| Alex Nuñez | |
|---|---|
| Degrassi: The Next Generation character | |
| First appearance | Gangsta Gangsta (episode 3.06) |
| Last appearance | Love is a Battlefield (episode 7.03) |
| Portrayed by | Deanna Casaluce |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Alex Lexi Lextasy |
| Occupation | Student |
| Family | Emily Nuñez (mother) Chad (mother's boyfriend) |
Alexandra "Alex" Nuñez is a fictional character on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation. She is portrayed by Deanna Casaluce.
Originally, Alex was the stereotypical 'bad girl' of Degrassi; she was poor, violent, came from an awful home life, and was generally considered to be an outcast. As the series progressed, she gained more depth and lost most of her bad girl persona, even becoming one of the 'popular' students. In season 5, it was revealed that Alex was a lesbian.
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Alex first appeared as Jay Hogart's equally rebellious girlfriend. She was always seen with Jay, and didn't have much development. She became a key character when she began to torment Emma Nelson. The feud quickly resulted in a brutal, hallway brawl when she picked the wrong day to harass Emma. Her hatred for Emma was her first and foremost element.
Alex decides to run against Marco Del Rossi for class president. Her main campaign is that she was a 'freak'. She threatens to reveal Marco's homosexuality to the entire student body during her speech, but Marco says she has a chance to win the election 'for real'. She decides to keep his homosexuality a secret, deciding at the last minute that it would be wrong to use homophobia as a winning tactic. However, Marco wins the election and happily makes Alex his vice-president. This title has her interacting more with Marco and Ellie Nash who quickly become her friends.
When Paige Michalchuk needs a job to pay for the damages to Spinner's car, she decides to work at a movie theater in the mall. When she realizes that Alex is an employee there, she isn't pleased. Alex and Paige have friction at first, but soon grow to respect each other, become friends and then begins a relationship with her. Paige later breaks it off after Alex constantly embarrasses her at her job and a lot of other places as well.
Although she never really met Rick Murray, Alex already hates him because of his violence to Terri McGreggor. She later tells Emma that her mother and herself are abused sometimes by her mother's drunken boyfriends and therefore knows first hand what domestic abuse is like, which explains why she hates him. Later, Alex conspires with Jay and Spinner to get revenge on Rick by dumping paint and feathers on him during a game show he, Emma, Jimmy, and Toby participate in.
She was the only one of the three who conspired to dump the paint on Rick to not get expelled and was sorry for doing it. Rick became the culprit behind a tragic school shooting. When everyone returns to Degrassi after the tragedy, Jay is very insensitive about Rick's death and Jimmy being paralyzed, but Alex says that while he may not need to talk about the shooting, she did, as she felt remorse for her actions. Spinner does not reveal her name to Ms. Hatzilakos because she didn't help convince Rick that Jimmy was behind the prank as she already felt somewhat regretful for her actions before the shooting.
When Alex feels sick, she goes to the doctor and learns that she has contracted gonorrhea. Confused about how Jay could have given her gonorrhea if she was his only partner, he, apparently, reveals he'd been receiving oral sex from Amy in the ravine. When she returns to school, an enraged Alex punches Amy in the face during rehearsal of their rendition of Dracula. Alex, subsequently, ends her friendship with Amy and breaks up with Jay; never finding out that he had not only cheated with Amy, but also Emma, Alex's arch-nemesis.
Paige's ex-boyfriend Matt returns to break up with her, but leaves her with a parting gift — a joint. Meanwhile, Paige encourages Alex to look for a good university to attend after graduation, although Alex continuously insists that she has 'no future'. Eventually, Alex agrees to attend the college fair, but only if Paige gets high with her, which later leads to an argument between her and Alex about Alex's future. Paige later apologizes, having not realized how bad Alex's home life was. Paige admits that she's scared about the future as well, and she and Alex share a small moment.
