Season 3, Episode 10 - Never Gonna Give You Up

Original Airdate - December 19th, 2003

Content Warning - Abuse

Rick, Terri’s new boyfriend, is such a gentleman. He does such sweet things like arranging his sweater into a seat for her on the hard gym floor. But all of Terri’s friends are a little put off by him. He’s just kind of odd.

Marco, Jimmy, Hazel, Terri and Rick are grouped up for a scene project in their theater class. Marco wrote the script, and Jimmy wants to direct. Rick comes from a theater background, and wants the job himself, but Jimmy proclaims himself the better choice. Rick will be the stage manager, and Terri will play the lead.

During practice, Terri is kind of bad. She’s very stiff and unnatural. Jimmy asks her to loosen up, and Rick jumps in with an unsolicited direct tip. Focus on your breathing. The next time she does the scene, she’s breathing audibly and awkwardly the whole time. Jimmy is very annoyed.

This scene is kind of strange to me. Make no mistake, Rick is very obnoxious. But later they describe him as creepy or off-putting and I’m not sure that’s exactly textual. I don’t want to get ahead of the essay, but I can’t tell if the show wants me to think there’s something off about him because he’s annoying or feel bad for him because he’s just trying too hard.

Rick asks Terri about Jimmy. It’s clear he’s jealous, and this is the first moment that’s really not a good look. Terri is extremely reassuring and Rick seems to accept her reassurance. Jimmy asks Hazel if she thinks Rick is a creep and Hazel tells him he needs to chill. This is Terri’s first boyfriend, and they should be supportive, even if he is kind of weird. Hazel is basically completely right this whole episode.

The theater crew meets at the Dot to talk about the scene and Rick rhapsodizes about not turning your back to the audience. When it’s time to order, Terri wants a burger, but Rick talks her into getting a salad instead. Hazel, Marco, and Jimmy are all weirded out, which is good, because this is the first actual red flag they’ve witnessed.

At practice, Terri is even stiffer. She’s still breathing weird and now she is moving around like a crazy person, trying to keep her body facing the audience. Jimmy corners Rick. He says that Rick’s advice isn’t helping and that he needs to let Jimmy direct. He says it in a very arrogant and patronizing way.

Rick is super pissed. We haven’t really seen him angry like this and it is unsettling. He tells Terri that she shouldn’t listen to Jimmy, and Terri says she has to. He’s the director. Rick says he’s worried she’s going to make a fool of herself. During the performance, things are going well, until Terri sees Rick looking disappointed in the audience. She starts breathing weird and moving around with her body facing the audience. People laugh, and she’s extremely embarrassed.

Sidebar. Marco’s script is so bad and I love that. He’s 15, of course he can’t write for shit.

After school, Rick is acting like nothing happened, but Terri is pissed. She blames him from the bad performance. He snaps, grabbing and squeezing her wrist. He tells her not to talk to him like that. Terri is really freaked out.

She avoids him and his calls for the rest of the evening, but he meets her at the morning bus with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. He claims he was jealous of Jimmy and it got the better of him. He apologizes profusely. She forgives him.

Paige and Hazel see the flowers and are impressed. How did Terri snag such a romantic? Paige invites the girls over for a girls night, but Hazel is thrown off when Terri says she needs to ask Rick. She notices the bruises on Terri’s wrist, but Terri claims they’re from volleyball practice.

Terri finds Rick cleaning up their set and tells him about girls night. He is super weird and controlling about it. Why can’t he be invited? Is she going to talk shit about him? Is she going to cheat? She tells him he’s being crazy and he slaps her.

Sometime between then and girls’ night, they’ve made nice, because Terri is all smiles at Paige’s house. She goes on about Rick’s sweet and romantic gestures. When Paige leaves to get chips, Hazel takes the moment to talk directly. She’s concerned, especially now that Terri has a cut on her lip. Hazel asks point blank if Rick is hurting Terri, and Terri denies it and storms off.

Rick is waiting for her on the way home. Terri doesn’t want to talk to him. She needs some space. He tells her he loves her, and says that Terri should only see Hazel and Paige at school. Terri is overwhelmed and tells Rick he’s suffocating her. Rick shoves her against a wall. Terri finds her courage and tells Rick that’s the final straw. He will never touch her again.

Jimmy and Hazel lend their support to Terri and tell her they’ve got her back if Rick gives her any more problems. Hazel assures Terri that there are other fish in the sea. Terri admits that in spite of it all, she still cares for him, and Hazel says she has to find a way to stop. Rick puts another secret admirer rose on Terri’s locker. She throws it on the ground and steps on it. She’s done.

B story! Spinner! Again! Fuck me!

Spinner has a new job at the Dot that I think he will actually keep for like 8 more seasons. He’s struggling to get used to waiting tables and is on probation. Making matters worse, JT won’t stop hanging around with Paige. Spinner admits to Craig that JT was there for Paige last year, but Craig tells him that doesn’t mean Spinner has to put up with it now.

Spinner walks up to Paige and JT and tells JT to go away. JT mocks him, repeating everything he says, which makes Spinner almost hit him. Paige steps in to defend. JT is her friend, and she wants him and Spinner to get along.

