Season 2, Episode 12 and 13 - White Wedding

Original Airdate - January 5th, 2003

Oops. I was sicker than I realized and I missed a day. As penance, I will do an extra post at the end of season two covering the premiere episode of Degrassi Junior High. Buckle in kids. It’s a big special episode and a big special essay!

It’s 2003 and it’s time for a wedding! That’s right. After a pretty short engagement, two adults who are still often called Spike and Snake are getting hitched. Is it too fast? Perhaps that’s a plotline! But Simpson is excited and his Grade 8 students got him a gift - a snake statuette. No one should have told them about that nickname.

They ask Simpson for a speech and he says some stuff about love. These young teens have different opinions on wanting to be in love, but Sean implies he’s already been in love. Manny instantly clocks that he’s talking about Emma.

Speaking of Emma, she is taking on all of the stress of making this wedding perfect for her mother. She has the whole day before the wedding planned. Christine seems like her mind is elsewhere, and blames a headache. She picked up some medicine for it that she’ll take after their errands.

The pair stops by Degrassi so Emma can turn in a homework assignment, and Manny tells Emma about Sean’s feelings. Manny wants Emma to invite him to the wedding so they can rekindle things. Emma says no, but Manny invites Sean anyway. She lies and says the invite was from Emma directly and Sean is excited.

JT is definitely not that interested in love and marriage, but his tangential connection to this wedding has a benefit. Wedding means stag party and that means stripper. He and Toby ask Craig to sneak them into the bachelor party, but Craig says that Simpson doesn’t want a stripper, so Joey didn’t get one.

The boys all agree that the lack of stripper is a disaster, so go to a club to try to hire one themselves. This obviously fails. They pivot and go to Joey. Craig convinces him that a stripper is a rite of passage that Simpson shouldn’t miss out on and Joey is like absolutely, you’re right, I’m hiring one.

The whole stripper plot is so funny. The episode goes out of its way to make sure we know that they don’t judge women for being strippers, but also implies the whole thing is exploitative and that men who go to or hire strippers are creeps. It’s a two-way street, man. Sex work is work and sex patrons are allowed to hire sex workers. Funny in a different way, I love how obsessed these three teens are about possibly seeing titties.

Back to Christine. She seems really tired. She puts in Emma’s perm and heads upstairs to finally take her headache meds and grab a nap. But she lied, there are no headache meds. There is only a pregnancy test.

The baker drops off the cake, but it’s a bat mitzvah cake and not the wedding cake they ordered. She runs to tell Christine about this DISASTER and Christine puts things into perspective. The cake is no big deal. The big deal is that Christine is pregnant.

Emma is reeling when Manny drops another bomb on her and tells her that Sean is coming. She’s furious, but distracted when she realizes something. They’ve left the perm in this whole time! Her hair is crazy curly. Luckily, Lucy and Caitlyn from Degrassi the Old Generation show up with some positivity and helpful energy. It’s a good vibe, but one that does make me think that Christine doesn’t have any local friends.

Manny goes to Sean’s house to univite him to the wedding. It’s embarrassing for both of them, and I don’t think Manny quite owns her part in it.

Mr. Simpson shows up at the Nelson house. He’s slowly moving in. Caitlyn and Joey have a little moment as the show once again wants me to care about storylines from the original series. As you have surely forgotten, they dated and almost got married but then Joey cheated. You don’t have to care, but it is going to be relevant going forward.

More importantly, Lucy asks the happy couple about having a baby. Simpson is clear. He wants kids, but no time soon. There is too much change happening right now to be having a baby. This hits Christine hard.

At dinner with the ladies, she’s in a lousy mood. Lucy susses out she’s pregnant, and Christine is clearly overthinking Simpson’s comments. Maybe this baby is a sign that she’s not meant to be with him and is meant to go it alone. Wild leap, girl!

Time for more stripper story. At the stag party, Simpson thinks they’re just going bowling and it’s very dorky. Raditch is there and it’s weirder than it is funny. JT and Toby show up to watch the stripper and Joey tells them they’re out of their mind. They will not be watching the show, and neither will Craig, who is banished upstairs.

JT and Toby decide to hide in the bushes and try to watch through Toby’s camera. Fancy, the stripper, shows up and Simpson is embarrassed. But, JT and Toby fell asleep outside and miss the whole thing. After the party, Simpson is super pissed at Joey. He wants to call Christine and tell her right away, he HATES secrets. Joey convinces him it’s no big deal and they can talk in the morning.

