#Rick Murray

[mersu-chan]

Rick is kinda like Carrie but if Carrie were a boy and instead of telekinetic powers, she had anger issues and a gun

[spinelli-gemelli]

A Degrassi Essay About Rick Murray

(Part 4)

We've covered a lot of ground so far: Rick's motives for returning, what the principal could or couldn't have done, and students' reactions to his return. Specifically we examined Emma's initial interactions with Rick as he made his reappearance in "Mercy Street". We will now take a closer look at other characters and their motivations for their behavior towards Rick.

Spinner

Spinner has an obvious personal motivation to antagonize Rick, but he goes through a remarkable character arc. Spinner was the one, along with Paige, to find Terri lying on the ground unconscious. I can only imagine what thoughts must have flashed through their minds; their own versions of how Rick landed Terri in the coma. That's something that will stay with them for the rest of their lives, though this event might be overshadowed with what's to come in season four, dare I say. In "Don't Dream It's Over", Spinner sees Rick sitting in his mom's car and confronts him, and he rears up to punch him, but Paige intervenes, quickly followed by Rick's mother, who pulls Spinner away from her son. A moment later we see him retreat, and Paige pursues him. In this moment he's sobbing, saying he's "just like [Rick]", but Paige insists that he's different. It's one of the first times we see a vulnerable side to Spinner, who's either been portrayed as a dense bully or Paige's loyal boyfriend wrapped around his girlfriend's finger. Anyone who is able to extract such a tender moment from Spinner is bound to end up being resented by him, which I believe the seeds for Rick had been planted as early as the end of season three. When Paige and Spinner's relationship takes a hit in season four, with the drama of the Dean trial and Paige crashing Spinner's car into her rapist's car, the previously softened, dull Spinner returns to his bullying roots, which is only amplified when Paige splits from Spinner. He soon joins forces with Jason Hogart, embracing full antagonist mode in the plotline against Rick. Originally he takes part in the ribbon campaign as a way to avenge Terri's injustice, but soon it just becomes a favorite past time of his, along with Jay, to torment Rick. It's not like anyone would come to his defense, at least anyone who could fight him off. He gets a rude awakening when he realizes in season four that his actions have consequences, not only for himself, but for those he cares about. Gavin Mason hits the ground hard this season, and it will take more than just apologies to bounce back from this.

Paige

Paige, like Spinner, found Terri lying on the ground out at the park with Rick hovering over her unconscious body. As Spinner runs to grab his phone for emergency services, it's Paige that reaches down to touch the back of her friend's head, only to get a handful of blood. That's something that stays with you for life: the stuff of recurring nightmares. Her motivation, like Spinner's, is personal. She collaborates with Emma to bring justice to her friend, but, unlike Spinner, she doesn't go as far as bullying Rick, but she fully believes in the power of social ostracization. This is different from her usual mean girl vibe: this is justified in her mind. Rick needs to be punished for what he did, and no one seems to be doing anything about it, so why not take matters into her own hands? We see her tease Rick right before he goes on stage for the Whack-Your-Brain finals (4x07), but the matter in which Rick replied to her taunting (quick and witty) lets the viewers know this isn't the first time she had given him a hard time, though her meddling of Rick never becomes physical. Paige is a dynamic character, and we see that, when Rick is publically humiliated in front of the entire school, she has a conscious and expresses her empathy for Rick when she encounters him in the cafeteria after it happened. She even goes as far to acknowledge that they aren't on the greatest terms, yet she didn't let that stop her from reaching out to Rick. It's in this instance that we are reminded of the power of words. Just by expressing her sorrow, Rick felt seen and heard, and he almost went back on his plan to seek revenge for his mortification. This is what I like about Paige's character, which makes her fun to watch in scenarios like these. She knows when it's time to make jokes and when it's time to be serious. She's emotionally intelligent. We see similar interactions in earlier seasons, where she tries to relate to Ashley about having a gay family member, when she consoles Emma who gets her period in class, or the time when she reminds Manny to ask the right questions before engaging in intercourse.

