie with girlfriend jokes, and also kisses that pink-haired Lola girl, who was like "um, why are you kissing me?" And the answer to that is that she told him he was funny. All of this because no one laughed at his terrible pun about the new principal being "a bitter pill to swallow."

Winston is annoyingly pathetic and whiny some(most)times. He doesn't tell Frankie about the kiss, but he does share with her the screenplay to his dork musical. She's happy he's sharing his work, he's happy that Frankie thinks he's funny, and all is well in the most boring storyline to date. This is like when Dan and Vanessa had a whole episode about grading papers on Gossip Girl.


Some great quotes:

"This is a song from the first act of my musical about a shape-shifting Asian superhero named Captain Who. Can we kiss now?" "This is amazing!"--evidence that in Degrassi's small cast of characters, two adorkable students can find love.

"Now kiss me so I can forget about my dumb parents and their dumb divorce!"--Exposition!

Lessons Learned: Choose better detention seats; if you care about being funny you're probably not; flirting is bad.

*but it will continue on Netflix next year.