Last night, I watched the 12th season finale of my favorite Canadian show, Degrassi.

Why Was I Watching It?

Because it was Degrassi, of course!  As if you had to ask!

What Was It About?

Another school year has ended and it’s time for the senior class of everyone’s favorite Toronto high school to graduate and get on with their lives.

However, while everyone else is enjoying prom and graduation, a few of the show’s longtime couples have to work through a few issues.

Imogen tries to sabotage her girlfriend Fiona’s attempt to get an internship with a famous Italian designer.  Imogen does this by pretending to be Fiona and insulting the designer.  The designer decides that he wants nothing to do with Fiona but then Imogen has a change of heart, apologizes, and the designer turns out to be the most forgiving guy on the planet.

Meanwhile, Eli and Clare are still broken up but not for long.  On prom night, Clare finally loses her virginity but it also appears that she might now have leukemia because that’s the way things work when you’re a student at Degrassi…

What Worked?

Yay!  Season 12 is finally over!  Seriously, I’ve been watching Degrassi since it started and I’ve always appreciated its unique combination of over-the-top melodrama, self-reflexive humor, and Canadian manners.  However, Season 12 was perhaps the worst in the series history and now, it’s finally over!  Now, we can look forward to season 13 with a whole new group of seniors and incoming niners and we can hope that we won’t have to deal with any more storylines about hockey or politically-themed musical theater productions.

On another note, Degrassi has always been pretty good at capturing the excitement of things like prom and graduation.  The show has always understood how important these rituals are when you’re a teenager and, to its credit, it’s never taken the condescending approach that you find in so many other shows about teenagers.  If you didn’t get emotional watching all the graduating students singing at the end of last night’s episode, then you just don’t have a soul.

What Did Not Work?

I’m tempted to say that, since this was Degrassi, it all worked.  However, I do have an issue with this episode and the show in general.

Degrassi has a really bad habit of dealing with the fact that everyone eventually has to leave high school by randomly having otherwise intelligent characters mysteriously flunk all their classes and end up having to retake a grade or two.  The most famous example of this was the popular character of Spinner, who eventually managed to graduate at the age of 26.  In Spinner’s case, however, it wasn’t that big a deal because everyone knew Spinner was an idiot.  However, in the years since Spinner finally graduated (and somehow ended up married to Emma — don’t even get me started on that), more and more Degrassi students have ended up having to repeat a grade.

What’s odd is that no one ever seem to be that upset about being held back and nobody seems to suffer any sort of unfortunate consequences from having to repeat a grade.  In fact, Fiona Coyne was last night’s valedictorian despite the fact that this was her second attempt to complete her senior year.  Seriously, what does this say about Canada’s education system?

Anyway, this season, Imogen somehow managed to fail all of her classes and, therefore, did not get to graduate and will be back next season.  Unlike a lot of Degrassi fans, I actually like Imogen but I still find it hard to believe that she would not only fail all of her classes but that she would also be so accepting of the prospect of having to spend another year in high school.  I mean, I loved high school but, if you told me that I had to stay a year longer than planned, you would have seen one angry little redhead.

“Oh my God!  Just like me!” Moments

One difference between previous seasons of Degrassi and this latest season has been that this season had a definite lack of just like me moments.  While Degrassi has always been melodramatic, season 12 saw it get rather preachy and didactic as well.

So, really, about the only thing I could relate to was the fact that I had fun at my prom too.  I also sang at my graduation but, unlike the Degrassi grads, I was asked to stop.

Lessons Learned

In Canada, you don’t just get a diploma for showing up.  You’re expected to pass your classes as well.