ChinaTequilia

I don't think it's too much to ask. Especially not when the Degrassi cast is huge. When you have a limited amount of characters, shorter seasons are much more justified. But with few episodes, it's harder to develop the majority of the characters and so they stick with their favorites, partially because they're usually the ones with the arcs. The standalone plots are less common now. So the move to Netflix is both a good and bad thing.

I don't have much to say about it. I liked the way the show portrayed the racism story line. I don't think we were ever meant to think of Frankie as a bad person. Just ignorant and blind to her own privilege. The one thing I have to criticize is really just that the other girls participated in that prank and Frankie ended up being the scapegoat. But Degrassi tends to do that any time there's some controversy with a team. I also kind of disagreed with putting Northern Tech's prank on some level as what Frankie did. It was absolutely inappropriate, but it never felt like a personal attack in the way the poster did. The exact same thing easily could have happened if had been a boys' team. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. Overall, I think of it as a plot point meant to do little more than cause Frankie and co. to relate.

I hated Maya's plot in 15B. I felt like Maya had every right to be upset and I took issue with someone who cyber bullied Maya being used to teach Maya a lesson in how to handle conflict. Maybe if they hadn't used Vijay, I would have enjoyed it more. With Tola, some of their development felt rushed and I couldn't take it seriously, knowing Tiny would eventually end up with Shay. Finally, with Hunter's story line, I felt like they quickly dropped his recovery in favor of Hunter/Yael. To me, the strongest story lines are Zoe's, Triles' and, to a lesser extent, Zig's in 1518. What I loved about it is that it somewhat explored Zig's insecurities and focused on them without involving Maya.
I wouldn't say "baited". I feel like Degrassi does this in general with their ships. It happened to Zori, too, not long before Zig kissed Maya. In the end, it was clear Tiny did like Lola, but he liked Shay a bit more. The writing could have been better, but that's something that should have been solved by having more episodes. I'm not particularly ambitious, either, but I don't need a character to be similar to me to enjoy them. So I have to disagree with that. I felt like we got a lot of Shay development this season and it was kind of refreshing for Shay to not have a bunch of relationship centric plots.

ihavealife2uknow

Me neither. I don't want them around til there's absolutely nothing to do with them at the end like Clare's class, but it just feels like there's so much more that can be done with these guys at the moment.

If these next 2 seasons are it for these guys then my wishlist is that they address Zig's relationship with his mother again to see where they're at now that Zig's been out of the gang for a while, and a fun senior skip day plot.

Okun

Yeah, I already wasn´t very fond of hearing that there´d be 5 new characters in NC with only 10 eps/season. And now we see that it doesn´t work that great. I think, they could have at least focused more on the characters who are most likely leaving after S4. But esp S2 has a lot of focus on the class that´ll stay for another couple of seasons (if Netflix orders more that is).

Somehow I don´t really understand the 2nd part of your paragraph. @_@ If you´re not interested in writing about this storyline it´s okay - I´m just a little curious what you think about the things, where you don´t agree with me.

Yeah, they shouldn´t have used Vijay in that story and Baaz handling Maya here, in the context of the bullying, was kind of offending. But sadly they often enough ignore earlier parts of the story (just saying Grace´s sudden crush on Zig). The only reason I liked her in this plot was probably bc it just makes me cringe far worse when I have to see her with Grace or Zig.
Hunter´s story was completely rushed. One plot less for Frankie and one plot more for Hunter would have been nice at least. And as I already wrote: Having him have a relationship right now IMO can only lead to failure. Isn´t there some doctor´s advice to not rush into relationships while recovering? Is Yael even strong enough to handle what´s ahead for him?
Sorry, not discussing Zig anymore. But Zori was around longer and had at least some development along the way - not ONLY right before they were dropped.
Well, with me it´s kinda that if a character has one small trait that I can relate to, it´s easier to get a connection to understand him/her as a whole - the rest can be as different as they want. It´s just that to be overly ambitious for me is more of an unlikeable trait and nearly everything Shay does goes back to it - even her making up with Frankie, I´m not sure she would have done that if they wouldn´t have needed her in the team. The only strong points I saw in her this season was her defending Lola against the police and deciding not to write an apology letter for that - well, and the scene with her dad.

