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“Degrassi: Now or Never” recap: Week 7

OK, friends, let me tell you a little something about this post: I may or may not have written half of it in all caps and may or may not have had to go back and fix that afterward – it was just that exciting. Or maybe I’d just had too much caffeine?

Regardless, we open on a shot of a motorcycle. See? Exciting! Oh, wait, it’s just a scooter. Still! Wonder who it could belong to.

Fiona is talking with Holly J and Anya about the end of the year — specifically about graduation and prom — and how Fiona’s made her peace with the fact that she’s not graduating. Now all she has to do is find a gorgeous pair of prom-worthy shoes to match her gorgeous pair of prom-worthy friends!

“Oh my God — Charlie,” Fiona suddenly exclaims, spotting the owner of the scooter across the way. “Is that a shoe store?” a befuddled Anya asks, while Fiona tries to prevent Charlie from noticing her.

When her hiding-in-the-middle-of-the-street plan fails, they embark upon the most awkward of interactions involving Fiona faking joy to see Charlie and Charlie inviting Fiona to her art show. When Charlie leaves, Fiona explains to a disapproving Holly J that it’s complicated between them. Good thing Facebook has a relationship option for that.

At school, Holly J tries to get Fiona’s opinion on whether an SUV stretch limo is classy or tacky (um, please have an opinion on this, Fiona, ’cause if you don’t, I totally do), but Fiona’s too distracted by thoughts of Charlie to be bothered by opinions on cars that may or may not be sins against mankind.

The girls have bigger prom issues, however — Anya now has a date, so it’s no longer a girls’ night out. And, oops, Holly J forgot to mention that she already agreed to go with Sav when she thought Fiona would still have Anya. They suggest finding Fiona her own date. “Where?” she asks skeptically. “Lesbianpromdate.com?” (For the record, that domain does actually exist — I checked. Though, sadly, it’s nothing exciting; Degrassi itself bought it.)

Over in the land of Cutest Friendship Ever, Fiona’s come lamenting to Eli for once! She thinks she failed her history final (I guess her mind was wandering too much into the future to focus on the past?), and then she asks Eli to be her date to prom. “Didn’t think I was your type,” he jokes before explaining that he can’t be her friend-date because he already found a way to get into the senior prom.

She rolls her way across the lockers in resignation — like, literally rolls across them. After looking around the hallway as if for someone who might have Imperius-ed her to do that, Eli follows suit, literally rolling across the lockers to her. How are they such cute friends? I can’t handle it, I just can’t.

Fiona admits there is “a certain scooter-riding girl” she’d like to take to prom. I prefer to refer to her as Miss Sketchy Pants. You know, to go with Mr. Tuxedo Pants, of course.

Some undefined time later, Fiona slips into Charlie’s studio to fumble her way into an apology for her actions earlier in the season. Charlie waves her apology off, explaining that she channelled her “heartbreak” into her artwork — Fiona turned out to be the inspiration for her art show!

In other life updates, Charlie is living at home with her mother, which is fine, except that Mr. Tuxedo Pants isn’t allowed to live there. Instead, he’s been living at the studio, by which it would appear she means in that tiny cage, which — OK, fine, perhaps I just got a kitten who is only the cutest thing ever and am more of a sap at the moment, but that’s, like, seriously cruel and unusual punishment.

Fiona jumps at the chance to let Mr. Tuxedo Pants stay with her, for which Charlie is incredibly thankful. “How could I ever repay you?” she asks, and Fiona gets a look in her eye — here’s her opening! She invites Charlie to prom with her, as friends, of course, and Charlie agrees. Or rather, the trade-off of a home for her cat seals the deal for her. Lesbians!

Holly J drops by Fiona’s place to find her dancing around while cleaning. She’s so happy that Holly J jokingly asks if she’s been drinking. Holly J has come to offer to break her date with Sav, but Fiona says she has a friend-date in Charlie now, so no need! For some reason, this infuriates Holly J, who seems to think this is an atrocious idea. I mean, perhaps it is, but I’m a bit flummoxed as to what Holly J’s reasoning is.

Fiona explains that her friend-date with Charlie is not just about not being a fifth wheel at prom, but also about needing a friend once Holly J and Anya graduate. She also defends her decision to go to Charlie’s art show that night — if things seem too complicated, she promises to call it off.

Over at the show, Charlie is just oh-so-excited to see Fiona and whoops! She forgot to mention there’d be alcohol. She quickly ushers Fiona over to a holy-mother-of-Moses-big portrait of Fiona. Uh, how did Fiona miss spotting that when she first walked in?

Fiona calls the piece “breathtaking” (could that be considered narcissism?), and Charlie says, “Well, I can’t take all the credit. It’s easy when the model looks like you.”

Charlie’s worried, though, because nothing’s selling. Fiona is sure it’ll pick up — “I mean, who wouldn’t want this face in their living room?” Charlie couldn’t agree more.