Alex

Alex Nunez has been a background character all of season three, only playing the role of Jay's girlfriend, but in season four, she's given some dimensions. Initially she appears to be joining the bandwagon of antagonizing Rick (episode 4x04), but then we get a glimpse of her true motivations during her conversation with Emma. In this scene, Rick walks up to Emma and wants to donate a check of over five hundred dollars to her fundraiser. For a fleeting moment, Emma considers it, but Alex appears on the scene and snatches the check out of Rick’s hands, telling him no one wants his guilt money. Rick tries to reason with her, but Alex shuts down that conversation immediately, causing a discouraged Rick to walk off. Emma asks for the check, but Alex tears it to ribbons. Before Emma can accuse her of not caring about the campaign, Alex insinuates that Emma doesn't know anything about it. "You ever ice your mom's lip? Bandage her up? Lay awake at night listening to her cry?" It's in this chilling scene do we learn that she has experienced domestic abuse first hand through her mother. Punishing Rick is her own way of avenging what her mom's boyfriend(s) did to her. She’s more than just Jay's chick. She is deeply concerned about women’s welfare when it comes to relationship abuse, yet another reason why it was a travesty to have the scene with her and Marco talking to Raditch deleted. Once again, we get to learn more about who Alex really is when she pleads with the principal to reconsider letting Rick back into the school. We start to see that there are layers to this girl.

Spinner's, Paige's, and Alex's motives are relatively straightforward and easy to understand. This next character is harder to peg, even more difficult to understand than Emma's motivations.

Jay

Degrassi's resident "bad boy", Jason Hogart ceases any opportunity to wreak havoc on the lives of any Degrassian. While I'd love to say his motive for coming after Rick was for "kicks and giggles", I would like to play devil's advocate for a bit, especially considering that his own girlfriend has had experience with domestic abuse. Maybe she talked to him about it. Maybe Jay visited Alex's house a number of times and had seen it for himself. Maybe he had to protect Alex from the collateral damage that her mom's boyfriend(s) would inflict. We don't know the dynamics of their relationship this early on in the series, so it is hard to confirm. Either way, Jay shows no mercy for Rick as he is the character that jumps Terri's ex at the Dot, drags him to the back alley, and punches him in the gut. He is also the one that is shown throwing Rick against a locker in episode 4x06 "Islands in the Stream" with ease, which gives the audience the feeling that Jay has done this to Rick many times before.

Unlike, Spinner, Jimmy, Paige, and even Alex, who at some point either experience a change of heart towards Rick, feel bad that he was humiliated on stage, or feel guilty about the school shooting, Jay shows no remorse for what he did as being one of the three accomplices in setting up the paint and feathers alongside Spinner and Alex. In episode 5x10, "Redemption Song", a year after the shooting had taken place, Jay says that they "did the world a favor" to Spinner after the latter asks the former if he ever thought about what happened with Rick. It's his reaction to the tragedy that forces me to believe that he didn't really care about getting justice for Terri or the fact that anyone else got hurt. He never goes into an explanation about what he means, either. They "did the world a favor" by humiliating Rick on stage? Lying to him later about Jimmy being the culprit? Indirectly getting Jimmy shot? Perhaps Jay means that they aided in unmasking Rick's true nature of violence, and to half of the Degrassi fans, Rick never truly changed, so to them this is true, though I doubt anyone agrees that this was done in favor of anyone. In the wake of tragedy, everyone loses.

Even in the beginning when everyone was united in the campaign against Rick, Jay was the only one to make a mockery out of the situation. Even as the others detested Rick, no one was seen outright making fun of him (except maybe Spinner). To everyone else, this was serious business. He even got himself expelled from school, and by the looks of things, he never cared or tried to return. If you also take into consideration all of the other characters he would persuade into doing things, they almost always end up worse off than before. We see this with Sean, who would go on to steal Snake's laptop; J.T., who decides to steal drugs from the pharmacy at which he's employed and sell them to dealers on the street; Spinner, who lies to Rick about Jimmy being responsible for the paint and feathers prank and winds up indirectly responsible for Jimmy's fate; and Emma, who Jay preyed upon while she was in a state of shock after the tragedy in order to get her to perform oral sex on him. Hell, the first time we're introduced to Jay is in season three when he calls Paige's brother Dylan "Homo-chuk" (episode 3x04), a reference to him being gay. Given his resume of ruining characters' lives (although only two of these instances occurred before the Rick conflict), it's hard for me to believe that he cared about any justice being served. All of the evidence points to the contrary. Rick was just the perfect outlet for his bullying urge since no one would rush to the kid's aid after what he did to Terri. Jay was just doing what Jay does best: stirring up trouble. In this way, he's similar to an arsonist: he sets the fires and watches them burn.

[zayadriancas]

Time Stands Still Part 1

“You think they wanna know who I am? They wanna torture me.”

[degrassi-fandom-confessions]

I was so annoyed when everyone started befriending Rick and saying “Oh he’s not that bad” like did we forget what he did to Terri or?? I’m sorry but I feel like the writers were trying to paint him as victim towards the end of the storyline and that didn’t sit right with me.

