Series / Degrassi: The Next Generation

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

— Opening Theme

Degrassi: The Next Generation (known as simply Degrassi from seasons 10-14), is the fourth entry of the long running Canadian Teen Drama franchise Degrassi. A revival of the 80s/90s Cult Classic Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High, the show was produced by Epitome Pictures and aired in Canada by CTV (2001-09), MuchMusic (2010-2013), and MTV Canada (2013-2015) in a Dramatic Half-Hour format. In the U.S, it was broadcast on Noggin's teen block, The N, beginning in 2002. It was carried over to the successor channel TeenNick in 2009.

Revolving around a group of kids in a Toronto high school, the show's drama runs on the constantly shifting relationships and angst typical for a Soap Opera, and as a result can be as serious as a regular television drama or as melodramatic as adult soaps. (For perspective, the quasi-protagonist Emma Nelson — and Spike's daughter — narrowly avoids getting raped by a pedophile she met online in the very first episode.) However, on the plus side, the soap format lets it go much deeper and more long-term than the average show about teens (no solving problems in twenty minutes, and most of the kids have gone through real Character Development).

This show was notable for a few reasons. Like its predecessors, it is among the few teen dramas that firmly defied Dawson Casting; the teenage characters are almost all played by actual teen actors, and with years of experience in other TV productions at that, often alongside each other. Despite the aforementioned anvilicious tendencies of the show, some of the lessons taught are really important, with a Hard Truth Aesop being just as common as a straight one, and the show is usually cited as one of the few "earnest" teen dramas. One such point of evidence for that claim is in the portrayal of the character Adam, the first regular transgender character in the history of teen television, for which the show won a Peabody Award in 2011. It's also one of the few teen dramas to be nominated for an Emmy two years in a row (in 2011 and 2012).

After 14 seasons, it was announced that The Next Generation would be "ending its run on MTV Canada" (and TeenNick USA). However, the same announcements mentioned that the series "would continue to be produced" with a fifteenth season. This new season morphed into Degrassi: Next Class, a direct sequel (that functions more like a Soft Reboot) that launched on Family Channel and Netflix in 2016. Next Class starred many of the newer characters introduced through seasons 11-14 of The Next Generation, making it the first series where no main character had a link with either the 1980s cast or the original Next Gen cast. Eventually, two years after the fourth season finale, Stefan Brogen confirmed that the show was canceled. Though Netflix never officially cancelled the series and Wildbrain stated they're committed to the Degrassi franchise, one thing was certain: this series, Degrassi: The Next Generation was over after being on the air for seventeen years.

The Next Generation is also known for being the show rapper/singer Aubrey "Drake" Graham was once a cast member of. He tended not to acknowledge this until he hosted Saturday Night Live in early 2014, and has since embraced his role, even putting together a mini-reunion for the music video for his song "I'm Upset".

Pluto TV and Tubi are streaming seasons 1-14 (in PlutoTV's case, the'yre missing the season 12 TV movie finale). Degrassi: Next Class is exclusively on Netflix. In 2022, all 14 seasons of The Next Generation started streaming on HBO Max, with an announced new Degrassi series that was planned for 2023. Unfortunately, admist corporate restructuring at Warner Bros. Discovery, this reboot was cancelled.

---

This show provides examples of:

A-B

• Abhorrent Admirer: There are a few examples of this throughout the series.
  • Liberty is presented as this in the early seasons when she falls for Sean and starts trying (painfully unsuccessfully) to seem like a "bad girl" in order to impress him. Subverted when Sean introduces her to Trey "Towerz" Hightower, who does not consider her abhorrent at all.
  • When Connor expresses interest in Clare, she sees him this way, especially after he becomes violent towards Alli and poorly handles her rejection.
  • Love Queen 16, Connor's online friend, exaggerates about her age and good looks on the internet.
  • Arguably, Imogen starts off as this towards Eli, who wants nothing to do with any woman besides Clare. By the beginning of season eleven, Eli has a change of heart and sees her as a legitimate romantic option.
  • Played with in the Season 2 "When Doves Cry" episodes. JT wants to date Paige; her friends pay her to go out with him, then they end up having a good date. JT finds out she was paid. They work it out, and she tells him she only "dates up."
• Aborted Arc: The whole plot with Clare interning at the Toronto Interpreter and getting sexually assaulted by her boss, Asher, was completely dropped from the rest of the twelfth season and never brought up again. The only closure was that she and another accuser are going to the police.
  • After being dumped for Jenna, Clare makes a declaration that she's going to win KC back setting up a rivalry with Jenna. Clare never makes any attempt to win KC back and the storyline is largely forgotten after the introduction of Eli as Clare's new love interest.
  • At the end of Season 12, Zig and Maya seem to finally be on the road to starting a relationship after getting passed the love quadrangle drama with Tori and Cam. Fast forward to Season 13 and Zig is gone and is replaced by Miles (Zig would return later in the season but only to bemoan the fact that Maya is still choosing other guys over him).
  • Another one often referenced is from the Season 7 episode "Talking in Your Sleep". Paige ends up sleeping with Griffin. Later she finds out he has HIV. She gets tested and is told by doctors that she won't know the results for 6 months. Griffin unceremoniously disappears from the show shortly after this revelation when Paige reveals she is moving out, and there is never any follow-up on Paige's results. Actress Lauren Collins who played Paige has referenced this plothole jokingly a few times on her Twitter.^note Griffin was on several HIV drugs as said on the show, all meant to decrease HIV infection (though they don't stop HIV transmission, and this was several years before the breakthrough of pre-exposure prophylaxis or Pr EP which greatly reduces the risk of transmission). He also used a condom, which is greatly preventive in stopping the risk of HIV and other ST Is so it is very likely Paige does not have HIV.
  • Adam was just beginning hormone replacement therapy as part of transitioning before he died in a car accident. Must have been a convenient way to deal with the actress who played Adam not being transgender herself.
• Above the Influence: Sean in the season 1 finale, at least in fanon. Played straight in Rock This Town.
  • Eli when Clare wants to stay over at his house (and implicitly, sleep with him) because her parents are divorcing. He turns her down, saying she's not ready to lose her virginity. And also to hide from her that his room is full of trash because he's a hoarder.
• Abusive Parents: There are several examples in the series.
  • Craig lives with his stepfather Joey Jeremiah because his father has been physically abusing him for years. In Craig's introductory episode, his father repeatedly hits and kicks him when he finds Craig's photo album, where he has pictures of Joey and Craig's half sister. Craig eventually runs away and tries to move to British Columbia when his dad starts chasing him with a golf club, and beats down his door, after learning that Craig had been seeing his sister.
  • It is strongly hinted, though never shown on-camera, that the reason Sean lives with his brother is that his parents were abusive.
  • When Ellie's father leaves for Iraq, her mother's alcoholism becomes out of control. She ignores Ellie, leaving her to fend for herself, and is emotionally abusive on the rare occasion when she is actually awake. Ellie moves in with Sean for a while after her mother leaves the stove on before passing out, which causes a fire. Unlike most abusive parents in the series, however, Mrs. Nash makes a commitment to change and sticks to it.
  • For a period, Manny's father slut-shames her when he disapproves of her wanting to get plastic surgery and kicks her out of the house when a video of her drunkenly stripping is released by Peter as revenge porn, forcing Manny to move in with Emma. Eventually he and his wife ask Manny to move back in.
  • K.C.'s parents are presented as abusive in season eight. Subverted when his mother goes to rehab after being released from jail and becomes a kind and responsible parent. Still played straight with his father when he visits after an early release and eventually forces KC and his mom to move across the country for their safety.
  • Despite the assumption that Jane hates her father for leaving the family, in season eight it is revealed that he sexually abused her as a child.
  • Miles is verbally and emotionally abused by his father and the abuse later becomes physical.
  • Zoe's mother is emotionally abusive, sponging off her daughter's career and later kicking her out when she comes out the closet.
• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The student council is apparently unsupervised and the Student Council President and class reps seem like they make the school run alongside the faculty. They plan dances, fundraise and get Natasha Bedingfield to perform at prom. The president is widely respected and the student council races are intense.
  • In the same vein, composition of the "Spirit Squad" (cheerleading team) is determined solely by the head cheerleader, with no faculty input. Her decisions are final.
• Academic Athlete: Jane Vaughn is a skilled football player and the Valedictorian of her class. Her plan is to become a lawyer. This is also the same case for Katie, who is not only on the soccer team, but is in karate, the school newspaper, and is student council president. Shay is on the power cheer squad, volleyball team, cross country team as well as being a straight A student with an affinity for science with lifeplan to get a scholarship to a good college.
• Accidental Pervert: JT staring at Craig's penis. Then Craig saw JT, Toby, and Danny come out of the stall.
• Adam Westing: During the fifth and sixth seasons, almost every commercial and webisode consisted of the characters making fun of how melodramatic the show was. And when Degrassi actors appeared on any other teen show, it was always to mock their character.
• Adopting the Abused: While he wasn't formally adopted, Craig went to go live with his stepfather Joey (from the original series) after revealing that his own father was abusive and he himself was suicidal.
• A-Cup Angst: JT has a really small penis.
  • Jimmy's impotent.
  • Manny has A-Cup Angst despite being at least a D cup.
  • Maya has this after Dallas calls her flat.
  • Averted with Yael. What seemed to have started out as a small sideplot about a girl who's uncomfortable with the size of her breasts turned into a bigger story arch about Yael discovering gender identities and exploring her feelings of alienation and discovering her own gender identity and choosing to come out and identify as what she is even at the cost of their relationship with their boyfriend
• A Day in the Limelight: Every teen character, since the focus rotates to different characters.
  • Hazel. Her only focus episode, Don't Believe The Hype, was incredibly well done compared to the usual sentence she gets twice a season and it remains a solid fan favorite.
  • Season 10 provides a lot of Good Sav episodes, when his A plots of previous seasons were lackluster.
• Affectionate Parody: Boycott the Caf
• After-School Cleaning Duty: Detention usually takes this form.
• After Show: Season 10 onwards after Miriam McDonald's departure and renaming from D:TNG to Degrassi.
• Age-Gap Romance: In Season 5's "Weddings, Parties, Anything" Joey and Diane, a 23-year-old woman Joey met at his dealership who hires Craig's band to play at her sister's wedding, hit it off, but he gets insecure overhearing Diane's friends making fun of him for being "old" and embarrassing. Diane reassures him that she doesn't care that, in his words, he's a "34 year-old single dad who sells used cars" as she's tired of dating immature boys and wants a mature man who can be there for her.
• Alcohol Hic: Fiona does it the first time she's drunk in front of her mom.
• Alcoholic Parent:
  • Ellie's mom. She eventually goes to rehab and gets better.
  • Sean's parents. They seemed to have gotten better by the time Sean visits and eventually decides to move back in with them.
  • KC's parents were drug and alcohol addicts which led to him being placed in a group home and them in jail. After KC's mom Lisa was released, she worked on recovery and became sober enough that KC agrees to live with her. His dad Kevin, however, after his release shows him as an angry drunk who KC has to call the police on and forces KC and Lisa to move across the country.
• All Abusers Are Male: Though Degrassi has at least one rape or instance of domestic violence every two seasons, every character who experiences these things experiences it from men. Paige is raped by Dean, Craig is abused by his father, Darcy is raped by a faceless man, Jane, as a child, was sexually abused by her father, KC is abused by his father and later sexually abused by his coach, Fiona is abused by her new boyfriend Bobby, Tristan is sexually taken advantage of by his teacher, and Luke and another male sexually assault Zoe. Alli also meets and dates and briefly marries a boy named Leo who she met in Paris who physically abused her.
  • An inversion is Ellie’s mother, who's parental neglect stems from her alcoholism. She is portrayed as more of a victim (at least by Alex) by the end of her story line as by then she's on better behavior after time in rehab.
  • Another inversion has arrived in the form of a woman Connor met online who touches him inappropriately and suggests some...unsavory things.
  • Inverted with Zoe who is emotionally abused by her homophobic mother.
• The Alleged Car: Toby's bubbe's car.
• Aloof Big Sister: Heather Sinclair for Holly J is a mild version; in season seven she admits to Toby that she feels she's in the shadow of Heather. She eventually gets over this.
  • To a lesser degree, Darcy is one to Clare. In season eight, Clare tells KC that she feels like Darcy is the pretty/attractive/popular/etc one and she's just the smart one. She also grows out of this.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity: Yael, who is the first non-binary character in Degrassi history.
• Ambiguously Jewish:
  • Inverted by Shane Kippel in real life! He is Jewish, but he has tattoos.
  • Yael Baron for the first two seasons of Next Class. They're confirmed to be Jewish partway through season 3.
• Amicably Divorced: Ashley's parents are still good friends after they divorced. This is mostly because he's gay and they're better off as friends.
• A Nice Jewish Boy: Toby.
• An Aesop: Every time a Degrassi character does something morally questionable, one of these is coming.
  • The messages of the school shooting episode are clear: 1) The senseless of violence, especially amongst young people 2) no one deserves to be bullied and two wrongs don't make a right, and 3) Never underestimate the power of an apology. It saved Paige's life.
  • Each LGBT character usually goes through a Coming-Out Story which highlights their struggles for acceptance and love.
  • Next Class seasons continue the tradition. Despite being buzzwords and rallying points for the "un-PC" movement, the show teaches that safe spaces and triggers are valid and real. Maya's depression is exacerbated by tragic, violent news stories that she eventually has to avoid in order to get better.
  • Also it makes the point about the rigidity of gender roles and how damaging it can be those those who don't conform; see Lipstick Lesbian Zoe, the genderfluid Yael and even Straight Gay Riley back in season 8.
• Analogy Backfire:
  • Eli and Clare are assigned to do a film project on Romeo and Juliet, and have to kiss for it (mirroring their UST). Clare even compares herself and Eli to Romeo and Juliet when complaining about him to her English teacher. We all know how that particular teen romance turned out in the end.
  • Zane is supportive of Riley when he wants to come out as gay even though it may affect his football career, and compares him to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in the US. Riley doesn't know who Harvey Milk is, and Zane then explains he was murdered for being gay.
• Animal Wrongs Group: Emma can sometimes seem like this.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Danny (Seasons 4-6)
• Anyone Can Die:
  • JT dies unexpectedly. This was the show's way of sending off an actor who wished to leave for college.
  • Cam. His character was created knowing he would end up committing suicide, and his entire character arc was of him slowly losing it. Because the character became a fan favourite, the writers almost backed off killing him, but they ended up sticking to it. Even though his story was clearly leading to something, it was still shocking when his suicide attempt was successful.
  • Adam. Much like JT, theres no way of telling until seconds before the accidents leading up to their respective deaths.
• Arc Words: "Whatever it takes!"
• Armoured Closet Gay: Riley. Subverted when he comes out in Season 9 Season 10 and dates Zane.
• Arranged Marriage: Sav's parents are militantly strict about dating in season 7 and express similar feelings about Alli's relationships in season 8. Both children are expected not to have relationships until their parents find them suitable matches. Sav ignores this advice in season 7 and dates Anya. Despite his repeated attempts to get his parents to accept Anya as his girlfriend (at least for the time being), they set him up with Farrah in season 9, leading to the dissolution of his relationship with Anya. Meanwhile, Alli sneaks around her parents to date Johnny and Drew. When Sav starts dating Holly J, she tells his parents that they are more than friends and they barely bat an eyelash as Holly J is an academic overachiever they wish he was more like. Alli goes through quite a bit more drama after they discover her sexual history and see her discipline record at school. Eventually, they drop their belief in arranged marriages and Alli is allowed to freely date Dave.
• The Artifact:
  • After a while, all of the characters that Toby interacted with either left or died, Toby didn't really have anything to do on the show.
  • Chris and Kendra can be spotted in the intros for seasons 3-5, even though Chris disappeared after season 4 and Kendra after season 3.
  • Spinner played this role in seasons 8 and 9, working at The Dot while dating Jane. Occasionally, he would mention his old Degrassi friends to Holly J as a Continuity Nod.
  • Mr. Simpson, while still a major character, is the last remaining adult who was a kid on the '80s show. His screen time off campus is limited, Emma and Spike are no longer closely tied to the school, having only Connor to interact with at home.