When 'Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh?' premieres, Alex is excited to go. Paige is reluctant to go because she was cut out of the movie. Alex finally convinces her to go, and to get into the 'real after-party' by pretending to be a couple. Inside, they run into Jay, who spent the evening making snide remarks about Alex and Paige's 'girl-on-girl PDA.' Alex tells him off, however, and she and Paige spend the evening dancing, quite provocatively, with each other. Alex later walks Paige home, but, on the way they stop off at Alex's apartment to get shoes for Paige, because she had removed hers while dancing earlier and had not retrieved them as Alex did not wish to wait to leave, telling Paige, "Barefoot suits you."
Paige chats with Alex's mother who mentions that Alex talks about Paige all the time, which caused Alex to become, increasingly, embarrassed. A little while later, Alex begins to talk to Paige about what happened at the clu, when they were dancing together, but, is interrupted by her mother and her mother's boyfriend arguing. Alex tries to intervene, but instead gets knocked over an end table, shocking Paige. They head to Paige's house and Alex explains how good it feels to be there, away from the chaos of her own house. Alex admits to Paige that she is 'in trouble', the trouble being completely unrelated to what had happened at her apartment. They end up kissing though Paige, confused, pulls away a moment later and pretends as though it didn't happen and insisted she'll sleep on the couch that night.
The next morning, Paige refuses to talk about the kiss and says she just can't deal with what happened. In class, they agree to meet at the lane way. There, Paige says being around Alex makes her laugh. Alex also admits that being around Paige makes her a better person. They kiss and Jay catches a glimpse. Jay tells Hazel, who confronts Paige, and asks if she's 'turned gay' and didn't tell her. Paige tells Hazel she was caught off-guard and she had just gotten caught up in the moment and Alex means nothing to her. Alex overhears and is extremely hurt. After talking to Kevin Smith about the situation, Paige decides to stop caring about what other people think, and pursues a relationship with Alex. They begin to date.
Alex and Hazel greatly dislike each other, but Paige urges the girls to be nicer to each other since they are both important to her. In an attempt to bond, the trio go on a shopping trip. After Hazel makes a comment about Alex not being able to afford some of the clothes, a fight breaks out between them. Paige, tired of the embarasing fighting between her girlfriend and best friend, decides to give both Hazel and Alex the silent treatment. The girls decide to stop fighting, and invite Paige for make-up coffees at the mall food court. A humorous and playful cappuccino fight ensues, after which the three girls end up laughing about it in the mall security office after they're detained.
As graduation nears, Paige insists more than ever that Alex plan what to do after high school. She refuses, saying that she isn't on the same time table Paige is and has to do things when they're right for her. She isn't sure what she wants to do, but, she doesn't want to follow Paige to college and be her 'lapdog', either.
The fight ends when Alex tells Paige that she is breaking up with her. Both broken hearted, reveal their qualms to past lovers. For Paige, it's Spinner, for Alex it's Jay when she comes home to find him sitting on her couch. He insists that he's not there to bother her, but was just there to watch a baseball game with Chad. Alex reveals to him that she has broken up with Paige. Jay offers himself to her as 'a quick rebound', but Alex angrily refuses him, coming out to him as a lesbian. Jay backs off and finally becomes a sincere friend.
Alex proves that she doesn't harbor any resentment toward Paige by hugging her at graduation. However, her expression also reveals that she isn't quite over her either.
As it was revealed in the episode "Working for the Weekend" Alex returned to Degrassi to earn more credits for university, as she now had an interest in becoming a physiotherapist.
After a bit of persuasion from Ms. Hatzilakos, Alex reluctantly joined the lacrosse team and tried to make new friends. She met a girl named Serena whom she used to torment. (Alex almost blinded her with a laser pointer during a debate, and later on tripped her, spraining her ankle in the process.) Alex didn't remember having done such actions to her.
