Melanie is one of my favourite
characters on Degrassi. She is innocent and not mean, but honest,
and very sincere. She appears to be alittle like a naive little
child, and a bit of a nerd, and ditz, but she blossoms into this
tall, slim, attractive young woman. At first we see Melanie as a
lanky 12 year old tall, skinny girl with crooked teeth. We see
her in the Great Race, as her swimming ability shows that she
will not let Joey Jeremiah tease her about her blossoming body.
We see how her close friendship with Kathleen grows stronger, and
then deteriorates, because both have gone in different
directions. As well Kathleen becomes even more grouchy because
she is suffering form Anorexia Nervosa. Melanie gets braces in
second year and gets a perm. Her longer hair is much nicer and
some boys, like Snake and Yick seem to take her more seriously.
As in the episode "Dinner and a Show", she is asked out
by both Snake ans Yick. She has liked Snake since "The Great
Race", and she ends up ditching Yick for Snake. She ends up
getting caught, but she continues to try to go out with him. We
see how different both Snake and Melanie are as she seems more
immature than him. In "Twenty Bucks", he tries again to
ask her out, but she does not have the money to go to the
concert. She then "borrows" moeny from her mom's
wallet, and plans to repay her when she babysits for the
Wolofsky's. they cancel on her, and she must confess for stealing
the money. Her relationship with Snake just isn't working out for
her, so their romance plot does not continue into Degrassi High.
After the Degrassi Juniot high fire, we hear nothing of their
relationship.
Throughout Degrassi, Melanie's best friend is Kathleen. They have been through a lot with Kathleen eating disorder, alcoholic mother, Melanie readiing Kathleen's diary, and Melanie telling Maya, Caitlin, and Diana all about her anorexia, and alcoholic mother. They were friends in grade 7, part of grade 8, grade 9, and part of grade 10. They have been through a lot.
She has changed through the years, from a stalky, geeky tall girl, to a mature woman. Melanie, along with her other single friend Diana become interested in Luke and Yick, and so they invite them to a party hoping that they will get to know them more.
Melanie also wants to grow up so she gets influenced by Kathleen at one of her sleepovers to smoke some marijuana. As Kathleen's ex-boyfriend Scott introduced her to pot, she found some in the girls bathroom, and brought it to the sleepover. Melanie got stoned, and told the bunch of girls at the party (Maya, Caitlin, and Diana) that Kathleen's mom is an alcoholic, and that she had anorexia, right in front of Kathleen. Kathleen burst out and sobbed, and she claimed that she never wanted to be friends with her again. Melanie can be a bit stupid and tactless sometimes.