  • Connor became more of this now that the gifted program is never depicted anymore. Clare and Alli are never seen talking to him and Wesley mostly interacts with Hannah.
  • Clare has been on the show since season 6 when she helped Darcy deal with her Stalker with a Crush. The Edwards family is still on the show, but they almost never mention Darcy despite the fact that she was only supposed to be gone for one semester (left in season 8, should have been back in season 9).
• Ascended Extra: Much like in the original series, many students (such as Marco and Darcy and Clare) started out as background characters before given their own storylines and then eventually made regulars.
• Ascended Fanboy: Kevin Smith was a fan of the original series and had a crush on Caitlin. Present day, he makes a guest appearance as himself and kisses the adult Caitlin.
• Assumed Win: In the second season, Liberty is all set to go onstage and accept first place in the science fair, only to be beaten by Emma.
• The Atoner: Spinner, who genuinely tries to redeem himself after what happened to Jimmy.
  • K.C. spent some of season 8 working to not be who he was at his last school.
  • Most of Riley and Zane's dynamic is Riley trying to please Zane.
• Awful Truth: Becky realizes her brother was the one who sexually assaulted Zoe.
• Axes at School: Characters have brought weapons to school several times, and security measures were only put into place after Fitz nearly stabbed Eli in season 10.
• The Baby Trap: Anya sets one of these in Season ten for Sav. Combined with Lawof Inverse Fertility or ignorance on Sav's part, perhaps.
• The Bully
• Baby Don't Got Back: The first episode of Degrassi: Next Class sees Shay insecure about her rear end (described by her friend as "the butt of a four-year-old"), especially since her crush Tiny, likes women with voluptuous figures. Predictably, this leads to Shay using padding to make her hips bigger and there was a chemical spill accident in chemisty on her pants which...you can predict the rest.
• Back for the Dead: In season 13, Adam comes back after being missing for the entire 12C block only to die in surgery after getting into a car accident caused by texting and driving. The official reasoning for this was that the actress' contract was up.
• Bad Butt: Jay and his crew in season 3. They are seen doing malicious things like breaking a vending machine to steal candy bars, but leaving the money alone. Offering Sean candy bars as payment to keep him quiet, and stealing candy from diners. Boycott the Caf has given them the nickname "The Candy Bandits"
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: The credits for Season 10 suggest that Anya gets pregnant with Sav's child. This turns out to be a lie Holly J comes up with, to hurt Sav's chances at running for class president.
  • The credits hinted at a twincest plot line in Degrassi Takes Manhattan that turned out to be a one-time drunken jealousy display.
• Batman Gambit: Eli initially wanted Clare to put ipecac into Fitz's drink. When that didn't work, Eli offered him an apology drink. Just before they drink, though, Clare tells them to switch cups, fearing exactly this. Eli then makes Clare guilty since she made them swap glasses, giving Fitz the poisoned glass.
• The Beard: Part of Riley's attempt to convince himself that he's straight is getting into a relationship with Anya and trying to sleep with Fiona...
  • Fiona willingly let him use her as a beard to avoid sleeping with someone that isn't her brother avoid facing her own homosexuality.
  • Ellie was Marco's Beard during his "confused" stage. Played with in the fact that Ellie had feelings for Marco, and pretending to be his girlfriend was a sort of compromise for her.
  • In a rather unusual manifestation of this trope, Adam calls Fiona on using him as this. Because he is transgender, Fiona manages to date someone identifying as male while still seeing him as a girl in her own mind. This allows her to avoid the reality of her lesbianism.
  • Riley uses a girl his mother sets him up with this way, for at least one episode.
  • Zoe dates Winston to maintain her denial that she is gay. They break up when she finally comes out to him.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: Manny to get Sully, a character no one remembers. Though Sully disappears in a couple of episodes, this tactic seems to do it for Craig as well.
  • Alli takes nude photos of herself and texts them to Johnny to keep Johnny DiMarco's interest after they decide to wait a long time to have sex again.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • Clare and K.C. played a puppy love version of this throughout Season 8. At the end of the season they really hit a stride for it. Where anytime either spoke the other took it the wrong way.
  • JT and Liberty were the first to do this; with Liberty crushing on JT hard but still being annoyed sometimes at his childishness and JT crushing on Liberty but being put off by her above-it-all attitude.
  • And now Next Class brings us Tristan and Miles, who can't decide if they're still into each other.
• Berserk Button: God help you if you call Adam a girl or insinuate that he isn't a "real" man. Justified Trope, since Adam has gone out of his way to explain his transgender situation to others and has been repeatedly bullied and teased for his situation.
  • A good example of this is in Cry Me a River, where Dave implies that Adam shouldn't be allowed to use the guy's bathroom, and dresses like a woman and tries to use the girl's bathroom to prove a point. He then gets temporarily kicked off his radio show.
  • Don't be a bully in front of Eli, or he'll do everything in his power to make your life hell.
  • Don't break up with Emma, or she'll try to get you arrested.
• Beta Couple: Perhaps Ashley and Jimmy in season 1.
  • Anya & Sav were the beta couple to other pairings such as Spinner and Jane and Declan and Holly J during Season 7-9.
  • K.C. and Jenna started out as beta couple to Drew and Alli during The Boiling Point. At the same time, Drew and Alli could have been considered the beta couple to Clare and Eli, based on fan reactions to them.
  • In season 13, Alli and Dallas are this to the Clare/Drew/Eli situation.
• Betty and Veronica: A few variations of this were done.
  • Craig (Archie), Ashley (Betty), and Manny (Veronica)
  • Craig (Archie), Ellie (Betty), and Manny (Veronica)
  • Spinner (Archie), Paige (Betty), and Manny (Veronica, noticing a pattern with Manny here?)
  • JT (Archie), Liberty (Betty), and Mia (Veronica)
  • Gender flipped with Emma as Archie, having to chose between reliable, old-flame Sean (Betty) and bad boy Peter (Veronica)
  • KC (Archie), Clare (Betty), and Jenna (Veronica)
  • KC (Archie), Jenna (Betty), and Marisol (Veronica)
  • Drew (Archie), Alli (Betty), and Bianca (Veronica)
  • Drew (Archie), Katie (Betty), and Marisol (Veronica)
  • Drew (Archie), Katie (Betty), and Bianca (Veronica)
  • Gender flipped with Clare as Archie, Connor as Betty (smart, nerdy), and KC as Veronica (Bad boy)
  • Clare (Archie), Jake (Betty), and Eli (Veronica)
  • Zig (Archie), Maya (Betty), and Tori/Zoe/Esme (Veronica)
• Big Damn Kiss: Clare and Eli share their first real kiss after building up their relationship for nearly half the season.
  Eli: I have a French exam.
  Clare: ...I think you just passed it.
  • Saad and Lola have one in season 4 of Next class
  • Zig and Maya when they finally become a couple in season 14
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Good God, the Hollingsworths. Father is a big time businessman-turned-politician who routinely cheats on his wife. Mother is emotionally neglected and actually sends a picture of her breasts to Drew for attention. Miles is troubled guy who acts out for his father's attention. He's constantly compared to his younger twin siblings as an examples. Then it's later revealed that the twins have their own issues, mainly Frankie's crippling insecurity in regards to her attractiveness and Hunter's misanthropy leading him to spend all his time playing a Brand X World of Warcraft MMORPG.
  • Not only that, in their later seasons Miles gets royally screwed up by Esme, Frankie gets entangled in a racist row due to a prank war gone wrong, and it turns out Hunter has depression (showing as anger) and oppositional defiant disorder after he brought a gun to school.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Holly J's sees her birth mother as this at first. She's a match in blood type and wants to give Holly J her kidney, but she wants $20,000 for it, to accommodate her family as she'd be unable to work during her post-surgery recovery time. Holly J blows up at her for that, but they meet to discuss it again after both parties realize they were expecting too much from the other, especially having just met. They're later able to make adjustments that satisfy everyone.
  • Marisol, oh lord, Marisol. She'll reveal your deepest darkest secrets in public with a smile on her face the whole time.
  • Alli believes Jenna is this at first due to Jenna's upbeat, perky personality being too unbelievable and Alli's insecurity that Jenna is trying to steal her best friend Clare. While Jenna never becomes a full out bitch, some of Alli's accusations end up coming true, like Clare's boyfriend KC leaving her for Jenna.
  • Anya is this at the beginning of Season 10 first faking a pregnancy and claiming her ex Sav as the father to help Holly J win student council president election against him, then revealing the truth to Sav and carrying on the fake pregnancy to help him win against Holly J when it looks like she [Anya] and Sav will get back together.
  • Drew is a notable male version. He'll be nice and friendly to your face, but if it suits him he'll walk right over you without a second thought; up to and including committing a felony and hate crime against someone who's supposed to be his teammate all over a position that he doesn't deserve to begin with. He eventually gets better, but will occasionally have his pettiness pop up again.
• Black and Nerdy: Liberty, Damian, Connor, and Dave when he's not hanging out with KC and Drew who are only his friends when it's relevant to the plot.
• Blackmail: Jimmy blackmailed his own father for cheating on his mother in order to get money for stem cell surgery. When Jimmy, still in a wheelchair, visits Spinner in Season 8, he says the treatment is going well but it's also Jimmy's last appearance we never see if the treatment succeeds.
  • Drew threatened to expose Riley's secret if Riley didn't step aside for QB1.)
  • Alex threatened to do the same thing to Marco to win the class president election.
  • Peter follows through with sending the drunk, topless video he shot of Manny to everyone in school when she still won't go out with her.
  • Vince forces Bianca into either continue dealing his drugs or Sexual Extortion, or he will continue to go after Drew as well as the rest of Torres family.
• Bland-Name Product: Jimmy had a first-generation mp3 player. Top of the line. No, it's not an iPod; it's an mp3 player. Either way, Spinner stole it.
  • MyRoom, Facerange, ChatSoFast (ChatRoulette), Fortnight, Realm of Doom, Hastygram (Instagram), Oomfchat (Snapchat).
  • Not Pizza Pizza, Print Three, Mrs. Vanelli's or Beatrice. As a general rule anything dealing with actual physical products that are unfamiliar to US viewers are real Canadian brands unless explicitly intended to be independent small businesses, while anything media-related is Brand X to the point of having invented two fake TV channels - local station CQJH and US cable music channel TVM - despite being affiliated with CTV (and by extension their Toronto O&O station) and MTV or MuchMusic.
  • CQJH seems to be a weird hybrid of Toronto-area call letters, primarily Q107 (CILQ FM).
  • They didn't even use the in-universe Instant Star which they themselves own, calling the show Jenna was on "Next Teen Star" instead. (Just how many Toronto-based-but-too-big-to-be-Canada-only musical talent contest reality shows open to underage High School students are there?)
  • Canadian universities. TU (Toronto University)=U of T (University of Toronto), Banting=Queen's, Smithdale=York. U.S. universities are referred to by their real names.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The Paige/Marco/Ellie trio
  • Later, the Jenna/Alli/Clare group.
• Bolivian Army Cliffhanger: the end of Next Class second 2, in which a bus carrying a lot of Degrassi students is involved in an accident and their fate is in question. Time will tell who dies in the Bus Crash...
• Book Ends: Season 11 starts and ends (well, part one of season eleven, anyway) with the song "Young Blood" by The Naked and Famous. At the beginning it's Clare getting ready for the first day of second semester, at the end it's Sav leaving Degrassi for good.
  • Season 2 starts with Craig's abusive dad leading to a manic episode and ends with Craig's abusive dad leading to a manic episode.
  • Season 2 also begins where Ashley suffers from the fallout of telling everyone off at her party in the Season 1 finale "Jagged Little Pill." She's treated as a complete outcast, and Paige and her gang make sure Ashley doesn't live it down. It ends where Ashley has regained her friends and is crowned the end of the year dance queen, with her new boyfriend Craig as king.
  • A bit of a reversal: Season 10 part 2 starts with Alli and Clare on the school steps talking about Alli's drama with boys and the season ends with the two friends on the schools steps talking about Clare's boy drama.
  • Cast example: First time we meet Alli, she's with Sav on the school steps and the do a little brother/sister argument before they walk in. Last episode with Sav as a regular castmember, he's with Alli and they make brother/sister quips and walk down the school steps and walk away from Degrassi.
  • When Clare and Eli first meet in season 10, Eli tells her that she has pretty eyes. In the season finale for season 14 (and their last appearance on the show), Eli compliments her eyes again.
  • The first episode of Next Class is about Tiny and Shay and the finale is about them as well, albeit in a more tragic sense since Tiny's fate is uncertain as he was on a school bus that crashed.
• Bowdlerize: "Who Do You Think You Are" has a single cut in Australian syndication, namely when Leo hits Alli. However, there's enough implication from what is kept to make out what happened.
  • The N shortened the scene where Craig was beaten by his father in 'When Doves Cry.
  • The N also censored Emma's butt when she takes off her Purple Dragon dress in Hungry Eyes.
• Boy Meets Girl: Which leads to many, many Meet Cutes.
• Black Eyes of Evil: In The Curse of Degrassi, Rick Murray's ghost possesses Holly J, causing at some points for Holly J's eyes to become completely black
• Breakout Character: Holly J, originally an Alpha Bitch, becomes nicer throughout season 9 until finally being fully redeemed in season 10.
  • Eli was originally a B-plot character. The closest he had to an A-plot was Adam's transgender storyline, which didn't even focus on him. Because he was so tremendously popular, he became one of the most used A-plot characters by the end of the first half of season 10.
• Break the Cutie - Majority of the cast
  • Emma carried this card during seasons 4-6.
  • Darcy took it over in season 7.
  • Alli zigzags this one all over the place so it's more like Break the Cutie, Corrupt the Cutie, and Break the Haughty all rolled into one.
  • This seems to be the point to Campbell's character so far in season 12. It's nearly impossible to go an episode with him in it without wanting to hug him. Eventually he is broken to the point of suicide.
  • Maya, one of the more sweet and innocent characters introduced, went through a really rough patch when Cam committed suicide. A year later, she's getting cyber bullied and losing trusted friends.
• Break the Haughty: Paige. At the beginning of the series, she was the Alpha Bitch, but she went through so much that she evolved into one of the more sympathetic characters.
  • And then Spinner and Jimmy decide to pull pranks on Mrs. Kwan for putting them in detention. By the end of the day she ends up sobbing in her car, and takes a leave of absence. They found out the next day that she was very stressed at the time from poor money, double shifts, and a husband on chemo. ^note  There was a Funny Moment along the way, however, when Kwan's ESL students who were missing dinner to study, chipped in and bought the prank-call pizzas.
  • Holly J is another example of this, but nothing too traumatic compared to Paige.
  • And then there's Fiona, who from the Season 9 movie on gets put through a lot, and changes from being a confused, emotional mess to one of the show's most mature characters.
• Breather Episode: "Take On Me", the WPR Breakfast Club episode, could be thought of as this, considering it sits right in between Manny getting an abortion, and Terri suffering a life threatening-coma inducing injury (which winds up in her leaving the show). The rest of Season 3 after this (besides the aforementioned Terri episode) may be this too, considering how dark the first half of the fourth season is.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Eli and Clare. Sean and Emma.
• Bully Hunter: Eli begins harassing Fitz after he finds out about the latter's harassment of Clare. Unfortunately this continues even after Fitz tries to turn over a new leaf.
• Bungled Suicide: Craig, J.T., Darcy (the first time), Ellie, Maya, and Zoe.
• The Bus Came Back: Ashley Kerwin (season 5 finale-season 7), Sean Cameron (season 6), and Caitlin Ryan (season 7 episode "Jesse's Girl).
• Butt-Monkey: Toby — both of his only friends died to school violence in a middle-class Canadian suburban school, he was the last virgin left of his cohorts, and he hardly got any screen time or lines after Season 3 because he's Hollywood Homely.
  • And Paige. The rape (which we're supposed to find sympathetic) and her complete failure at every career and ambition and relationship she's ever had (which we're supposed to find hilarious, if the background music is any indication).
  • Craig. From the moment he appears, his father is shown abusing him. The first episode showing him living with his setpfather ends with his stepfather losing all trust for him. He later gets a girl pregnant, loses her baby, gets diagnosed bipolar I, runs away from home, gets beaten up by a hobo, loses his CAN$4,000 dollar guitar to said hobo, loses his girlfriend, gains an addiction to cocaine, and is revealed to be an addict in front of a large crowd.
  • Sav. That kid has been beaten up by a really angry gay man for no reason and the scene where he's the temporary lead singer of Studz at the school's Beach Bash and Peter, all methed-out, marches up and starts shoving him and yelling at him was hilarious. He went from overly enthusiastic to really scared and confused in seconds.
    • To be fair, Sav did provoke Riley when he mentioned the word gay.
  • Holly J gets a lot more retribution than she actually earns during seasons 7 and 8. Most of it directly relating to Mia, which explains it.
  • Bad luck always manages to find poor Alli... even when she's trying to set things right it blows up in her face.
• But We Used a Condom!: Justified Trope, in the case of JT and Liberty . JT used a king-sized condom and it slipped off.
  • Also invoked by Drew when Clare tells him she's pregnant with his baby. He insists the condom was used correctly, and she figures the condom just failed. As it turns out though, he isn't the father after all.

