My issues with the season premiere of Degrassi

Almost three weeks ago, the new season of Degrassi: The Next Generation premiered on Teen Nick [formerly the N]. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I have a ridiculous addiction to this show; I watch it all the time and I have 22 episodes of it recorded on my DVR. In case anyone is unfamiliar with the show, it's about a group of Canadian teenagers in high school or college that come face to face with a lot of issues that many teens face. Not all teens face all the stuff they do...but the show tries to address every possible issue; drugs, rape, sex, sexuality, self mutilation, gangs, violence, shootings...you get the picture. Most of the time it tries too hard and ends up being sort of cheesy but I still love it.

The first episode was about one of the main characters now, Peter, getting addicted to crystal meth. Okay, let me just say that on Degrassi, the characters have a tendency to have something happen to them, and then by the end of the episode, or episodes if it's a two parter, they're over it. Example: a few seasons ago, one character named Darcy got date raped at a party. It was a two part episode, where she freaked out about being raped as one generally would, and then after the episode was over, it was over. I think they may have mentioned it one more time in another episode, about her therapy and how she was still upset about being raped and hadn't told anyone yet, but that was it. That's my biggest complaint about the show, nothing ever gets played out. It just happens in hyper speed, and then it's over.

Anyways, so Peter goes to this swanky dinner party with Mia, his girlfriend, and he's bored and feeling very awkward because he embarrassed himself in front of all these rich, important people, and a girl gives him something to snort. Okay, issue number one: I get that the show is trying to demonstrate that drug addiction starts innocently like that, but come on. It was the first time he'd met this girl who gave it to him, and he just goes into the bathroom and snorts something she gave him? That is, I hope, totally unrealistic. If I just met someone and they were like, ooh, here you go, this'll make you feel better, you know what to do with it...then I'd be like uhhh wtf.

So, he snorts what he thinks is coke and starts acting like an even bigger freak at this party than he was before. Declan tells a bewildered Mia that his cousin/friend/whoever was handing out crystal meth and that's what's up with Peter. So she takes him home. Scene cuts to him all strung out in the morning and Mia telling him that if he wants to move to Paris with her, then he has to be good and act mature, and he promises he won't do meth every again. Blah blah blah, him all sick and strung out at school and being angry and snapping at all of his friends about how he's moving to Paris with Mia. Declan corners Peter in the computer lab where he's talking to Riley about how sick he feels and Declan tells Peter that meth's gonna destroy him if he keeps doing it and Riley is all WHUT YOU DID METH? Issue number two. You do not casually discuss your friend's meth usage in the computer lab at school. Meth is not something to be played around with; it's not pot. Pot's stupid, but Meth is on an entirely different PLANET of stupid. So, directors of Degrassi, if you want to portray how serious an addiction to meth is, please don't have your characters idly chit chatting about it. Thank you.

Later on Peter goes to visit Mia at her photo shoot where he acts like a douche and knocks stuff over and embarrasses her. Cut to Mia coming to see him later where he's headbanging in his apartment, clearly on something, and they get in a huge argument about how he promised her THAT MORNING that he wouldn't do meth every again and here he is at night doing it again. He yells at her and says he doesn't want to move to Paris and why does she get to decide? And they break up. He's still tweaking the next morning...and then into the afternoon...and the evening. He's basically running around screaming and hitting people and being weird. Issue number three. Meth is expensive, I'm assuming, so where did Peter, a high school student with no job, get the money for enough meth to keep him high for 24 hours? Ridiculous.

So it's like 10 at night and his friends know by now about the meth and he calls them screaming about how he's at an intersection somewhere freaking out and they come get him and stay with him. He then calls his mom to come back home from wherever she was to live with him again, and the episode ends with him admitting to Mia on webcam that he has a drug problem and Peter's mom telling him that one relapse and she's packing him off to rehab. Issue 5: you do not, under any circumstances, allow your son who's been abusing massive amounts of crystal meth to not go to rehab. I mean, meth screws your brain up. Are you really going to take the chance of him not doing it again and trusting the drug user's statement that he swears he'll never do it again? I mean what the heck. At least enroll him in an outpatient program or something. Something that'll keep him straight...

So yeah. This was longer than expected but basically it pisses me off that nothing can ever be played out and sometimes stupid decisions are made. Lol.

By the way. The title of this post is a link to the first part of the season premiere. Search Hulu for the second part. :]