JustMe2000

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You're on your own now
We won't save you
Your rescue-squad
Is to exhausted

Astroman129

Hmm. Judging by that promo, the new teacher seems rather pretentious. Ten bucks say Tristan develops some sort of crush on him. Or Winston does. Idk.

Really, I'd like this episode so much more if the freaking racial profiling plot was the main one. It's way more important and interesting than the stupid Clare/Drew one.

I guess we'll have to see how it ends up. But I have no high hopes.

kaleidocat

What is with the first 15 minutes with this show and the fast trendy teen speak? I've been noticing that it takes us to get past a commercial break to get to the actual issues and then I start remembering why I watch this show. Do they just do this to hook the teens into watching? I just feel like the second half of the show reminds me of earlier seasons and feels less forced. The conversations seem more sincere.

Lady Azura

Okay, so... Clew aside, I actually enjoyed the rest of the episode. It's been a long time since Degrassi's tackled racism (not since season 2, I believe) and with racial profiling such a hot topic lately with "Stop and Frisk" and all that jazz, I think it was important to cover it. I was frustrated just watching it happen. I've never experienced it myself and probably never will, being a pasty white girl, but I wanted so badly to punch those cops that pulled Dallas and Connor over. Hats off to Dallas for maintaining his composure because I'm sure that if I was in his position, I would've made a huge scene.

I also liked that Tristan finally got a plot that wasn't just him crushing on some guy. Although that teacher infuriates me. Very unprofessional and ridiculously pretentious. I'm not sure where this is heading but I'm super suspicious of him.

Forwood4Bamon

I'm glad racism was in this episode and that connor and dallas had a plot. I don't really care about clew and bhandallas and agreed about tristan's plot.

kaleidocat

I like that the Dallas/Connor and Tristan plot both had to do with dealing with authority figures. You could even maybe say that the Clare/Drew plot had that element a bit as well since they are on student council in a leadership position and having trouble keeping things platonic. But the Dallas and Tristan plots go exceptionally well together. It brings up a lot of questions in my mind since I too am a white gal and I have no idea how I would react in that situation. Or how anyone experiencing that should act. So looking forward to Degrassi's conclusion on the issue. And then you have Tristan with his teacher. The teacher is obviously new and I think he has good intentions for reaching out to a teen he can relate to. But this blurs the boundaries. It raises the question of how much should teachers reach out to students.

Forwood4Bamon

it was a real issue definately.

Astroman129

I had my reservations just because of Clew. But I think this may be my favorite episode of the season so far. It was dramatic, and only one plot was really centered around relationships. Ramona knocks her episodes out of the ballpark. Keep it up.

Forwood4Bamon

yeah enough with the relationship drama already week after week. I like ramonas' writing as well.

Astroman129

I don't remember exactly where I read it, but I seem to remember seeing a quote that said Stephen Stohn was dissatisfied with some of S10 because it focused so much on relationships, so he tried to change that. I wish they'd do that again here. Close To Me was intolerable to me because it was 100% catered to shippers, and quite frankly, it might be my least favorite episode of the season just because I can't really relate to any of that stuff.

The show is at its best to me when it has relationships, but they're not completely dominant in the episodes. My favorite ones (Pride, Jane Says, Zombie, Chasing Pavements, etc) are all about hard-hitting things that aren't exactly relationship-based, though the relationships play out in the background somehow.

Maple Crunch

Ramona Barckert has betrayed me. I looked to her as the only writer who could present any sort of quality with consistency, and she spat in my face.

This may have been the worst episode of season 13, it's been a while since i've seem the Miles/Tristan steroid episode, but i was so upset the entire time. I mentioned it on twitter a few times, but the racial profiling story has no weight because of the details. If the only descriptor was "Black and male" why wouldn't the police stop everyone? If the owner of the vehicle couldn't be contacted, it is probably likely that the car would be impounded because there is no proof that they didn't steal it. The same details worked in the favour of the Fresh Prince episode, where it really felt like the cops pulled over Will and Carlton because they were black and driving an expensive car. Yeah, there was a car thief in the area, but you really felt like that was all anybody knew, and that they were stopped as suspects because they were black and driving an expensive car. You also got the impression that Will had been profiled before, something that added a lot of weight to the story with the oblivious Carlton, you don't get that from Dallas.