C-D

• California Doubling: The Hollywood movie was mainly filmed in Toronto, with a few outdoor scenes actually in California.
  • There was more doubling in Degrassi Takes Manhattan with the majority being filmed in Canada except for the street sequences.
  • There have been a few times the characters have travelled to other cities like Paris and Las Vegas. Of course the show is still being filmed in Toronto, so a green screen was used to imitate the famous backgrounds.
• California University : There are 22 real universities in Ontario alone. Despite this, the characters mainly seem to attend the fictional Banting University (going by the number of hours away it seems based on Queens University in Kingston, Ontario), Smithdale (based on York University in Toronto, although Smithdale is located several hours away from Toronto), or "Toronto University," aka the University of Toronto.
• Call-Back
• Calling the Old Man Out: Sean confronts his mother in "Back in Black," Season 4.
• The Cameo: If you're a SYTYCD fan, you were squealing with glee when Jean-Marc Genereux showed up as Adam and Bianca's dance instructor.
  • Famous Canadian comedian Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame had the honour of being a one scene wonder in Degrassi Takes Manhattan as the divorce lawyer. (If you look closely, you can also see him dancing at the wedding during the last few minutes.)
  • Spinner, a main character from seasons 1 to 9, had a cameo in season 14 at The Dot interviewing Eli for a job.
  • Emma, Liberty, Marco, Craig, Holly J, Paige, Spinner, Sav, and Mo all appear in franchise's 500th episode (15th of Next Class). Peter became a recurring character in the same season, being "technically" Maya's co-worker.
• Camp Gay: Marco acts this way in later seasons. Zane's friend at the art gallery is a pretty classic example. Tristan is a more clear cut example.
• Canada Does Not Exist: More a 1 than a 0 on the 10-point scale discussed on the trope page. It's openly set in Toronto, but characters use generic lingo when talking about things like standardized tests and drivers' licenses, when actual kids in Toronto would more likely use Ontario-specific terms, and even though American universities are named, only fictional Canadian schools exist in-universe. This has gotten worse in later seasons.
  • Like all its predecessors except Season One of Degrassi Junior High and the rare holiday special, the series is shot in the summer. Expect to see shorts worn outdoors in January.
  • Averted, however, when Joey specifically mentions his house being located in the Riverdale area (of Toronto). The is also the location of De Grassi Street, the real life basis for all the Degrassi series.
• Cast Herd: Since we have loads of characters in this show, most characters usually fit into some group, whether it be by grade or clique. Examples includes the Minor Niners, the Gangs of Bullies, the Garage Bands, etc.
• Catfight: Bianca starts a fight with Alli after finding out she was the one who sent a racy picture of her to everyone on her contact list. Dave and Wesley don't interrupt but just take out their phones to record it.
  • Emma and Alex
  • Manny and Paige
  • Alli and Holly J had a pretty amusing non-canon catfight in a promo for Teen Nick.
  • Maya had two! One with Tori and then one with Tori's replacement character Zoe.
• Celebrity Lie: Leia claims to know Pete Wentz.
• Celebrity Paradox: The pilot of Next Class begins with Maya quoting Drake's "Started from the Bottom". This was likely a deliberate Mythology Gag, given that Drake is the most famous former Degrassi cast member.
• Central Theme: Dealing with adversity can be tough, but if you work hard and work on your flaws and believe in yourself, you can prevail. Hence the theme song's lyrics; "Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through."
• Character Blog: Throughout season 1 and 2 there was a "school website" for Degrassi, where all the students had their own regularly updated blogs, usually discussing what happened in the recent episode. A glimpse of the site made cameo appearances now and then on computer screens. But once season 3 started the entire website was cut, which was a shame considering Craig's post about dealing with his father's death were really touching.
  • The closest there is now are the character's personal twitters, which are updated periodically during and between episodes. Sometimes they even give hints to what will happen in the coming episode.
  • An excerpt from Kendra's old blog is on Boycott the Caf on her character page, to illustrate how it's for the best that we never saw her, judging by her terrible spelling.
• Character Focus: Every season tends to focus more on one character in particular. Season 1 was all about Emma. Season 2 was Craig's time to shine. Season 3 was Marco. Season 4 is described as "The Sean show featuring the candy bandits. Season 7 is Darcy. Season 10 is Clare with a smidgen of Eli and quite a bit of Fiona. Season 11 (the first half) was shared between Fiona, EClare, and Drew. Season 12 is Cam and Maya. Season 13 is Zoe and Miles. All four seasons of Next Class focus on Maya, Zoe, and Miles, with Esme becoming a key factor in the third and fourth.
• Character Shilling: Happens quite a bit with Mia during Season 8, much to Holly J's (and many fans') annoyance. The character was seen by many as being unrealistic, particularly as it took away her also balancing being a teen mother, a major aspect of her character.
  • One particularly egregious example was in Degrassi Takes Manhattan, when Jay was telling Spinner that Emma wouldn't screw him over like Jane did. Because Emma never cheated on anybody. It's especially perplexing that Jay would talk Emma up like this, because a few years ago, she prostituted herself to him. For rubber bracelets.
• Characterization Marches On: All the time. The show has loads of characters but only a handful that the powers that be bank on for big storylines. So when minor character becomes an Ensemble Dark Horse or they shove a Flat Character into the spotlight to see if they can handle a big storyline, the characters can go through a change of personality.
  • Manny is probably the biggest example of this, followed by Fiona. As she left the series, she's a Good Bad Girl, which makes her earlier scenes in the show where she's portrayed as a nice girl just like Emma look really strange.
  • Fiona was a Flat Character in season 9, with her most defining trait being her clinginess to her brother. In season 11 she's much more well-rounded and really only kept the loneliness part of her season 9 quirk. As a matter of fact, Fiona and Declan seemingly switched personalities mid-season. When first introduced, Fiona was the friendly new girl and Declan was the arrogant bad boy. Mid-season Declan had somehow become socially popular and Fiona had somehow become a stuck-up bitch.
  • It's a bit jarring that Shay sent nudes for money, bullied Arlene for being geeky, and made a move on a taken man compared to her characterization in Next Class, where she is the nerdiest girl aside from Yael, and very shy about boys and sex.
  • Tiny is much more of a Nice Guy in Next Class compared to his characterization in TNG.
  • Grace looses her savvy Trickster Mentor persona in Next Class, appearing much more withdrawn and passive.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: Everything about Craig.
  • In season 2, Craig's dad abused him, and then died.
  • In season 3, Craig, being an orphan, wanted to start his own family.
  • In season 4, Craig's abusive father and grabbing Manny's arm, are explained by bipolar disorder.
  • In season 6, said bipolar disorder probably explains Craig using cocaine.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Several characters are introduced slowly in the series before joining the main cast.
  • Darcy appeared a few times in season 4 before becoming a recurring character in season 5. Bonus points for her first scene being with Spinner.
  • Clare was in one Darcy-centric episode before her introduction as a recurring character in season 8. She eventually went on to be one of the main characters.
  • Fitz, Wesley, and Zane each appeared in an episode of Season 9 before gaining a title spot in Season 10.
  • Jess, a new recurring character for The Breaking Point was a part of Alli's Big D Dance Crew.
  • Similarly, Marisol was in a few episodes of Season 10 and was Promoted to Opening Titles in season 11.
• Chewing the Scenery:
  • Daniel Clark: "I'm screwed, man!"
  • Sam Earle does this on occasion: "You told me TO PLAY BASKETBALL!"
  • Munro Chambers often does this whenever he has to portray strong emotions.
  • Aislinn Paul did this with some of Clare's more dramatic lines. Most infamously with her shouting "Did three months mean nothing?! Did you flip a switch and erase me from your memory? It took you a year! A year to get over your ex! Did you ever love me at all?!"
• Childhood Friend Romance: For the Unlucky kind: Happens twice with Toby (three times if you count Manny rejecting his invitation to a dance).
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: So far, the Degrassi Black Hole has claimed the following main characters: Kendra, Derek, Blue, and Leia, Mrs Kwan (who was on the show for nine seasons before disappearing), Wesley, Dave, and countless minor characters.
  • Darcy was given a proper reason for leaving the show (doing work in Africa) in season 8, but her younger sister Clare was still on the show until season 14. Not once after she left was Darcy mentioned at all, not even during important life events like their mother getting remarried.
• City of Adventure: About once a season they remember that Toronto is bigger than one high school and one street of businesses.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The uniforms introduced in Season 10. Grade 9=Yellow, Grade 10=Purple, 11=Red, 12=Blue.
• Combat Pragmatist: Alli apparently isn't afraid to fight dirty when Bianca tries to beat her up. She even throws a wastebasket at her.
• Comedic Hero: Toby
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In "Never Gonna Give You Up," during Spinner and J.T.'s war of pranks, J.T. rips Spinner's off in front of an entire hallway full of students, who laugh at Spinner's heart-printed boxer shorts.
• Comic-Book Time: It would explain so much. Especially when the seasons doubled in length, and one season represented only one semester instead of a whole year. For example, many members of the class of 2011, such as Sav, Holly J, Riley, and Anya started out as 10th graders in season 7 as part of the same class as 2009.
  • This would also explain why Chantay, who became a recurring character in season 4 (which took place in 2004), ended up graduating in 2011.
  • The same goes for the class of 2014. They originally started off as freshman in 2008, and should've graduated in 2012.
• Compilation Movie: The hour long episode "Shout" is frequently aired alongside "How Soon is Now" on The-N as a movie length super-special episode.
• Compressed Vice: Oh so much. Often done for the sake of An Aesop, usually the characters suffer the worst effects immediately upon engaging in the vice of the week. Noticeably, they're often fully healed/cured by the next episode, with little more than occasional offhanded references in the form of 'Remember when...'
• Continuity Nod: The show, having been on for years (and also as an extension of the series from the '80s), does this occasionally.
  • In the earlier seasons, many of the returning characters referenced the series from the '80s. Joey and Caitlin often bring up the catalyst for their big break-up in that show's series finale, Tessa Campinelli. Even into season 10, Mr. Simpson consoles Eli when he finds Campbell's dead body after committing suicide by referencing the time in Degrassi High when he discovered Claude's dead body.
  • Mr. Simpson references Spike's pregnancy in Degrassi Junior High when Clare tells him she's pregnant.
  • Manny and Emma often reference past events including Manny's promiscuous past, Manny's relationship with Craig, and the fact that they've dated/liked several of the same characters.
  • Right before graduating at the end of season 14, Jenna and Alli read aloud from Clare's grade 9 diary. Past events were brought up, including Clare's former "good girl" attitude, Alli dating Johnny, and KC leaving Clare for Jenna. Clare even spitefully predicts that KC will get Jenna pregnant, which ended up happening in grade 10.
  • During the final episode of Next Class Season 4, Grace and Maya are taking pictures with Jonah as their photographer, when Grace has them sit on the bench where they first met:
  Grace: This is where we first met.
  Maya: Oh yeah, when Miles thought you could track down my cyberbully!
  Jonah: Uh, when were you ever friends with Miles?
  Tristan (walking by, with Miles): Oh, they dated.
  Miles: Until she broke my heart!
  Maya (teasingly): Yeah well, maybe you shouldn't have accepted a striptease from Zoe Rivas!
  Grace: Who turned out to be your cyberbully!
• Continuity Snarl: "Vegetarian" Emma eats KFC and squid in season 2.
  • Ellie also mentions being a vegetarian in one episode of season. This fact is never mentioned again, and later episodes show her eating meat.
  • In a season two episode Spinner references his Mom and Dad's heritages with the present tense (as in his dad is still alive and kicking). Several seasons later it is revealed that his father died of cancer. This storyline with his father's death must have either taken place offscreen or his father's existence that early was retconned or perhaps his father just went wherever Kendra went.
  • J.T.'s living situation could count as this. He mentions living with both his parents in earlier seasons, only to be living with his grandmother come season 5. His parents are never mentioned again after about season 2, and don't even appear at his own funeral.
  • Paige once called the school in her mother's voice, portraying a possibly Eastern European accent. When Paige's mom shows up, she has no accent.
• Control Freak: Liberty is the more classic example on the show.
  • Emma shows this a lot, but she has a different focus than Liberty.
  • Paige enjoys her social life and social circle to be just so.
  • Darcy to some extent before she is raped.
  • Holly J and her Benevolent Dictatorship while student council president.
  • Fiona during Degrassi Takes Manhattan.
• Convenient Miscarriage: Clare. Since she was graduating and leaving the show a few weeks after she found out she was pregnant, it was a fairly predictable outcome of her pregnancy, since the writers wouldn't have a main character leave while still pregnant. In-universe, her miscarriage was late enough to be considered a stillbirth, and while definitely heartbreaking and devastating, it was convenient in that it freed Clare to follow her dreams.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Toby and JT get caught looking at porn. Their punishment? To keep watching looking at the porn sites...while their parents watch with them. To add to this they had to also watch Gay Porn, which neither enjoyed as much as the fandom wanted them to.
• Cool Car: Sean drives an illegally modified race car. How cool is it? It's the terrestrial version of the Millennium Falcon when you think about it.
  • Eli drives a hearse.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Jay towards Emma in season 4 "Secret."
  • Also Maya when she gets caught up with Zig's gang associations. Namely when she goes to his house, gets high on Molly, and then has sex for the first time with Zig while high.
• Couch Gag: The movable-letter sign. Not usually an actual gag but it usually has something to do with the episode. Or an upcoming episode.
• Covert Pervert: Toby and Rick make up a game to see how many girls they can get to kiss them, the girls only think of them as shy and nerdy, so they don't suspect a thing, except for Emma, who just plays along.
• Creature of Habit: Connor, but this is related to his Asperger's.
• Cringe Comedy: Most of the lighter moments actually turn out to be this.
  • If anything involves Wesley, it's gonna make you feel bad for laughing. He's a beautiful disaster.
• Cultural Translation
• Curse Cut Short: In the mini webseries "Champagne Supernova", Miles and Zig watch a video of themselves while very drunk and rapping about hating girls. We see the whole video, but it cuts away to their reactions on the very last word:
  "Degrassi girls SUCK.
  Selling their boobs for a BUCK.
  Treating us like a SCHMUCK.
  What, what, what, what the FU-"
• Cute and Psycho: Shy, quiet, homicidal Rick.
• The Dandy: Peter, then later Declan
• Darker and Edgier: Post-Emma Nelson episodes (season 10-present) even some newer episodes receive TV-14 instead of normal TV-PG.
  • Next Class is much edgier compared to seasons 13 and 14, handling issues like prescription drug abuse, mental illness, consent, masturbation, feminism, online harassment, racism and white privilege, STIs, school shootings, the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, and brain damage.
• Dating Do-Si-Do: The former Trope Namer.
• Date Rape Averted: During a makeout session, Zig gets a little too pushy with Maya, under the impression that being "assertive" will prevent her from falling out of love with him. Maya pushing him off brings him to his senses, and he gets an important lesson in what healthy consent actually looks like.
• Dead Person Conversation: There was the Tear Jerker mini, I'll Never Forget
  • In the Season 9 holiday mini-episode Ghost of Degrassi Past, JT Yorke returns to tell Holly J to lighten up during the holidays
• Deadpan Snarker: Jimmy owns this trope.
  • As do a fair few others, like Holly J, Clare, Liberty, Adam, Paige, and Ellie.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Holly J in season nine, which may be a part of being held hostage at the end of season eight. She's still quite a Control Freak and obviously still thinks of everyone as losers, but she's become much more open to her peers. By season 11 (her final season), Holly J had evolved into a smart, mature young woman who genuinely cared about her friends. Almost all traces of her nasty side had disappeared by the time she graduated.
• Demoted to Extra: Happened to many characters, but Toby is probably the most notable example.
  • Connor received this treatment for a while, with his only major plot line involving panty stealing. He had a couple episodes of focus in season 12 when he and Jenna got together, but by season 14 both he and Jenna were hardly in the show at all anymore, despite still being billed as main cast.
  • Happened to the seniors (Holly J, Anya, Sav, etc.) for the most part of season 11, mostly to give way more attention than they should have to Eli and his play, as well as Drew's angst.
  • Leia was never given much to do on the show despite been given a plum spot in the opening titles during her entire tenure. Many fans wondered why the producers kept bringing her back even though she was reduced to being nothing more than Anya's sounding board.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Gonorrhea?
• Did They or Didn't They?: Zig and Zoe in season 1 of Next Class. We never find out whether or not they went all the way in the woods due to ambiguous wording i.e. "fooled around", "hooked up".
• Died Happily Ever After: JT and Liberty. Confirmed in the Degrassi Mini "I won't forget you"
• Disappeared Dad: Several characters have deceased or estranged fathers. Or, in the case of Zoe, don't even know who their father is.
• Disney Acid Sequence: In the season 2 episode "Take my breath away" it opens up with Manny having a sudden fantasy of Craig singing a love song to her while she wears a silver diamond covered ball gown.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Eli and Fitz both may be the show's best example of this. Eli insults Fitz over a parking spot. Fitz takes this out on Eli's car. Fitz attacks Adam for the same slight against him before, Eli steps in to shift focus back to him. Leading to a very insincere attempt at peace, getting Eli a knee to the groin. Eli gets Fitz arrested over all that. Fitz can't accept that Adam wants to be treated like a guy, leading to a fight. Eli gets Fitz in trouble for something Fitz didn't do. To try to get peace Clare agrees to go out with Fitz. Eli undermines this with poison, and Fitz gets a knife. At any point Fitz could stop being insane, or Eli could just let it go. But the pair are too pigheaded and egotistical to ever consider this.
• Distaff Counterpart / Spear Counterpart:
  • Alex/Sean before she suffered Villain Decay
  • Emma/Kelly before Season 9 rolled in.
  • Liberty/Damian, to the point that they both ended up competing for valedictorian.
  • Jane/Spinner, lampshaded by Jimmy
• Distributor-Induced Plothole: When The N didn't show "Accidents Will Happen", they only showed the subplots of these episodes once in slapped-together "mini" episode— meaning that if you missed these mini episodes and didn't have the internet to watch "Accidents Will Happen", then the future plots of just how Toby and Jimmy ended up in detention in Take On Me along with Liberty dating Towerz later on that season would not make sense. Also, Emma makes a reference to Manny's pregnancy the following season, which wouldn't make sense at all. This was rectified when The N finally showed "Accidents Will Happen" three years later.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The wrestling scene between Riley and Peter(See below).Peter even lampshades it. It's likely a shout-out to the frequent slashing between the two in fandom.
  • When Cam commits suicide, his body is found in a greenhouse and his significant other publicly condemns his action instead of seeming more sensitive about it.
• Doomed by Canon: Emma sees her dad's name and room number at a mental hospital and assumes he's a doctor. As soon as she meets him she realizes he's a patient. By the end of the episode, viewers have been reminded that in the original Degrassi High, he either jumped or fell off a bridge after the first time he took acid.
• Double Aesop
• Double Standard: All the standard gender based double standards you can find in a high school, you'll find here.
  • When Emma cheated on Peter with Sean, Sean was portrayed as heroic for it.
  • Similarly, whenever any female character helps somebody cheat on their significant other, they're almost always bashed by the fanbase. When the males do the same? Not so much.
  • Ellie had a caught-in-the-moment-one-time-only affair with Craig. She confesses this to Jesse to be honest with him. Jesse then tells her that he did the same and wanted to be honest with her too. She gets furious at him and storms out.
  • In the episode Don't Let Me Get Me, the school itself facilitated double standards courtesy of its woman only self-esteem seminar.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
  • Subverted as Jenna hitting KC with her guitar is treated seriously and the first sign that she's losing it dealing with the pressure of being a teen mom. The child services agent checking up on their son Tyson takes note of KC's injury in her report. However, the point wasn’t taken by the rejoicing fandom.
  • Subverted when Connor received the same punishment for interacting with a female online predator that Emma did for interacting with a male one. Meeting a stranger from the internet is a serious risk regardless of gender, and that both strangers were much older and possessing seriously creepy intentions. Since Mr. Simpson was also involved in both situations and both happened to someone he was close too (his friend's daughter/later stepdaughter, then godson) it's to be expected that he'd have the same sort of reaction and take them both seriously. In addition, Connor's friends Dave and Wesley felt the relationship was weird and questionable, not exciting, and that it might be unsafe to meet up with her.
  • Played straight and also averted with Zig and Esme in Next Class season 4. While Esme pushing Zig is treated as something serious, if a male character had pushed a female character down a hill, causing them to have both a head and leg injury, the relationship would be treated as abusive and the character an abuser unlikely to be redeemed, not unlike Rick and Leo.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: When a very, very drunk Drew (who was not intentionally drunk) slept with a very sober Katie who he had already broken up with, the fandom was split down the middle over whether or not it was rape and it was Drew who was blamed on the show.
• Downer Ending: Plenty of episodes have these.
  • Season 1: "Eye of the Beholder," "Basketball Diaries," "Secrets and Lies," "Under Pressure," "Jagged Little Pill"
  • Season 2: "When Doves Cry (Part 1)," "Karma Chameleon," "Shout (Part 1)," "Take My Breath Away," "Dressed in Black," "Tears are Not Enough (Part 1)"
  • Season 3: "Gangsta Gangsta," "Don't Dream It's Over"
  • Season 4: "Ghost in the Machine (Part 1)," "Islands in the Stream," "Time Stands Still (Part 2)," "Eye of the Tiger," "Moonlight Desires"
  • Season 5: "Turned Out (Part 2)," "Our Lips Are Sealed (Part 2)"
  • Season 6: "Here Comes Your Man (Part 2)," "Rock This Town"
  • Season 12: "Waterfalls (Part 1)", "Rusty Cage (Part 1)", "Rusty Cage (Part 2)", "Never Ever (Part 1)"
• Driven to Suicide: Cam in season 12. In fact, he was the second character to commit suicide in Degrassi franchise history, after Claude Tanner in Degrassi High. Later, his girlfriend Maya nearly follows him when she goes under a depression in Next Class season 3.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: J.T. was killed off after Ryan decided to leave the show to go to college.
  • When Jordy decided she didn't want to be on the show anymore, Adam was abruptly killed off in a texting and driving accident.
  • Raditch was Reassigned to Antarctica in shame after the school shooting because Dan Woods was involved in other productions in L.A. and didn't want to continue commuting back to Toronto.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Spinner, Manny, Liberty, Jane, Ellie, and Fiona have all done this.
• Dysfunction Junction