She had a brief conversation with Paige at the Dot, in which she expressed her desire to change and become a better person and rid herself of her previous bad-girl persona. Paige told her that it was impossible to change overnight, which disappointed Alex, who felt she had changed a lot already. Between her conversation with Paige and her run-ins with fellow lacrosse teammate Serena, Alex learned that even if she does change, people would still remember her for who she used to be and may not be willing to give her a second chance.
Alex received a phone call from ex-girlfriend, now friend, Paige, that she would be home from Thanksgiving break and wanted Alex to be there during the break with her. When Alex heard how Paige was on the phone, she decided to cheer her up and also wanted them to catch up. Alex revealed to Paige that she had a new girlfriend and she was 'kicking butt' in school. She also told Paige that she may join her at Banting next year. Paige insisted that Alex stayed over for a sleepover, just as friends, and Alex agreed.
The next day though, things turned sour, when Paige's panic attacks caused them to have an argument over their futures and Alex's new 'imaginary' girlfriend, Carla, who Alex later brought to The Del Rossi/Michalchuck Thanksgiving dinner to get under Paige's skin. Alex didn't know that Paige was stressed out and was suffering from panic attacks.
Alex phoned Paige and told her she'd aced her biology test and apologized for her behavior at the Thanksgiving dinner. Carla took her out for a congratulations dinner, which got interrupted when Paige walked in to join them.
Later, Alex took Paige over to her place and wanted to know why Paige was back in town so early. Paige said that it was because she missed everyone and no one at Banting got her. Paige softened the moment by asking Alex if they were going to be together forever, and Alex jokingly asked her if Paige had planned on screaming at her again. Alex didn't want to get into a big discussion about it, since it was a school night, so she changed the subject by offering to tuck Paige into bed. As she went to do so, Paige surprised her by kissing her. Alex asked her what the kiss was all about, but Paige told her it was just a good night kiss. Alex, disappointed and angered by Paige's response, went to bed.
The next morning, Paige made Alex 'penance waffles' for breakfast and told Alex the kiss 'never happened', which disappointed Alex. Alex couldn't understand why Paige had come back home from school so much in the past few days, but when she tried to ask Paige about it, Paige told her she had a plan and that Alex would just have to wait and find out.
Once at dinner with Alex, Marco, Spinner, and Jimmy, Paige told everyone she was getting a scholarship to Toronto University in the middle of the semester. Alex confronted her outside about it and Paige lied more, and said that she was kicking butt at Banting. When Paige spilled gas on her boots, she asked Alex to look for paper towels in the trunk. There, Alex found burnt papers with failing grades.
Alex took matters into her own hands by telling Paige's mom about Paige's failing grades at Banting. Paige, of course, was upset that she told. But Alex told Paige that she had only told her mom because she was tired of Paige lying to her since she'd gotten back in town. Paige told Alex that the reason she had been lying to her was because she had wanted Alex to be proud of her and not see her as a disappointment because of her failing grades. Paige didn't know what to do and asked Alex for advice, but Alex told her that she needed to do what she wanted to do.
Alex encouraged Paige to have fun and to date a variety of guys casually. Paige took Alex's advice and started seeing Spinner and Ellie's ex-boyfriend, Jesse, and Alex grew increasingly jealous over Paige's budding attraction to Jesse.
Alex helped Jimmy and Spinner model their clothing line at the mall, an event that turned bad when Jesse and Spinner got into an argument over Paige. When Paige started to suffer from a panic attack, Alex comforted her and calmed her down. She then angrily broke up the fight. She rejected Paige's attempts to apologize for Jesse and Spinner.
Afterwards, at the Dot, Paige told Alex that she was finished with Spinner, but that Jesse still wanted to date casually. When she asked Alex for advice on what to do, Alex told her that Jesse and Spinner 'both suck' and that Paige did as well. She then stormed out on Paige. Paige chased Alex outside and confronted her about why Alex was angry at her, since it was Alex's suggestion that Paige date a few guys casually in the first place. Alex suddenly kissed Paige and confessed her love to her.
