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“Degrassi: Now or Never” recap: Week 3

Welcome to roommate heaven, everyone! It’s a place that is, thank goodness, heavy on the gay and light on the scooter jokes. We find Fiona and Charlie here in this roommate heaven, Charlie providing the coffee and Fiona providing the spare key so that Charlie can cut down on her “lascivious flirting” with the doorman.

Charlie’s schedule for the day includes class, work, and volunteering at a homeless shelter and, while that’s super nice of her, considering she couldn’t make rent the last few months, perhaps she should rethink how she’s allotting her time.

Anyway, guess what Charlie has for Fiona? A surprise cat! “You have a cat?” Fiona blanches. “We have a cat,” Charlie corrects her. Mr. Tuxedo Pants, to be specific. Uh, gay. Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay. First the U-Haul, then the cat. Fiona is doing an excellent job of following the instructions in her lesbian starter kit.

Despite her trepidation about Mr. Tuxedo Pants Surprise Cat, Fiona smiles and assures Charlie that her mother will be fine with the whole arrangement when she gets back from her trip.

At school, Fiona slides up to Holly J to wax poetic about living with “the most beautiful girl on earth.” A skeptical Holly J realizes Fiona hasn’t told her mother yet and fires back, “Does Charlie know she’s a dirty little secret?” Also, Fiona, stop scratching up a storm! Watching you is making my cat allergies act up.

The itching carries over into Fiona’s conversation with Eli about their play (he wants it to open with a song that establishes the theme – you know, one of those things otherwise known as a theme song). Eli spots her scratching, does a quick internet search, and points out to her that she has bed bugs, not cat allergies. “Ew, they have eyes?!” she squeals. Uh, Fiona? I think you missed the point.

She hires someone to determine whether her apartment actually has bed bugs and then deal with them. This guy asks a series of questions to help her figure out where the infestation might have come from, which makes her realize that Charlie probably brought them from her last apartment.

When Charlie walks into the apartment and sees everything in disarray, she jokingly asks if they’re moving. “It crossed my mind,” Fiona responds. She explains about the bed bugs and how she’s trying to do damage control before her mom comes home. “I’ve never felt so filthy in my entire life,” she says.

Fiona directs her anger at Charlie, blaming her for the infestation, and an appropriately offended Charlie asks if Fiona even considered that anyone else might have been the cause of the bed bugs. Well, Fiona explains with what she thinks is reason, they weren’t here before Charlie was, and she’s “never been anywhere sketchy.”

“Oh, I’m sketchy?” Charlie says. Honey, do you remember your first date? Yes, you’re sketchy. The perfect model of sketchiness, in fact!

Fiona laments everything that’s wrong about Charlie – living above a subway line, volunteering at a homeless shelter, living out of a duffel bag. Affronted, Charlie responds, “You actually think you’re better than me because you have money? Sorry I’m not a porcelain doll like you.” She walks off to take a shower and maybe to sleep there since she’s supposedly so dirty. When Charlie comes back from her shower, she reveals that she called her old roommate, who found no sign of bed bugs at her old apartment.

Fiona is steaming some linens, and since we’ve moved on from scooter jokes, Charlie asks what she’s steaming about. “Us, living together,” Fiona responds. “If we’re going to be roomies, we should get to know each other.” You could have prioritized that before you became roomies, but better late than never, I suppose.

So now we finally get Charlie’s backstory! She’s from the suburbs, her parents divorced when she was 14, then she met some bad people and lived on the streets for a while. She’s since gotten back on good terms with her mother, who is paying for her art school classes while Charlie works to cover her own living expenses.

Just then, Fiona’s mom calls to say that she’s fumigating the penthouse in New York — looks like Mama Coyne is the one who brought the bed bugs!

To celebrate being bed-bug-free, Charlie suggests picking up some champagne, despite knowing Fiona’s underage. (Wait, so does this mean Charlie is at least of drinking age? We didn’t get her age in that life history, did we? Though at least the interwebs tell me that the drinking age in Canada is 18 or 19, depending on which province you live in, so it’s not as creepy as I — with my American drinking laws in mind — originally thought it was.)

Fiona goes still, and Charlie thinks she’s messed up because Fiona’s never had any alcohol before. Fiona avoids a full answer, simply assuring Charlie that she’s had it before. Fiona takes her hand and explains that she likes Charlie so much, she fell for her the first time she saw her. She just doesn’t want to mess that up.

Charlie says she’s falling for Fiona, too, “so hard it’s crazy, but if you want to take things slow-“

“Charlie,” Fiona says, “I’m done with slow.” Cue kiss and fade to black. Or, well, the next scene, at any rate.

In drama class, Eli comments on how much Fiona is glowing. “Charlie and I took the next step,” she whispers back to him. “You finally got to know each other,” he remarks approvingly. “Quite intimately,” she clarifies. Well then.

She admits that she’s worried about their upcoming “sparkling wine” celebration, though. Her history with alcohol is the one thing she hasn’t told Charlie.

Eli thinks she should just tell Charlie, and, if Charlie really likes her, she’ll be fine with it. Fiona isn’t so convinced that everyone’s as much of a “desperate romantic” as “Mr. I-write-plays-for-my-exes” beside her is. Aw, this friendship, I like it. It seems good for both of them.

Fiona comes home to find Charlie lighting candles. She breaks open the champagne, and Fiona breaks the news about being a recovering alcoholic. She assures Charlie that she hasn’t had a sip in weeks, months even! She could have a sip now, and it wouldn’t affect her. To prove her point, Fiona picks up the glass, stares at it for a long moment, and then, shaken, hastily walks off.

