Remember what I said last time about only catching a couple of episodes of the last Degrassi High season because they had been carted off to Sundays on channel 13? This was the last episode I would ever see, and therefore is my last episode recap*. It’s also one of the heavier episodes because this is the one where Claude (pronounced Clow-de) kills himself.

The last of the Degrassi two-parters, “Showtime!” centers around the high school’s talent show. At the auditions, Claude runs into Caitlin and tries once again to get back together with her and once again, she rejects him. She then tells Maya that she wishes he would just leave her alone and go away. When Claude auditions for the show, it is an overwrought dramatic monologue of a poem about how awful life is, how dark everything is, how life is pain, and he just wants to die. He never actually gets to finish the poem, though, because he’s told it’s too serious for what is supposed to be a light-hearted talent show. He then calls everyone sheep and storms out, saying nobody cares about him and they’ll see. OH, THEY’LL SEE.

His friend Joanne tries to comfort him saying that hs knows that he’s going through a lot because his parents are divorcing, but she can’t get through to him. Besides, even though Joanne doesn’t know it, Claude has already made the decision to kill himself. HE does so in the boys’ bathroom, but not before he tries to give Caitlin a flower and tells her goodbye and that he won’t be bothering her anymore. Later, after the tardy bell rings, Claude opens his backpack to reveal a gun.

Now, I’m going to pause here to say that this first aired in 1991** and that makes a huge difference in where the plot of the episode could go. Had it been produced now, the handgun at school could certainly have led to suicide–Claude was one for heightened drama, so his killing himself at the school is in character, in a sense–but watching this now, I have to think about how this could lead him to shooting Caitlin or as many people as possible.*** The remainder of the episode would still be about recovery and dealing with trauma, but in a while other context. I think that since suicide was a big issue of the day, the writers weren’t thinking along these terms and were probably also being sensitive to those affected by the Ecole Polytechnique massacre a little over a year earlier. ****

I honestly don’t want to extrapolate further than that because thinking about how many school shootings we’ve had since the late 1990s makes me uncomfortable, and I certainly don’t like to speculate on how school shootings would have been portrayed on television. But much like the video for Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”, it bears mentioning how things may have changed between 1991 and 1999.

Back to the episode. So, from here on out, the show becomes about both the immediate reaction to Claude’s suicide and the trauma felt afterward. Caitlin and Snake get the heavy focus because Caitlin was Claude’s ex-girlfriend and Snake found his body in the bathroom. The Caitlin storyline merges with a Joey subplot and he helps her get through her grief and guilt, as she believes she is responsible for Claude’s death. Snake, on the other hand, has problems dealing with seeing the dead body. And there is also the issue of the talent show, which goes on as a benefit in his name after Joanne lashes out at the student council during the meeting.

That’s a pretty bare bones description of the plot of the episode after the suicide, not because it’s not good–in fact, it is an excellent look at how a group and a community tries to get back to normal after a tragedy. It also comes down to a collection of moments. Some are dramatic, like Joanne yelling at everyone that they are all selfish and couldn’t have cared less about Claude prior to this. Others are quieter or more intimate. Claude’s death is handled quickly and as quietly as possible by the school until it is announced, which in my experience is pretty much how these things tend to go. Plus, while not the main focus of the episode, there is some, “Well, what does this have to do with me” and “I’m going to make this about me” from various characters. That happens when tragedy strikes a community in this way, especially a community of teenagers.

The cast has a tough job int he second two-thirds of this story. Stacie Mistysyn has to portray Caitlin as showing that she still has it together while blaming herself for his death. Stefan Brogan as Snake not only has to convey shock when he finds the body but a certain numbness afterward. And Pat Mastroianni, has to show the range of being able to go from smartass to caring and supportive in a way that is not maudlin. While I do not know if a teenage audience of today would consider “Showtime!” (or any episode of Degrassi) realistic, I consider it a strong episode of a strong show.

It would be a few years before I would encounter Degrassi again, and you’ll hear about that in episode 107 of the podcast.

* It also means out on the entire “Dwayne has AIDS” storyline, which began at the beginning of this season, was resolved in the finale, and even got an update in the premiere episode of TNG. It’s extremely well done for the time, as he’s an AIDS character who does not die.

** I’m going on memory for this, but I’m pretty sure that PBS ran the show about six months to a year after they premiered on CBC, so it’s possible this I caught this in either late 1991 or early 1992.

*** In case you were wondering, this is how Drake wound up on a wheelchair on TNG.

**** This is conjecture on my part. I just happened to notice that it aired one year and one month after the massacre.