Today is the tenth anniversary of Season Ten, and I think it’s about time I express how much I love this season and why it holds a special place in my heart. It’s not my favorite season, as Season Twelve holds that honor and Season Four is my second favorite, but it’s my third favorite season and it’s nearly flawless.
1. It was the season that got me into Degrassi- The first time I ever really heard of Degrassi was the commercials for Degrassi Goes Hollywood. Before S10, I watched a few episodes of season eight and season nine, and while I quickly got attached to the “Minor Niners” and Klare, I was never interested in a teen show as much as I did when I saw the first promo for The Boiling Point. And then when I first watched Shark In The Water, it was history. But more on that in the next part. When I watched S10, I had no idea of the impact this show would have on me in my early teen years and how much Degrassi would mean to me even ten years later.
2. The Shark In The Water- I always loved amusement parks and carnivals from the time I was very little and they’re a safe space for me. So seeing the Shark In The Water promo captured my attention immediately with its carnival aesthetics. I felt enchanted even though I had no idea what was going and who these kids were. Like most fans, I watched the video over and over again to speculate on what was going to happen based upon what was shown to us. It was dark, mysterious, and to this day I don’t think I had ever seen a season of a teen drama tv show promoted with THIS much care. It’s THAT iconic.
3. It marked a brand new start for the franchise- While The Next Generation is of course iconic in its own right in for reviving the franchise after a nine year hiatus and introducing a whole new set of teen issues for the modern age, I do feel that the show started to go downhill after its fourth season. Season five was okay but it could not live up to the high expectations the previous season had given me for having a school shooting and it’s aftermath. Season six is only memorable because it killed off a very beloved character and it’s not really memorable beyond that. Season seven finally had the seventh graders from season one graduate, and it had a few powerful storylines, it was sort of just....there at times. Season eight introduced a fresh crop of freshman and while I enjoyed their dynamic as a group and the storylines they brought, a lot of episodes from S8 are hit or miss with boring lead characters. Season nine is genuinely one of my least favorite seasons because I found it very boring to watch on screen and it ended with one of the most controversial movies in the whole franchise.
With Season Ten, it was clear that the show needed to rebrand in order to stay alive and so they opted to reboot the franchise almost completely. They dropped the “The Next Generation” tagline as without the presence of the show’s previous female lead, Emma Nelson, the tagline was not needed. Clare Edwards, who was introduced in S8, was the new female lead and with her was the start of an official new era. Instead of a regular twenty-twenty four episode format, the show producers introduced a new telenova format with forty-four episodes. It introduced the concept of “chapters” with The Boiling Point as a way to make watching the show a whole event for the summer. This concept would be used for the next four seasons.
With Season Ten, the show gained a new audience of young pre-teens and teenagers who had a whole online community to interact with each other. It introduced four characters who would become very popular among the fanbase: The Torres brothers, Eli Goldsworthy, and Bianca DeSousa. Drew and especially Eli were the new fandom heartthrobs, filing a hole previously left empty when the previous heartthrobs, Sean Cameron and Craig Manning, left the show. I remember how the fanfiction for the show suddenly exploded in content during this era with new stories being put on Fanfiction.Net by the hour every day.
Combined with a new camera lighting, that gave it a new bright and sunny aesthetic, and a new theme song, it was clear that Degrassi had entered a new Silver Age.
4. Adam Torres- It is troubling to admit that I have grown up with transphobic attitudes as the result of the society I was in. Before Degrassi, I had no real concept of trans as an identity as I couldn’t wrap my mind around why someone would want to “change” their identity. Also because of the insensitive portrayal of trans people in movies, in tv shows, and even on talk shows, I had this misconception that they were also predatory. When Degrassi introduced me to Adam Torres as a character, I suddenly accepted the trans identity as real as soon as he explained to Eli and a Clare that he was a boy simply because he identified as one in his mind. He didn’t “change” his gender because even though he was raised as a girl, he never “felt” like a girl at heart. He was always“Adam” at heart and never “Gracie”. This was an easy explanation for me at twelve and it should be an easy concept for someone to comprehend as an adult.
My Body Is A Cage is a groundbreaking episode because it was the first time I had ever seen a trans character be humanized and seen as real people, not caricatures. Adam was seen through his own POV, not others. He wasn’t a guest character who was brought on the show just to “educate” kids and never been seen again. Adam was an actual main character. Although the episode featured a horrible act of violence against a vulnerable group of people, it was shown as a way to show its young audience what holding bigoted attitudes leads to. Adam’s friends immediately accepting him without argument was also a powerful thing to show to teenagers.
5. Fiona and Riley- In regards to the other storylines involving LGBT characters , I also think Fiona’s coming out storyline was done really well. Fiona Coyne was introduced in the previous season as a snobby, rich brat who had a toxic codependent relationship with her twin brother, Declan. In the beginning of the season, she gets into an abusive relationship with a boy at her boarding school. She later transfers back to Degrassi to get away from and change her life around. However, she is not happy and develops an alcohol addiction in an effort to cope with her trauma. It leads to her having an ill-fated romance with Adam that culminates in them breaking up because Fiona wanted Adam for his feminine body, not for who he was- a boy.