As Charlie slips off to talk a guest into buying one, Fiona asks the gallery manager about buying one herself. “Who better to buy a painting of me than me, right?” Um, is that right? I’m clearly not cultured enough for these things.

And oh wait, Gallery Manager is Charlie’s girlfriend. Charlie introduces Fiona as “the Fiona Coyne.” Charlie, honey, you have to stop giving out mixed signals. Gallery Manager has heard lots about Fiona, and she seems to be an awesome and supportive person who doesn’t mind her girlfriend talking about how gorgeous other ladies are. She even knows they’re going to prom together — such a cute and quaint activity!

Upset, Fiona takes advantage of an unobserved moment to grab two bottles of alcohol off the table and storm off.

When we find Fiona next, she’s drinking alone on a balcony. Well, not quite alone — she’s got Mr. Tuxedo Pants for company. Her phone rings — it’s Holly J — but she ignores it in favor of bemoaning her unloveable-ness. She says she doesn’t deserve anyone and then pushes the cat away — apparently both she and Mr. Tuxedo Pants need to learn to be alone. Fiona, did you just push a cat down a fire escape? That’s it — I’m calling Sarah McLachlan to go all ASPCA on your ass.

Fiona wakes up the next morning to a phone call from Holly J, which she once more ignores. When she shows up to graduation, she tells Holly J that she was right: the situation with Charlie is messy.

Obvious hangover sunglasses are obvious, but Holly J doesn’t notice anything beyond Fiona being a self-absorbed twat who can’t be bothered to pick up her phone to discover that her best friend’s life-saving surgery has just been scheduled the day of her senior prom. Holly J needs Fiona’s support, but all Fiona can worry about is her heartbreak and her fears about being alone next year. And, you know, her alcohol slip-up.

Holly J’s graduation speech about facing the unknown alone speaks straight to Fiona. She walks away, however, before Holly J gets to her point about friendships and memories lasting a lifetime.

She runs off to a wine shop, where she talks a super sketchy older guy into buying her wine. Just as she’s finishing the exchange, she runs into her other sketchy pal — Charlie! Charlie doesn’t buy her the-wine-is-for-my-mother excuse, so Fiona finally hands over the bottle, sits down on the curb with Charlie, and breaks down.

She doesn’t want to drink it, she promises — she’s just finding it hard to fight the urge. Everybody has that one person they call first, Fiona explains (carefully avoiding all Charlie-related explanations) — Holly J was that for her, but she’s leaving for college soon. When Charlie offers to be there for her, Fiona pushes her away, asking her to “stop being so nice.”

Miserably, she admits to losing Mr. Tuxedo Pants in her drunken I-deserve-to-be-alone state. “Do you realize why you’re alone, Fiona?” a justifiably furious Charlie shouts. “You’re alone because you push people away, and someday, nobody is going to bother coming back.”

The outbreak awakens something in Fiona; she tells Charlie that she’s right, which means that Fiona has somewhere she needs to be. Shortly after, she shows up at the hospital to talk to Holly J. She brings an apology-smoothie, but Holly J tells Fiona a smoothie isn’t going to cut it for ignoring all her calls when she had just found out she was missing prom for surgery and wanted her best friend.

Luckily, Fiona’s one step ahead! She planned a pre-prom for all of them to make up for Holly J missing real-prom. “Prom isn’t just about eating dry chicken and dancing to ‘Living on a Prayer,'” she explains. “It’s about best friends and celebrating all you’ve been through one last time.”

A pre-prom experience, as it turns out, involves waving out of the sunroof of a limo, messing with the letters on the school sign, sinking their paws (well, not paws — Mr. Tuxedo Pants is still missing, after all) into wet cement, and a round of true confessions (in which Fiona admits to drinking the night before). She didn’t tell Holly J because she didn’t want her to be disappointed. Holly J, however, is mostly just amused that Fiona actually set Mr. Tuxedo Pants free.

Speaking of, Fiona shows up at Charlie’s studio with apology-Missing-Cat-signs. Turns out he’s already been found, though! Sarah McLachlan, you can stop singing “Angel” in my head now, thanks.

As for Adam, do you all remember a few posts back when I said that a good man is hard to find and usually when you find one somebody ends up dead? Well, it appears I almost jinxed us.

Adam and Drew have volunteered to help with the grade nine orientation, and they approach the school together, acting all cute and brotherly. Adam is agreeing that Katie’s an upgrade from Bianca, and he determines that the further they stay away from the latter, the better.

I suppose after your brother goes out with the girl who got you bullied and thrown out of bathrooms, him dating the-one-who-got-away isn’t so bad. Oh, wait, Adam’s mad at Bianca for all the things she did to Drew, not the things she did to him. Right, ’cause Adam is a better person than I am and apparently does not understand the meaning of the word “grudge.”

They spot Bianca hanging out with Vince, the gang member who went after Drew. Confused and convinced that Bianca is purposefully messing with his head, Drew decides to figure out her motives. He even promises to dance with Katie at prom to “My Heart Will Go On” if she’ll pair him with Bianca for the day’s orientation sessions. Damn, that’s quite the promise.

