Snakkle Flashes Back Through Television’s Best Graduations

The Saved by the Bell graduation featured all of the tropes of a classic television end to high school. First there was the last-minute panic about a beloved lead character (in this case, Zack Morris) potentially not graduating and the crazy scheme (in this case, donning ballet tights to dance on stage) to ensure said character actually does. There was also the debacle over valedictorian, though, as Screech came in with a higher grade point average but gave the title to Jessie who wanted nothing else in her life. And finally, the lone adult authority figure in these kids’ lives finally got a moment to shine. But this one had the added soundtrack of “Farewell Bayside” (though it debuted in a different episode) echoing through fans’ minds during every scene, which turned otherwise wacky circumstances into entirely sentimental ones.

Let’s be honest, this was the one TV graduation you kind of figured would never happen, right? After years of young Jake Harper being shown to be a bumbling idiot who was lucky he managed to put his pants on over his underwear, he did the impossible and got himself out of high school. And on time. He may have come up with the not-so-grand plan to enlist in the Army after, but hey, that’s next season’s problem, right?

What graduation episode comes with the death of a major character? Oh, that’s right, The O.C., which didn’t allow Marissa Cooper to survive to see her college years. And that wasn’t even the saddest part: Seth and Summer deciding to go to separate schools the following year would mean the adorable couple would be split apart! This was one graduation that was anything but typical, and we love it all the more for it.

For the Life Unexpected series finale, the show fast-forwarded into the future for its final scene, so we didn’t get an entire episode spectacle of Lux’s graduation, but her short-and-sweet speech proved powerful nonetheless. More than any other character on television, she overcame the most adversity to get to graduation—from being born with a heart defect, to growing up in foster care, to getting diagnosed late in life with a learning disability, to admitting to abuse, and having an affair with a teacher. But she did it, and as she looked out over the small crowd of her peers and the diverse group she called a family, she had finally grown up. We weren’t there for every moment along the way, but we were there for the most important ones: when she came knocking on her birth parents’ doors and when she finally called them “Mom” and “Dad.”

Gilmore Girls gave us a couple of emotional graduation ceremonies, but none more so than Rory’s maturing from Chilton, where she stood onstage and gave a speech that most teenagers would never, ever consider giving: thanking their mothers for everything. But the kicker came at the end of the episode, when Jess reached out to Rory, without any words, and for the first real time, she managed to say all she needed to back at him. It was a defining moment for the girl who was passive and seemingly uncomfortable in relationships, and it proved just how far she had come in the past few years.

Perhaps the Dawson’s Creek graduation episode is so personally beloved because it allowed Pacey to shine, while its titular character had to take the B-story and back burner for a rare second. And Pacey had quite the range in this episode: having to go from worried about passing one final test, to angrily storming out on his teacher, to getting yet another second chance from said teacher and therefore losing the chip on his shoulder just before he entered the mature, adult world. But this episode tugged at the heartstrings for other reasons, not least of all being Joey’s inspiration for her valedictorian speech. Even if the moment did get kind of overshadowed by the senior class prank.

If there was ever a day when Buffy Summers should have wanted to just focus on her school, it should have been graduation. Alas, “the girl who saved the world—a lot” had much bigger things on her plate, as usual. Only this time, she had the whole school to back her up. In many ways it seemed like perfect timing for them to come to her aid after three years of her constantly coming to theirs (seriously, how had no one been talking about what she was doing for all of them!?). In other ways, though, it just felt like blowing up the high school was the wrong message to send graduating seniors.

Saying goodbye to Boy Meets World's high school years did not mean saying goodbye to the characters we had come to know and love—no, not even Mr. Feeny, who ended up following his students to college… as they did on sitcoms in the '90s. And thankfully so, as the best part of that episode was Feeny’s words of wisdom to the kids he had seen grow up since their junior high school days. Watching them leave the classroom one final time was the most poignant part, even though at the time it was much easier to fixate on Topanga’s proposal to Cory.

When fans think back on Beverly Hills, 90210 in general, let alone their “Commencement” episode, a few key words come to mind: “Donna Martin Graduates!” But so much more went on for the kids of West Beverly, including Andrea not only forgetting her valedictorian speech and having to speak from the heart but also struggling to choose between two Ivy League schools for college. And then, of course, there was a very expensive, though creative, senior prank in which the kids created a new version of the famous Hollywood sign to honor their class.