The Clew storyline was trash too, I wrote at the beginning of 13C that if they wanted to go ahead with Clew, fine, but only if Drew was the one pursuing Clare. If Clare pursued Drew, then it was ****ing awful considering the fact that there is no reason for Clare to be attracted to Drew outside of a silly crush, something that they totally broke by making her go out of her why to try and see if Drew likes her. You could write it off as "Dumb main girl character is fiesty and opinionated, rising to the challenge in front of her", because this is totally something Emma would do, but jesus christ, this was so ****ing stupid.

Tristan is always awful, and every plot centered around him is bad. This teacher is also a flighty dweeb and i hate him.

This episode gave me actual cancer, and i want to die.

Maple Crunch

Some of the best episodes blend them. Building a Mystery is the greatest example, In the cold, cold night is almost exclusively about the relationship between Fiona and Imogen

Season 10 came at a time when Degrassi was at it's worst because they had a bunch of characters in relationships that didn't matter and that nobody cared about. You can say you cared about Sav/Anya or KC/Clare, but you're not being truthful with yourself. Season 10 had a believable couple in Eclare that actually felt like they should be together, it was the first time Degrassi had accomplished this since maybe Darcy/Peter, three seasons prior.

While you're right that a lot of the best episodes don't focus on relationships, relationships are a wonderful means to tell a story and build characters. They can give a lot of insight into who the characters are, but relationship stories for the sake of relationship stories are about as cringeworthy as forced lesson stories, they don't feel genuine and they never will because it's about teaching the audience a lesson and not having a character experience something that changes them.

Forwood4Bamon

there's a really nasty ship war going on with zaya vs matlingsworth on wiki. whoever she chooses shouldn't matter. I'm tired of eli/clare/drew/maya/miles/zig. I'm tired of the same characters getting a plots over and over. I think some of the characters need plots away from relationships. also on tumblr the ship wars with miles/maya and zig/maya are nasty so I don't want to go there.

Astroman129

I'll have to disagree with the second to last point. I think Tristan can hold a plot together when it doesn't involve his sexuality. I dunno. Whatever.

I agree with what you said about Clew but the car was pulled over because the exhaust was making a lot of noise. That made no sense to me. Does that happen frequently? I don't think it does, personally. It might be something I just don't know much about.

EDIT: I dunno. Ramona Barckert has the opportunity for me to screw up at least once. She's proved her worth for me time and time again. If I could choose any writer to do a plot, it'd be her. No matter what the plot is, she's just the most competent.

Maple Crunch

Can he? Maybe, but I can't think of a plot where Tristan was the focus that was good. I really tried after the episode, but i couldn't do it.

I think the exhaust thing was done to try and make it so over the top obvious that what's happening is racially driven so that there is no other way to perceive it, butt hey don't do it well. It's something i've noticed about Degrassi recently that may have been true the whole time - They really try to tell you how to feel instead of presenting a story and letting you feel your own way. The reason the fresh prince episode worked was because you could see both arguments, you could see Will and Uncle Phil acting like it was racially driven, but you could also see Carlton's reasoning. It was storytelling contest in it's purest form, racism isn't always clear cut or understood without a doubt, Fresh Prince just put on a story and let you feel how you would feel, Degrassi is saying "THIS IS RACIST AND IT'S WRONG" without actually trying to make it make any sense. They did the same thing with Alli/Leo

I might be judging this harshly, but by making it clear that Dallas thought it was racial profiling the entire time and making it so that the cops detained EVERY black person seemed to campy and dumb, especially compared to the Fresh Prince episode.