[degrassi-ship-war]

when i suggested i might do this on my main blog some of you expressed mild interest, so i've decided to give the people what they want and make a degrassi: the next generation character tournament.

i'm keeping this to opening credit tng characters (there will be two characters who aren't in the opening credits but whose presence looms so large that they had to be included anyway) because it was the only way i could make the math work, and also i thought it would be unfair to the degrassi junior high and degrassi high characters to set them against the tng kids. if this gains some traction and people are interested, maybe i'll do separate polls for the ogs and the next class kids (although many of them are featured in the tng polls as well) after we're done with the tng tournament.

i'm going to post the qualifying rounds later today. they'll consist of sixteen groups of five. i made the lists using a randomizer. the least voted character in each round will be disqualified, while the other four will move on to the main tournament. that way i'll narrow 80 main characters down to 64. i'll also be using these qualifiers to help seed the bracket. qualifying polls will be week-long.

this is the most math i've done willingly since high school so i hope you all appreciate the sacrifices i'm making here.

[anangstyblackgirl]

AI Degrassi - Jimmy gets shôt.

[antigrapevinepod]

E106 - How Much Do You Make, Ice Cream Boy? (Terri MacGregor)

The Oracle has spoken, and there's a new episode of the Anti-Grapevine in your future. This episode, Conor and Loren hang with literal sociologist and beloved friend of the pod, Darcy Hauslik to make sense of the story of Degrassi sidekick, Terri MacGregor. We talked for four hours, and we're still not sure what she saw in Spinner Mason. Now streaming, wherever you get your podcasts.

(Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of intimate partner violence, parental death, and fatphobia.)

[dreamgirlnightmare]

He’s such a psycho loser creep 💕

[pepaldi]

Ghostbusters II story board panels.

Gee, wonder which I like the best ..

[brokehorrorfan]

Mondo will releases a Ghostbusters poster by Marie Bergeron tomorrow, October 29, at 1pm ET. The 24x36 screen print is limited to 165 for $80. It's estimated to ship in March.

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[mersu-chan]

i did the thing

[spinelli-gemelli]

A Degrassi Essay Series About Rick Murray

(Part 7)

In the last essay, I mentioned that it was difficult to have an unpopular opinion about the Rick debate. In this essay, I'm closing in on one specific question: how could one feel sorry for Rick, a woman beater? This question still boggles most Degrassi fans today. After all, it's a valid opinion to not feel sorry for the guy. Once you put all of his wrongs in writing, it proves even more difficult to empathize with him. Consider all of the following of which Rick is guilty:

Domestic violence: he attacked his girlfriend three separate times.

Aggravated assault: this resulted in landing Terri in a coma. If she had died, he would have been possibly charged with third degree murder.

Vandalism: he spray painted a giant "X" on Spinner's and Jay's car windows.

Possession of a deadly weapon: He brought a gun to school. This is exacerbated by the fact that Rick is also a sixteen-year-old adolescent/minor.

Attempted murder: he shot Jimmy Brooks in the back. If he had succeeded in killing him, he would have been charged with second degree murder. He later found Emma and aimed the gun at her face. If he hadn't been stopped by Sean, he would have killed her instantly.

It goes without saying: on paper, Rick is a classic, S-tier douchebag. Heck, one could probably expand on this list. And yet...some people feel for him? Why is that? Obviously there is contextual information missing from the list that would explain why Rick was driven to make many of the decisions he did. It's not like he woke up one day and decided that he wanted to kill everyone at Degrassi. In Rick's mind, he had tried everything: he tried to make amends with Terri's friends; when that didn't work, he tried to mind his own business; when that didn't work, he began to retaliate. When he finally got the chance to show the school how valuable he was, he was pranked on camera, and everyone that previously cheered him on began to laugh at him. In Rick's mind, the school betrayed him. Nothing else he did was going to work. The only way Rick was going to right the wrongs done to him, the only way he was going to earn respect, the only way he was going to fend off his bullies--in his mind--was if he used violence. Rick bringing a gun to school wasn't premeditated: it was his last resort. You see after his interaction with Paige that he goes from intending to shoot her to immediately concealing his weapon after he realizes that Paige wasn't there to give him a hard time. He reconsidered his choice after that single conversation. He put his backpack in his locker afterwards, a clear indicator that Rick didn't want to harm anyone if it wasn't necessary. Of course, after "overhearing" Spinner and Jay, he receded back into his violent ways for good. In the beginning, Rick was looking for a second chance. In the end, he wanted to avenge his suffering. Ephraim Ellis, the actor who played Rick, talks about the psychological whiplash that Rick undergoes in the span of a second: after he is doused in paint and feathers, Rick goes from the best day of his life to the worst instantaneously. After all of the hell he had been through, that was just a devastating blow for him.