Christine comes home and sees Emma’s wild perm, and it just makes her feel worse. She’s ruined this whole wedding. Emma tries to comfort her mother and the conversation goes sour. Emma thinks this is a good thing, but Christine admits she’s considering all of her options. She may cancel the wedding. She may have an abortion.

Abortion is, as you may expect from 2003, played as incredibly scandalous. This is silly. But for Emma personally, it kind of makes sense. A lot of pro-choice people would have told her teenaged mother to consider an abortion, and if Christine had listened, Emma wouldn’t be here. In a 13-year-old mind, I can see that making you a little close minded.

But Christine has zero interest in being scolded by her daughter. She doesn’t want to make the same mistake twice. The words are out before Christine considers the implication. Emma storms off, surprised her mother called her a mistake. Caitlyn comforts Christine. It’s okay that she doesn’t know what to do in this moment. Christine realizes she needs to tell Simpson, but Caitlyn convinces her to let him enjoy his bachelor party and talk to him in the morning.

Emma doesn’t know about that though. She’s fuming. She thinks Mr. Simpson needs to know what her mom is considering. Having learned from her own overstepping, Manny tries to tell her to stay out of it, but Emma doesn’t listen. She heads to Joey’s house and runs into the sleeping JT and Toby outside.

While Joey yells at them, Emma tells Mr. Simpson that Christine is pregnant and considering an abortion. He yells at her. Why is she giving him this information and not her mother? He apologizes for shooting the messenger, but is really hurt.

The next morning, wedding day, Christine can’t get a hold of Simpson. He storms into the house, incredibly mad, and demands Christine explain why Emma delivered this news. Christine is pissed too, at Emma for overstepping and at her fiancé for assuming Christine wanted that to happen. She tells them they’re going somewhere private to talk.

They head to a pier where they both realize that this may be moving too fast for them. It seemed right, because they’ve known each other so long, but this is a lot of change. Maybe too much.

Caitlyn convinces everyone to proceed with the day as though the wedding will happen, but Emma is in a mood. She and Manny have a fight about overstepping and Emma runs off. She finds herself heading to Sean’s. She tells him she stuck her nose where it didn’t belong and now everything is ruined and everyone is mad at her. He tells her that sticking her nose in stuff is what she always does, but it’s okay because people love her because of it. She tells him she wants him at the reception.

Everyone gathers at the church even though Emma, Christine, and Mr. Simpson aren’t there. Caitlyn and Joey have a nice moment and Caitlyn asks Joey to be her wedding date. They take a picture with Craig and Angie. JT and Toby are acting as ushers and are surprised when Fancy shows up. Turns out Christine does her hair. They trip over themselves to try to get face time with her, but her partner intervenes.

Simpson finally admits that yes, he does want to have a baby. It’s just like with Emma, the timing isn’t perfect, but their child will be! Everyone makes it to the church just in time and they get married in plain clothes.

There’s an awkward reception moment between the happy couple and Connie aka Fancy, but Christine laughs it off. It’s really not a huge deal that Joey hired a stripper. Joey catches the bouquet, but Caitlyn steals it from him as a slow song comes on. They dance. Manny dances with Craig. JT and Toby both try to dance with Fancy but she dances with her partner instead.

Emma sees that Sean is standing near a tree, slightly removed from the party. She goes up to him, he asks her to dance, and they kiss. We’re back, baby! Happy Endings for all!

During the ceremony, my mom and her now husband asked all of us adult children to come to the front and pass the rings around. We were supposed to hold them and infuse them with good intentions and well wishes. It was very awkward because everyone was looking at us.

I tried to take it seriously. I do want good things for my mom and new stepdad. But I don’t think I did a very good job. I tried my best. I think I would have done it better if it felt like less of a performance.

It felt like people weren’t looking to see me, but some picture perfect version of a supportive adult child. I got in my head about it. Hopefully the rings don’t have the energy of tried my best but felt on display so good but slightly awkward vibes.

The DJ played Landslide during dinner which feels like a wild choice for a wedding.

My mom gave me a task because I clearly needed one. I had the flowers for the kids and parents. It was so much more complicated than I thought when I received them. There was a single subtle detailed that distinguished flowers meant for men and those meant for women. This was not important, and there were plenty of folks who don’t subscribe to the gender binary in the mix, but I felt like I had to nail it.