ChinaTequilia

Agreed. Zig's relationship with his mother desperately needs to be addressed. I have little faith, but it's the kind of closure his character needs since it's implied that his family's abandonment is why he's so attached to Maya. Or at least that's my impression. A senior skip day plot would be a lot of fun, too.

Okun:
Hopefully there are less new characters this time around. I only remember hearing about the possibility of two, so hopefully it stops there. The five characters they introduced consist of only supporting characters and that is sad.

Yeah, I wasn't sure I was making sense, either. :p Sorry about that. All I meant is that. long story short, I didn't see much of anything wrong with the way Frankie's story line was presented. We were never meant to view Frankie as a bad person. She was for sure ignorant, but she was never coming from a place of wanting to be awful to anyone. I thought the scene where she realizes she does have racist tendencies was well done and of course, that's when she finally gave a sincere apology. In the end, Shay forgave her.

See, I don't think the Maya/Grace or Zaya stuff is that bad. Yeah, the cheating story line sucked. The Grace liking Zig thing was even worse. But they at least have a history. They're more than just these two awful story lines. I think Olivia/Nikki and Olivia/Ricardo work well together and, solely because of that, I don't have a problem with them interacting. With Maya/Vijay, their entire history is them being at odds and what I saw is Maya having to suck it up because this show never lets her get any justice anywhere.
True. They did sort of touch on that by Vijay and Baaz bringing up the possibility that Hunter could lose it again, leading Hunter to tell Yael to leave him if he ever scares her. That sounds like it could be an omen, but knowing this show, we are absolutely supposed to be pro Hunter/Yael, regardless of how healthy they are.
Yes, because season 12 had much more episodes than season 15. Got Your Money was Zori's only episode before Doll Parts and both Zig and Tori did nothing more than appear in other character's story lines in that time. But I can understand how with Tiny/Lola, it was more abrupt. The writers have serious pacing issues and I wish they wouldn't double down on the drama just because they're on Netflix.
In my opinion, Shay isn't overly ambitious. She's not constantly trying to crush anyone who is in her way. It's just that she has a goal in mind and sometimes struggles because certain things get in the way. First Tiny (sort of) and then Frankie. But she struggles because she has genuine feelings for both of those characters and wants them in her life. I disagree with that. Shay didn't have to call Frankie to check on her, but she did. So that gives me the impression that Shay would have eventually forgiven Frankie, even if it hadn't been that quickly. I mean, their falling out was pretty significant. I wouldn't blame Shay for wanting to drop the friendship, completely. It's not that Frankie is a bad person. But I'm sure for Shay, it was like a slap in the face to think that one of her best friends could be prejudiced. In the end, I'm glad it worked out as well as it did.

JustMe2000

I think what I liked as much as anything about the racism plot is that it allowed all three of those girls to get some significant character development that didn't completely involve romantic plots. I say all three, because I truly believe that a seeded was planted in Lola that ultimately paid off in the BLM protest. As always, you have to worry they'll forget about the little activist bug we saw emerge with Lola, but for now I'm just happy we saw that growth in her character.

But, getting back to this class , I think if these next 20 episodes are it with this group then I would agree getting Zig's home situation addressed needs to be near the top of the list of things to be accomplished. They also need to do more with Tiny (and if these past episodes didn't convince TPTB that Richard can do some heavy lifting than nothing will ever convince them), as well as Jonah and Winston.

Okun

Well TBH with Lola I´m not sure she realized that some of the things she says are racist. I mean like asking Goldi about arranged marriage right after she mentions it or even worse, when she said the Northern Tech girls looked like criminals and said sorry to Shay as if she looked similar to them just because of her skin color. And I think there was something else which I forgot.

ChinaTequilia:
Yeah, at least for Goldi and Esme time seems to be up before it began. I´m interested in those two and can´t really wish them away but with the few episodes they have per season I still think it wasn´t a good choice to get five (+ maybe 2 more next season) characters on the show while the rest is still around (not that I want any of them die in the bus crash). BTW not starting to speculate about this but it´s nice to see them together obviously having fun:


Actually I did get the first part of the paragraph but I didn´t get the 2nd part about the Northern Tech prank.

