Top 20 Most Dramatic Degrassi Moments

All incarnations of this show make it a point to tell the stories of different marginalized people, and they often use timely issues to do so. This particular storyline revolves around Goldi, a Muslim student who wears a hijab. She is constantly dealing with her classmates either mistreating her over it, or trying to convince her it is a repressive part of her culture. Either way, people seem to always be telling her to take off her hijab, and it isn’t long until someone takes it upon themselves to do just that. This scene is so brutal and so close to the reality so many face, that the impact is felt tenfold.

Characters who are transgender are so rarely featured in major tv shows or movies, even today. That’s why “Degrassi’s” Adam Torres is so important. His story resembles that of so many other transgender or gender fluid people. When Adam has a crush on Bianca, she doesn’t just reject him–she threatens violence. Even Dave has a hard time accepting his gender identity at one point. Things get so bad, Adam even attempts to return to his former identity. And you can see how miserable he is every single second. It’s heartbreaking to say the least, and the only comfort we get is knowing that Adam eventually manages to surround himself with good, loyal people.

What should have been the best summer of Clare’s life was fraught with illness and uncertainty. It seemed to come completely out of nowhere, but that’s how things work in real life. There’s no big dramatic build up, these kinds of things just happen to undeserving people. In fact, the lack of dramatic anticipation is, counterintuitively, exactly what makes this moment so dramatic. More often than not, on “Degrassi,” things seem to work out for the best, but we all got hit with that gut punch when Clare got her diagnosis.

Here’s a development that hits you like a freight train. While at a party, Darcy leaves her drink unattended. She believes the night ended with her boyfriend, until she’s made aware that someone was going around spiking drinks. We see the heavy toll this takes on Darcy in all its horrible graphicness. Her trauma takes her on a horrific downward spiral and, eventually, she tries to hurt herself. Seeing her so dejected, sitting in the bottom of the school gym shower was completely devastating. We needed a breather after that one.

On the surface, Craig might seem like a carefree guy at school with his friends, but just underneath, he is hiding a dark secret. From the second Craig is introduced as a character, his complicated relationship with his father is put on full display. Just the mention of him seems to make Craig flinch. And we quickly find out why. Even before it is revealed just how bad things really are, Craig’s father is so intense with him, we understand exactly why he’s terrified. Even though things take a turn for the better when Craig moves in with Joey, we can deeply sympathize when he develops some substance abuse issues later on in life.

Wheels really gets a hard shake growing up. First, his biological parents give him up. And then his adoptive parents get taken away from him when he’s a teenager. They are hit by a drunk driver and killed. As one would expect, this causes some serious trauma for Wheels. In fact, his life completely spirals out of control in the following years, well into high school. He unfortunately isolates the friends who have tried to be there for him until he successfully pushes them away. But, the most inexcusable thing he does is fulfill some sort of horrific karmic cycle. In a cruel twist of dramatic irony, Wheels gets behind the wheel of a car while drunk and ends up committing manslaughter and injuring a friend.

While most consider the show’s portrayal of bipolar disorder to be relatively accurate, as with most things, it’s up for debate. Still, it is one of “Degrassi’s” longest running narratives for a character. Just as much as this show is known for “going there” it is also kind of infamous for introducing character beats that don’t go anywhere. This was not the case here. Craig shows signs of mental health issues very early on that continue through to discovering his diagnosis and beyond. He has flashes of rage, manic happiness, and overall intense mood swings. Craig even unfortunately ends up hospitalized at one point.

This is still one of the show’s most remembered arcs. While Manny’s decision to end her pregnancy might be dramatic enough, this storyline is about much more. It’s also about sex education and knowledge, responsibility, body autonomy, the pro-life and pro-choice debate, and gender stereotypes. There’s a lot to unpack here. Firstly, Manny is put in a position where she feels like she has to sleep with Craig. Secondly, the two do so without asking about protection. Thirdly, as is so common in these situations, everyone judges Manny but Craig mostly gets a pass. Lastly, this moment is a test of Emma and Manny’s friendship. Even though Emma disagrees with Manny’s decision, she has her back.

Those of us who grew up watching “The Next Generation” may have thought that Manny’s story was the first of several teenage pregnancies throughout the franchise. But we were wrong. The OG teenage pregnancy storyline goes to Spike Nelson from the original show, “Degrassi Junior High.” Similar to Manny, she struggled with the decision of whether or not to go through with the pregnancy. Dissimilar to Manny, though, Spike’s decision resulted in her daughter. It’s a beautiful message that seems to say: what’s right for one person might not be for another, and vice versa.

