Alexa Rose Steele | Through the Shattered Lens

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.

Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through….

Episode 2.10 “Take My Breath Away”

(Dir by Stefan Scaini, originally aired on December 9th, 2002)

How you respond to this episode depends on how much you know about what’s eventually going to happen to the students at Toronto’s Degrassi Learning Center.

When watched for the first time, it seems like a sweet episode about how crushes can hurt and how they can also pay off. Ellie has a crush on Marco and, after discovering that he likes Edward Gorey just as much as she does, Ellie starts to send him anonymous rhyming emails. However, Hazel also likes Marco and Marco thinks that Hazel is the one sending him the emails. Marco thinks this despite Hazel having never shown any poetic ability and also despite the fact that he just sat down at lunch and discussed Edward Gorey with Ellie!

When Marco receives an anonymous email telling him to meet his crush at the Zen Garden, Marco is shocked to discover Ellie waiting for him. Ellie assumes Marco is disappointed and runs away. Marco later tracks Ellie down and reveals that he wasn’t disappointed at all. Marco and Ellie are now a couple!

Meanwhile, Craig and Manny go on their first date. Craig wants to see a movie. Manny gets excited when she sees a rather childish carnival. Manny later tells Emma and Liberty that the date was wonderful and that she and Craig are totally in love. Craig tells Spinner and Jimmy that the date was awkward and that Manny is still too immature for him. Craig says that Manny reminds him of his five year-old half-sister, Angela. (Angela was played by Alexa Steele, Cassie Steele’s real-life sister.)

The episode ends with Manny telling Craig that he shouldn’t talk to Ashley and asking him what they’re doing on Friday night. Craig replies that they’re not doing anything because he doesn’t like Manny. AGCK!

Again, it’s a good episode. The contrast between Craig’s recollection of the date and Manny’s version is genuinely amusing. Meanwhile, Ellie finally gets a boyfriend….

Of course, veteran Degrassi watchers know that Marco is both gay and deeply closeted and that he’s destined to hurt Ellie before becoming her best friend. (Ellie was always way too forgiving.) Meanwhile, Craig and Manny are going to end up together, with Craig first getting Manny pregnant and then, several seasons later, introducing her to cocaine. Craig is also going to nearly kill Joey while having a manic episode before breaking Ashley’s heart and nearly driving Ellie to suicide in Los Angeles. Yikes!

This is a cute episode that, for veteran Degrassi watchers, is decorated with red flags.

Ah, a friend who kills.

Now, on the one hand, I guess you could make an argument that it would be good to have a friend who kills because then you wouldn’t ever have to kill. You could just ask your friend to do a favor for you. I can certainly understand why some people would see that as being one of the benefits that comes with having a friend who kills. Myself, if I had a friend who killed, I would want to take them with me whenever I knew I’m going to have stand in a long line. I mean, God knows that patience is a virtue but sometimes, you really just need to speed things up.

On the other hand, having a friend who kills probably means that you have to spend a lot of time cleaning up after them. And if your friend is one of those people who kills in the middle of the night, you might not got much sleep. Instead, they’ll constantly be calling you at 4 in the morning, asking you to bring a garbage bag and some bleach to a house on the other side of town. Ultimately, it just doesn’t seem to be worth the trouble.

Lifetime’s Friends Who Kill stars Sarah Fisher as Lacy, a high school student who is struggling with failing grades and the recent divorce of her parents. When Lacy first meets Cassie (Alexa Rose Steele), it seems like Cassie is just the type of fun-loving, parent’s-signature-forging friend that she needs but it turns out that Cassie is actually a bit unstable. She’s a friend who kills, though she doesn’t really kill that many people in this film. She does beat a lot of people up. She puts one person in a coma and she hits another with a shovel. She does commit one murder with a hockey stick and it looks like pretty messy. I hate it when murders are committed in a living room because it totally ruins all the furniture. I mean, just try getting a blood stain out of a couch.

Harper (Reha Sandill), who was Lacy’s best friend until Cassie showed up, tries to warn Lacy that Cassie isn’t as good of a friend as she says she is but Lacy is ready for a dangerous friend and who can blame her. Lacy’s mother (Natalie Brown) is too busy dealing with the fallout of her divorce to really notice the murderous gleam in Cassie’s eyes. These things happen when you’ve got a friend who kills, I suppose.

Friends Who Kill suffers a bit because it’s never quite clear why Cassie wants to be Lacy’s friend or why Lacy’s mom is so quick to assume the worst when Cassie frames Harper for revealing the circumstances of the divorce. This is one of those films where you quickly get frustrated because no one seems to have much common sense. Everyone is strangely quick to believe anything that Cassie says and you can understand why Harper gets so annoyed with Lacy. On the plus side, fans of Degrassi will be happy to see that this film features two members of that classic show’s cast. On Degrassi, Sarah Fisher played ultra-religious Becky while Alexa Steele played by Angela Jeremiah and Tori Santamaria. Steele does a pretty good job playing up the sociopathic side of Cassie.

In the end, this film has a good message. Friends who kill may seem like a solution to all of life’s troubles but, in the end, they’re just not worth the trouble.