1
/ 2 / 3 / 4 -
Home
Clay
comes home as the family is sitting down for
dinner. He has just survived his first almost-arrest
for driving while black and he is pretty shaken up.
He looks at the rest of his ultra-white family, figures
that they will not understand, and runs upstairs.
The
following night, Glen is scoring the winning point for
the basketball team while Aiden watches from the bench.
Glen is so irritating that I’m starting to root for
Aiden. At the dance that follows the game, Sean introduces
Clay to the massive guy who beat him up the day before,
and vouches for him. Then Sean introduces him to Chelsea,
the girl for whom he got his ass kicked. He is making
friends and the cute girl wants to dance with him. Finally,
something is going right for Clay!
If
only Spencer were so lucky. She is bored and lonely
at the dances, and she looks less than thrilled to be
watching all the straight couples making out. She calls
Ashley and talks her into meeting her at the dance.
Ashley is acting like she just thinks dances are lame,
but she’s really afraid that she’s going to get harassed
there for being gay.
It’s
really cute when Ashley shows up for Spencer.
They gaze at each other for awhile, then Spencer asks,
“Are you nervous?” Ashley lets down her guard and admits,
“A little.” Spencer holds out her hand and leads Ashley
into the dance!
Spencer
is adorably naïve and all smiles when they enter the
gym, while Ashley looks like she’s about to puke. Spencer
asks, “How does it feel?” Ashley says it’s not quite
what she imagined. Then Madison accosts them and says,
“Didn’t you see the ‘no dogs, no dykes’ sign on the
door?” Ashley sighs, “But now it is.”
Madison
keeps after the lovebirds. "Spencer, you’re blowing
up girl! If we had known you were gay we would have
never considered you for the squad. Having a lesbian
in the locker room always checking us out gets uncomfortable
for us normal girls.”
When
Ashley defends Spencer and tells Madison that the real
problem is her jealousy of Aiden’s past relationship
with Ashley, Madison drops a bomb. She mentions that
Aiden got Ashley pregnant, and Ashley admits to Spencer
that she lost the baby. When Aiden comes to Ashley’s
defense, Madison snaps at Spencer, “You’re off the squad,
so you can go play with your ‘life partner.”
Glen
tries to get Spencer out of there, but she tells everyone,
“No, I’m going with Ashley. And I’m glad I’m off the
squad because I’ve been doing some judging of my own
and you girls lose.”
Glen
and Aiden start swinging at each other, and when Clay
tries to pull them apart, Chelsea says, “Stay out of
it. That’s the white boy’s problem.” He tells her,
“That’s my brother.” The guys continue to pummel each
other while Spencer and Ashley run out of the gym together.
Spencer
demands a full explanation in the car. Ashley
says that she and Aiden were together about a year ago,
and that she was going to keep the baby, “Someone who
I could finally love. Someone who could love me for
just me.”
Spencer
needs some answers, “What are you? Gay? Straight? All
of the above?” Ashley tells her that she’s not into
labels. Spencer is not satisfied, “Well everyone else
on this planet is!” Aiden runs out to their car and
they help him get away from the security guards chasing
him down.
The
three of them park and stand looking out at the Los
Angeles skyline. Spencer asks them, “Do you two want
to be alone?” Aiden and Ashley quickly say, “No!”
Aiden
is so sensitive and cool (and maybe gay) that he says,
“Do you two want to be alone?” The girls say “No!”
in unison, but they smile shyly and look away. They
TOTALLY want to be alone.
Aiden
asks, “So Spencer, are you gay?” Luckily, Spencer has
been tutored for this quiz and says, “Um, I’m not into
labels” as she gazes at Ashley. Sigh. Young, label-free
love is beginning to blossom.
Ok.
I’m hooked. Are Spencer and Ashley going to
get together? Is Clay going to hook up with Chelsea?
Is Glen going to get over himself? Now I’m the one
who needs answers. In the meantime, I’m going to watch
Degrassi: The Next Generation and learn
more teenspeak.