Degrassi Recap 1422: The Kids Aren’t Alright Pt. 2

Zig Must Make A Choice

Zig is ready to take on the rival gang head on, but Vince advises him and Tiny to lay low and let things blow over.  However, Zig can’t do that knowing some of the gang members at Degrassi are also threatening Maya, so he confronts one of them.  Zig slams the guy against the lockers until Maya walks up and stops them.  Later, Zig receives a video message from Damon warning him to get out of the gang war by any means necessary.  Zig finally decides to tell the detective the truth about who shot Damon, and when Vince shows up to the musical to support Zig, he’s arrested.

After Zig’s performance he’s confronted at knife point backstage by Tiny, who’s upset that Zig ratted out his brother.  He feels like he has no one left, but Zig tells him they can finally break the cycle and break free of gang life.  With Vince in custody, both Zig and Tiny are living with their social worker Jose while they cooperate with the cops’ investigation.  Zig also visits Damon in the hospital and the two reconcile.

QUICK GRADE: A
QUICK REVIEW: “You always have options,” Maya tells a frustrated Zig.  He’s chosen the dangerous path of confronting those threatening him and his friends, but Zig’s stopped dead in his tracks with that video message from Damon.  Sometimes all it takes is nearly meeting your maker to realize how precious life is.  In Tiny’s case, he seems so used to this level of violence that he’s numb to it.  Zig has been good throughout most of the gang storyline and he did well in the musical, but I surely wasn’t going to complain when Tiny stole the show in this episode.

As he stood there waving the knife at Zig, we see nothing but pain in Tiny’s eyes.  Vince is an awful guy, but he and Tiny were brothers after all.  “Vince was all I had, he took care of me,” Tiny says.  We learn his dad’s in prison and his mom’s a junkie.  And as we saw throughout 14B, regardless of what Vince does and has done in the past, there’s no denying he looked out for Tiny the best way he knew how to.

“No matter how hard I try to get away from this mess it keeps finding me,” Tiny says. We expected Zig to get pulled back into the gang life, but those words are far more powerful coming from Tiny, someone who’s been trapped deeper in that life than Zig could ever be.

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The Show Must Go On

Winston finds himself unable to kiss his new leading lady Zoë because he doesn’t want to kiss anyone except Frankie.  Zoë tells him to talk to her because Frankie’s trust issues stem from watching her mom and dad’s relationship.  Winston calls Frankie and begs for her to rejoin the play, which he wrote for her.

Frankie shows up and the musical goes on as scheduled, the two share their on-stage kiss and they kiss again offstage, signifying Frankie has forgiven Winston.

QUICK GRADE: C-
QUICK REVIEW: The final product of Winston’s musical (what we saw of it) painted a better emotional picture than watching Frankie and Winston get back together.  I love Frankie and can give or take Winston, but Frankston still isn’t a compelling couple one way or the other.  In Part 1, Frankie was looking for reassurance that Winston would never cheat on her again.  Besides a generic apology from Winston in this episode in regards to the many ways he’s disappointed her recently, we’re just left to assume the apology as well as him saying the play won’t be worth it if she’s not a part of it is enough for her to forgive and forget.

I’m slightly disappointed that Frankston was casually resolved amidst the hubbub of the musical, but at the same time the musical was FAR more entertaining to watch.  Tell me again why they refuse to do a full-blown musical episode? I’ll even take a webisode series.

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The End of Becky and Jonah?

Becky confronts Jonah about the stolen money and she’s hurt to learn it was used to pay a drug debt.  Jonah tells her the debt was from a long time ago and he’s not that kind of guy anymore.  Drew sees Becky’s upset, and while he knows it’s because of Jonah he doesn’t tell Becky she should break up with him; Drew tells her he just wants her to be happy.

Becky feels Jonah’s lie is too difficult to overcome, and because she can’t trust anymore she breaks up with him.

QUICK GRADE: B-
QUICK REVIEW: No one in their right mind wants Drecky, but Drew did the right thing in keeping his opinion to himself and just showing support for Becky.  She might night very naive, but Becky has a good heart and a good head on her shoulders.  She’s about to graduate and doesn’t need to spend her time worrying whether or not her boyfriend is in a good place, or if Jonah’s lying to her or falling back into a life of drug use.  With Frankie in The Kids Aren’t Alright we see her unsure if she could ever trust Winston again, but she ultimately chose to.  Becky ended up doing the opposite.

Becky’s been challenged a lot this year, especially when it comes to her values.  She strives to do the right/kind thing, and forgiveness would be something her brain would automatically lean toward in this situation.  But when I think back to her in Watch Out Now saying things always get worse when she does the right thing, I don’t blame her for opting out of this one.

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