With Hunter I think it´s bad timing to have to go to court while still recovering from mental illness. Not that I don´t want him punished but it could trigger him again, which means Yeal running for the hills, which would probably trigger him even more. If Yael was strong enough to support him the way Miles does I´d see a bit less disaster even though I´d still think dating now is bad timing for Hunter. But we´ll see. Maybe Hunter is important enough for Yael that she grows some backbone and surprises us.

IMO ambition doesn´t always have to be about crushing someone. She wants to climb the ladder by being better not by crushing someone. For me the thing is that because of the call I also see that she would have forgiven Frankie eventually AFTER Frankie would have posted the apology. That she was at Frankie´s place before that apology IMO only was because she needed her on the team. But maybe I´m being a little harsh there. Don´t know.

ChinaTequilia

Maybe we should talk about the Lola/Frankie/Shay stuff somewhere else, since it's off topic. But to continue to conversation about the juniors, I agree that bringing in Goldi and Esme so late into the show wasn't the best move with so many characters and knowing the school year would end fairly quickly. I think they did it in order to complete the seniors' arcs, not wanting it to be cut short like at the end of season 14. But if the show continues to get picked up after season 16/3 + 4, it will have all been for nothing. Goldi and Esme both have potential, but it's possible that both could graduate without getting much development. Goldi is the activist. Esme is the **** stirrer. With so few episodes left and the fact that the crash has to be dealt with, will there be room for either of them to be on par with some of the other upperclassmen? I lean towards no.

Okun

Transported the discussions to the right threads:
http://www.fanforum.com/f191/lola-pa...98/index6.html
http://www.fanforum.com/f191/shay-po...13/index8.html
http://www.fanforum.com/f191/mini-ja...46/index9.html

On par with the other characters - I don´t think so as well. But

ChinaTequilia

I replied in the Hunter and Shay threads.

kaleidocat

Thanks for moving the discussion guys! Maybe we should have a thread for the next graduating class as well. I think I have a title. Is Esme in this class or theirs?

We have a http://www.fanforum.com/f191/lola-sh...pony-63155362/ thread if anyone wants to talk their friendship. I think they have an interesting dynamic.

I wonder if we would ever see a major blow out between friends and things don't end well at graduation. That would be different. Maybe one of the Grace friendships?

ihavealife2uknow

I think Esme's in this class since she was in class with Zoe and hasn't interacted with any of the younger grades.

JustMe2000

I agree that Esme's in this class, although I wouldn't bat an eye if all of sudden there's some issues that are her keeping her back a year as at this point she doesn't really have that connection with one of the older class that someone like Tiny would. I'm not saying it will happen, just throwing it out as a possibility.

Okun

@kaleidocat
Well, before the reunion this season Marco and Paige left the show on bad terms. But yeah - the way Grace behaved this season I can see one of her friendships not surviving high school but sadly I can also see everyone being forgiving because she´s ill. We´ve already seen it with Maya. :/ With Lola, Shay and Frankie I don´t think they´re in save waters, yet. Maybe the aftermath of the bus crash will make them put everything else aside at first but I think there are still things that might come up later.

ChinaTequilia

Honestly, I could see Miles and Winston having a falling out. Things between them haven't been as volatile as they were in seasons 13 and 14, but something has never felt.. right to me about their friendship. It's different from what we see with Zig/Maya/Tiny/Grace or Zoe/Tristan and I can't quite put my finger on it. But they don't seem to fit together and the friendship seems more out of convenience.

kaleidocat

And Goldi is in this class as well as Esme. Damn. That's two strong females I'd like to stick around longer. They haven't had much interaction...any?

A Miles and Winston fall out? I'm interested. It seems like they are gravitating apart naturally though. I don't think either would be really devastated. And their families know each other so that is something that would always tie them together. I don't think they could go long without hearing some kind of update. OMG Mama H would be the one hurting the most.