S02 E04 – Great Expectations

The episode opens in the school office, where Liz and her mother are talking to Secretary Doris. Liz is supposed to be a new student now, even though she appeared as an extra in season 1. (I pay attention to these things so you don’t have to.) As Liz complains in a deep monotone about how her old school was better, and her haggard-looking mother scolds her, Steph runs in to make an announcement for the student council, and indirectly to remind us all that the student council is still a thing. She and Liz size each other up and exchange menacing looks, and Liz starts kvetching to her mother about how everyone at Degrassi is “a preppy”.

Yeah, except preppies wear sweater vests, and boat shoes, and polo shirts in bland neutrals, and that kind of stuff. Whereas Steph is wearing a red bustier, a blue miniskirt, and a big silver belt, with assorted red, white and blue accessories and terrifying amounts of blue eyeshadow, and overall she looks like it’s Halloween and she’s going as Sexed-up Wonder Woman. This outfit is many things, but preppy is not one of them.

As her mother lectures her about giving Degrassi a chance, we hear Mr Lawrence saying, “Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again!” (His voice is so badly dubbed in that he sounds like he’s speaking over the PA as usual, which is pretty confusing to watch.) Joey is backing out of the principal’s office, apologising insincerely. Before he can leave, Doris calls him over, and says, “This is Liz O’Rourke. She’s joining your class. Maybe you could show her to Mr Raditch’s room?” Joey’s mouth says, “Yeah! Sure!”, but his expression says, “If by ‘Mr Raditch’s room’ you mean my pants.”

He bows elaborately to Liz, and busts out his old catchphrase: “Joey Jeremiah, chairman of the welcoming committee, at your service.” Steph rolls her eyes, but Liz seems kind of amused. As he leads her into the corridor, he tells her, “You’re talking to the number one cool guy here at Degrassi.” “Yeah?” Liz asks, in a voice that suggests she may actually believe him. Perhaps she is not the sharpest pencil in the box.

“Yeah!” he answers, looking understandably surprised that this line worked. “So, um, wanna go out?”

And thus the theme of the episode is established: Teenage Boys Are Horny. Apparently we need a TV show to teach us this.

After the opening credits, it’s another day, and everyone’s arriving at school. The Zit Remedy guys are complaining about how Simon’s a narbo because he’s quit their band to play soccer. So ends a plotline nobody cared about ever. As Liz shuffles angstily by, Joey asks the others what they think of her; Snake calls her weird, and Wheels calls her quiet. Her alleged weirdness is manifest in her short punk haircut and her two layered tank tops, à la Kate in the early seasons of Lost. This is extremely low-level weirdness. 1980s Canada is a tame, tame place.

Liz goes into the school building, giving Joey a sort of spacey smile on her way in, and when she’s gone he asks the other guys, “Do you think she does it? She looks like she does it.” Wow, wearing tank tops will really get you a reputation in Canada. Wheels, whose mullet is getting truly magnificent these days, briefly gets all sensible-feminist and asks what a girl who does it is supposed to look like, but Joey insists he’s heard “stuff” about Liz. Since he has no more details than that, we can only assume it’s Horny Boy wishful thinking.

When the others try to walk off, he calls them back, then asks, “Do you guys ever think about really having sex?” They take this poorly-phrased question in completely good faith, obviously consider lying, then admit that they think about it “a bit”. Joey says he thinks about it all the time, and the others are disgusted and brand him a sick, sex-crazed pervert.

I’m pretty sure that certain aspects of this conversation are not true to how 15-year-old boys actually behave.

Inside the building, Liz walks to the girls’ toilet while everybody stares at her because she is a tank-top-wearing hussy. Over the PA, Mr Lawrence announces that next week is Safety Week, for at least the third time since the show started.

In the library, Arthur is furtively reading an anatomy book, but tries to hide it when Yick appears. I get a horrible sinking feeling that whatever about next week, this week is going to be Profoundly Uncomfortable Teen Sexuality Week at Degrassi. Just like most weeks.

OMG YOU GUYS. Behind them on a bookshelf are not one but two copies of Damon King’s autobiography. A “celebrity” memoir written by a D-lister who picked up a 14-year-old student at the launch of said memoir has to be one of the all-time most inappropriate pieces of reading material ever found in a school library. This is right up there with… most of the other books in the Degrassi library.

Anyway, Yick asks Arthur why he’s acting weird lately, and Arthur immediately… well, I was going to say “spills”, but that’s a very unfortunate choice of word under the circumstances. He admits he’s worried about all the “really weird” dreams he’s been having lately, and that when he wakes up, he “leaks”. (Words cannot express how awkward I feel describing this scene.) Hilariously, Yick practically shouts, “Oh, you mean wet dreams!!!” earning them a death glare from Kathleen.

