Season 2, Episode 14 - Careless Whisper

Original Airdate - January 3rd, 2003

Let’s start with a fun fact. The original Canadian release of this episode and the previous wedding special happened out of order! Degrassi season 2 aired on Fridays, but the hourlong special was given special Sunday billing. So we got Careless Whisper on Friday, White Wedding on Sunday, and then tomorrow’s episode the following Friday. Kind of fun!

Sean, Spinner, Jimmy and Marco are playing shirts vs skins basketball and Marco finds himself distracted by Sean’s hot bod. Spinner points out that he seems distracted and Marco postures. Marco has a lot on his mind. He’s noticing his own weirdness, and he really doesn’t know what to make of it yet. He knows he definitely doesn’t want the boys to notice.

And then there’s his friendship with Ellie. He told her he liked her, but nothing is happening there. Ellie is getting a little frustrated. Are they just friends or are they going to date?

Luckily, sexual health educator Dr. Sally is back and this time, she makes a special point to discuss sexual orientation. Jimmy and Spinner snicker through the discussion, but Dr. Sally says that gay men find themselves as naturally drawn to men as straight men due to women. It’s all normal and fine!

Coach Armstrong winds down the discussion by mentioning a queer youth group that meets at the community center. Ellie approaches Dr. Sally with her situation. Her and a boy confessed feelings, but nothing is happening. Dr. Sally tells her not to worry, boys get nervous too. She encourages Ellie directly discuss the situation with the boy, even if it’s a little awkward.

Meanwhile, Spinner and Jimmy have put themselves in charge of handing out the sexual health freebies after class. Spinner finds a fun new joke, calling Marco “Marcie” and handing him the bag with tampons and pads, but Marco get huffy about it. All that does is egg Spinner on and he keeps returning to this joke throughout the episode. To him, it’s harmless, but it makes Marco desperate to prove his masculinity.

After Media Immersion class, Marco hangs back, still thinking about Dr. Sally’s talk. He goes to her website to look at the information on sexual orientation, the Degrassi version of googling “Am I Gay?" Spinner comes in and almost catches him. Eek.

Ellie asks him if they’re friends or more and Marco sees a chance to prove himself straight. He asks her out. They go to a movie and Ellie goes to hold his hand. She’s thrilled when Marco goes with it, but bummed when he quickly gets uncomfortable and pulls away.

Ellie is pretty gloomy the next day as Ashley is making plans to have everyone over for their Media Immersion project. They’re learning about seeing deceptive tricks in film and video and I think we should still teach people that. Ashley also mentions that she’s nervous Jimmy will be at her house again after everything that’s happened which is a lovely plant for later story.

Anyway, Ellie does not want to talk about the date. Ashley listens to her complain that it wasn’t a bad time, it just didn’t get physical. Ashley thinks Marco is maybe not interested in girls, but Ellie rejects this. I like this recurring thing where Paige and Ashley, the characters with gay relatives, clock the situation very easily.

Marco, for his part, postures about the date. He tells the boys they made out, but they can tell he’s lying. Marco decides to make up for that as he and the boys head outside for more basketball. He walks up to Ellie and kisses her in front of everyone. She loves it.

That night, the Grade 9s gather at Ashley’s and Ellie invites Marco to sneak upstairs for some alone time. They start making out. At first, Ellie thinks Marco is nervous, but she can soon tell he’s just not feeling it.

Ellie asks him point blank if he’s attracted to her and Marco can’t bring himself to answer. She escalates, is he even attracted to girls at all? Marco admits he doesn’t know. He feels very confused. Ellie feels for him. She wants him to figure out, but doesn’t like that he’s using her to do so.

At school, Jimmy and Spinner ask Marco what happened upstairs and Marco postures again. Ellie walks up and plays along. She agrees to be Marco’s beard, temporarily. She also offers to go to the queer youth group with him. Marco isn’t ready for that, but Ellie tells him the offer is open whenever he wants to take it.

Over in our B story, Toby is really into Kendra. Too into her. He stands outside the window of the Media Immersion lab making kissy faces. Kendra is mortified, especially when Mr. Simpson catches Toby.

At lunch, Toby is being so lovey-dovey with Kendra that JT feels the need to leave. Kendra tries to ask Toby to calm down, but Toby only doubles down. He’s made a schedule for Kendra with time for Toby to help her with an English assignment and time for Toby and Kendra to make out. There’s no time for hockey practice, but Toby thinks maybe she should quit. Kendra storms off, sick of his controlling attitude.

Toby knows just the thing to cheer Kendra up. Decorating her locker! Manny sees and tries to warn him. She made that mistake and knows this isn’t going to work. Sure enough, Kendra seems less than thrilled.

Toby panics. Kendra hates him. It’s over. JT tries to tell him to calm down, but he won’t listen. He sees Kendra after a soccer game and avoids her, which she notices. Kendra corners Toby and he says that if she’s going to break up with him, she should just do so. Kendra kisses him. She likes him! They’re fine! He just needs to stop assuming her feelings and trying to control her life. He can do that, surely.

Holding hands. The peak of middle school flirting on the road to a kiss at the finish line. Who amongst us hasn’t dreamt of our hand finding our crushes in the dark of a movie theater?

Me, the answer is me. Or more specifically me as a teenager. I used to think holding hands was the stupidest thing. Literally what was the point? So we can get sweaty with our palms pressed together? So we have to navigate the world with one arm and a conjoined twin?

Like Marco, I first thought this was a gay thing. I held hands with my short-lived middle school girlfriend and felt nothing. I would feel more with a boy. But as time went along, I didn’t want to do that either. I wanted to kiss boys. I wanted to cuddle boys. I didn’t want to hold their hand.

I had a really stupid and inflated sense of self about all of this. That was so childish. I was more mature and refined. Such fantasies could never appeal to me. I was simply too evolved.

My freshman year of college, I lived forty-five minutes down the road from another university, attended by one of my high school best friends. Once football season ended and I was finally free from marching band duties, I caught a ride there to visit. I was expecting a simple weekend of walking around, watching movies, and being dumb.

But my friend had another agenda. She’d grown close with her RA, a gay man, and wanted to see if we’d click. She arranged for us to hang out with him almost immediately upon my arrival. I don’t know if I was attracted to him, exactly, but I hadn’t really ever gotten attention from gay men. He was nice. He was around. That’s all I needed!

So I tried to flirt, badly. And he was flirting back. It was a completely new experience to me. What if we KISSED? He invited us to a screening of a movie on campus (I couldn’t begin to guess what movie) and of course my friends made sure we were sitting next to each other.

It was a set up, I’m sure, to put egg on my face. You don’t want to hold hands? Really? They would show me. As soon as the lights went down, I wanted it. We did the whole stupid dance. The slow inching and angling and setting of arms nearby. Then moving them next to each other so our arms touched. Then the backs of our hands. And finally, FINALLY, our fingers intertwined.

How electric! How romantic! In the middle of this crowded, dark room, an undeniable signal of connection and interest. I had been such a fool. Holding hands was everything.

I don’t remember this boy’s name. We didn’t really stay in touch. I went to his room but we didn’t even kiss. I got too nervous. But oh, what he gave me. An appreciation for quiet, lowkey, connective romance. The knowledge that people love the little things because they’re really nice. Uncomplicated and nice. Sometimes, in relationships, those kinds of things are hard to come by.