Later, Fiona explains to Charlie that her therapist agrees she shouldn’t be around alcohol yet. Charlie doesn’t understand why Fiona waited until she had moved in, “until I let myself get close to you,” to tell her about this history with alcohol.

Um, Charlie? I didn’t even know your age until this episode. Why should Fiona have felt obligated to tell someone she’s not close to that she’s a recovering alcoholic?

Fiona, though, simply explains that the fact she didn’t tell Charlie sooner shows that she’s not ready to be in a relationship. “I can feel it myself, I’m not.” I’m not sure I agree with this jump of logic, but I suppose if she’s going to end things with Charlie, taking care of herself is a damn good reason to do so.

Charlie takes it in stride, saying she’ll be moving out then, and Fiona apologizes — she really did want them to work — but Charlie assures her that she and Mr. Tuxedo Pants Surprise Cat always land on their feet.

Unlike Riley and Zane (who get approximately half an episode per season), I suspect we’ll be seeing Charlie again, so we’ll just have to wait it out and see what happens for them next.

Now, on to Adam (whose “My Body Is a Cage, Part 2” episode was just nominated for three Gemini Awards, including one for Jordan Todosey herself)!

Here we’ve got Mama Torres dropping Drew and Adam off at school. It’s Drew’s first day since, in the delicate words of Adam, “those gang members went Grand Theft Auto on your butt.”

In gym class, Drew freaks out at his friend K.C., shoving him across the room. Surprise, surprise.

Adam comes up to Drew in the hallway later, asking if it’s true he beat up K.C. at intramural. Drew says it’s just “guy stuff,” but Adam won’t drop the subject. He says he researched sudden rage, discovering that it’s common after traumas, just like the nightmares that he knows Drew is also experiencing.

Drew claims he’s fine, though, and he wants to be left alone. He asks Adam not to tell their mom, but Adam believes their mom was right in her suspicion that Drew has post-traumatic stress disorder.

Drew finds K.C. to apologize, promising to channel his aggression onto the dodgeball court. However, when Dave’s father, a police officer, strolls into the gym, he freaks out that there must be some news about the gang. When he finally calms down, he rushes out of the gym, flustered.

That weekend finds Drew up early on a Saturday. He seeks out his mom and confesses that he thinks there’s something wrong with him. She promises to find him a good therapist, but he still seems to be struggling to accept help and wants to move away from Degrassi instead.

Lucky for him, Drew and Adam’s dad has an opportunity to transfer to the Boston office of his company. Adam, caught by surprised by this news, asks if this is a practical joke. “It’s just something we’ve been discussing, Adam,” their mom says. Yeah, discussing with only three-fourths of the family. How considerate of you, Mama Torres.

She’s concluded that a change of scenery would be good for Drew. Adam protests that he likes it at Degrassi — he has friends and even a radio show — but his mom brushes off the concern, saying he’ll make new friends wherever they move.

When Drew tries to reason that they left their last school even though he liked it because Adam was having problems there, Adam complains that it’s not the same. “Your problem’s in your head,” he says. “Wherever we go, it’s coming with us. You haven’t tried to get better, you’re running away.”

Their mom tries to console Drew that Adam’s just upset and will get over it. Drew, however, fears Adam might be right.

In the hallway, Drew confesses to K.C. that he’s not sure if moving to Boston is the right decision. He doesn’t want to run away, and he’s clinging to the hope that he can still find a way to move on while staying at Degrassi.

At the school’s Movie Night, he sees a guy who looks like one of the gang members and follows him out of the auditorium. Dearest viewers, I give you “Lessons on How to Live Beyond High School,” presented by Drew Torres. Step One: Don’t do anything he does.

Turns out, this guy isn’t the gang member, just another kid at school, and he shows Drew some fighting moves that spark his belief that everything’s going to be OK. When he gets home, he lets his mother know that he doesn’t want to move anymore. Surprised, she says his dad might flip when she tells him. Really? He’ll flip about not moving? What a strange family.

Then Drew punches a hole in the wall. He’s still in denial about any post-traumatic stress disorder he might have, so we’ll just have to wait another few episodes until he punches something else and it all blows up in his face.

In other Adam-related storylines, Dave claims to have a meeting with him about the radio show in order to get out of a date with his girlfriend and to spend more time with his Fiona-style-platonic-girlfriend, Alli. Cause that sounds like a foolproof plan.

Dave informs him, “If Sadie asks, you and I have a date tonight,” to which Adam coyly responds, “But I have absolutely nothing to wear.” He then asks what the real reason for the cover is and questions why a) Dave’s going out with a girl he used to have a crush on and b) if they’re just friends, why he lied to Sadie.

Later that week, Dave comes back for more Adam advice. Apparently he was right — Dave still digs Alli, and now he’s not sure what to do about his girlfriend, Sadie. Between Drew and Dave, Adam’s on a winning streak with his advice this week! Dave doesn’t know if Alli likes him, though, and he figures it’s better to have a girlfriend than no girlfriend at all.

Adam suggests asking their listeners what Dave should do, so, despite Dave’s protests, he turns the radio on. “My friend Dave can’t choose between Xbox and PlayStation,” Adam explains to their audience. “My answer’s simple: get both.” Adam, you player! Also, on that note, get ready for your winning advice streak to end.

Sure enough, when Sadie realizes what’s going on, she dumps a) a bag of popcorn on his head and b) him. Completely un-remorseful, Dave asks out Alli, who accepts. Guess that worked out for him after all.

We’re almost halfway through this seven week marathon, guys! Both Adam and Fiona have been getting quite a lot of screen-time — what have you thought so far?

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