Arthur despondently mutters, “I think I’m turning into a sex maniac,” and if they ever made Degrassi merchandise, I hope that line got put on a T-shirt. Yick dives for Arthur’s anatomy book, and looks shocked by what he sees in it, even though he’s only looking at a drawing of a vertebra. Yick is a delicate flower.

Steph’s on her way to Bathroom of Skanky Transformations. Alex runs after her, and tells her that he’s been “thinking about the financial problems of the student council” and he wants to tell her some ideas he’s had. She nods politely, says that’s really nice, and immediately goes to hide in the bathroom because he’s not attractive. He stands outside the door and hangs his head.

Inside the bathroom, Steph finds Spike moping in front of the mirror, and asks what she’s doing. “Getting fat,” says Spike. What, like, right this minute? In a wholly uncharacteristic display of human decency, or maybe just because Spike’s wearing an extremely baggy T-shirt/waistcoat combo, Steph says she can’t see any change in her.

“I can,” Spike insists. “Being pregnant sure changes everything.” Got that, girls? Being pregnant will make you fat, and I guess change some other stuff, too, but mainly IT WILL MAKE YOU FAT.

As Steph changes into her Hideous Skankwear (blue bustier, pink miniskirt, and the communal diamante belt), Spike asks why she’s dressing like that again, and Steph says, “I’m going to make Simon notice me if it kills me.” Which it quite possibly will, if she insists on running around the frozen wastes of Canada half-naked like this.

Just then, there’s a flushing sound and Liz emerges from a cubicle. Spike gives her one of her trademark blank stares. and I really haven’t the remotest idea what she’s trying to express with it, but Steph gives her an impressively obnoxious smirk. Rather than just clocking her, Liz asks what she’s looking at, and Steph is all, “I love your hair. You must tell me who does it.” Kind of a bitchy thing to say when standing right next to Spike, who has the most insane hair of all time, but hey, it’s Steph. Bitchy is kind of her deal.

“Well at least I don’t get dressed in the washroom so Mom doesn’t know how I dress at school,” Liz dronemumbles, and flounces off. “Oh, good comeback!” Steph calls, but her sarcasm is undermined by the fact that it actually was a pretty good comeback.

“What a sleaze,” she says, because you can’t say “slut” on kids’ TV. “I bet she does it.” Then she turns around and remembers that she’s talking to Spike, whose defining characteristic is the fact that she once did it, and her face is literally like the :-O emoticon. “I mean, not like you! You made a mistake, right?” Steph rolls her eyes and turns to go.

Apparently not content with the hole she’s gotten herself into, Steph continues to dig: “I heard something happened where she used to live, to do with sex, and that’s why she moved here.”  OK, so theoretically this could be the same extremely vague rumour Joey’s talking about, but it could also be Mean Girl wishful thinking, which says that if you don’t have enough dirt on your enemies you can just make some up.

“Why do people who look different always have stories made up about them?” asks Spike. “I dunno,” says Steph cheerfully, “but I bet it’s true. If you ask me, she dresses very… provocative.” Spike just shakes her head and leaves.

OK, we need to talk about tank tops. If I may be blunt, Steph is showing about three times as much skin as Liz. If anyone in this school is dressing provocatively, and by extension allegedly “looks like she does it”, it is most assuredly Steph (who, lest we forget, previously attempted to do it). So what the hell is it about tank tops, and fairly modest ones by the standards of tank tops, that has everybody treating Liz so weirdly? Is Steph just meant to be the biggest hypocrite of all time, or were ill-fitting bustiers really more acceptable schoolwear than tank tops in those days? I do not understand 1980s Canada at all.

Later, in class, Mr Raditch is going on about some history project the kids have to do… in pairs. As everyone whoever  went to school (or watched TV shows about school) knows, pair work is just an excuse for awkward attempts at flirting. Right on cue, as Mr Raditch tells the class to choose their own partners, Joey gives Liz a “How you doin’?? face. Unfortunately, she can’t actually see it because he’s two rows behind her.

When the bell goes and everyone leaves, Liz is glacially slow at packing up to go, so Joey has a chance to catch her alone. He asks if she wants to be partners, and she says sure, and he seems completely astounded. Obviously she hasn’t heard much about him yet. They agree to meet after lunch in the resource centre, which I guess is Canadian for library. This would all seem like good light-hearted fun, except that the background music is all threatening, so you know it’ll all end in trauma and lesson-learning.

