Fifteen seasons after airing its first school shooting-themed episode in 2004, "Degrassi" went there again in the show's latest incarnation on Netflix.
(Spoilers for "Degrassi: Next Class" and other shows ahead!)
The new series, "Next Class," revisits the issue of school shootings in its finale "#SorryNotSorry." The episode follows introverted sophomore Hunter Hollingsworth (Spencer MacPherson), who is shunned by his peers after he's exposed as one of the trolls who threatened a fellow student on social media. Unlike the series' first take on on the subject, there's no actual shooting this time around. But the episode serves as a reminder that just like sex, drugs and acne, the threat of gun violence in schools is very much something that teens have to worry about.
"Degrassi" is shot and set in Toronto, but the show's biggest fan base is in the U.S., thanks to its presence on TeenNick. And with every passing year, the production of the show becomes shiner and the new cast members more attractive -- in other words, more Americanized. While the issues Canadian and American teens deal with generally aren't so different, it's important to note that since the series first tackled the issue in 2004, there have been a total of seven school shooting in Canada, versus 163 school shootings in the United States in the past three years alone.
The show's executive producer and writer, Sarah Glinski, told E! News that, in tackling the school shooting storyline again, the writers always knew they didn't want the character to go through with the act this time around.
"We had talked about the finale episode and him bringing a gun to school, I think we always knew that we didn't want him to do it," she said. "We wanted to talk about what people [like Hunter] needed from the people around them, from their friends and family, so they're not alone, that there's an opportunity to talk them back. So that was always the plan."
Even though no shots were fired in the episode, it still should have been shocking to viewers. As Glinski noted, in 2004, a student bringing a gun to school was surprising. In 2014, after the massive increase in school shootings shown in the media, that same storyline isn't.
"Back then, in season four, I don't think anyone would've ever expected Rick to bring a gun to school," Glinski said. "[Now, y]ou can watch kids on Twitter, they're like, 'Oh my goodness, I think Hunter is going to bring a gun to school.'"
While at this point, yet another school shooting episode may seem trite, the data prove it's as relevant as ever.
"Degrassi" isn't the first -- and likely won't be the last -- TV show to depict a school shooting on screen. In fact, the subject has been a surprisingly common theme in some of our favorite TV shows since the mid-'90s. Read on to see which shows tackled the topic successfully and which fell flat.
"My So Called Life" (1994)
"My So Called Life" addressed school shootings in the episode "Guns and Gossip." After a gunshot goes off in school, Brian Krakow (Devon Gummersall) feels pressured to tell someone that Rickie (Wilson Cruz) brought the gun, even though it wasn't true. Rickie did, however, want people to think he brought the gun, thinking it would stop others from bullying him for his sexuality.
Aside from touching on gun violence, the episode brought attention to the potential effects bullying can have on an impressionable teen mind.
But not everyone thought it was successful. Reflecting on the episode in 2014, Gawker's Jacob Clifton said, "Rickie's defense of high school concealed-carry basically comes down to 'the only thing that can stop a bully with a gun is a gay kid with a gun,' which works on a character level but is some