The flower could be worn as a boutonniere or as a corsage but there weren’t enough bands for everyone so only some people could choose the corsage option. Most of us were not wearing suits or suit coats so where and how to attach the boutonnieres became very complicated. Plus, no one actually knows how to attach a boutonniere because you don’t wear them except at prom or at weddings.

No one was actually that worried about any of this, and 90% of me knew that and agreed. Everyone would get flowers and wear them however and it would be fine. But the other 10% of my brain felt like I needed to be an expert flower guy and nail it perfectly.

I have this story in my head when it comes to me and my siblings where I’m the organized one who can get things done. The others live a blissful life of being chemically unable to focus on things they don’t care about so I chemically obsess over anything that requires attention. I have another story in my head where it’s really important to me that strangers think I’m smart.

I conned my grandmother into going boutonniere when she clearly would have preferred corsage, so that all of the women on the groom’s side of the wedding could have a choice. I straight up lied to three of my new step siblings about the correct way to fasten a boutonniere and did so with great confidence..

I have a third story in my head where I’m always worried that I smell weird because I have sensory issues so can’t really wear scents without getting a headache. But when I was fastening the boutonniere on my new stepsister’s boyfriend he did tell me I smell nice, so I guess that was worth it.

A shocking number of people didn’t put the horseradish on their prime rib, and I simply don’t understand that.

My cousin made fun of my dancing and I know for a fact I’m a good dancer, so I think that was very rude of him.

My mom has these great friends who are a lesbian couple and we danced to We Are Family and the chicken dance and it did feel like an expression of queer joy that I needed because the preacher during the ceremony kept saying “Christian marriage” and that felt dangerous to me.

My mother’s parents are divorced, and have been for more than fifty years. My grandfather wasn’t really ready to be a husband or a father and then his experiences in Vietnam really wrecked him. I think it’s for the best that they split up. They both are remarried to someone who matches them better.

But whenever they’re together, my grandmother slips into deep emotions. Late in the wedding, I could tell she was feeling down, so I sat with her and asked her about it. We had a gentle conversation about her feelings of regret. She has an unshakeable well of feeling that she should have done better. That if she’d been a more patient and understanding partner, she could have made things work.

I simultaneously heard her and knew she was wrong and felt that feeling so deeply. I thought of my own break up earlier this year. My ex was not ready to be a good partner to me and while I certainly made my share of mistakes, I know objectively there is no reason for me to feel regret. And yet I am constantly hit by waves of guilt. If I could have just been a more patient and understanding partner, we could have made it work.

My mother was dancing and I looked at her and thought about how many years she made it work with my stepfather, even though he was mean and wasn’t pulling his weight. I thought about the ways I wrote myself into the role of being a patient and understanding supporter to her patient and understanding partner and I thought of the times my mother had had this conversation with her mother and my sister was in the conversation with me and we went on the balcony afterwards and she told me that it hit a little too hard.

I could feel my inheritance. I could see the lines of the family tree. Our similar face and our shared language and our deep seated need to be the person who is finally patient and understanding enough to make a bad partner into a good one while being too confident and strong-willed to erase ourselves completely and accept the partner who isn’t good enough for us forever. We will always demand better and then blame ourselves for it.

I don’t think my mom’s new husband asks this of her. I think he’s trying to be a good partner. I still see her worry. I see her trying to be so patient and understanding with him. I see her and I see her in me and I see her mother in us both.

Is it weird for a straight man to tell another man they smell good or is that just my internalized Alabama talking?

It was really good to see my family. That hasn’t always been something I feel. I felt too different from them. I made different choices. I worried they judged me or thought I judged them. I think I was judging all of us.

But I caught up with my aunt who also moved out west. I caught up with my aunt who is a parent and her beautiful baby. I caught up with my uncle who has always been a little much but is chilling out in his own age. I saw my grandparents and my other grandparents and how different they are from each other and from me, but how similar too. And I felt like I could just be. And I was.

My siblings and I don’t text all the time. We don’t get to see each other much. By a lot of objective metrics, we aren’t “close.” But I’ve always said that we are. Hanging out with them at the wedding, I felt that very deeply. I’ve lived my adult life away from my family, but I feel like these three people know me. I feel like they’ve seen me change and I’ve seen them change and we’ve stayed together and that’s a magic thing.

We were the only people in that room who knew what it was like to be at this wedding with this bride as your mother. I think that’s nice. I’m glad I have them.

My mother was extremely happy. Visibly, beautifully happy. She quoted Outlander in her wedding vows. Another thing I inherited, in a way.