E-F

• Early-Installment Weirdness: The majority of the first season of D:TNG hasn't been named after 80s song titles.
• Easily Forgiven: Peter, Jay, Craig, Drew, Owen, Bianca,...it's easier to count when an antagonistic character didn't later end up amongst one of their previous victim's social circles. Though one can make an argument for every character getting this treatment at some point.
  • With Peter, Emma wanted to date him despite him committing a sex crime her BEST FRIEND was the victim of, and Darcy dated him after he set her up with an online predator. Even Manny quickly became okay with them dating him. Peter does actually get better starting in season 7 after Darcy's rape by a stranger, but Darcy was already dating him before that.
  • Emma is actually a more extreme case since unlike Peter, her actions are either forgiven by the end of the episode or completely glossed over, whether it's betraying her best friend, getting her boyfriend kicked out of the dorms, or blowing up The Dot.
  • Averted with Spinner, regarding his involvement with Jimmy getting shot. His friends abandon him, he gets expelled, and his attempts at trying to get his life back together again last two seasons. He is eventually forgiven but even then it doesn't happen all at once.
  • Maya and the Gamer Club. Season One of Next Class sees them harassing Maya anonymously online (sending her murder and rape threats along with simple, though cruel, insults). In Season Two she allocates recording studio time for Vijay after helping him write a song, and in Season Four she's hired to write a song for their website.
• Education Mama: Mrs. Torres, especially regarding Drew.
• The '80s: The first nine seasons' episodes were named after '80s songs. Just for good measure the school's main office phone number is [phone].
• Empty Chair Memorial: After Adam's funeral, Becky plans a bonfire reception and places an empty chair near the firepit to represent his presence. Her friends initially think it's weird, but once the bonfire stars it turns into a memorial as the night goes on.
• Erotic Dream: JT (about Liberty), Wesley (about Anya), and Fiona (about Holly J)
• Erotic Eating: Anya, with fruit in a dream that Wesley had, and later (unintentionally) with a mozzarella stick on their date
• Escalating War: Between Degrassi and Lakehurst during season 6.
  • The one between Fitz and Eli during Boiling Point...
  • Between Vince's gang and Damon's Gang in season 14.
• Estranged Soap Family: Spinner's sister Kendra, who vanished after season 3 and didn't even come to her brother's wedding.
  • Drew's mom was the only recurring family character to be shown at the senior graduation in season 14. Clare and Alli's families (which include former main characters Darcy, Sav, and Jake), Jenna's brother, and Becky's parents are nowhere to be seen. Snake shows up but his connection to Connor is never mentioned.
  • Played straight and then averted in Season 3 of Next Class. While Tristan recovered from the bus crash, his older brother, Owen (Daniel Kelly), wasn't shown or mentioned. However, Katie (Chloe Rose) does show up when her sister, Maya, is dealing with depression.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Degrassi is fond of this trope with many examples such as:
  • The entire episode of "Karma Chameleon" could be seen as this as Ashley still loses her friends, after she tries to apologize for her actions in "Jagged Little Pill".
  • Jimmy and the gang all ditch Spinner after Spinner reveals the real reason why Jimmy was shot in "Time Stands Still".
  • Emma has this reaction in "Our Lips Our Sealed Part 2" when Manny outs Emma's anorexia to her parents.
  • Peter feels this way in "You Be Illin'" after his friends ditched him after his actions in "Just Can't Get Enough".
  • Holly J and Anya's friendship basically revolves around this trope until around season 11. The most prominent example is in "Lady's Night" where Anya secretly films Holly J eating a cookie during a fast, turning everyone against the latter. How does Holly J retaliate? She orders pizza for everyone in the morning, leaving Anya in tears.
  • Liberty almost says this verbatim to Toby when he tries to stop her from speaking at an event.
  • Connor feels this way in "Tears Dry On Their Own Part 2", when he finds out that Dave and Wesley told Mr. Simpson about online user LoveQueen16.
• Even Evil Has Standards: "Put the lighter away, fliphead."
  • Alex initially threatens to publically out Marco to win the class president election. Marco tries to talk her out of it before their debate assembly. During her speech at the last minute she decides to not use that particular smear.
  • Johnny DiMarco, being one of the Lakehurst gang that initiated the war on Degrassi, can be a pretty ruthless bully, but he’s in complete shock when his friend fatally stabs J.T. in the back in cold blood. While that doesn’t get him to tone down his bullying, it initially lead to him offering a peace treaty to Toby (which Toby dismissed and retaliated) when the schools merged, being genuinely sorry J.T. was killed. At the Brat Camp with Darcy and Peter, he admitted that J.T.’s death traumatized him, leading him to act out more.
  • Also Bruce The Moose, who's one of the biggest bullies in the show and basically his fellow bully Johnny without any Jerk with a Heart of Gold or Hidden Depths moments, walks out of the gym when he sees video of The Shep calling Clare a bitch.
  • Lucas Valeri is one of the nastier, regular Lakehurst bullies, the deadbeat Disappeared Dad of Mia's daughter Isabella, and high school dropout, but when he finds out that his father (also a disappeared dad but whom he remained on good terms with) molested his sister Jane when she was younger, he's ashamed he didn't realize it and when he sees their father with Isabella he immediately goes into Papa Wolf mode telling him he never wants to see him again.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Sean. Granted, the only guy in canon is Marco. Still, Marco, Emma, Liberty, Manny, Paige, and Ashley all make some unambiguous romantic overtures toward Sean.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: The reason given behind the math class's intense focus on polynomials. One of the writers really had trouble with them in school.
• Everything Is Online: And nothing is blocked by the school computers. Pay-to-play MMORPGs, teachers' Facebook pages and Chatroulette ^note Okay, versions of them, all accessed from the Media Immersion computer lab, figure in the tenth season.
  • Subverted in The Breaking Point when EVERYTHING gets blocked due to added security.
    • Word of God is that this is the reason why the show doesn't have an Info Dump about the issue of the week as often as the original Degrassi did.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies (Degrassi of the Dead)
• Evolving Credits: Seasons 1-5 would have a camera track across the school and show the characters, shifting as some left, others debuted and noting their development (such as Holly J going from selfish cheerleader to more caring school leader and graduate). Seasons 6 & 7 changed it to the cast before white screens. Season 8 returned to the school setting.
• Expanded Universe: The "manga".
• Expy: Cast members introduced in Season 1-3 can be directly compared to cast in the previous series.
  • From Season 7 on they started introducing cast to fill the standard roles on the Popularity Food Chain. Meaning that you can draw parallels between new cast and older cast to a degree. How well the two fit shifts wildly between examples. Manny and Alli[[ (such asnote]]Girls restrained by a very conservative family structure dealing with becoming sexual beings with level headed best friends (although Manny ended up switching roles with Emma in the later seasons)[[/note]] is probably the best fit, with Riley and Marco^note both were in the closet, nothing else being the worst fit.
  • Declan is in the same vein as Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass.
  • Eli and Bianca are admitted Expies of Ellie and Jay, respectively.
  • Twitter Account Heather Poulette plays out rather similarly to the titular Gossip Girl. Being aware at the school while being a character.
  • After the latest addition of younger students, this can be seen even more clearly. They appear to have a basic mold for five characters that they like to reuse. Large similarities can usually be found with Emma/Clare/Maya^note Socially uncomfortable/level headed, Manny/Alli/Tori^note socially aware/quick to anger, Toby/Connor/Tristan^note socially despised/uncool losers, J.T./K.C./Zig^note social outcasts/cool losers. However, Zig and K.C. appear to be a combination of J.T. and Sean's character traits. Other aspects of the initial set of five (four + Sean) seem to get shuffled between characters to cover the standard high school tropes.
    • Special Bonus: The actresses who play Manny and Tori are sisters
• Faked Food Contaminant: One episode had Spinner put a roach in the food at the school's cafeteria. After Ashley inadvertently exposed him, he was forced to work there serving the food.
• Fake High: JT and Toby think they're high on Ecstasy, not knowing that Sean replaced the pill with asprin.
• Fanservice: Many throughout the seasons.
  • Manny stripping. Need I say more?
  • Darcy wearing the sexy schoolgirl uniform for Peter's photo shoot
  • Some Stripperiffic Sensual Spandex dresses in the episode "Hungry Eyes", worn by the Purple Dragon spokesmodels. In response to criticisms that she's too "predictable", Emma becomes one of these models, then realizes the ideals behind the product and makes a stand...by removing her Purple Dragon outfit in front of the entire school. That's...definitely not predictable, Emma.
  • Fiona and Declan's titillating and inappropriate relationship eventually leading to her drunkenly planting one on him.
  • How often Spinner is shirtless in Degrassi Takes Manhattan. Also Spinner and Jay in suits.
  • On the other side, the pool party at the start of the movie has Jane, Holly J, and Fiona in very nice bikinis. Later on you get the same trio wearing some very nice party dresses.
  • The little "routine" Holly did for Sav during The Breaking Point.
  • Riley and Zane's workout in 99 Problems.
  • Eli being shirtless for no reason in Clare's bed in season 12's Tonight, Tonight.
  • Clare taking pictures of herself topless in front of a mirror in "Scream".
  • Of the non-sexual variety, posters on TV.com have contributed to Degrassi canon. The line "You can't accept me as a sexual being." just had the nouns switched.
    • So did d.tv users: The Dot was a thread with a dot.
  • Zoe in a bikini in a bikini "Basket Case" and again in "Don't Look Back". Zig is seen shirtless for the entire webisode series "Champagne Supernova".
• Faux Yay: The Lexicon Of Love started out as this but was subverted by the fact that Paige and Alex really do hook up.
• Feud Episode
  • Happened a couple of times with Emma and Manny in season 3. First in "U Got The Look" when Manny gets her infamous makeover and starts flirting with JT while she is interested in another guy. Emma tells Manny she's leading JT on. Manny then tells Emma to either mind her own business or stop talking to her. They make up pretty quickly after this, but their bigger fight comes later that season in "Against All Odds" when Emma doesn't approve of Manny helping Craig cheat on Ashley. They don't talk to each other for what appears to be several months in-universe. Things between the two are finally patched up when Emma helps Manny out with her pregnancy. They also got into some arguments where they temporarily stopped speaking to each other in seasons 4, 5, and 6. However, these fights didn't last for too long.
  • This also happened several times with Jimmy and Spinner throughout the series. The worst was when Jimmy stopped talking to Spinner for the rest of season 4 and a good portion of season 5 after finding out he was responsible for Rick shooting him.
  • Anya ended her friendship with Holly J after realizing she was sick of being treated like dirt. While the two do eventually reconcile, they never quite go back to being best friends (Fiona is Holly J's current best friend).
• Fiction 500: Peter. And later Fiona.
• Flanderization: Marco. He went from being someone with keen fashion sense and a deeper understanding of the female mind who was still considered one of the guys in Season 2 to being a completely stereotypical "fem" gay guy from Season 3 onward.
  • Of course, this could just be a case of Truth in Television since many gay men (not all but a lot) do actually begin to display more effeminate behavior once they stop hiding their sexuality. Marco was simply playing it straight earlier on because he was in the closet and wanted to fit in.
• Flash Forward: Degrassi's first use of this trope in the first episode of season 14 before flashing back 10 weeks earlier.
• Flat "What": Clare's reaction to Jake attending Degrassi.
• Food Fight: Happens in Season 2.
• Forced from Their Home:
  • Manny gets kicked out of her home by her dad after she and him get into a fight about her plans to be an actress and his constant Slut-Shaming.
  • Zoe gets put out by her mother for being a lesbian, and at the end of the series, she's kicked out for good.
• Foreshadowing: Expect any major storyline, and all pregnancies, to be foreshadowed a season before.
  • The Ho Yay page has an interesting conversation between Craig, Sean, and Marco, foreshadowing Marco's homosexuality.
  • Liberty eating all the hors d'oeuvres, just before her pregnancy.
  • In the episode "Coming of Age," when Emma is having her period, Manny is a bit *too* excited for Emma. She tells her it's big news, and Emma wants to know why. Manny replies: "Em, you can get pregnant now." Let's say something major happens to Manny in Season 3...
  • Sean is an expy of Rick from Degrassi Junior High, from the jean jacket to the Granola Girl girlfriend. Guess who puts down another character named Rick?
  • Rick wears Claude's old glasses. Both characters end up dying by a gun.
  • Craig freaking out at the dance and freaking out at Manny's abortion foreshadows his diagnosis with bipolar disorder in season 4.
  • Joey mentioning Tessa Campinelli to Craig. Joey rather famously cheats with Tessa, just like Craig will famously cheat on Ashley with Manny.
  • Alex: "Who do you want to vote for: The freak or the queer? By the way, I'm the freak."
  • Subverted: Manny obsesses over her weight, but Emma would have the eating disorder.
  • Jenna's pregnancy is hinted at early on in season 10, but she dismisses it and takes diet pills to lose the weight.
  • The biggest one yet comes out of Snake's lips at the end of the last episode of The Boiling Point. "When you all get back from break...you won't recognize this school at all."
  • Fiona's alcoholism. The only case on the show of an addiction being foreshadowed for more than one episode.
  • Cam overhears Dallas telling his teammates to stop playing on the ledge unless they want to break a leg and miss the rest of the hockey season. Cam later intentionally falls of the same ledge so that he will be injured enough to get out of playing hockey.
  • Eli's messy locker. The contents of it spill out all over the floor because it's so full of trash because he became a hoarder after Julia died, and his room is like that too.
  • Liberty's dyslexia (though to be more specific dyscalculia) is foreshadowed in 'Basketball Diaries' when she reads the announcements and reads it as "the prowl is on the panthers" instead of "the panthers are on the prowl."
  • Miles' bisexuality is foreshadowed when Tristan mistook him for being gay, kissed him, and Miles didn't react horribly.
  • In "Dressed In Black' we get a couple with Jimmy/Hazel & Craig/Ashley being partnered up for a project when later the pairs end up becoming couples. And when JT and Toby are buying condoms, JT picks up XL condoms. Toby says "JT you don't need extra-large condoms." A few seasons later he gets Liberty pregnant because he foolishly wore XL condoms when he so did not need them.
  • Cam's suicide is foreshadowed when Dallas protests Romeo and Jules on the grounds it glorifies teen suicide. Dallas is later one of the most affected characters and Eli, the director, is the one to find Cam's body.
• Foreign Exchange Student: Season 12's Ice Hounds junior pro hockey team was recruited from all over North America.
• Four Is Death: Season 4 has more tragedy than any previous season, including a school shooting, and it's only matched by season 6, which has a major character dying, and season 13 with another long term character's death and a sexual assault arc. Also, before Sean joins, Jay's clique consists of four people.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: More like "No Dates Marriage", as Spinner and Emma barely even interacted during their years on the show.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Initially with Emma, Manny, JT and Toby. This became it's own Mythology Gag as every young freshman class since follows same pattern.
  • Emma is melancholic (known as "the cause girl"), Manny is choleric (proven leader with Spirit Squad and confident), JT is sanguine (class clown and friendly) and Toby is phlegmatic (nerdy and low-key). Manny and JT share the choleric and sanguine hats, depending on the episode.
  • Then later Clare is melancholic (analytical and ethical), Alli is sanguine (wanting popularity and the attention that comes with it), KC is choleric (works hard to be a good kid), and Connor is phlegmatic (with his Aspergers making him perceptive, sometimes to the wrong things).
  • Then later Maya is melancholic (driven and artistic), Tori is sanguine (flighty pageant girl), Tristan is choleric (wants to make his mark on Degrassi as a leader), and Zig is phlegmatic (insecure, yet a sweetheart). Zoe then takes the sanguine label when Tori leaves the show, with her being a great judge of people as well as being a bit egotistical.
  • The "Rubber Room" kids fit this as well, with Maya and Zig in their usual roles, and then Grace being choleric (brutally honest and knowledgeable), and Tiny being sanguine (fun and likes to joke around).
• Freudian Trio:
  • One of the more memorable trios were Clare, Eli, and Adam. Clare plays The Spock while Eli and Adam switch the Kirk and McCoy hats, as she's more logical and will think before she acts.
  • Frankie, Shay and Lola are a more direct verison, with Shay as the Spock (rational and focused), Lola as the McCoy (ditzy and bubbly), and Frankie as the Kirk as she has traits in common with both of them.
• "Friends" Rent Control:
  • The apartment that Ellie, Marco, Paige, and Dylan (replaced with Griffin later on) shared looked a little more spacious than what four college students could realistically afford.
  • Likewise, Sean's apartment. The production team takes great pains to make it look like a dump, but a single person on welfare in Ontario receives about $300 a month for rent. There's no way he could realistically pay for an apartment that size in Toronto.
  • Possibly regarding Mia's family. She, her daughter Isabella and her mother Anna live in what appears to be a two or three bedroom apartment^note We only see Isabella's bedroom, but she's doesn't share it with anyone on a single person income until Mia begins a modeling career. It's not known what Anna does for work other then at one point working at a restaurant and in season 8 a job that allows her to work remotely.
  • Similarly, in later seasons, Fiona's condo. At first her finances are being covered by her wealthy parents but after her mother is investigated for tax fraud, Fiona is forced to take on a roommate and yet the both of them are able to pay for a very large condo in a very trendy neighbourhood in Toronto with their combined salaries from minimum wage mall jobs (and Fiona's is only part-time, as she was still enrolled in school).