Fiona later fantasies about her best friend, Holly J, and it makes her realize that she is a lesbian. When I was young, I was shocked at this because I thought that lesbians didn’t date boys if they liked girls. Rewatching in hindsight, and with a greater knowledge of queerness, I realize that the hints were always there. Fiona only dated Riley, who was secretly gay himself, because she felt she had to. She only kissed Declan because she was too dependent on him. She only dated Bobby because she felt she had to. She only dated Adam because she figured that with him being trans, it could brush off any confusion she had concerning her sexuality. At the end of the season, Fiona comes to accept herself as a lesbian.
Riley Starvos is a gay boy who is in the closet and has a tumultuous relationship with his boyfriend Zane Park, who is proudly out of the closet. Riley was introduced in S8 and it was established from day one that he has difficulties accepting himself because of his hyper masculine persona and his background of coming from strict immigrant parents. Zane wants him to come out, while Riley feels it is a dangerous to do so, especially when he’s on the football team. While Riley has never been a favorite of mine because I feel that his storylines are repetitive, I did feel for him because of the predicament his character was constantly stuck in. Him and Zane were also the first sympathetic portrayal of a gay couple I have seen on tv.
6. The character arcs involving many- S10 is when Clare Edwards started to blossom as a character and it marked a clear contrast from how she originally came on the show. In her debut season, Clare was a meek, quiet, and naive girl who saw herself as the perfect daughter and nothing else. However starting in S9, that initial characterization starts to slowly unravel. She loses her first boyfriend to a “hotter” girl the previous season and decides to transform herself completely. She cuts her hair and gets laser eye surgery so she doesn’t have to wear glasses anymore. Her family life starts to crumble as her parents fight and argue every day so it causes her to lash out. She also develops a romance with Eli Goldsworthy that would have an impact on her for the rest of her tenure on the show. While as a freshman, she was handed soft storylines, starting in her sophomore the show gave her more material.
Her ex-boyfriend, KC Guthrie, was also given more harsher material as he suddenly had to deal with his mother, a former heroin addict, reappearing in his life and wanted to make amends. He also impregnates his current girlfriend, Jenna Middleton, who wants to be a teen singer. This is only the beginning of their struggles which would come to a head in S11.
Alli Bhandari is Clare’s best friend who is very boy crazy to the point it overshadows her bright mind. She has previously been involved in a toxic relationship with senior Johnny Dimarco, who she lost her virginity to only for it to lead to a STI scare. She also previously led an online bullying group against another student, Holly J, because of him. Even though Alli has moved on from that relationship, she gets involved in another ill-fated romance with Drew Torres, who cheats on her with the “school slut”, Bianca. Alli ultimately fights Bianca and it leads to her parents finding out about every mistake she made and losing their trust in her as a result. While she initially blamed everyone except herself for her problems, this served as a wake up call to Alli that she needed to face accountability for her own actions. From then on, she matured into a strong, independent girl in later seasons.
Even the parents of Degrassi characters experienced character growth. Alli and her older brother Sav’s parents were established as strict, traditional parents who had high expectations for their children and didn’t even want them to date outside their religion or faith. It takes Alli running away and Sav calling them out for them to try to do better for their children.
Due to the long episode count, characters were allowed to grow dynamically during this season.
7. The Boiling Point- The Boiling Point was a new summer event that lasted sixteen weeks. The first Degrassi block, its purpose was to introduce multiple conflicts among the main cast that would culminate in an explosive mid season finale, “All Falls Down”. It had Sav vs Holly J, Riley vs Drew, Alli vs Bianca, and Eli vs Fitz. The Eli-Fitz conflict, which started from Fitz breaking off a skull from Eli’s hearse and got more violent with each episode, proved to be the most dramatic conflict as it ultimately led to Fitz bringing a knife at a school dance because Eli poisoned him.
The Boiling Point set a new standard for each subsequent season to start off with a bang. Viewers were tuned in every episode to see what would happen next, and it caused much excited buzz in the fanbase. I myself remember staying up until 9 pm with each new episode because I couldn’t wait to see how this would all end. “All Falls Down” is one of the most memorable episodes in the show for providing a great climax to the block and setting the stage for future events in the show.
8. The season finale- While The Boiling Point started off with a tiny spark that would set the stage for a tension filled first half of the season, with the season finale “Drop The World”, season ten would end with a whole explosion of drama. The standout plot is Eli Goldsworthy and his increasingly mental instability. It was established early in the season that he was suffering guilt from watching his girlfriend die from getting hit by a car. While he falls in love with Clare and tries to move on from that traumatic event, it proved to be their undoing as a couple as Eli has not healed from that event and is overly possessive of Clare as a result. While Eli does not see his behavior as wrong, Clare feels manipulated and breaks up with him when he crashes his hearse in an effort to keep her. Meanwhile, KC and Jenna fight over the stress over being teen parents, and Jenna goes into labor at her baby shower. The season finale showcases their fear of being parents and how too young they were to handle such a dramatic life change.