Degrassi fans aren't shallow: crimes 3, 4, and 5 would be better understood if Rick also wasn't responsible for committing crimes 1 and 2. Rick's abusive past, and a recent past at that, is the point of contempt with some Degrassi fans when it comes to exploring the school shooting plot line. For one thing, high school shooters in real life typically didn't have records of domestic violence against women, though some definitely had some misogynistic overtones. For another, it makes it difficult to sympathize with the bullied victim when the victim himself has been cruel to his own girlfriend. Why couldn't the writers have chosen another character, one who was innocent beforehand, to explore the school shooting story line with? If Rick was innocent of any crimes before the extreme bullying, there would have been a chance to make him relatable to the audience and for more people to garner sympathy for him. This is the perspective that these fans are coming from, and I can understand and appreciate their reasoning.

I can also see why the producers decided to go with Rick's character, this former abuser, to tackle the gun violence topic. From a casting perspective, the Degrassi crew saw the actor playing Rick, Ephraim, as a talented young man, so they knew after his performance in season 3 that they wanted him to be back for Rick's tragic end in season 4, which is half of the reason why Terri's abusive boyfriend and the bullied school shooter are the same person. The writers have been wanting to do a school shooting episode since season 1, but they knew that they needed to "earn" that experience before they did so; they had to wait until the actors, who were all very young in season one, were old enough and experienced enough to pull off such a heavy and demanding role. Ephraim, playing a recurring guest role, exceeded the creators' expectations, so they decided to give him the most difficult part: he had to play the school shooter. Considering that fans still are appalled by Rick's character today, I'd say that Ellis successfully played the role.

I also understand this decision from a moral standpoint. I mentioned this in part 6 of this essay series: the writers were wanting to demonstrate the vicious cycle of violence and the ripple effect it can leave on a community for years after the fact. They wanted to show teens that solving violence with violence only creates more violence in the end. We see this when Rick almost kills Terri; when the students bully Rick relentlessly; and lastly when Rick brings a gun to school and essentially gets himself killed because of it. Nothing was solved in the end. Only pain, guilt, trauma, and devastation remained. The creators were implying a lesson to their teen audience: don't bully, even if the bullied deserves it. I think this is more powerful to teach kids than if the school shooter was just a cut-and-dry, loner nerd. I also think it was a more realistic way to introduce Rick's bullying problem, which was initiated by characters we care about who traditionally aren't bullies save for Spinner and Jay. You can understand why they did it. If the victim was innocent, it would be harder to understand the motivations of the bullies, and the story would be very black-and-white obvious. As I mentioned before, a lot of the main cast aren't written as bullies, so it would be strange to see these mostly good kids decide to torture one kid for no real reason. In this case, the kids had a legitimate reason to hate Rick, so the writers used that conflict to explore school shootings. Degrassi is about the nuance, and boy did Rick's arc have a bunch of that. You may not have liked him, and it's okay if you didn't sympathize with him; he wasn't designed for you to feel sorry for him. However: right is still right, and wrong is still wrong. It doesn't matter if Rick wronged Terri in the beginning, that he wasn't the "perfect" victim. He was still wronged by the school and his parents afterwards, and in the end, Rick committed the ultimate wrong. This whole tragedy is summed up in one sentence by Snake at the end of episode 4x08: "None of us took Rick's bullying seriously enough."

That still doesn't answer the main question. Sure the majority of fans have no empathy for Rick, but there are still a few who do. Why is that? How can that be possible? Considering that there is not much in the show's writing to suggest that Rick should be pitied, except when he was humiliated on stage, all of the credit goes to his actor, Ephraim Ellis. In order to make a character believable, whether they are playing a good or bad person, the actor himself has to find a way to relate to the character he is playing. Ephraim put in the hard work and had to internalize Rick's inner world so he could deliver an amazing performance. That is very difficult to do, especially when Rick becomes violent and sinister in the end. There is an interview Ellis did for Popgurls magazine twenty years ago that I recommend you take a look at. It may seem bizarre to reference such an out of date interview, but that era of Ephraim Ellis has fresh memories of playing Rick as he shot the episodes for Degrassi just months prior. You will get a better idea of what was going through his mind as he played Rick during the date of the publication, which was December 5th, 2004. In this interview, he discusses finding common ground between himself and Rick in order to connect to the character, and he says that they were both theater nerds and hopeless romantics, which is how I think Ellis was able to make Rick believable. He bridged the gap between his conscience and Rick's with what they shared, and then went from there. Consider the following which was said by Ellis:

"...when the character grew more in Season Four, when [the audience] learned there was a lot more to him than just this evil abusive person and that underneath he was just a kid with a problem who sincerely wanted to change – that’s when things got a lot more interesting for me as an actor. I had my run-ins with bullying throughout middle school and such, but it’s unthinkable what Rick had to go through, despite his past."

