Season 8, what hath become of you? (update)

Season 8 (Degrassi), from the start, was going to be an interesting experience. None of the students attending the school in season 1 attend the school anymore. Spinner still hangs around, even though he graduated, and Snake still teaches there. Emma, Manny, and Liberty are all out on their college experience.

But something grave has happened.

The man has found Degrassi.

It may have popped up as an anomaly where The Principal or the Cops or some other force has been the ultimate and true law, overruling everything about kid law. Season 8 thus far has been an exception. While the Principal himself as giver of the law may have been subverted to a certain extent (though after his totalitarian management of the football team), the kids have all been subject to laws outside of their own realm.

This has become really strong as of late. It began with "Heat of the Moment." The main plotline deals with a little sort of squabble that ends up online, where Alli makes a fool of Holly J to the extent that she doesn't want to come into school. This in and of itself would not be so bad, except, inexplicably, Acting Principal Snake Simpson and the Toronto Police Department both found out about this, giving her a school suspension, a juvenile criminal record, and at least a months worth of punishment from the parents.

It is a serious issue, for sure, but by some deus ex machina, Alli managed to get the worst punishment she could really get for this, and it all came seemingly from the outside. Not even Holly J was the one pressing charges. When Degrassi last dealt with bullying in general (not on the interwebs) the student himself eventually took matters into his own hands and shot the dude. Now, I'm not advocating School shootings by any stretch of the imagination, but this is a drastic shift in tone for the show. Before the adults were callous, uncaring, disinterested, and never out for the best interests. Now all of a sudden, they are watching, they will act when something is done wrong, and they claim (indisputably) that they are the best interest. When did Degrassi turn into Narc High?

3 episodes later, Narc-ville returns, in "Touch of Grey," which has only so far aired in Canada (thank you interwebs). In this episode, the main plotline deals with Emma's struggle to find an identity at college, in the process her nickname changes from "Blonde Emma" (even though at this point she is a brunette) to "Blaze." Yeah, this episode deals with pot, and what I assume to be outdated slang (I'm giving the kids younger than me some credit, surely they must use at least slightly different terminology). In this episode, a new friend of Emma's enters into a diabetic coma, and I am not making this up, because she forgets that she has diabetes after getting high off a few pot brownies. The RA's immediately know the culprit was pot brownies, because the method of choice for getting high by diabetics is naturally to consume pot with an extremely sugary baked confection. Campus police eventually catch up to "Blaze"'s roommate/boyfriend, who is trying to ditch her stash, because she didn't think of doing it herself earlier.

Compare this wth the way pot was dealt with during season 7 (before hand it was simply alluded to). Two instances specifically come up, one in "Love is Like a Battlefield" the other in the aptly titled "Pass the Ductchie." Both of these have very real circumstances, none of which are too heavyhanded. Both of which are ambiguous. In the first, Alex smokes up with Jay as a way to cheer him up after he gets dumped. Their friendship goes way back, and Jay had been alluded to as a smoker previously. This costs Alex her ability to help out her girlfriend, Paige, with her newfound job, and thus eventually costs her the relationship. In the latter, Spinner is dealing with chemotherapy and is having difficulty holding things down. Jay suggests to him that marijuana may help him with this (naturally Jay knows of its anti-emitic properties). It helps Spinner hold both his medicine and his food down, and everything is fine and dandy, until he loses focus in school (a recurring problem with him, mind you) and has some minor fights with his girlfriend, mainly about hanging out too much with his ex. He decides to stop, deal with the constant vomiting of chemo, and focus on school. What a trooper.

Both of these instances dealt with the actual effects of marijuana on the user, and not the possession of said substance. In addition, neither of those instances paints a black and white picture of marijuana use, and have arguably deleterious effects if they had chosen not to partake. If Alex hadn't smoked up with Jay, it would have soured that moment in their friendship, Alex disavailing herself while Jay needs her the most. If Spinner hadn't smoked up, he would have been throwing up even more. It gave him a few days of holding everything down, and he eventually learns on his own that he'd rather go without it. Jay isn't even painted as a stereotypical pothead. Thuggish, sure, pothead, nah, not really. Compared to Kelly's friend, total pothead (even down to recreational frisbee).

So why shift gears like this? It seems in the Degrassi universe, no longer is it the consequences of your own actions on your friends which affects you. No, it is the consequences from outside authority figures on seeing your actions that affects you.

Is Canada entering into some sort of Police State I am unaware of?

-- Knuttel

The intermediary episode (a two parter, "Jane Says") actually dealt with an important issue, the first time in a while they've dealt with such a serious issue. Sadly the secondary plots in both just seemed annoying. 1) don't lie to the popular kids because they are petty, and have poor taste in tv and music; 2) Claire starts attracting male attention away from Alli. Way to counterbalance child molestation. Yeah, and they definitely did scale back on the issue itself in both of them, old degrassi would have been much more intense.

And while I'm at it, what is the deal with all of the retconning?

Edit: An episode in Season 5 deals with pot, "Death of a Disco Dancer" I believe is what it was called. Paige gets a joint from her former Teacher/boyfriend now exile Matt O upon the official ending of their relationship. After stupidly flailing it about the front steps of the school, Paige and Alex settle on smoking up before the College/Career fair visits. Paige eventually has to interview with the representative from Banting (like the Ivy equivalent) who is also a family friend. She freaks out, her mom finds out she smoked, an she gets grounded or whatever. But again, here it is not the possession of Marijuana which caused the problem, and it's not the all seeing eye which incurred wrath. Again too, the situation surrounding the consumption is rather ambiguous. While Palex is certainly not making out, it is certainly in its beginning stages, and doing this helped to strengthen the budding friendship/romance.

Later in the season, there was another drug related matter. Not only did it deal with a much "harder" drug (percs), but the kid (JT) was straight up dealing them. Again, all of his consequences came from his peers (including his pregnant girlfriend) discovering his dealing and his eventual consumption (and overdose) on the drug itself. It was an ultimate lesson in responsibility, not a childish lesson in -- hey, why do you have that, you're not supposed to have that, I'm telling, you're gonna get in soo much trouble.

After all of these years, does Degrassi have to grow up?