The next day at school, Raditch approaches JT. He received a love poem signed by JT, and he doesn’t think it’s very funny. JT swears he didn’t send the note. He opens his locker and sees someone broke in and filled it with pictures of Raditch, covered in hearts.

Spinner walks up and admits it was him. Funny prank right? These are the kinds of pranks Spinner likes to pull on his friends. If JT doesn’t like it, he should stop being in Spinner’s social circle. Paige, dump this man!!

JT chooses revenge. He pants Spinner in the hallway. Spinner comes to JT asking for a truce, but is really just distracting him so Craig can hide a noise maker in JT’s locker. When Manny comes up to talk to JT, Craig and Spinner play fart noises. Manny thinks it’s gross and JT is super embarrassed. I guess he’s over Manny ditching him for Sully.

JT takes it to the limit. He goes to the Dot where Spinner has to wait on him. He makes an intentionally complicated order and then keeps insisting that Spinner got it wrong. Spinner breaks and grabs JT by the collar which his manager sees.

The following day, JT apologizes. He heard that Spinner got demoted from waiter to dishwasher, and he thinks this has all gone too far. They make peace, and Paige is very happy to see it. But Ms. Kwan walks up with a love note signed by Spinner. JT’s insurance policy or proof the battle still rages? I have no idea.

Rick. Maybe the most important person in Degrassi history to never make the main credits. This episode is not exactly why. At this point in time, I’m pretty sure the school shooting was just a glimmer of an idea in the writers room. It’s a topic they would one day like to get to, not one they’re actively working towards. It’ll be a minute before they pick Rick as their shooter.

But from this episode, I’m already feeling the problems that I think are going to remain for me and this character. He’s clearly a very troubled, very ill boy. He’s also an awkward nerd. He also hits women. I simply don’t know what I’m supposed to think of him.

I am of two minds when it comes to trying to understand abusive men. On one hand, I think deconstructing and noticing the signs that lead a man to hit their partners is useful. I do not believe anyone is inherently evil, and we need to know what leads a man or boy to this path so we can know how to intervene - both to correct the abusive impulse and hopefully to prevent it in the first place.

Narrative has a role in this. It’s an incredibly effective teacher. I do think this episode does a good job of flagging some warning signs - possessiveness, controlling comments - that you should look for in friend’s relationships to know when to intervene. Storytelling is also a tool of empathy. There is value in helping us learn to see even the worst among us as human people.

But then my other perspective on the matter emerges. Because while I think it’s great to understand the abuser, I don’t think the abuser deserves our sympathy. I want to intervene on abusive men to help their partners, not to save the men. I do not think these are precious snowflakes that must be coddled. In fact, a lot of how men end up with their fucked up views around power and control is because society makes them so special.

I knew what this episode was about when I started it. I knew that the weird vibes Rick was throwing of, before they started to look possessive, were going to be paid off with abuse. And so I felt really gross that the episode was presenting me situations where I felt bad for him. He’s an awkward nerd! Jimmy is a bossy popular kid who has his own problems taking no for an answer! Jimmy exerts his social clout to take a role that Rick has more relevant experience in. That’s not very fair!

It’s the last thing I wanted to feel. I do not want to feel for the awkward kid who uses that awkwardness as an excuse to be weird to women! Or maybe worse, I don’t want the show to be presenting awkwardness or eagerness as a sign of a potential abuser. Jimmy has plenty of red flags himself, sorry!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but it’s all very 2003. In the aftermath of Columbine, there was a real effort to understand the shooters. This makes sense. Everyone felt blindsided and wanted to know how to stop this from happening again. But in that process, we all kind of bought into a cultural lie. The shooters were misunderstood loners, bullied and ostracized, who descended into violence.

This isn’t true. The shooters were bullies, not bullied. They had close friends. They planned it for a very long time and wanted fame. One was likely a narcissist and the other on the intensely angry side of depression. But we don’t really know. They were never formerly evaluated. There’s a lot of evidence, but none of it is satisfying.

But isn’t it a little satisfying to think that the answer, maybe, was just everyone being nicer to each other? Hell yeah. Simple. Clean. Fits on a bumper sticker. Kindness, pass it on.

Kindness is good, and I encourage it. But you cannot kindness someone out of a personality disorder or a mental illness. You can choose kindness and help guide someone to treatment, but they need treatment. That treatment must be available, affordable, unstigmatized. That treatment won’t always work, or work quickly, and we’ll have to have hard conversations on how to protect potential victims during that process.

It is not lost on me that it is only white men who get this treatment. Most get the other direction. Deep demonization. Incarceration. Death. I don’t even mean other kinds of criminals. I mean Black abusers too. If the writing staff of Degrassi was like most other shows, it was probably full of white men who were awkward nerds in high school. I am a white man who was an awkward nerd in high school.

So what am I supposed to feel exactly? Am I supposed to like Rick? Hate him? Feel sad for him? Feel tricked by him? I really don’t know what the show wants from me. And that’s weird when it’s his second ever appearance and he’s slapped his romantic partner, a main character, in the face. I don’t think Rick needed to be that textured for Terri’s story to work. Maybe he should have been a popular piece of shit.