Out in the corridor, Steph and the twins are mumbling about some “plan” of hers. But they’re waylaid by Alex, who wants to talk to Steph about holding an art show to raise money. Steph is instantly pissed off, because Alex is still not attractive. Just then Simon approaches, and she fixes Alex with a terrifying stare and tells him to beat it. It wouldn’t be so scary, except for all the blue eyeshadow, which gives her a sort of panto witch vibe.

As Alex gets increasingly agitated about fundraising, Steph completely ignores him and throws all her textbooks in a pile at Simon’s feet, in the hope that he’ll pick them up. Alex immediately crouches down to get them, still talking about the student council, and Simon is just weirded out by the whole thing. After a minute of awkward staring, he shrugs and walks off.

Steph grabs her books from Alex, and she and the twins walk away, turning to give him matching evil stares. “What did I do?” he whimpers. He failed to be attractive, is what.

Out on the steps, Yick and Arthur are eating bananas and talking about penises, and I refuse to believe this is a coincidence. Yick loudly insists that Arthur’s, um, issue is probably normal, and suggests asking Arthur’s dad for advice, but Arthur’s worried he’d think he was a pervert. Yick just shrugs at this, which probably doesn’t do much to ease Arthur’s paranoia.

A few feet away, Liz is looking tortured and eating yogurt, as one does. Spike comes over and tries to make nice, and Liz complains about how judgmental everyone at Degrassi is, then asks if Spike’s really pregnant. Lovely segue. Really smooth. “I’m never gonna get pregnant,” she volunteers. “NEVER.” Well, this is just about the most uncomfortable attempt at befriending ever, but Spike is apparently a glutton for punishment, so she stays to hear Liz whine some more about how popular she was at her old school and how much Degrassi sucks donkey balls. I’m paraphrasing slightly.

Meanwhile, a bunch of random other characters are throwing baseballs to each other, in a blatant attempt to appeal to US audiences. Wheels and Snake complain that Joey’s throwing the ball too fast, or something, and Joey for some reason theorises that his exciting ball-throwing techniques will convince Liz to have sex with him, because that’s what girls like. He then makes a very bad joke about threesomes. I mean, it’s not offensive or anything, it’s just shite.

Everyone laughs at him, and Snake teases him for being a virgin (in the campest voice ever, for some reason), which is pretty odd considering none of them have had, like, any action ever. Joey reacts by attempting to kill Snake with the baseball.

In Ms Avery’s classroom, Melanie is talking to an extremely small non-speaking extra. Well, not so much talking as bombarding her with statistics about menstrual cycle length that the writers clearly copy-pasted from the ‘80s version of Wikipedia, which I guess was just an encyclopaedia. “Melanie, where do you get this stuff?” asks Kathleen, who no doubt disapproves of menstrual cycles on principle.

Melanie looks blank and forgets her line for a second, then answers, “Doctor Sally, of course.” She explains that Doctor Sally has a radio phone-in for teens called “Talking Sax With Sally.”

Kathleen thinks it sounds disgusting, which seems like an extreme reaction to a show about saxophones, but it turns out that Melanie just talks really really Canadian, and the show is about sex. Unfortunately, Yick overhears and shows a little too much interest in the show, and the class instantly decides he has sexual problems. And thus starts a lifetime of psychological scarring for Yick.

In the resource centre, Liz is angsting that she can’t figure out who won the War of 1812. An all-too-common teen problem. Joey just gazes at her and says he really likes her hair. She gets all embarrassed, but he keeps on about he’s “dazzled” by her beauty, which bit of unintentional Twilight foreshadowing eventually gets an awkward, buck-toothed giggle out of her. Aaaaw yeah, he’s totally in there.

When the bell goes, Liz says that they haven’t got much of their project done, so they’d better meet up later and figure out who did win the War of 1812. They can’t meet at Joey’s house, because his grandparents are there and it’s “a total zoo” (Joey’s grandparents must be more exciting than most grandparents). Liz says they can go to her house, and that her mom won’t be there. Joey, with the depth of delusion that only a teenager with a crush can muster, immediately interprets this as “come over to my house and we can bone like it’s going out of fashion”.

He immediately goes to Snake and Wheels and tells them that Liz invited him over “to study”. Nobody considers the possibility that this might actually mean he’s invited over to study, minus the quotation marks. The guys do a Troy-and-Abed-and-Pierce-worthy three-way high-five.

Later, in the hallways, Yick badgers Arthur into calling Doctor Sally’s show that night, but neither of them wants to call from their houses in case their parents hear and decide they’re irredeemable sex monsters. I guess Yick’s parents would tend to be paranoid about that, considering their older son has a swamp sex robot fetish.

