Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi: The Next Generation, which aired from 2001 to 2015!  The series can be streamed on YouTube and Tubi.

This week, Ellie figures something out about Marco.

Episode 2.14 “Careless Whisper”

(Dir by Laurie Lynd, originally aired on January 13th, 2003)

This episode opens with Marco, Jimmy, and Spinner playing basketball and Marco staring at the shirtless Spinner until Spinner says, “What are you looking at, fag?”

Later, when Dr. Sally (Sue Johanson) comes to give the Health class her annual sex education talk, Jimmy and Spinner ask her how a dude could be attracted to another dude.  At this point, someone in the class could have and perhaps should have pointed out that Jimmy and Spinner seem to spend a lot of time together but instead, everyone just snickers.

Everyone except for Marco.  As class ends, Marco is quick to tell Spinner and Jimmy that he hates gay people.

Meanwhile, Ellis is wondering why Marco never seems to show her any affection.  They’re hanging out.  They’re going to the movies.  And yet, she feels like Marco is still more of a friend than a boyfriend….

Yes, this is the episode where Ellie figures out that Marco is gay.  When Ellie asks him, “Do you like girls at all?,” Marco replies with, “I don’t know.”  As we all yell, “No, Ellie!,” Ellie agrees to continue to pretend to be Marco’s girlfriend so that Spinner and Jimmy won’t make fun of him but she says that this isn’t a permanent arrangement….

Seriously, Ellie was always getting her heart broken on this show.  First, she agreed to be Marco’s pretend girlfriend.  Then she dated Sean, even though he was obviously still in love with Emma.  Then she pursued Craig, who was incapable of loving anyone other than himself.  And finally, she fell for that narcissistic college newspaper editor.  Ellie deserved better and really, while I have sympathy for Marco’s struggle to accept his sexuality while being best friends with the two biggest homophobes in Canada, Marco was always at his most selfish when it came to Ellie.

That said, both Adamo Ruggiero and Stacey Farber give good performances in this episode, as Marco and Ellis respectively.  Today, we kind of take it for granted that every high school-based show is going to have at least a handful of gay characters.  (By the end of Degrassi’s Netflix run, almost everyone in the school was LGBTQ.)  In 2003, though, an extended storyline like this was still a big deal and it undoubtedly took some guts on the part of the showrunners.

As for the B-story, Toby is totally in love with Kendra.  Kendra thinks that Toby is getting a bit too possessive.  Toby agrees to back off a little.  Kendra, you can do better.  Sorry, Tobes.