G-H

• Gag Penis: One very early episode involving Spinner.
  • On the other extreme, JT certainly qualifies.
• Gang of Bullies: The Candy Bandits of season 3 [Jay, Sean, Alex, Amy, and Towerz]
  • Later on Johnny, Lucas, Derek, and Bruce the Moose.
  • And now we have Bianca, Fitz and Owen
  • Subverted with The Rubber Room kids (Zig, Grace, Tiny, and later Maya), a group named for the room where trouble makers are sent. Despite some shady dealings, they mostly keep to themselves and don't bully anyone.
• Garage Band: Downtown Sasquatch, Stüdz, Janie and the Studs, WhisperHug.
• Gay Cruising: Riley meets up with an old acquaintance in the woods for sex in season 8. This was his first sexual encounter with another guy.
• Gay Guy Seeks Popular Jock: Camp Gay Marco and his relationship with star hockey player Dylan, and then later flipped the trope with popular Armored Closet Gay football player Riley and his feelings for the artistic, and very much out of the closet Zane. Later Tristan had feelings for hockey player Cam, but squashed them down himself after he realized it wouldn't work.
• Gayngst: Riley. Marco also dealt with this a lot, along with Paige and to an extent, Alex. Zoe turned to self-harm to cope.
• Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: The main Story Arc for season 14: In order to make money for the Power Cheer team, Zoe instigates a scheme: exchanging nude photos for money via Oomphchat, Degrassi's SnapChat equivalent. The story arc covers all Soap Opera tropes; betrayal, blackmail and a fire in the end.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Played with when Toby overhears Paige talking about her desire to date girls. Also, probably partial justification for the Darcy/Paige kiss in the Degrassi mini, Party Etiquette 2 and the Paige/Ellie kiss in season 7.
  • Dallas also tries to get Fiona and Imogen to makeout in front of him in season 12, much to their annoyance.
  • In Season 14 Damon won't stop harassing Imogen and Jack until he sees some "lesbian action". Imogen actively gives him a Groin Attack.
• Give Geeks a Chance: Happens with Chewy and Frankie in season 13; nearly happens with Toby and Holly J in season 7, but Toby wasn't interested.
• Guy on Guy Is Hot: The Marco/Craig kiss in season 4 and the Peter/Riley kiss in season 8.
• Going Commando: "Do you SEE any underwear?... that's right - because I'm not wearing any."
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Putting Jay and Silent Bob in a pg-13 show makes their lack of Cluster F-Bomb incredibly noticeable.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel:
  • Spinner has these in one of the "Extra Credit" graphic novels. Paige is his angel (referred to, unsurprisingly, as "Paingel"); Manny is his devil.
  • Many episodes show two characters playing the role of superego and id to another character, sometimes even with one on one side of the character and the other on the other side. This is done most remarkably in the season 2 finale, where Craig's dad comes back, and Ashley (being the superego) is polite, while Sean (being the Oedipal id, and, unlike Ashley, canonically knowing Craig's family issues) spits.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Holly J and Anya sported pony tails throughout their Queen Bee days. They finally let their hair down when Holly J started to soften and focused more on school while Anya developed a personality of her own.
• Goofy Print Underwear: Spinner's white boxers dotted with red hearts, revealed when J.T. rips his pants off in the hallway in front of the other students in "Never Gonna Give You Up."
• Graduate from the Story: Most characters are never seen again after graduation, bar a few guest appearances and cameos (and regardless to whether they still had family members at school). It's one of the nicer ways to leave the story considering how some other people were written off.
  • Seasons 6-8 tried to subvert this, with a group of recent graduates (first Paige, Ellie, Marco, and Alex; then Emma, Manny, and Liberty) continuing to get arcs and sometimes whole episodes about their college experiences. The split focus between them and the high school itself wasn't well recieved, however, and by season 9 the college settings were dropped.
  • Eli is a noteworthy subversion. While in season 13 he was Commuting on a Bus between New York and Toronto, in season 14 he's returned as a regular to try and reconnect with Clare.
• Grand Finale: Drake's "I'm Upset" video inadvertently became this. Due to being the final piece of Degrassi-related media filmed on the show's backlot set before it was sold in 2019 and the fact that its very much a celebration full of returning performers^note Though that's very open to debate whether its canon or not/if its the actors having a reunion or their characters. One sequence with Stefan Brogren is clearly in-character, but no one else in the video has spoken dialogue. With that said, the writers of the show implied on Twitter they consider it canon, that still doesn't explain why Rick is alive here... makes it an acceptable ending to the series as we know it. Also makes for interesting Book Ends considering Next Generation started with a class reunion and ends with one.
• Grease Monkey: Sean
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Inverted from the Trope Namer: Marco thinks the Washington Redskins are a hockey team.
• Groin Attack: Eli, courtesy of his tormentor, Fitz.
  • And then Fitz himself gets the same treatment, this time from Adam.
  • Imogen gives it to Damon when he won't stop harassing her and Jack being a same-sex couple.
• Half-Identical Twins: The Coynes.
• Halloween Episode: "Degrassi of the Dead" has cafeteria food turn the high school into Ground Zero for the Zombie Apocalypse.
  • The year after, it was "The Curse of Degrassi," where Holly J is possessed by the ghost of Rick Murray.
  • Monster Moon is a series of four Halloween minis set in Season 10.
• Hand Wave: Why are grade 9s still going to middle school? Because the middle school doubles as a high school.
• Happily Ever After:
  • The season 14 Series Fauxnale. All of the senior romantic pairings make it to graduation, with Eli and Clare taking a break on a good note and it's heavily implied that they will end up back together.
  • The Next Class season 4 finale (which ended up BEING the series finale) ends with every senior couple except Maya/Zig and Miles/Tristan together. In the case of Miles/Tristan, they end things on a good note and it's heavily implied that Maya and Zig will get back together eventually.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Holly J takes the news of her adoption pretty well.
  • Derek, at one point, mentioned he was adopted.
  • Kendra, Spinner's sister, never seemed to have any angst about being adopted (though that may have something to do with being a Satellite Love Interest to Toby). Also, Spinner is very protective of her.
• Has a Type: Emma Nelson seems to only want bad boys. She's the good girl who wants them to change or she's using him to be less good. There's Sean, Peter, Jay, and Spinner.
  • Jenna Middleton says that at her old school, she was such a boyfriend-stealer. Especially with bad-boy types. They're her weakness. The reason she eventually agrees to go out with Connor in Season 12 is because he wasn't like her past boyfriends.
  • All three of Maya's boyfriends have been Troubled, but Cute. Cam was sweet but suffered from severe mental illness that made him self harm and eventually kill himself, Miles was controlling with a difficult home life, and Zig is homeless and can't escape his gang affiliations. Maya is aware of her pattern, and part of the reason why she broke up with Miles was because she couldn't be with someone who scared her. Not again.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Spinner whenever he is around Marco after he came out. To the point where there was an episode where Marco eventually had to get it through Spinner's head that he doesn't need to feel threatened by his presence.
• Held Back in School: Many of the characters were forced to repeat a grade to keep them in the show, more pronounced through seasons 5-6.
  • Sean was originally introduced as having been held back due to getting into that violent incident at his old school.
  • Spinner was the first, he was expelled during his 11th year for the prank on Rick and then later invited back but had to repeat the grade. Jimmy had to repeat senior year due to missing so much time doing physical therapy. Ashley decided to skip a year to intern over in England before coming back to finish up high school. Alex was a special case, she graduated but then did a "victory lap" to boost her grades for university.
  • Fiona missed so much class during her senior year due to rehab and going to trial and had to repeat senior year.
  • Drew dropped out during his senior year but decided to come back towards the end, but had to repeat. Imogen flunked her classes, and had to repeat her senior year. Mike Dallas said himself was in no rush to graduate, possibly had to miss some school due to being captain of the Ice Hounds and being a teen father, and repeats Grade 12.
  • Tori tells Maya that she was held back one year, which is why she was more "developed" than the other girls in her grade.
  • Frankie off-handley mentions Jonah didn't pass his junior year in season 14 and he ends up having to take it again in Next Class/season 15.
  • Esme misses a whole month of school during her Villainous Breakdown and didn't make the cut for graduation in the final season. Had Next Class continued, she would've repeated her senior year.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Naturally.
  • Sean starts out a face. Then he steals Snake's laptop (heel). Then he fixes his car (face) and really gets redemption when he kills Rick. Then when he comes back, he goes into this weird heel face limbo where he clearly does villainous acts but is actually Peter's victim.
  • Spinner starts out a face. Then he steals Jimmy's MP3 player, but is only a heel for one episode. Then in season 4, his friendship with Jimmy gets worse, but by the end of season 5, it gets better.
• Heel–Face Turn: Generally it keeps you from getting put on a bus, as maintaining a villain is more work. On the male side Jay and Peter start out as antagonists and bullies, for the girls Paige, Alex, Holly J, and Bianca all start off with various levels of cruel.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: JT and Toby.
  • Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes as themselves.
  • Danny and Derek show this till the latter is put on a bus, replaced with Sav.
  • Johnny and Bruce show this as well.
  • Jake and Mo. Definitely. It becomes a subplot in their final episode appearance.
  • Miles and Winston started the series like this (they were friends since early childhood), but they're drifting apart now.
  • Zig and Tiny.
• Hidden Heart of Gold:
  • Sean seems to like the world at arm's length, but he's not actually a bad guy.
  • Holly J seems fond of not showing weakness, so to avoid pity she lashes out with cruelty.
  • Johnny DiMarco has a softer and intellectual side he doesn't like to show, as seen during his relationship with Alli. He still hides it and never becomes a complete Nice Guy until leaving Degrassi but he does mellow out a bit to the point he stops regularly bullying people and isn't constantly around with Bruce or their old gang. Even before that while taking part in the ongoing Lakehurst/Degrassi rivalry, he was genuinely upset when JT was killed by his old Lakehurst friend.
• High-Five Left Hanging: In Next Class episode "#Worst Gift Ever", Winston offers Goldi a high five during a game of charades, but she turns it down, saying it's against her religion to touch boys.
• High-School Dance: A must with a teen drama. In fact, a lot of important events have happened at a school dance on this show, most notably the shooting intended for Drew, but ended up wounding his stepbrother Adam.
• Hollywood Law: The only reason Peter's not in prison at this point (though he did mention his father had connections). Spinner and Jay, who essentially orchestrated the events that led up to the shooting. And while we're at it, was Alex ever punished at all?
  • After orchestrating a for-profit childhood pornography business involving the cheerleaders, Zoe is doing community service in the hopes of not getting sentenced. All the other cheerleaders involved got detention, the buyers of the nude photos have faced no consequences, and nothing has happened to Grace, who set up the technological aspects and made money off it. In reality, anyone who sold, distributed, or bought the nude photos would have faced charges.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Hazel, despite the fact that Andrea Lewis can sing quite well, and Fiona in season 9.
  • Averted with Paige.
• Homage: The episode "Take On Me" is a specific homage to The Breakfast Club (Hazel is the princess, Toby is the geek, Jimmy is the jock, Ellie is the basketcase, and Sean is the rebel). The episode "Love Is A Battlefield" is also an homage to The Devil Wears Prada.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Paige and Alex, so very much, in Season 4 and early Season 5, until they hook up in "Lexicon of Love."
• Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: Liberty is a few inches taller than J.T.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Snake is nearly twice the size of Spike.
  • Jake Epstein is over six feet tall. Cassie Steele is 5'1".
  • Ray Ablack (Sav) and Charlotte Arnold (Holly) have a similar height issue, his being 6'2" and her being barely 5'1".
  • Justin Kelly (Jake) (6'1") and Aislinn Paul (Clare) (5'2"). According to the Degrassi wiki, she often had to stand on a box while filming with him.
  • Likewise with Tiny and Lola, as Amanda Arcuri also needed to stand on a box to kiss him.
• Humiliation Conga: Holly J went though this in Seasons 7 and 8.
  • Alli in Seasons 9 and 10 (10 especially. Luckily, she comes out of it stronger)
• Hypocrite: Emma. The worst of her MANY hypocritical moments was dating Peter behind Manny's back after making a "no more lies" pact.
  • When Katie was first introduced, she discriminated against Clare because she thought Clare was a drama magnet and Katie doesn't like drama. Katie eventually proved to be just as big a drama queen as Clare.

I-J

• I Am Spartacus: Anya and Riley come up with a plan to combat homophobia on the football team by getting the entire team to wear pink. This leads to an Analogy Backfire when they realize Spartacus and all his followers were crucified at the end of the film.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Starting in the second season, episode titles were named after 80s songs up until the tenth season, when they began to be named after songs from the 2000s.
  • In Next Class, they're named after popular hashtags.
• Idiot Ball: To be fair, it's usually quite plausible idiocy
  • Any girl who dated Peter. The guy has proven many times that he is a sociopath (blackmailed Manny and showed her topless video to the entire school, ruined Sean's life, set-up Darcy with a stalker pedophile, etc) yet Emma, Darcy and Mia dated him anyways.
  • Alli announcing to a room full of poker players that she won by counting cards. (Which makes no sense to begin with since you can't count cards in poker as they are shuffled after every hand.)
• Idol Singer: Craig is a male example of this.
  • Aubrey Graham aka. "Drake"
  • Eventually and quite inevitably Cassie Steele in the new Hollywood movie
  • Jessica Tyler in season 9. her character, Jenna becomes this in season 10.
• If It's You, It's Okay Paige/Alex
  • In season 7, Paige tells Griffin that Alex is the only girl she ever liked, which makes her interest in women a moot point.
  • For an inversion, Marco's a Kinsey 5, the one exception being Ellie in one particular episode. It is unclear, however, if Marco genuinely liked Ellie or if they were simply growing too codependent.
• I Have This Friend: Played with. Alli asks Dave about advice on how to get closer to Drew, but he thinks this trope is being invoked. This happens on two or three times in the episode, and only until the next day are matters made clear.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Mia during Season 7 and Season 8
• Incompatible Orientation: Ellie and Marco and later Hazel and Marco during season 2. Manny even says Marco's the perfect boyfriend...almost.
  Marco: "I can't be what you want me to be."
  Ellie: "Can't... or won't?"
  Marco: "... I'm gay."
  • In season 9, Riley kisses Peter much to Peter's surprise.
  • In season 10, Fiona develops a crush on Holly J which is never requited.
  • In season 12, Tristan develops feelings for Campbell who is only interested in Maya.
  • As of Next Class, Grace is this for Zoe. Whether or not Grace is telling the truth about being straight is currently YMMV.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Real Life "De Grassi Street" signs are seen in establishing shots. No in- or out-of-universe explanation as to why it was condensed to one word for the school's name has ever been offered.
  • Also, it's "Clare" not "Claire"
  • Damian's name is probably the most misspelled in the fandom.
  • Tweens on the Internet always misspell "gonorrhea".
• Informed Judaism: Toby celebrates Hanukkah and slips into gratuitous Yiddish at times.
  • And then there's Hazel, who practices Informed Islam. We know she is a Muslim only because in Season 2 she tells us so. She is Somali, goes to mosque, and observes Ramadan.
• Innocent Bigot: Frankie, and by extension the rest of the volleyball team. As a prank, they draw their black opponents as zoo animals, including as a gorilla. The racist implications of the drawing clearly never occurred to them, but the situation is made much worse by Frankie's refusal to apologize and her prioritizing clearing her own name over making amends.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Danny goes to Cornell (despite the fact that he didn't actually start doing well in school until Grade 12). Holly J. attends Yale. Clare applying to Columbia.
  • While not Ivy League, a number of characters have been accepted to prestigious American schools. Later seasons have included Alli getting early acceptance to MIT, Jane and Katie both attending Stanford (despite Katie royally screwing up her senior year by leaving to attend rehab midway through it), and Eli headed for NYU.
  • Paige, Liberty, and Damian get accepted to fictional Banting University, "the Harvard of the North". Justified with the latter two, as they tied for valedictorian and were student body presidents of their respective schools.
  • Manny auditions and gets into fictional Smithdale University's drama department, renowned enough that even those already in Hollywood view it with high prestige.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jay starts off as a Jerkass bully, but later evolves into a guy who can be an ass at times but is actually very caring, mostly brought about by his relationship with Manny.
• Just Friends: Fiona towards Imogen until she confesses her feelings at the end of season 11. Also an example of how non-hetrosexual relationship doesn't have to be inherently more dramatic or outrageous simply because it involves the same gender.

K-L

• Karma Houdini: Some characters get away with bullying and Jerkass behavior. Alex is never punished for her role in the prank for Rick, and Emma and Mia usually aren't called out on their Jerkass moments. Other examples are Drew and Owen who went from homophobic (and transphobic as well for the latter) bullies to romantic leads and friendly teammates in the blink of an eye.
  • Owen is later suddenly revealed to have an openly gay younger brother who he is very protective of, which makes it more jarring that his behavior towards Riley, Zane, or Adam (a trans boy) is completely forgotten by everyone, especially after it's revealed Adam is Drew's brother. Drew was never really homophobic, just being a dick exploiting Riley's fear of coming out of the closet as blackmail, given that his brother is part of the LGBTQ+ community, and he did sort of slightly redeem himself when he attempted to come to Riley and Zane's defence.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Jane cheats on Spinner with Declan early in season 9, with Holly J discovering it and deciding to help Jane keep the secret. By the end of the season, it looks like Jane will get away scot-free...until the season 9 TV Movie Degrassi Takes Manhattan where Spinner overhears Jane and Holly J talking about the affair. He punches Declan in the face, curses Holly J and breaks up with Jane for good.
• Kids Are Cruel
• Kids Play Matchmaker: K.C., with some help from Bianca, tries to set up his mother with their quiz team coach/English teacher, both because she won't be constantly around K.C. and because K.C. feels she deserves to have her own happiness outside of her parental duties. They do hit it off, but it ends up going nowhere as K.C.'s father was released from prison and eventually forces K.C. and his mom to move across the country for their safety.
• Killed Off for Real: Rick, J.T., Cam, and Adam.
• Kitschy Local Commercial: Joey Jeremiah is shown in a series of commercials for his car lot. The commercials largely follow this model.
• Lady in Red: Liberty and Bianca during their respective proms. And both were wonderful.)
• Lampshade Hanging: In the episode "I Want Candy", Ashley says that the school is cursed and alludes to the unrealistically high number of tragedies that have been happening there... Naturally, the other students act like she's nuts.
  • This also doubles as a Harsher in Hindsight moment when you consider that she says this before the shooting, gonorrhea outbreak and J.T.'s murder, Vegas Night incident, and Cam's suicide
  • There's a in-universe teen drama on Degrassi called West Drive that is mocked for its melodrama... as well for actors getting stuck with the role.
  • Alli does this in the season 9 premiere, in response to the high amount of students who play musical instruments and have participated in Hollywood films. "Since when did our school become a bizarre White version of Fame?"
  • The webisode "Good Times" lampshades the series' penchant for soap opera-ish drama and character pairing.
  • The car Craig and co. stole from Joey Jeremiah's lot to go joyriding in was a big, aging blue Oldsmobile 88. The same make, model and color as the one Joey stole from Snake's parents to joyride back in the day.
  • They released a video on YouTube pointing out at how ridiculously long it was taking for the rest of season 14 to be released.
• Last-Minute Hookup: Spinner and Emma after an Accidental Marriage, in the second TV movie.
• Like Brother and Sister: Several examples:
  • Emma and J.T show no romantic feelings towards each other whatsoever.
  • Sean and Manny are this.
  • Riley and Anya. It also helps that the former is gay, and doesn't have any kind of romantic feelings for her. The same with Fiona and Eli.
  • Clare and Adam.
  • Jane with the members of the Stüz who aren't Spinner. But more specifically, her friendship with Danny is this.
  • Inverted with Liberty and Toby. She thinks their friendship is this, and is completely blind to his crush on her in the later seasons.
• Lighter and Softer: Usually the B, and beginning in season 10, the C plots are typically a breather compared to the A plots.
• Like Goes with Like: Season 8 has an episode where Connor, who's black, helps get KC and Clare, who are white, together. In gratitude the writers give him a black girl as admirer. It's like when Liberty (black) is rejected by Sean but in the end she finds out that his black friend likes her.
• Limited Social Circle
• Line-of-Sight Name: Meta-example, "Degrassi" itself was originally one.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: Manny does this to Paige, kicking off a Catfight.
• Local Hangout: The Dot from Season 3 onwards.
• Long Bus Trip: Darcy has transferred to Kenya and shows no sign of returning. And Mia's left to angst over vampires model in Paris. Despite being Alli's brother, Sav is never shown again after graduation.
• Love Dodecahedron: A lot. Lampshaded in a mid-2000s commercial on The N network (where Degrassi made its US debut) about a Love Triangle therapy group featuring various characters from their channel's programs, but Degrassi's had a separate group called Love Hexagons.
  • While previous seasons have been full of them, season 13 onwards and Next Class seasons have become even more notorious with their incestuous dating and love triangles. Between only six characters, the following pairings either canonly dated or hooked up: Miles/Maya, Maya/Zig, Zig/Zoe, Miles/Zoe, Miles/Tristan, and Zoe/Grace. There were also seven love triangles: Zig/Maya/Miles, Zoe/Miles/Maya, Tristan/Miles/Maya, Zoe/Zig/Maya, Grace/Zoe/Miles, and Zoe/Grace/Zig, with hinted Zoe/Miles/Tristan.
• Long-Runners: Aired from 2001-2017, on different channels on both Canadian and American TV and one streaming platform.
• Long-Runner Cast Turnover: The first turnover was in truly in season 10, as seasons 8-9 slowly introduced the newer characters. Then Next Class saw another turnover with its New Season, New Name, with no characters with any link to the original cast.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Emma gets an interesting variant in season 3. She thinks Shane is a doctor who works for the mentally handicapped, but he's actually a patient. Then Shane takes her and her mother hostage.

