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, Ashley is back with Jimmy.  But for how long?

Episode 2.18 “Dressed in Black”

(Dir by Gavin Smith, originally aired on January 19th, 2003)

This episode of Degrassi features one of my favorite opening scenes.  Ashley, in full goth mode, sings a depressing and rather overwrought song to Jimmy, who she is finally dating again.  Jimmy listens and is obviously struggling to appear interested.  After Ashley finishes, Jimmy tells her that it was a great song.  Ashley asks him if he really understood it.  Jimmy nods.  Ashley says that she’s going to sing another one.  Jimmy gets a panicked look on his face….

While Ellie has always been the character to whom I’ve related (we’re both reheads!), I have to admit that I was probably more like Ashley in high school.  I wrote my share of emo poetry and I always made sure to ask my friends whether or not they got what I was truly trying to say.  One reason why I would ask was that I really wasn’t sure what I was trying to say.

Anyway, this episode features Ashley and Jimmy back together for a short time.  Unfortunately, Jimmy wants to bring back the old Ashley while Ashley wants to be the new Ashley.  Ashley also has a pretty obvious crush on Craig, who captures her attention by discussing how Shakespeare was actually a misogynistic creep.  For their English class, Jimmy and Hazel and Craig and Ashley are instructed to reinterpret Taming of the Shrew for a modern audience.  Jimmy and Hazel come up with a silly love story, complete with Hazel doing a cheer.  Craig and Ashley interpret the play as a harrowing portrait of domestic abuse.

At the end of the episode, Ashley gives Jimmy a poem and breaks up with him.  I once did the same thing in high school.  I still feel kind of bad about it.  I worked way too hard to make it rhyme.

Meanwhile, after sitting through a sex ed class, Toby and JT buy condoms.  Spinner finds out and, seeing as how Toby is dating Spinner’s adopted sister, he is not amused.  Spinner tells Toby that there’s already too much pressure on young women to be sexually active.  Wow, that’s a good message but also totally out-of-character for Spinner!

This storyline …. eh.  Toby’s storylines were always kind of boring, largely because Toby never got to do much other than try to hide in the hallways.  I’m glad he’s no longer pining over Emma but still, he’s not a particularly interesting character and the writers never seemed to really know what to do with either him or Kendra.

This episode is a lot more interesting if you know that Ashley and Craig are eventually going to become a couple and that Craig’s going to end up on the streets after trying to kill Joey during a manic episode.  And let’s not even talk about the fact that Ashley is going to eventually steal Jimmy’s music and use it to launch her own career.  As a stand-alone episode, it’s a bit blah but it definitely foreshadows the show that Degrassi is going to become.