Slater & Jessie

Slessie is the friendship/romantic pairing of A.C. Slater and Jessie Spano. Slater and Jessie have been dating on and off since high school. They are portrayed by Mario López and Elizabeth Berkley.

History
A.C. Slater and Jessie Spano first met on their first day of high school at Bayside High in King of the Hill. Slater moved to California right before he started high school and became friends with Jessie and her friends. In The Mamas and the Papas, Slater and Jessie were paired up in Home Economic class to pretend to be a married couple for a project.

Saved by the Bell (2020)
Sometime after they both graduate from college they both end up getting a job at Bayside High. Slater gets a job at Bayside as the Football and Wrestling Coach. Jessie gets a job at Bayside as the Guidance Counselor.

After publishing the line up, Slater receives backlash from Jessie when her son Jamie finds out that he has been replaced on the team. Upon being confronted, Slater explains that Jamie is bad at football, and he only secured a place on the team due to Slater's friendship with Jessie. Slater explains that Aisha will remain quarterback, and that Jessie should tell Jamie how bad he is at football.

On numerous occasions it is made clear that Slater has romantic feelings for Jessie, and has done since they were students at Bayside. Slater attempts to act on his feelings numerous times when he believes the marriage between Jessie and Rene is breaking down. Such acts include asking Jessie out on a movie date, but she quickly shuts him down each time, remarking that she is working on her marriage with Rene. Despite this, Slater still does everything he can to please Jessie, such as leaving his date to shut down a house party.

Slater eventually is able to let go of his feelings for Jessie, and engages in a romantic relationship with one of Principal Toddman's friends.

In The Last Year Dance, on the first day of school after the Pandemic Jessie asked Slater how Zack was doing and Slater said he seemed down. Jessie said she'd just spent a year trapped in a house with a man she was divorcing. She was working with a therapist to figure out how to tell Jamie. Slater said he didn't believe in therapy and would never do it. Whenever he had a problem, he just started exercising. Jessie told him that was fine as long as he wasn't using exercise to avoid feeling his feelings.

At a school assembly, Jessie said she was extending her office hours in case anyone needed additional help transitioning back into school. In response, Slater said he was offering an alternative: Pump the Pain Away with Coach Slater. When no one showed up, Slater asked Jessie if she told the kids not to go. She said she didn't, but the next generation was more emotionally mature than they were at that age and understood the value of processing difficult things with other people. Slater said he wasn't going to go to the meetup at The Max because that wasn't how he dealt with things. Despite this, Slater changed his mind and went to The Max, where he and Jessie met up with Lisa, Kelly, and Zack to toast to the memory of recently deceased Screech.

In 1-900-Crushed, when Slater saw that Jessie was struggling after telling Jamie she and Rene were getting divorced, he invited her to blow off work for the day and take a break. They went to a restaurant on the beach, where Jessie was horrified to learn they used Styrofoam cups. She told the server, who pledged to quit if the owner, his father, wouldn't get rid of them. Then she realized Slater had taken her there knowing they used Styrofoam cups. After this, Slater ended up sneaking back into Bayside to eat the school lunch.

The next day, Jessie told Slater their day out awakened something in her. Just as Slater was about to confess that he still loved her, she said she'd made a list of all the restaurants that still used Styrofoam cups and had a plan to drive to each one.

After this conversation, Slater went to Miriam's office and told her he was still in love with Jessie. Miriam asked Slater who Jessie was and who he was, because he'd just walked in and started talking. She told him he needed to make an appointment.

When Slater encouraged Mac to be honest with his dad about how Zack being at Bayside was making him feel, Jessie was impressed and asked if he'd been going to therapy. He denied it and said it was a sports thing.

In Wrestling with the Future, at Slater's third therapy session, Slater talked about the upcoming Bayside High career fair. He said it made him feel like a failure because his friends all had big careers. He also said Zack tried to make everything a competition. Miriam said he could break that pattern by choosing not to compete with Zack. However, when he went to the career care, he and Zack went off to hang out and immediately started making bets. As part of a best over whose life was worse, Slater admitted that he was in love with Jessie and couldn't tell her. The bets continued until Zack told Slater to admit his feelings to Jessie. Slater said he would, but then said he couldn't put that on her because she had a lot going on and didn't need to add that to her plate. Zack tried to make another bet, but Slater shut it down, saying he didn't need Zack's approval anymore. He only needed Miriam's. He told Zack that having a therapist was great and it was making his life better. He and Zack then joined the rest of the group and went to Jessie's for a party.

In La Guerra de Aisha, when Kelly became discouraged upon realizing that many things in her life she'd attributed to fate weren't actually acts of fate, Jessie asked Slater to pretend to choke on a hot dog in an attempt to get Kelly to believe in fate again. This backfired when Kelly figured out what he was doing.

In Dancing to the Max, Slater and Jessie went to Valley to prank Krampus. While Krampus was out of her office, Jessie moved everything in her calendar by half an hour so she'd be late to everything while Slater put a trick pen on her desk. When they heard her coming, they had to hide in the vents. While they were up there, they saw Krampus realize her calendar was messed up and quickly fix it. Then she got ink on her shirt from the trick pen, forcing her to change. While her shirt was off, the superintendent walked in, followed by his wife, who immediately accused them of having an affair and ran off. The superintendent then told Krampus he was mad that she'd forced his hand and said things were over between them. Jessie and Slater then went back to Bayside.

At the dance contest, Slater and Jessie danced together. They agreed that maybe they weren't so wrong together back in high school, but Jessie became uncomfortable with the conversation and left. However, she later found him after the dance contest was over and kissed him.

In Let the Games Begin, while they were kissing, Slater pulled back and asked Jessie if it was a bad idea, what they were doing. Jessie asked who cared, but he said he was trying to be more thoughtful about things. He wanted to think more about it. Jessie said she didn't want to think more about it and left. Things were awkward between them as the school prepare for the Spirit Competition.

Finally, at the Spirit Competition, Jessie confronted Slater and said she was a catch, so if anyone was a bad idea, it was him. He said that he didn't say she was a bad idea, but maybe them leaping into something was. They'd done it so many times before and it always blew up.

After the Spirit Competition was over, with Bayside taking him the win, Jessie found Slater in the parking lot. He said he wasn't planning to go to The Max because he figured she would. She said she didn't want things to be awkward between them. She said he was right that it was a bad idea. He asked her who cared and stepped forward to kiss her.

Moments
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Quotes
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Gallery
Slater & Jessie/Gallery

Videos
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Trivia
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