M-N

• Male Gaze: Happens to Sean in season 2 and Manny in season 3, with an air of Fan Disservice (shots of Marco licking his lips and a shot of a 13-year-old's butt, respectively) just for fun.
• A Man Is Always Eager: The show both played this straight and had subversions.
  • Subverted in Season 1, when Jimmy is just as nervous about having sex with Ashley as she is. He just is better at hiding it.
  • Season 2's "Dressed In Black" plays it straight with JT who's eager to get free condoms from school's sex health presentation and buy different packs of condoms at a drugstore and a subversion with Toby who gets overwhelmed by the info and idea of sex. When Spinner finds out JT and Toby went out to buy condoms, he seeks out to hurt Toby since he's dating Spinner's younger sister Kendra.
  • Subverted again with Post-Friendship Club Spinner, who pushes Darcy away when she reluctantly wants sex with him, knowing that it was wrong. He manages to stay true to the Christian thing until he stops dating Darcy in Season 6.
  • Peter doesn't pressure Darcy into having sex, but he clearly thinks he is ready, and is very eager to have sex with her.
  • The first time Holly J attempted to have sex, Blue outright said "I won't have sex with you," but they did hardly know each other at the time. Blue was eager, but has a shred moral fiber to him.
  • Johnny's willing to have sex with Alli but only after assuring if Alli wants to as well.
  • Played straight in season 10 when Bianca tempts Drew to go to the boiler room, despite the fact that he's dating Alli. He goes with her.
• Manipulative Editing: What Winston does with his interview with Drew in Black or White.
• The Masochism Tango: Joey and Caitlin, Emma and Sean, Johnny and Alli... anyone and anyone.
• Meaningful Name: Emma, who was named after the Emmy Degrassi Junior High won for the Teen Pregnancy storyline that led to her existence.
  • Heather Sinclair is named after the movie Heathers, with the "Sinclair" part coming from a porn star's name. Marco del Rossi is named after gay porn star Marco Rossi.
  • A lot of little mistakes seem to be made at Little Miss Steaks.
  • The hardass new principal introduced in the later half of season 14? Her name is "Mrs. Pill."
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Dean was acquitted of all charges for raping Paige, but Paige later crashes into his car purposefully and she later tells him that he has no more power over her.
• Meet Cute: Sean and Ellie met...in detention!
  • Clare and Eli meet when Eli runs over her glasses with his hearse.
• Missing Mom: Terri (died), Craig (died), Jenna (out of the picture), Lola (left), Sean (estranged, then moved back in with her, only to return to Toronto),KC (jail, then subverted after being released and got custody back after showing she had legit changed), Zoe (kicked her out). J.T. is an odd example, given the fact he mentioned he was living with his mother at one point, but she's never mentioned again and he is shown living with his grandmother, instead. It's actually not known what happened to Connor's parents, so his mother could fall under this (his father would fall under its SpearCounterpart).
• Mistaken for Pregnant: Anya in Season 10.
• Mistaken for Terrorist: Done in a Very Special Episode with a Muslim girl, who is teased and harassed by Paige and Hazel. The girl's stand at International Day is vandalized, and Hazel reveals that she's Somali, not Jamaican, and she too was Mistakenfor Terrorist before she came to Degrassi. The Muslim character and International Day, however, are never spoken of again.
• Mistaken Nationality: A number of fans thought that Manny was Latina (specifically Mexican), but in fact, Manny is Filipina (in real life and on the show). In many cases, this was based on her last name, Santos.
  • Hazel invoked this for years, pretending to be Jamaican when she's actually Somali. Even her BFF Paige never knew.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • More often than not the cold open introduces the main dramatic crunch of the episode. Then suddenly happy music starts playing and you hear "Whatever it takes!"
  • The early seasons were very guilty of this at times. Often, an episode with a fairly serious main plot would be intertwined with a B-plot that would feel more in-line with a Nickelodeon sitcom than a teen drama. A very good example of this is Father Figure, where Emma discovers the truth about her brain damaged father... meanwhile Spinner is making everyone trade lockers in the style of a used car salesman in order to get Paige a prime spot in the school hallways. Eventually later on, as the show began to tone its comic relief aspects down, the balance between serious main plots and goofy subplots became less of an issue.
• Moose and Maple Syrup: The show did a self-parody of Canadian stereotypes during Kevin Smith's (himself a huge fan of Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High) appearance on the show. He was there shooting a movie called Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh, and a clip showed from the movie featured every Canadian stereotype known to man (the metric system, hockey, bilingualism, moose, Mounties, snow, aboot, eh), courtesy of Alanis Morissette as a high school principal.
• The Movie: Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Degrassi Takes Manhattan, Degrassi: Las Vegas, and Don't Look Back.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Peter frames the hypotenuse for possession, but fits the trope in spirit.
• Mushroom Samba: Jagged Little Pill comes to mind. Paige/Alex shippers called themselves Potheads for a while as well.
• Musical Episode: "Rock and Roll Highschool" is pretty close when the story revolves around the characters in a battle of the bands. Ashley and the girls sing an angry rock song directed at Craig. Spinner and Jimmy rap, and Craig sings an apology to her.
• Musical Theme Naming: Starting with the second season (and a few in the first), the episodes get their titles from songs from 1980s. As of season 10, songs are named after hits in the '00s. This stops after season 14.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: When Sean returns and gets back together with Emma he puts her purity on a pedestal until he finds out that she gave Jay head in exchange for cheap plastic bracelets in season 4 after the shooting. Despite his own hookup with Amy who is supposed to be the "biggest slut" of the Ravine and is suspected to be spreading STDs it takes great amounts of convincing for him to forgive Emma her one mistake.
• My Secret Pregnancy: Liberty didn't tell JT about her pregnancy for the first three months and waited six months to tell her parents.
  • Jenna keeps hers quiet, only telling her brother, K.C., and Alli... until she tells the entire world on TV.
  • Clare's wasn't a total secret, with the potential fathers, her family, Alli, and a couple other random people knowing, but she was planning on keeping it quiet until graduation when she wouldn't have to deal with their judgements. But of course people find out eventually.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Spinner with Toby and Kendra, Danny early in JT and Liberty's relationship, and Miles with Frankie and Winston.
• Mysterious Past: Every hot new guy of the moment has one of these.
  • Craig was presented as mysterious and it turned out his dad abused him.
  • Sean was presented as a mysterious bad boy who Emma "just couldn't stay away" from. Until it turned out he wasn't really a bad boy.
  • Blue supposedly had one but stopped existing in the Degrassi universe after Holly J broke up with him, aside from making some sexual comments about Fiona to Riley. Looks like we will never know what his "mysterious" secrets were.
  • KC used to be something of a mysterious bad boy.
  • Eli has one, we get to find out a little of it.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Rick's glasses are a reference to Claude from Degrassi High
  • Tori (who was played by Alex Steele, the sister of Cassie Steele) being subjected to the same "demeaning" mascot job that her sister's character was by the Alpha Bitch.
  • After having bromine spilled on her pants, Shay wears gym shorts just like Emma did during season 1 when she had her period in class.
• Nerds Are Virgins: Averted with Liberty, but played straight with the other nerdy characters.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The "Degrassi Goes Hollywood" trailers used footage of Paige taking her panties off under her short dress in a limo to set herself up to have a Going Commando scandal (as Perez Hilton's voiceover says "Here, you're only as hot as your latest scandal) at a red carpet event, only to be shocked to see Manny there when she steps out of the car and trips and falls on the carpet, to a shocked Danny and Sav and audible gaspsing paparazzi. In the film itself, the shocks are from Paige breaking her ankle when she fell and her dress stayed in place not revealing anything.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Characters will suddenly have new talents and abilities depending on whatever is going on in that episode.
  • A bunch of the girls suddenly being on the girl's hockey team in one episode.
  • A bunch of the girls spontaneously being on the school's gym team.
  • In season 3 when everyone became musicians.
• New Transfer Student: A few every season to refresh the cast with non-Freshman.
  • Season 6 prominently had Mia.
  • Season 7 had a Transfer School, bringing us Lakehurst characters (Anya, Damien, Holly J, Jane, Johnny, Bruce, Lucas, and Sav)
  • Season 8 had Leia and Blue.
  • Season 9 gave us Declan, Fiona, and Jenna. Dave is not.
  • Season 10 we have Adam and Drew.
  • And then in season 11 we meet Jake, Clare's new love interest.
  • Season 12 gave us Luke, Becky, Dallas and Campbell.
  • Season 13 gave us Miles and Zoe.
• Next Sunday A.D.: The first half of season 10: Written and shot in spring 2010, first aired July-August 2010, canonically takes place between September-December 2010.
  This leads to some unintentional Real Life Writes the Plot Fridge Horror when you realize that the events of My Body Is A Cage happen after the high-profile suicides in September 2010 that led to heightened awareness of harassment of LGBT teens.
• No Bisexuals: It's complicated. Paige and Alex were the first girl/girl couple on the show in season 5, but Alex later came out as a lesbian whereas Paige refused to label herself and seemed to be more of a case of If It's You, It's Okay.
  • Six seasons later, Imogen was more clearly a bisexual character, but even she preferred to use the words "fluid" and "open-minded" to describe herself instead of the word bisexual, and didn't bother to correct people that referred to her as a lesbian.
  • A couple seasons later, Miles became the first bisexual male, and despite being very proud and confident in his sexuality (his campaign slogan was "I play for all teams"), he spent a long time refusing to label his sexuality. In season 4 of Next Class however, he admitted that his issues with his father made him afraid of labels, and he proudly proclaimed himself to be bisexual.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted with Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, and Alanis Morisette. Played straight with Kid Elric, an Expy of Kid Rock.
• No Dress Code: At least three girls over the years have been shown changing from parent-approved clothes into something skimpier in the girls' bathroom before class.
  • Averted for half of season 10 and all of season 11 when the uniform policy was put into place after several sexual, violent, and otherwise unsavoury incidents. But even still, the uniform policy was much more relaxed than most schools, with students still able to wear brightly coloured accessories, bags, shoes, etc.
• No Ending: So, so much.
• No Going Steady
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: JT never showed interest in Liberty until she gave up on crushing over him.
• No Periods, Period: Averted.
  • Season 1 when Emma got her first and wound up giving a book report presentation in oversize gym shorts with JT and Toby mocking her.
  • Season 3's "Accidents Will Happen part 1". Hazel asks for a tampon after finding out her period started during gymnastics practice. Manny gives her one stating she hasn't used any of hers in some time. This later prompts Manny to check and realize she's missed several periods, the first sign she may be pregnant.
  • When female-to-male transgender Adam drops his tampons.
  • Shay in Next Class who actually bled through her shorts onto her boyfriend Tiny's lap.
• Nonuniform Uniform: Justified in-series when Ms. Oh tells Eli (and the whole class) that the teachers hate enforcing the new dress code just as much as the students hate wearing it.
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization:
  • Declan concocts a plan to finally get Holly J back in his life and ends up alone with her and he starts initiating sexual contact — Holly J doesn't want to, and she verbally says "No, we shouldn't be doing this" but eventually she gives in and kisses him. This is done with no force, but Holly J is still distraught and avoids Declan in the following episode. Fiona questions Declan about what happened to determine if this was the case, and Declan fears he ended up raping her. While Holly J. eventually tells him she doesn't believe it was, since this is such a controversial subject with a very popular couple, this has already caused a Broken Base with one side saying Holly J should've said "NO MEANS NO!" and the other saying Declan raped Holly J.
  • This was also invoked as Dean's defense when on trial for raping Paige. His lawyer claims she was heading into that room expecting or even asking for sex and that she got what she wanted.
  • Luke tries to pull this with Zoe, but she eventually snaps out of it. He also tries to use this to convince his sister Becky to lie for him in court. She doesn't.
  • Zig and Tiny have this mentality until Grace calls them out on it.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Mrs. Torres explains that she used to be like Bianca's old, bad girl self as a teenager until someone gave her a chance and believed in her, hence why she's supporting an actively reforming Bianca despite the past involvements with her sons.

O-P

• Official Couple Ordeal Syndrome: You wouldn't be a Degrassi supercouple if you didn't go through it.
• Officially Shortened Title: Starting in Season 10, the show dropped "The Next Generation" from the title.
• Offscreen Breakup: Emma/Chris, Toby/Kendra, Liberty/Towerz. All established in the same episode too.
• Oh, Crap!: Clare has a rather terrifying one when Eli reveals his play's plot: A story of how she manipulated him and fell for Fitz.
  • She has another one at the end of season 13, when she gets the news she's pregnant.
  • Jenna says this verbatim when she finds out she's pregnant.
• Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: In season 9, Declan and Holly J find a fanfic wherein Declan is inserted into a vampire story that seems to be The Mockbuster of The Twilight Saga in the Degrassi world. It was an interesting choice from the writers considering that Twilight crossovers wherein Clare, Declan, or often Emma were pulled into a Twilight world were incredibly common in actual fan fiction for several months before this episode aired.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Clare ranted out Eli at the Local Hangout, screaming "DID YOU FLIP A SWITCH AND ERASE ME FROM YOUR MEMORY, DID YOU EVER LOVE ME AT ALL?" Since then, Eli wrote it into the School Play, Connor and Mo used it to psych out an Opposing Sports Team, and Connor, KC and Adam put it on Twitter where at one point it was trending in Toronto.
• One-Steve Limit: Slight aversion. JT and Jimmy are both really named James, but this was never really an issue.
  • Averted again with Heather Sinclair and Heather Poulette who are both never seen on camera, and the student body frequently gossips about them.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Spinner is the most obvious example and many other characters go by shortened forms of their given names.
  • Fitz too. Even Mr. Simpson doesn't call him by his real name.
  • In the early years everyone knew Mr. Simpson's nickname is Snake, even if Emma was the only one to call him that to his face on a regular basis, and then only after they became family.
  • Tiny's real name is Deon Bell.
• Only Sane Man: Role tends to get passed around among characters depending on the story. Only person who was consistent was Jimmy.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Marco's parents, who had quite possibly the most stereotypical Italian accents ever. It slipped in the episode where Marco came out to his father and his father talked with a regular Canadian/English voice. Surprisingly, this actually worked and made the scene a lot better.
• Open-Minded Parent: Eli's parents are rather, um, liberal in their parenting style.
  We've been trying to get a girl into Eli's room for a while now.
• Opening Scroll: Parodied in this video, complete with a ridiculously long list of things to do before Season 14B starts airing.
• Opposites Attract: JT and Liberty fit this trope to a T.
  • Eli believes this about himself and Clare, although she's doubtful it will work at first.
• Our Presidents Are Different: As Boycott the Caf has pointed out(scroll a bit more than halfway down), the four principals since 2001 track astonishingly well to the last four U.S. presidents.
• Out of Focus: Many fans forget that Toby was one of the most prominent characters in the first season (in fact, he was THE most prominent male). After he second season, his screentime gradually diminished until he was Demoted to Extra.
• Outrun the Fireball: No, really. In the Degrassi Of The Dead Halloween special, Manny does exactly this.
• Pair the Spares: Jimmy and Hazel could qualify for this trope as well, as their respective best friends, Spinner and Paige were an item at that point.
  • Spinner and Emma in Degrassi Takes Manhattan get together. There is fan speculation that this happened because Spinner and Emma were the only remaining unpaired characters from the original show whose actors were still willing to be on Degrassi (besides Liberty who appears for two seconds).
  • Jake and Katie were introduced as romantic false leads for two popular couples: Eli and Clare, and Drew and Bianca. When their relationships inevitably ended, they were paired with each other.
• Parental Incest: Jane was molested by her father.
• Parental Bonus: Any appearance of characters from the original series on the new series.
• Passionate Sports Girl: Jane just wants to play football despite the harassment from her team mates. She's good, too.
• Pet the Dog: Happens several times throughout the show:
  • Paige ends up having a good time on her "date" with J.T, and even apologizes to him when she realizes she hurt him.
  • Despite their rivalry, Manny tells Paige not to drunk the punch, because the Spirit Squad put laxatives in it.
  • Darcy gives Rick a kiss on the cheek, not knowing of his past.
  • Marco is the first one of Spinner's friends to forgive the latter after the shooting.
  • Alli gives Dave a kiss on the cheek after she lets him know she doesn't like him that way (at the time).
  • Even though Anya's clearly not interested in Wesley, she goes on a date with him anyway, and she even invites him to her 18th birthday party.
• Plenty of Blondes: You have a combination of less lovable blonds as well as a bunch of blond guys.
• Potty Failure: Holly J. in "Hide and Seek" due to a failing kidney.
  • Jenna's accident after taking too many diet pills.
  • Tristan accidently urinates on Miles after his body gets wrecked in the bus accident.
• Popularity Food Chain: Characters that appear twice obviously shift seats between seasons.
  • Academic Alpha Bitch (Ashley, Liberty, Holly J.)
  • Big Man on Campus (Jimmy, Marco, Peter, Danny, Declan, Riley, Sav)
  • Class Rep (Liberty)
  • Delinquents (The Rubber Room kids: Tiny, Zig, Grace, and sort of Maya)
  • Drama Club (Eli, Fiona, Becky, Tristan, Tori, Winston, Zig, Frankie)
  • Girl Posse (Terri, Hazel, Darcy, Anya, Chantay)
  • Goth (Ellie, Ashley, Eli)
  • Jerk Jock (Spinner in seasons 1-3, The Shep, Derek, Bruce, Drew, Owen)
  • Loner (Hunter)
  • Rebellious Spirit (Emma)
  • School Idol (Craig, Jimmy, Mia, Zoe.)
  • Unconvincingly Unpopular Character:(Sean, J.T., Ashley, Jay, Spinner in season 4 and 5, Alex, Mia, Dave, Fiona, Bianca)

