Degrassi: Dirt Off Your Shoulder (Part 1)

"That girl is psycho"

Another two part episode began tonight, titled after a Jay-Z song. It brought the anticipated return of Ziley and premiere of Imogen!

Clare is covering the school play for Degrassi Daily, and ex boyfriend Eli is the writer. Eli is noticeably more calm now that he has his anxiety medication. Fiona is pushing Eli to write something deep for her to direct, but Ms. Dawes is not crazy about his ideas, she feels they are lacking compared to his previous work and maybe he should find a new writing partner after Clare. Eli continues to postpone his interview with Clare as he pops more pills and deals with his writer's block. His father Bullfrog tries to get him to lighten his load of work, but Fiona later talks him out of doing so. Later in the media lab, Eli sees Clare with Jake in the hall. Out of frustration Eli smashes a computer to the ground. A girl quickly rushes over and warns him that Ms. Oh is coming. In a matter of seconds she leaps and slams her face into the ground. She makes it look like she tripped and knocked the computer down on accident. Eli later approaches the mystery girl who is nursing her now bleeding nose, and introduces herself, Imogen Mareno. Imogen knows a lot about Eli and his past with Clare. She also informs him that his meds maybe be what is causing his writer's block, they are dulling him. Adam is weirded out by her, but Eli seems intrigued.

Riley's Mom has hardly talked to him since he tried to come out to her. His birthday is approaching as well as his graduation and journey to University. She sets up a meet between him and a family friend named Athena. Riley cancels plans with Zane in order to do this for his mother. Zane and Riley are also in charge of Principal Simpson's healthy initiative to increase exercise at Degrassi. Later with Athena, Riley realizes they were set up on a date. Riley tells Athena that he is gay, and she suggest that he let his parents believe he is one person, and still be himself. Riley's mother is thrilled that he hit it off with Athena and is much warmer towards him now, Riley has a lot to be happy about. But when he leaves his phone lying around, Zane sees a text message from Athena telling him she enjoyed the date. Zane confronts Riley and accuses him of cheating.

Jenna wants to have more time with KC. But KC is taking on more shifts at Little Miss Steaks, leaving Jenna alone even more and causing more tension in their relationship. At work, KC confides his problems in Marisol who tries to entertain him to keep his mind off things. Later Marisol gets him to hang around after work and have fun with their fellow employees. The next date Jenna berates him for choosing work over spending time with his family. At lunch that day, Dave can see clearly that there is flirtation between KC and Marisol.

So far this seems like a decent start up episode. But the true test will come in part two which airs tomorrow. We will post our grade for the full episode tomorrow night along with part two's review.

Tomorrow: Dirt Off Your Shoulder (Part 2)