This is one of the darkest season finales as it demonstrates the reality of having an untreated mental illness. Eli’s trauma and mental disorder was not his fault and I do not think he was being malicious when he tried to get Clare to stay with him. What was obvious to me was that he had developed abandonment issues as a result of his ex-girlfriend’s death and did not have a healthy way to cope. However while Clare tried her hardest to be supportive, she was a fifteen year old girl that could not help in place of a therapist, especially when he was willing to injure himself to stay with her. The hard lesson in the season finale is that sometimes love isn’t enough and that distance is sometimes needed.
9. Eli Goldsworthy- There’s so much to say about this character and why he’s one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. From the second I first laid eyes on him in Breakaway, I had immediate interest in him. It wasn’t just because he was attractive, but also because he brought a dark mysterious aura that I wasn’t used to at that point. I thought he was different from most male characters because of being a dumb jock like Drew, Eli used his mind as a weapon and preferred driving funeral cars over driving sports cars.
As mentioned in the previous point, Eli came on the show with a lot of trauma. His last girlfriend, Julia, was murdered when she was hit by a car and he blames himself for it because they had an argument beforehand. It initially causes him to want distance from Clare when they develop feelings for each other because he’s afraid of hurting her. Even when they ultimately do get together later in the season, Julia’s death still casts a long shadow over their relationship and it leads to him mentally breaking down. Eli’s depression and mental instability is something I can relate to myself as a result of my own trauma. Even when Eli had the love of his parents, he was still not well because he wasn’t getting the help that he needed. He even started hoarding as a result of his trauma. It was all heartbreaking to watch but it was necessary in order to watch him grow from that.
His trauma from childhood also showed in his conflict with Fitz, who he warred with for the entire first half of the season. Because of his issues from being bullied as a child, Eli became obsessed with destroying Fitz and escalated the conflict to the point of driving Fitz to bring a knife to Vegas Night as a way to “scare” him.
What was great about Eli in S10 was that despite all of these issues, he was still more than that. He had a light-hearted sense of humor and a passion for writing. He not only accepted Adam immediately when he came out to him as trans, but he was a very supportive and protective of him. At the beginning of his romance of Clare, he tried to help her cope with her parents’ failing marriage at a time he barely knew her. More on that in the next time.
Season ten introduced one of the most complex Degrassi characters ever, and who proved to be extremely popular among the fanbase. It was almost inevitable, as Eli shared plenty of similarities with Craig Manning, the previous dark and mysterious boy of Degrassi and who was also one of the most popular characters ever. For me personally, Eli is the reason I have developed a love for male characters who are dynamic, troubled, dark, and who have progressive character development.
10. Eclare- I have shipped so many couples across multiple genres. My Marvel OTP is Wolverine/Storm from X-Men. My DC OTP is BatCat from the Batman comics. My anime OTP is Usagi/Mamoru from Sailor Moon. My Literary OTP is Éowyn/Faramir from Lord of The Rings. I think my ultimate television OTP of all time is Eli and Clare from Degrassi. There’s so much I can say as to how and why I love them so much ten years later but for now I can only talk about them in season ten.
I was interested in Eclare from the moment Eli told Clare she had pretty eyes in a commercial. Beforehand, I was rooting for KC and Clare to get back together after their messy breakup in S9. They were my first Degrassi ship and I found them cute. However my affection for Klare was immediately erased upon watching Eli and Clare fall in love with each other as they proved to be more interesting from jump. Even in the small scene they shared together in the Shark In Water promo, where Clare is revealing tarot cards to Eli, had more chemistry than any Klare scenes.
Even though they were seemingly complete opposites, with Clare being an innocent Christian girl and Eli being an edgy atheist, they shared a common love for the art of writing and they bonded over quickly over that. They were both passionate people who had their futures planned out, and they were both social outcasts along with Adam. Even when they were just friends, there was a deep bond between them that showed that they were destined to be in each other’s lives. They had a gradual friends to lovers relationships and it was beautiful to watch.
In S10, they tried very hard to support each other’s issues. Eli tried to support Clare when her parents’ marriage fell apart and Clare tried to support Eli with his mental health issues and his conflict with Fitz. With these, Eclare showed that they genuinely cared about each other beyond a silly high school attraction.
While their issues in this season would ultimately rip them apart for a period of time, they came back to each other in later seasons and proved that the love they had withstand anything because they were willing to fight to be together.
And THERE you have it. Ten reasons why season ten of Degrassi is one of my favorite seasons. ❤️