• Police Are Useless: Maya and her mother go to the police after Maya gets threatening messages after she posts her feminist song online, only to be told that they wouldn't be able to track down who did it if they used a VPN. An unfortunate Truth in Television, but the police actually refuse to post an officer outside her home because threats against women are too common to post every officer to someone who got threatened.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: Pro disciplina colligo ("For teaching, gather"). One wonders why they didn't go with Quidquid accipit ("Whatever it takes") or Vadit ibi ("It goes there").
• Product Placement: Plenty in the tenth season. Several for Skype, the Zeno "Hotspot", etc.
  • Pizza Pizza (a popular chain in Ontario), especially early on when the mall food court's used for scenes that would later take place in The Dot.
  • Snake's Alienware laptop was a pretty prominent one in earlier seasons.
  • And in later seasons whenever something is done for charity, the charity will be Free the Children.
• Pronoun Trouble:
  • Mrs. Torres early on sometimes slipped and called Adam by female pronouns and/or his birth name. She gets better.
  • Hunter has a hard time calling Yael them/they/they're after they come out as non-binary.
• Put on a Bus: Almost all characters after they graduate. Season 9 ended with the biggest one when Emma, Manny, and Spinner (all from season 1) left the show a year after they graduated.

R-S

• Raging Stiffie:
  • Spinner, famously in the "Weird Science" episode where he kept popping boners. He assumed it was a side effect of Emma's science project requiring him to eat healthy food as opposed to puberty hormones. And unfortunetely for him, his tent gets exposed in the front of whole class.
  • Hunter in Next Class gets one in "#Unsubscribe" in front of Lola, and he tries to hide that fact from Yael, whom he is dating.
• Rape Portrayed as Redemption:
  • Paige is less of the Alpha Bitch after her rape; she even lets Ashley back in the club.
  • Averted with Zoe, who becomes a lot meaner and distrustful during the Degrassi Nudes scandal.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: You know how the roof garden didn't happen because it would be too expensive to do right? That's entirely true◊.
• Rearrange the Song: In "Cabaret", Paige and Terri change Ashley's piano piece into a highly electronic teen-pop song to perform at the talent show. She does not like this.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Emma is very fond of them, especially when she's standing up for a cause.
  • Anya gives a glorious one to Owen in season 10 in regards to his sexism.
  • Clare gives one to Holly J when she makes fun of her for being caught with a vibrator in her bag (that wasn't even hers).
  Masturbation is normal, and nobody should be embarrassed about it. And maybe if you tried it once in a while, you wouldn't be so mean.
• Recursive Crossdressing: In the "Stuff Clare Says" video, a girl (Jordan Todosey) playing a transgender boy (Adam) imitating a girl (Clare).
• Redemption Equals Death: Rick. Poor, poor Rick. Rick, who put a girl in a coma, came back to school with homicidal intent. Poor, poor Rick.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Holly J in the mini episode Queen Bees, after The Reveal she's younger sister to Heather Sinclair, while Marco and Ellie drag Paige away Holly J's eyes flash red.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Spinner's Red alongside Jimmy's Blue during the early seasons. Later Alli's Red has to be checked by Clare's Blue.
  • Inverted with Alli and Clare in the modern seasons. Clare is now Red and Alli is now Blue.
• Reformed, but Rejected: Happens first with Rick in Season 4, then with Spinner the following season.
• Remember the New Guy?: Dave is the best example, as his introduction is lamenting this trope. Characters not outright introduced as a New Transfer Student can be this, but most of the time it isn't stated explicitly.
  • Peter is first introduced in season five as Ms H's son. Despite the fact that there was no mention of him beforehand, or any indication she was ever married.
  • Any younger sibling like Danny, Maya, Tristan, and Tiny who were not mentioned before their debut episode, despite having older siblings who attended Degrassi for a long time.
  • Averted with Clare who first appeared in "Eyes Without a Face" back in season six.
  • Imogen in season 11 is an excellent example of this. In the first major episode she appears in, she tells Eli that she has gone to Degrassi for two years and recaps everything she "overheard" at Vegas Night, which occurred in the middle of season 10. Presumably, she was always a student at Degrassi, but she just never appeared in a scene with the current cast before.
  • This also goes with Katie who also claimed to be at Vegas Night despite no mention before hand.
  • Surprisingly averted with Marisol. She was introduced as a side character in the beginning of season 10, before making it to the main cast in season 11.
• Retcon:
  • JT's sister and parents are mentioned in the first season. Then, he's being raised by a single mom. Then, even later, he is shown as living with only his grandmother; Paige calls into school pretending to be her mother in Season 3 to excuse herself from school to skip and uses a Czechoslavakian accent, but later when her mother is cast and physically on the show she has no accent; and various characters' grades and ages are all over the place.
  • Sean and Craig's friendship. In Season 2, Sean was the very first person Craig met. They bumped into each other and had a sarcastic exchange, and then Sean helped him find his homeroom. They bonded and became best friends. In Season 3, Sean is with Jay's gang and is seen speaking to Craig only once during the entire season.
  • Seasons Six and Seven were the 2007/2008 school year, and seasons Eight and Nine were the 2008/2009 school year. Season Ten appears to be taking place in the 2010/2011 school year, yet treating the last two seasons as if they were just the previous school year.
  • Liberty skipping a grade seems to have been retconned out as well, since the press release character descriptions in the later seasons listed her as being the same age as the others in her class. Plus, there's Danny's existence.
  • Jock bully Owen Milligan leads his teammates in homophobic bullying their own teammates Zane and in-the-closet Riley, only to reveal three seasons later he has an openly Camp Gay brother Tristian who he cares about a lot.
• Retool: The pilot episode made it clear the show was planned to have just as much, if not more focus on the original adult cast, but by the third episode it was clear they changed their mind and now the focus is centrally on the kids.
• Retroactive Stepsibling Relationship: Clare and Jake start secretly dating shortly after they meet as teens thanks to Clare getting over a rough breakup with Eli, but hit a snag when their parents begin dating and later get engaged. Initially Clare is concerned about it, but Jake convinces her to continue the relationship in secret. They last for several months until Clare proposes having sex with Jake, at which point he gets cold feet and they both realize they don't have long-term potential.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Alli makes up wild accusations to Clare about new student Jenna being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing behind her upbeat, perky personality in hopes Clare won't become Jenna's best friend, but the one about Jenna being a boyfriend stealer ends up becoming true when KC leaves Clare for Jenna.
  • In Season 12, Becky warns Jenna to stay away from her brother Luke merely because he's family as well as to keep to the rules of their Christian faith. Luke would end up sexually assaulting another student Zoe with another hockey teammate whilst she's passed out drunk.
• Rock Star Parking: The school's parking lot is improbably small for what's depicted as an average-size High School. Yet, a shortage of student parking is never an issue.
  • In season 14, Miles takes his sweet new ride and pulls up to the front of the school and parks. After he kisses Tristan, Tristan lampshades the trope wondering if Miles could just park there.
• Rummage Sale Reject: I don't know where Emma found those flaming dolphin pants she has in the first season, but it's so bizarre that you can't help but think "Yeah, I want that."
• Running Gag: JT has a very small penis. He is extremely insecure about this. There, I saved you a lot of time.
• Sadist Teacher: Mr. Perrino, at least to Derek and Danny in one episode. Not so much in later seasons. It's never explained why he was so hostile that one time.
• Sad-Times Montage: One happens in the episode of Ellie's self-destruction and personal life getting overwhelming.
• Safe Driving Aesop: Has happened several times, most memorably with the death of Adam by texting Becky that he still loves her and is going to win her over.
• Satellite Character:
  • Hazel was this to Paige and Jimmy. Hazel was Paige's best friend, who received exactly one major storyline on the show...and that was before she was Promoted to Opening Titles! Even after her promotion in season 3, Hazel's screentime gradually lessened to the point where she was just...Jimmy's girlfriend and Paige's best friend.
  • Chantay was this to numerous characters, when she wasn't a Living Prop.
  • Leia was more or less a Living Prop being sent around to different characters to help push their plotlines. Danny and Anya were the ones she had the longest connections with.
  • In Next Class, Vijay and Baaz are just there to be the friends of Hunter and Yael and end up having no major storylines in all four seasons that they're present four.
• Satellite Love Interest: Blue is probably the biggest example. Introduced as the artistic love interest of Holly J, he was just there for Holly J to have a boyfriend yet still had a spot in the main credits for two seasons (despite appearing in about 11 of the combined 45 episodes of the two seasons he appeared in). Eventually, when the two broke up, he had only a couple of more scenes (without any lines, no less) before being taken by the Degrassi Black Hole.
  • Kelly, the fourth roommate of Emma, Manny, and Liberty, serves to be Emma's boyfriend and college companion, noticably when Emma laments Manny and Liberty being involved with activites that don't involve her.
• School Play: An assortment have occurred over the course of the show, with some making up the bulk of their season's arc.
  • Season 4 had Liberty and JT putting on a play of Dracula. They first had to fight Mr. Raditch for approval, who wanted a lighthearted musical after the school shooting. Then after new principal Ms. Hatzilakos approves it, a mini outbreak of gonarrhea in the school forces them to make cast adjustments right up till opening night.
  • Space Awakening from season 9, a sci-fi musical starring Jenna, Peter, and Chantay (though she ended up getting mono and was replaced by Jane). Declan directed it, and won a Grundy (fictional high school theater award) for it the following season.
  • Love Roulette from season 11, a dramatization of the events of Vegas Night from season 10. Written, directed, and re-written by Eli various times depending on his deteriorating mental state and whether he loves or hates Clare. Ends with Eli's Creator Breakdown, though everyone except Clare and his dad think it's All Part of the Show.
  • Romeo and Jules from season 12, also directed by Eli. A gay retelling of Romeo and Juliet starring Dave and Tristan, it caught flack from various sources—Becky was initially helping Eli until she quit due to disagreeing with homosexuality, Dave was uncomfortable kissing another man onstage, and several parents protested it for glorifying teen suicide (and this was before Cam's death). Eli managed to assuage everyone's fears and adjust it into a clear tragedy while still respecting his original vision, and even convinced Becky to come back on board by the end.
  • Captain Who from season 14, a musical Winston wrote about the titular shapeshifting Asian superhero. He wrote the female lead for Frankie in order to confess his feelings. Also ended up starring Zig as the villain.
  • I.M. Hope from Next Class season 3. Written and directed by Miles, it's a dramatization of his relationships with Tristan and Lola when the former is in a coma and the latter motivates him to keep going. Stars Miles and Lola as the dramatized versions of themselves, and Rasha as Tristan's expy.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Considering how much leeway they get for stuff worn over or under the school polo shirts, removing them after school shouldn't be a big deal, but a lot of people still don't bother.
• Secret Relationship: Many times. Manny and Craig, because Craig was still dating Ashley at the time. Paige and her teacher Matt. Peter and Emma. Declan suggests this with Holly J. Holly J and Sav minus for a few people. Sav and Ms. Oh despite almost getting busted. Tristan and Miles were supposed to be doing this until Miles outed them in a newspaper. Zig and Maya attempted this when Zig was in Maya's house.
  • Both Sav and Alli had a lot of these due to their parents' strict rules about no dating and setting them up with potential arranged marriage partners. Sav had an on-and-off one with Anya, whom his parents disapproved of for not being Muslim or Pakistani. Holly J tried to utilize this so his parents would break her and Sav up instead of doing it herself, but it backfired when they actually approved of her. Alli had Johnny, Drew, and Leo. Dave was originally one too until he was formally introduced to them, to which they took a liking to him.
• Series Fauxnale: The season 14 finale was supposed to be the final episode, due to the show's cancellation. It became this when the show was revived.
• Serious Business: Anything.
• Sexy Backless Outfit: Holly J, Jane, and Fiona during Degrassi Takes Manhattan.
• Shaking Her Hair Loose: Parodied when Holly J shakes her hair out in a failed seduction attempt.
• She Is All Grown Up: Emma and Liberty (despite efforts to keep her Hollywood Homely), as both were pretty awkward looking when the show first started (the latter was even lampshaded by Emma: "You've come a LONG way since Grade 7.").
• Shirtless Scene: Sean and Spinner in "Careless Whisper", complete with Marco's Male Gaze.
  • We also got shirtless Sean in When Doves Cry (and Craig in a much squickier context), and in seasons 3 and 4, Sean not only has shirtless scenes but pantsless scenes. Finally, we had Emma making out with a shirtless Sean - in her PowerPoint!
  • Drew later in the series when he becomes a cage fighter (yeah, that actually happened) and when he was whacked out on sleeping pills.
• Shock Value Relationship: Manny tries to scare her incredibly strict Asian father by bringing the 20-something year old high school drop-out mechanic Jay over for dinner. It backfires when her dad actually really likes him.
  • Later, in season ten Clare brings Eli over for dinner to spite her parents for getting a divorce, by using his black clothes and hearse to make him sound like a freak. Eli is not impressed.
  • Done by Miles with Tristan. They start dating secretly with the agreement that they'll figure things out before telling people, but during an argument with his parents Miles blows that by unceremoniously shouting that he was "making out with [his] boyfriend". He then proceeds to talk very pompously about the relationship to his parents, teasing that he might be gay or he might not be, before outing himself in the city newspaper. It works in that he succeeds in making his abusive father uncomfortable and gets to out his dad (who was running for mayor) as a homophobe, but it backfires in that Tristan doesn't trust him anymore and fears that the whole relationship was just to piss off his dad.
• Shout-Out: The title.
  • James Tiberius Yorke.
  • In Season 10:
  -Connor: What is the velocity of an unladen swallow?
  - Wesley: African or European?
  • Anya's coke necklace.
  • In Season 11
  -Eli: You're tearing me apart, Clara!
  • A rather subtle one to singer Carly Simon in "Rock And Roll High School"
  Ashley: Poor self-absorbed Craig thinks that the song's about him.
  Ellie: So vain.
  • Snake after seeing his car is completely covered in sticky notes: "Sweet merciful crap." Even better, his real name is Mr. Simpson.
  • There are quite a few references to Chuck Palahniuk and Fight Club in season 10.
  • "Princess Fiona".
• Shower of Angst: Darcy in "Standing in the Dark"
• The Show Goes Hollywood: Degrassi Goes Hollywood.
• Shown Their Work: Mainly when it comes to locations mentioned. Recently mentioned is Ithaca, an obscure and relatively small city in southern New York state, which, given the distance, would require an overnight stay.
  • Averted, however, with Ajax, which is only a twenty minute drive from Toronto and is a flimsy excuse to write Alex off of the show.
• Shrinking Violet: Terri in early seasons, Anya in season seven.
• The Silent Bob: Towerz and The Silent Bob.
• Sibling Triangle: There are many that involved Adam and Drew.
• Silent Credits: The original version of "Rock This Town" had the ends roll in silence, the only time there was ever any variation in the credits during the show's run. Subsequent versions distributed onto digital platforms add the regular music back in.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: Rick in season 4.
• Sixth Ranger: Sean just doesn't stay with one clique very long.
• Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty: Overall, not quite as shiny as most Hollywood teen dramas. The school itself is well-equipped and maintained, but not architecturally flashy enough to qualify as an Elaborate University High; while individual students' circumstances vary from "very, very shiny indeed" to "as gritty as it gets in Canada".
• Smart People Build Robots: Season 8's robotics team.
• Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids:
  • Manny hid her hot girl makeover from her parents by wearing her provocative clothing at school under her conservative clothing. After we met her slut-shaming, stern father, it's not hard to see why.
  • Both Sav and Alli chafe under their parents' strict rules, but unlike Sav who takes it all internally, Alli is Living a Double Life at home and at school, hiding her fashionable clothing and romantic life. It all blows up in her face some season 10.
• Soft Reboot: Next Class is this for The Next Generation, though it's billed as a "sequel" series. If you count the first two seasons of Next Class as the fifteenth of The Next Generation, this would be the second time the show has turned over in cast and nobody currently starring has any link to the previous generations. The Netflix seasons are still in continuity with the 14 seasons prior, however watching this series requires no knowledge of the previous seasons, and prior events are covered in Broad Strokes or left out entirely (such as Tristan being a virgin when it was established that he and Mr. Yates had a sexual fling in season 13).
• Spicy Latina: Alex, later Bianca.
• Spit Take: Snake after seeing that Chantay has gotten the student body to completely cover his car with sticky notes to protest the draconian changes at Degrassi after the Night in Vegas fiasco.
  • Alex, in the Degrassi Mini where she's totally not homophobic.
• Spoof Aesop: Frequently uses morals that are right in world of teenagers but not necessarily adults.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
  • Craig was very prominent in season two (and the first example of this), and soon his drama overwhelmed everyone else. The most egregious example: Liberty giving birth was actually reduced to an extremely short B-plot in favor of yet another Craig episode.
  • Emma, especially in Season 6.
  • Mia (Season 8 mostly).
  • Holly J. Just look at the opening credits after S8.
  • Couples-wise, Sean/Emma and Paige/Alex (Season 6), Ashley/Craig/Manny (Season 3), Jay/Manny (Season 7), and Peter/Mia (Season 8).
  • Eli and Clare were given a lion's share of screentime (and they've definitely stolen the spotlight on FanFiction.Net), along with Holly J, Alli, and Fiona (non-couple wise) in Season 10.
  • The first half of Season 11 could have been called "The Eli Show".
  • Seasons 11 also suffers this from Drew.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Jimmy/Ashley, Craig/Ashley, Craig/Manny, Sean/Emma, Dylan/Marco, Spinner/Paige, Spinner/Darcy, Paige/Alex, Joey/Caitlin... anyone and anyone else.
  • JT and Liberty, due to their tragic circumstances.
• Stepford Smiler
• Stock Footage: In the season 3 episode "I Want Candy" the outside shot of the hospital is clearly the same clip used in the season 2 finale episode. You can even blatantly see Craig walking towards the building, even though he's not in this episode.
• Straight Gay: Dylan, Riley, Sam, Zane.
• Student Council President: Ashley (Season 1-3), Marco (Season 4), Liberty (Seasons 5-7), Holly J. (Seasons 8-9) Sav (Season 10-11), Katie (Season 12,) Drew (Season 13), Tristan (Next Class season 1-2), Zoe (Next Class season 3). Damian was president at Lakehurst until the merger.
• Stylistic Suck: Among the Deleted Scenes from Season 1 is a "where are they now" piece on several original characters done in the style of an amateur VHS home video. The audio on some segments is almost inaudible.
• Sudden School Uniform: Played straight with it being implemented over a weeklong break in the middle of the school year, subverted by it being in place for a year in-story.
• Surprise Pregnancy: Jenna just thinks she's getting fat and uses diet pills to try and fix her "weight problem."
  • Clare was shocked that she was able to get pregnant so soon after stopping chemotherapy and recovering from cancer, since the likelihood was extremely rare.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Next Class season three: When Maya decides to commit suicide, she takes several pills and decides to die symbolically on the school bus...only to wake up an hour or so later and stumble around the school before collapsing on the roof. She even laments that she can't even kill herself right.
  • Degrassi itself goes from a bright, lauded, high-tech school to being something closer to the Lakehurst of earlier seasons, with a police presence, a bullying problem and a bad reputation among the community due to years of its drama.
  • Despite the gains in LGBT rights across the world, there are still people who are quite homophobic and LGBT teens are still at high risk at being disowned and kicked out. Despite her friends thinking it would be okay if Zoe came out to her mom, Zoe comes out and causes a scene, getting her kicked out of her home and disowned.
  • Darcy lies about Mr. Simpson sexually assaulting her as revenge for him not wanting to lie about her post-rape trauma. She expects once admitting the truth to everyone he can return to Degrassi. But as Mr. Simpson explains, there still has to be a full invesigation on him, as harassment/assault victims may take back their statements for reasons such as fear or backlash. Later episodes show him having interviews with lawyers and education union reps, Emma's friends not being allowed over while the investigation is taking place, and the toll all of it takes on everybody in the Nelson-Simpson household.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Every time a new set of niner characters are introduced they seem to be stand-ins for the original batch of seventh grade newbies from season one (Emma, Manny, JT, Toby, and Sean). Emma, Clare and Maya are the smart, good girls who'll sometimes flirt with the Good Girl Gone Bad trope. Manny, Alli and Tori are the good girls' sexier best friends who are obsessed with superficial things such as boys and popularity. Sean, K.C. and Zig are from the wrong side of the tracks and try desperately to rise above their poor upbringing. J.T. and Dave are the comedians who aspire to be cool and hook-up with all the girls while Toby and Connor are their nerdier sidekicks. Tristan is the only one who doesn't seem to have a precedent in the the original core group instead filling in for Marco and Riley as the gay character.
• Sympathetic Adulterer: Jane, Craig when he sings Ashley a song in the battle of the bands.