Adam wants Drew to let it go and focus on his great new girlfriend, but Drew is dead-set on figuring out Bianca’s scheme. What he finds out is that Bianca has been dating and selling drugs for Vince in order to keep him from going after Drew. He wants to go after Vince again for abusing Bianca, but both she and Katie discourage him from resorting to violence.

Instead, he invites Bianca to come to the prom, in hopes that even a few hours away from Vince will be helpful (that’s why she signed up to help with the grade nine orientation, too). Then he steals her phone to schedule a time to meet-up with Vince, where he supposedly talks Vince into calling everything off. Why he thinks this will be a successful strategy, I don’t know.

Also, I get that he wanted to rub Vince’s nose in the fact that Drew would be at prom “with” Bianca, but perhaps he should have thought about the consequences of telling his nemesis where both his targets will be at a given time.

When Bianca arrives at the prom, she walks up to Drew, Adam, and an unsuspecting Katie. Drew explains the situation to her, but she’s furious that he’s invited his ex-girlfriend to crash their prom experience, and I can’t say I blame her. Adam suggests that perhaps the real problem is that Bianca’s current “boyfriend” wants to kill Drew.

He isn’t just attending the prom, however — as an underclassman, Adam’s officially there to work the event. He comes over to Drew, Katie, and Bianca’s table in waiter-mode, tells them not to all fill up on the bread they’re dutifully picking at, and then calls it like it is: awkward.

Eventually Drew takes Katie out to the dance floor, and Adam comes over to the table to tidy it up. Bianca looks him up and down, and he turns around as if expecting to find someone behind him that she’s checking out instead of him. When he doesn’t see anyone else, he cracks a tentative smile, and the two of them approach the dance floor together.

“I’m sorry I said we couldn’t be ballroom partners,” Bianca says to Adam, in reference to their issues last season. “I was an idiot.”

I long since gave up expecting closure on this particular storyline, so color me surprised at this development. Bianca’s redeemed herself a lot for me this season, and I like the way they’ve nuanced her. She’s finally seeing Adam for who he is — a nice guy — and she’s slowly coming to see a place, a need even, for people like him in her life.

Bianca adds that they “would have killed” on the dance floor, just before accidentally slamming into someone behind her. Adam looks so adorably happy as he adds with a laugh, “or killed someone?” Adam, are you trying to jinx us, too?

Because look who’s shown up to the party — Vince. He refuses to leave without Bianca, but Drew says the hell he is. He shrugs off his jackets and shoves it at Adam, launching into a brawl with the other guy. His ultimate fighting skills pay off, and he successfully beats Vince in their fist-to-fist match, but when he turns away, Vince pulls out a gun.

Two shots go off, and it’s unclear who might have been hit. Thanks, conveniently-timed commercial break! When the dust clears and Drew and Katie stop freaking out about each other, everyone realizes that Adam has been shot.

Thankfully it’s only his shoulder, and since Katie knows some first aid, she sets about trying to slow the bleeding until an ambulance arrives.

There’s something Drew said about Katie earlier in this last week’s episodes that I think is fitting here. “I may not get girl friendships,” he had told her in relation to her friendship with Marisol, “but you’re loyal.” Agreed — I may not get Katie, but she’s definitely something. And I’m appreciating that something right now.

Meanwhile, Bianca picks up the gun from the ground and leaves to find Vince, aiming to end things for once and for all. Drew, after soothing back Adam’s hair and promising to meet him at the hospital, runs after her, and Katie rushes after him.

Katie’s advice that violence can’t solve his problems has finally hit home for Drew in the form of Adam getting shot, so he talks Bianca into calling the cops instead of killing Vince herself.

At the hospital, loyal friends Clare and Eli are keeping Adam company until his family arrives. “Did it hurt, getting shot?” Um, really, Clare? Always the jokester, Adam responds that “it felt like a warm hug on a cold day.”

When Eli comforts him with the thought that “girls think scars are pretty cool,” Adam bemusedly groans, “yet another thing to explain when I take my shirt off.” Oh, Adam. I’ll let you make all the trans jokes from now on, okay? You’re the best.

When Drew and Bianca finally arrive at the hospital, Drew promises to be Adam’s butler for as long as it takes for him to heal. It’s all Drew’s fault, after all. “Isn’t it all her fault?” Mama Torres says, stepping out of the shadows and nodding at Bianca. “What is she doing here?”

Drew explains how Bianca spent all night talking to the detectives, spilling dirt on Vince’s gang, so she’s going to need a good lawyer or two. A good man, if you will. Mama Torres steps into the room and slowly nods her acceptance of the situation. Drew hugs Katie, while over his shoulder, Bianca mouths him a thank you.

And thank you for following these recaps throughout this summer season of Degrassi! It’s been quite the ride, and I’ve enjoyed taking it with you all. Until next time!

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