Confused, Paige asked why, if Alex loved her, she told her to go on all the dates. Alex answered that she thought it was because Paige dating guys casually would be no big deal and a better than her being with another girl. Paige, shocked, flinches and almost confesses something to Alex, but quickly stops herself. She told Alex that she just couldn't be with Alex right now and walked off, leaving Alex heartbroken.
In "Don't You Want Me, Part 1" Paige tells Alex that she isn't where she expected to be (i.e.: dropping out of Banting), but that she's happy being with Alex. She kisses her, but Alex pushes her away, saying that she can't blow hot and cold.
Later, Alex's mom, Emily, tells her that her boyfriend, Chad, ran up thousands of dollars in debt and that they are going to be evicted from their apartment unless they can pay the rent. After telling her friends, Jay's new girlfriend, Mel, offers her a job at a bar as a cocktail waitress. But she soon learns that there's bigger money onstage as a stripper. She doesn't want to, but as the situation worsens, she decides to strip for big cash.
Later that night (Don't You Want Me, Part 2), Paige asks Alex to be her 'sweetheart'. Alex kisses her, saying that the kiss was her answer. After learning that Alex is going to quit her job at the strip club, Paige decides to go congratulate her at her work with a rose bouquet, not knowing that she was lying and is in fact a stripper. When she finds out, Paige and Alex have a big fight that ends with heartbroken Paige storming out, throwing the bouquet at Alex.
While at the bar Alex meets a man named Alan who is a regular at the strip club, he tries to win her over, but she declines saying that she is a lesbian and that her partner doesn't want her to work her and she's running out of reasons why she should. Alan tells her that it takes a brave and confident women to do what she's doing and that if Paige can't accept it, its her loss. Alex replies that she doesn't want to lose her. Alan seems to accept it and gives her a tip for her time.
The next day, they meet at the Dot, where Paige wants to wipe the slate clean. She offers Alex an internship at her mom's company, but Alex turns it down, saying that she already has a job. Hurt, Paige tells Alex that it 'kills her' every time she strips. Alex refuses to quit, and Paige leaves, heartbroken again.
The night of the dance Alex is at the club were she tells Alan of their fight. Alan asks her to come to Vegas with him, presumably for prostitution and tells her he'll pay her anything she asks. Furious that he would even suggest that she slaps him and tells Vlad that she quits. She goes home and discovers that all the money she earned was used by her mother to bail Chad out. Alex, furious, packs her things and tells them that 'they're on their own'. She goes to the Degrassi Winter Formal in the red dress that Paige had bought her days before. She meets up with Paige and tells her that the dance was the first ever Degrassi dance she's been to. Still kind of hurt, Paige asks her why her dress isn't on the floor at her work. Alex tells her that she quit. She starts to break down, saying that Chad was bailed out and that now she has nowhere to go or no one to go to. Paige tells Alex that she has her, and they hug.
Alex had completed all of her credits she wanted at Degrassi and moved in with Paige, Marco and Ellie. Alex seemed to lack ambition, mostly sleeping in day by day. She volunteers to be Paige's driver until she can get her licensed renewed, eager to spend more time with her. But Alex ends up abandoning Paige to smoke pot with Jay. She tries to make it up to Paige by showing off one of the dresses she was given to look after, but this only causes more tension between the two. Paige has her make it up by sending out chocolates, but Alex decides not to do this since Paige's job was more like being a maid and the chocolates were extremely expensive. Alex becomes angry that Paige is working for rich people who can afford $3,000 chocolates when that would pay the rent and buy much more important things. The two have a fallout at Paige's work, where they end up breaking up. The next day Paige packs up all of her stuff. Alex says she'll be staying with her Mom's cousin, that she has other options. Alex and Paige knew it was time to end it since Alex felt alone and left behind by Paige's career plans, but that didn't make it any less painful for them to split.
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