T-U

• Take That!: One to energy drinks (or to school sponsorship of products) with Purple Dragon. Several to Bush in the Jay and Silent Bob episodes.
  • Luke and Becky Baker's being from Florida may well be a Take That! to the Florida Family Association (all one of him).
• Teacher/Student Romance: A couple of times:
  • Season 4: Paige had a fling with student teacher Mr. Oleander, who was only a few years older than her. While the relationship was mutual, Mr. O was still fired when it became found out.
  • Season 11: Ms. Oh and Sav (of age) also had something going on, Ms. Oh broke it off after realizing how inappropriate it was.
  • Season 13: Tristan, who was under age, was having a relationship with his teacher Mr. Yates. It ended when Maya told the principal about the relationship and Yates got fired and possibly arrested. It took Tristan a while to accept that Yates was predatory and that it wasn't really love between them.
• Teen Drama
• Teen Pregnancy: The show has covered all the bases for this trope: Manny (terminated the pregnancy), Liberty (put the baby up for adoption), Mia (raising her child), Anya (took plan B before anything happened), Jenna (raises the baby for a while before giving it up for adoption), Clare (miscarriage), and Lola (terminated her pregnancy). Emma is the result of one, and her mother had a second unplanned pregnancy (albeit at around age 30). Dallas also had a baby with his girlfriend (played by Vanessa Morgan) when he was 15 whom he still raises. Finally, Jonah reveals in Next Class season 4 that he has a daughter but isn't allowed to meet her.
• The Tell: Ellie Nash cooks when she's angry, according to Marco.
• Terrible Interviewees Montage: Sav's drummer search in Jesus, Etc.
• Their First Time
• There Is Only One Bed: Heterosexual version: Ellie and Sean. Sean sleeps on the couch.
• Those Two Guys:
  • JT and Toby, replaced with 'the fuzzheads' Danny and Derek.
  • Anya and Chantay Leia Chantay are female versions.
• Through-the-Years Credits: During seasons 6 and 7, clips of the character's major episodes appear behind them during their position in the openings.
• Title Drop: "It's not just my house. It's our house."
• Title Drop / Title Theme Drop : They like to work in the phrase "Whatever it takes" whenever they can get away with it. It's stenciled on the wall of the school's weight room.
• Title: The Adaptation
• Token Minority Couple: Remember when Jimmy and Hazel were a couple for 3 seasons? It's alright if you don't, apparently the writers only rememebered when it was relevant...which wasn't a whole lot.
  • Danny and Chantay had traces of this in season 9, particularly since Danny is the only person Chantay ever dates.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Alex & Paige.
  • Jane and Darcy in season seven. Darcy is replaced with Holly J in season nine.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Emma starting in Season 4 ("What will people think of me if Chris goes out with Liberty next?"). Many fans consider this moment to be the turning point of Emma's character and when her Jerkass colors first really started to shine.
  • Derek in Season 8. Before that, he at least had some sort of remorse for his more Jerkass moments (such as framing Danny for shoplifting).
  • KC in Seasons 9 and 10.
• Toplessness from the Back: Emma in the Purple Dragon episode. Manny's "I'm going to be famous" scene.
• Tragic Hero: Craig and Ashley. Also Rick, sort of.
  • Sean Cameron, anyone? At this point, Sean is the only one who can possibly understand Rick, was one of the few people who actively defended Rick, and...kills him. Then he is called a hero for it.
• Training Montage: When Owen helps Anya get in shape for the armed forces.
• Transfer Student Uniforms; Inverted; the Ice Hounds plus Becky show up in their new Degrassi uniforms for the first day of class - in which it's announced that uniforms are abolished.
• Trickster Archetype: Mike Lobel is on record comparing Jay to a spider.
• Troperrific
• Troubled, but Cute: Sean first, during most of his time on the show.
  • Spinner was next, after Rick's death and Jimmy's being shot.
  • Craig- bipolar and an orphan!
  • Peter, but fans thought he came off as a metrosexual Jerkass Then they toned him down dramatically in season 8, so now he's just the {[pretty|Boy}}, yetgeneric guy).
  • K.C. during season 8 and 9
  • Eli and Adam for different reasons during Season 10
  • Campbell is definitely this so far in Season 12.
  • Zig qualifies as of season 13 with his family issues.
  • Miles is this for pretty much his entire time on the show.
• Troubled Teen: The show has had quite a few Troubled Teens. Some are poor like Sean, who joins up with a gang of delinquents that steal for fun; some are rich, like Miles who abuses marijuana and prescription meds to deal with his emotional issues, most are male and of the Troubled, but Cute variety. Though there is Esme, a female student introduced in Degrassi: Next Class that is more troubled than all of them, as she is unstable and manipulative.
• Tsundere: Alex is the biggest example of the Type A (sour outside, sweet inside) version, with Clare being a solid Type B (sweet outside, sour inside).
• Twincest: Declan and Fiona have been giving off not-so brotherly vibes ever since their promo, and the actress who plays Fiona has hinted at a potential incest story arc in Season 10.
  • In Degrassi Takes Manhattan, Holly J learns that she's chased off many of Declan's exes invoking this. Fiona tells Holly J, "Boyfriends are temporary, brothers are forever" and later kisses Declan in the middle of a big party both to make Holly J stay away and to make news headlines. It backfires and she's sent to live with an aunt in another city the rest of the summer. Averted once she returns in season 10 with a different, upbeat attitude no longer exhibiting such behaviors.
• Twofer Token Minority: Jimmy (black and disabled), Connor (black with Asperger's), Zane (Asian and gay), Sav (Indian and Muslim), and Manny, Liberty, Chantay, and Leia (female and nonwhite). There are even several threefers: Hazel, Alli, and Goldi (nonwhite, female and Muslim), and Alex (lesbian, female, and Latina).
• Two-Teacher School: It seems there's only about four teachers in the entire school, with Mrs. Kwan teaching English to the entire school, Mr. Simpson teaching Media Immersion for every student for all four years, and Coach Armstrong being the health teacher, math teacher, and P.E. teacher for all grades and classes, as well as the coach for every sports team in the school.
• Uncool Undies: When J.T. rips Spinner's pants off in "Never Gonna Give You Up" in the middle of the hallway, it is revealed that Spinner wears white boxers with red hearts on them, in which everyone starts laughing at.
• Uninvited to the Party: After Spinner's role in Jimmy's shooting is revealed, he ends up hated by the students and univited to a party that the latter was throwing. Upon getting together with Jay (whose fault it was that Jimmy ended up getting shot in the first place as they bullied Rick, then blamed Jimmy for the prank they did of having paint and feather dumped on him, leading to his shooting), he crashes the party drunk and begging for forgiveness. He refuses and after eventually admitting to the principal his and Jay's role in the shooting, she expels them both.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Someone needs to lock Clare and Eli in a closet or something.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: J.T, Spinner sometimes.

V-Z

• Verbal Tic: Well, one, there's Rick, and two, he tends to put things in a list.
• Very Special Episode: Almost every episode
  • In the vein of a very special Blossom, we have Emma blossoming into womanhood, Spinner's erections, JT's wet dreams, and JT's very small penis. One in each of the first four seasons.
  • Then there are the episodes where Paige gets raped, Marco comes out, Ashley's dad comes out, Craig's dad abuses him, Craig is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Liberty winds up needing extra math help but everyone thinks she's sleeping with the math teacher.
• Villain Decay: Of the Candy Bandits, Jay and Alex became a lot less impressive toward the end of their run.
  • Johnny DiMarco and Bruce had a similar process of turning Lighter and Softer in Seasons 8 and 9.
  • On the less bully side of things, Holly J and Paige suffered Bitch Decay.
  • Peter and Declan were both introduced to be Preppy villains, working people as opposed to brute force of the Bullies. Both suffered a fair bit of softening over time.
  • This has happened to Fitz as well. Started off as a the top bully (along with Owen), but now making a Heel–Face Turn.
  • Zoe was introduced in season 13 as the Alpha Bitch and an antagonist to the more straight-cut Maya. Her villainy peaks in season 14 when she pressures the Power Cheer team into sending nude photos for profit and later attempts to blackmail Frankie into taking the blame. By Next Class, she has mellowed out, with a spot on student council, mostly staying away from drama, and struggling with coming to terms with being gay.
• The Unfair Sex: Jane's flirting with Declan and subsequent cheating wasn't portrayed nearly as bad when Craig did it to Ashley in Season 3. Averted when Spinner reacts badly to finding out.
• Webcomic Time: To a degree, early seasons (up through Season 5) were at a 1 Season: 1 School year ratio. All was good. Seasons 6-9 were 2 seasons : 1 School Year ratio which meant the date started to slip. Season 10 used to a retcon to undo the slip so things were now 2010 (Due to the last four seasons it was 2008). After that we still haven't hit 1 season = 1 year again. Instead, however, they haven't retconned again but the references and series going on are contemporary to the year, but not to the year the students should be in. As Season 12 is the end of Season 11.5's school year which means it should be 2012, but it's 2013.
• We Need a Distraction:
  • Jimmy pulls the fire alarm to get Spinner's exam cancelled.
  • Clare sets off a smoke bomb in the exam hall so the school will be evacuated and Adam won't have to fight Fitz.
• Wealth's in a Name: Fiona and Declan from The Next Generation. Their last name, Coyne, is a play on the word "coin," which is likely a nod to the family's wealth.
• Welcome Titles:
  • In seasons one to five and eight to twelve, the camera moves around the school to show the regulars in their natural environments.
  • Degrassi: Next Class: It has a shorter version with pictures and videos from the regulars' social media flying by to show them hanging out with their friends.
• Wham Episode:
  • Season 4's Time Stands Still is the first one, which saw Jimmy get shot by Rick, paralyzing him and Rick being accidentally shot by Sean. Several characters were changed forever by this event.
  • Rock This Town from season 6, which saw JT being killed at a party.
  • Season 7's Standing in the Dark, which had Degrassi merging with Lakehurst and Darcy getting raped at a party and later attempting suicide.
  • All Falls Down from season 10 didn't see character death, but it was suspense-filled and change the course of several characters and added school uniforms which lasted quite a while.
  • Bittersweet Symphony Part 2 from season 12 had Eli and Claire discover that Cam killed himself in the school greenhouse
  • Honey from season 13 saw Adam dying from his injuries, which was preceded by a Wham Shot from the previous episode Cannonball where Adam got into his fatal car accident.
  • "#OMFG", the Next Class season 2 finale. A bus carrying many Degrassi students flips on the highway, injuring many and leaving Tristan in critical condition.
  • "#ImSleep", the Next Class season 3 finale. After being unable to deal with her depression, Maya attempts suicide and only survives thanks to Zig and Esme finding her. Tristan discovers Miles' fling with Lola during his coma, and manages to speak again.
• Wham Line:
  • Liberty: "I'm pregnant".
  • "She wants twenty-thousand dollars."^note Holly J.'s birth mom's condition to donating one of her kidneys to the daughter she just met.
  • " Campbell Saunders is dead."
• What Did I Do Last Night?: Spinner and Emma getting married under the influence.
  • Darcy waking up next to Peter after she was drugged and raped.
  • When Drew wakes up after the party remembering nothing about stripping, streaking, sleeping with Katie and who knows what else.
  • The main trust of Unbelievable (season 13) with Zoe getting blacked out drunk and getting sexually assaulted.
• White Shirt of Death: JT was wearing one when he was stabbed.
• Who's Your Daddy?: In season 14, Clare was very sure Drew was the father of her baby until it was revealed in Something's Got to Give that she was further along the pregnancy than she thought and the baby could be Eli's.
• Whole-Plot Reference: Season 3's "Take on Me" to The Breakfast Club.
• Wild Teen Party: Most notably "Rock This Town"
  • The party that Adam and Dallas threw at the Torres house in "Come As You Are (Part 1)".
• Windmill Political: Emma is prone to these.
• With Friends Like These...: While it wasn't a very comedic example, Holly J and Anya were like this in season seven and eight.
  • Chantay has shown this with every one of her friends when gossip circles them.
• Worthy Opponent: In a deleted scene from "Back In Black", Sean sees Rick as this.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • That valiant theater nerd, Rick? He hits girls.
  • Fiona's boyfriend Bobby at prep school, who gives her a black eye and throws her down a flight of stairs. She flees New York to return to Degrassi and eventually presses charges.
  • Alli dates and briefly marries Leo whom she meets in France. He has no problem frequently injuring her to the point she could convincably lie to those that didn't know about him that she was mugged on the street.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Horribly averted (or subverted?) when Fitz and Owen find out that Adam is biologically female. They don't hit him - they pick him up and throw him through the double doors breaking a wire-reinforced glass pane.
  • Reinforced when Fitz refuses to fight Adam, and suggests Adam fight Bianca.
  • Sean angsts about accidentally hitting Emma when she tries to get between him and Jimmy. Emma doesn't see it as an accident.
  • Out of all the Hollingsworth kids, Frankie is the only one their father's abuse doesn't become physical, though his beserk rage doesn't outrule the possiblility either.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: There are several classes that didn't graduate on time. Usually this lead to them retconning the character's ages. The most prominent case being the classes of 2011 and 2014.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Emma's screen name is xXsparklespazXx.
• Yandere: Eli towards Clare at first, but then Imogen from season eleven proved to be this towards Eli.
  • Rick. Emphasis on "yan". Abusive boyfriend, paranoid about other guys wanting his girlfriend, does not take rejection well...
• You Can Leave Your Hat On: Holly J. stripped in front of Sav in the drama room during the Night in Vegas dance. It was clear they were about to have sex when they were interrupted by the school being put under lockdown.
• You Go, Girl!: Jane. Football.
• You Look Familiar: Alex's girlfriend Carla and a friend of Joey's girlfriend Diane were played by the same actress.
  • Alex Steele returned in season 11 but as Tori Santamaria, not Angie Jeremiah.
• You're Just Jealous: This was practically Manny's Catchphrase for a while. Emma also pulled this card when Liberty called her out on passing out weed brownies during a dorm event.
  • Manny uses this one against Paige to dismiss Paige's warnings about Dean. Although it was pretty typical behavior for Paige to try to stop other girls from dating guys she liked (see her awful treatment of Terri), Paige was actually telling the truth about Dean. It doubles as an Ironic Echo since a girl at the party where Paige got raped warned Paige about Dean, and she reacted the same way Manny did.
  • Maya's (accurate) feelings about Tori's anti-Zig behavior.
• Zen Survivor

---