This was how the actor saw the character he was playing: "just a kid with a problem who sincerely wanted to change". This puts things into perspective. I get that this was in 2004, and Ellis is now twenty years older, but, as mentioned before, this is him talking just after he finished playing Rick. I remember reading this interview when I was younger and being impressed by how Ellis was able to sympathize with a villainous character, but then I reminded myself that he's an actor. It's his job to connect to the character he's playing; that's how you sell the part. That is what every actor is required to do: they have to make you believe that their character is real, and in order to do that, they have to be able to connect to certain parts of the role. Obviously he doesn't have to relate to everything that the character stands for, especially in Rick's case, but imagine if Ephraim looked down on his character and didn't take his psychosis seriously. It would show in his acting or lack thereof. Yet Ellis encapsulated the role of Rick. He was a natural at the part.

It makes sense from an acting standpoint to connect with Rick, but what about the average viewer? It is never confirmed in the show that Rick was "sincerely trying to change" apart from Rick's declaration. Did the viewers believe him? Is that why they were more apt to feel sorry for him when bullying didn't let up? That appears to be the correlation.

Since the first essay I published about Rick Murray, I have been using hashtags that I deem relevant to the series. One of them is #Degrassi confessions. In case you were wondering what that meant, here is my confession: I can't get through "Time Stands Still" part 2 because my head canon can't help but believe that Rick never fired his gun. Up until the moment he decided to shoot Jimmy, I was a believer in Rick's repentance. I didn't want my bias to shroud the integrity of this essay series because I wanted to give validation to all sides of the debate, but there was something about the way Ephraim played his character in season four, with a complete change in his demeanor, that I couldn't help but root for. There's something to be said about him not hitting any of his classmates back in "Mercy Street" (4x04) even though many of them had no problems with pushing, shoving, or punching him. Some argue that it was because he was more intimidated by guys than he was girls, but girls were also hitting him, yet he turned the other cheek constantly. If this kid has anger issues, poking the bear would bring them out, but Rick kept his head down and didn't retaliate during the ribbon campaign, keeping his temper in check. No, I don't think he is blameless: I've laid out my case in all of the preceding essays. Everyone is to blame for participating in the cycle of violence, including and especially Rick Murray. Yes, he was deeply flawed. He was terrible at reading the room; he underestimated the difficulty it would take to earn forgiveness; he couldn't take a hint that Emma wasn't into him; and he was wrong in assuming that it was okay to force a kiss on her. It also goes without saying that it was disturbing for Rick to decide that Emma was worth killing because she didn't reciprocate his feelings for her (though I've made the argument before that at this point in his arc, no one feels bad for Rick). Still, before the shooting, I genuinely believed that Rick was making an effort to be better, however poorly he went about demonstrating this. He still had a lot to learn, but he never once, since returning to Degrassi, said or believed that the students were overreacting to what he did to Terri last year. He never denied what he did. He knew he was in the wrong, which was why he was putting in the work to be right. Maybe a different school or juvenile hall would have been a better fit for this transformation, but I do believe that Rick was trying to be better. The fandom's perception of Rick's intentions has shifted throughout the years, but even so, I still find myself wishing that things turned out better for him. The whole story is just tragic all around because, despite what happened, there were many opportunities for this to have gone the other way. As I said before, this was the story the writers wanted to tell the audience. Rick wasn't meant to have a happy ending, but there were plenty of chances for him to get one. He sealed his fate the moment he thought it was justified to shoot his classmates. It's a tragedy that Rick had to lose his life, but he was a threat, and he needed to be stopped by any means necessary.

[zayadriancas]

Islands In The Stream

“If you let him treat you like garbage he’ll keep doing it.”

[degrassi-fandom-confessions]

rick looked like the princess diaries girl

[degrassi-ship-war]

Qualifying Round (Group 5):

The character with the least votes will be eliminated. The other four will move on to the main tournament!