Jane is hands-down one of the most badass students to ever walk the halls of Degrassi. She’s always so confident and sure of herself, even when things seem to be out of control. While we’ve seen these storylines in the franchise before, we hadn’t seen them quite at this magnitude before, and involving a parent no less. Part of what makes this so dramatic is the fact that Jane’s own mind plays tricks on her after all the lies she was fed. Watching her struggle with putting all the pieces together is so difficult. But, it is equally empowering when she is finally able to find the right words, and her brother has her back.

This arc is neither the first or last of its kind spanning the “Degrassi” universe, but it might just be the most powerful of them all. The impact not only transcends the decades, but also the different friend groups. What happened to Cam affected so many people in one way or another. Imagine being Eli, finding Cam in the greenhouse. They were never particularly close friends, but how do you ever fully recover from something like that? And then there’s Maya. It’s so much for a fourteen-year-old to endure and the aftermath of the tragedy is incredibly emotional.

Paige has always been the carefree queen bee who needed to have everything her way. So, after she was taken advantage of at a party, her friends initially saw Paige’s foul mood as just business as usual. This was the show’s first attempt at this kind of storyline and, in our opinion, they handled it rather responsibly. After finding out the truth, Paige’s friends stood at her side, helped her get counseling, and even helped with personal catharsis. Paige herself, when reliving the experience in court, had great bravery and eloquence even with so many cards stacked against her. Her testimony was an inspiring thing to witness.

Wow. This one is still hard to wrap our heads around. Adam was a majorly popular character whose story was both moving and timely. This made his death not just a tragedy but also a widely debated topic of discussion among fans. It’s just so sensless and it lead many to wonder why he was killed off in the first place. Okay, they were trying to send a message about texting while driving – we can get behind that. But we can also think of about a thousand different ways it could have been executed. Still, this was a death that hit immensely hard for everyone, especially fans.

Similar to Craig’s story, Esme shows signs of some sort of mental illness from very early on. She exhibits rage, has mood swings, and seems generally controlling to all of her friends. Deep down, however, she is seriously struggling. Looking back, the moments when Esme clearly needed help seem so apparent, but this one is arguably the most notable. On graduation day, she is no longer able to hold herself together and her friends finally, and we do mean finally, start to understand her. In any case, it’s difficult to watch Esme go through it all mostly alone.

This moment and its aftermath are probably the most talked about storylines in “The Next Generation’s” history. Terri’s friends weren’t sure how to describe it at first, but they got a bit of a weird vibe from Rick from the beginning. But, with her insecurities about her body, Terri was so enamored with the idea of having a boyfriend that she couldn’t see that. She was one of the sweetest, most sincere characters on the show, so it hurt that much more to watch this unfold. Rick hurt Terri so badly that she was put into a coma and effectively written out because of it. The look on Paige and Spinner’s face when they saw her in the hospital is just unforgettable.

With so many different installments of “Degrassi” over the years, this is a franchise that transcends generations. And it can be argued that this moment, more than any other throughout, is emblematic of just that. When Campbell Saunders dies and Eli finds him in the green house, Snake is reminded of a similar story he experienced when he himself was a teenager and tells Eli about the time he found a fellow student, Claude Tanner, after he’d harmed himself. This moment affects Snake to his core and you can still see it in his eyes when he relives it years later.

The aftermath of Rick hurting Terri might just be worse than the initial shock of it all. Rick is taunted so brutally after returning to school, that he takes drastic action into his own hands in the only way he can see how. The episode is so intense it seems to go on forever, and not just because it’s a two-parter. The episode title, “Time Stands Still” is really emblematic of the episode. More than anything else, the most dramatic scene has to be when, thinking that Jimmy has played a ruthless prank on him, Rick shoots Jimmy in the back, paralyzing him. Things are never the same after this moment.

You may have been thinking a moment ago, what could possibly be worse than Jimmy getting shot? Well, nothing rocked the characters and the fans more than this moment. JT was one of the OG characters, a member of the core crew, the quintessential class clown, and beloved among fans. Even more than any other character death, or life changing storyline, this one is absolutely devastating. In a bid of revenge, some students stab JT in the back, literally. Seeing Liberty cry over JT when she found him is unforgettable. But, even then, it’s so unbelievable that you might find yourself thinking somehow, things will turn out okay. They don’t.