Meanwhile Steph has decided to just ask Simon out instead of playing insane mind games. Heather floats the possibility that he might say no because he actually likes Alexa, but Erika thinks this is far-fetched and ridiculous. There’s such a thing as being too supportive, Erika.

Just then, Simon conveniently appears. He is wearing leggings and a giant sweatshirt. Did guys actually wear leggings in the 80s, outside of exercise videos? It’s not a good look. Steph tries to ask him out, but Alex runs over in his sports uniform and cockblocks her yet again by telling him to go get changed for a soccer match that’s about to start. Aaaaugh, the uniform involves hot pants WHYYYY. Steph clops angrily away on her giant high heels, and the twins laugh hysterically, because their friend’s pain is so funny. Well, it is, I guess, but they’re still mean.

After school, Liz gives Joey her address, and he tells her he’ll be over later, then explains with a leer that he’s “got some stuff to do”. And by stuff, he means her. When he’s gone, she calls Spike over and they discuss him. Liz says she thinks he’s sort of funny and sort of nice, which is a pretty ringing endorsement since she hates everything else in the world. Spike, as usual, reacts by looking vaguely troubled.

Meanwhile, Joey runs over to Wheels and asks for the ill-fated condoms he bought for his date with Steph. Wheels reminds him that they used them all as water bombs, which strongly suggests that the guys aren’t really grown-up enough to use them for their actual purpose.

“D’you want to come buy some with me?” Joey asks. Wheels gapes and mumbles that he has to study, which is rapidly becoming his extremely dull catchphrase. He tries to go, but Joey runs after him and asks, “When you and Steph were almost gonna do it, were you a little nervous?” Wheels smiles with the world-weariness of a guy who almost got laid that one time, admits that he was “a lot nervous”, and suggests that maybe Joey shouldn’t do this.

“I’ve got to!” Joey insists. “I’m fourteen! I’m in the eighth grade! I haven’t even had a real date yet.” All solid reasons to keep it in your pants, but I guess he’s using Horny Boy logic again, whereby all facts are arguments in support of having sex.

“What if she doesn’t want to?” Wheels asks, for some reason deciding to be the lone, cranky voice of reason in this episode. “The way she dresses?” Joey responds. So, now tank tops not only mean that you do it, but specifically that you want to do it with Joey Jeremiah. He also points out that she laughs at his jokes, which admittedly you wouldn’t do just because they were funny, but still his evidence is pretty poor, which Wheels is harsh/sensible enough to point out. As he slopes off homewards, Joey yells, “Are you sure you can’t come buy some condoms?”, which is really not the sort of thing most people shout out in public.

Meanwhile, Liz arrives at her home, where everything is extremely messy because they just moved in, and extremely brown because it’s 1987. Her mom’s disembodied, weirdly dubbed voice asks how school was, and Liz monotones that it was boring and “this guy” is coming over later to work on a project.

Liz’s mom actually appears at this point, and she is dressed in some kind of weird red dirndl thing. I can only assume she works at some kind of Oktoberfest theme bar or something. She puts up a token protest against Liz having random boys over unchaperoned, then decides that it’s OK because at least she’s making friends. She would probably retract this if she knew that said friend is a Horny Boy in a crocheted fedora.

Well, I call that some pretty half-assed parenting. If Liz isn’t actually likely to have sex with randomers as soon as she’s left alone, her mum is making too much fuss about this. If she is likely to have sex with randomers etc., then her mum is making way too little fuss. But it’s either fuss-worthy or it isn’t; just making a small fuss and then being like “Oh well, at least you won’t spend the afternoon alone” is just kind of lousy.

Anyway, her mom leaves for the Swiss maid fetish bar or wherever, and Liz preens in the mirror, which takes very little time because she has minimal makeup and almost no hair.

Meanwhile, Joey’s out trying to buy condoms alone. He’s avoided the rookie mistake of buying them at Steph’s mother’s shop, and is in a big supermarket, trying to blend in, because 14-year-old boys do supermarket shops all the time. He’s doing that thing where you try to cover up your embarrassing purchase with lots of normal ones, such as toilet paper and toothpaste and crisps. As a former shop assistant, I can tell you that this never works, and just makes the staff laugh at you afterwards.

Meanwhile, there’s a special offer being announced over the PA system, and I swear hand on heart that this is what the woman says: “There’s a shiny toilet roll pencil, regularly $2.99, now on sale for only a dollar 99. Remember, it isn’t clean unless it’s shiny clean.”

I… I have no words. And I profoundly do not want to know what a “toilet roll pencil” is.

Having stocked up on assorted grocery items, Joey gets to the condom section. He’s perusing a box of Sheiks when some grandad in a lumberjack shirt looks at him in horror and disgust, so he flings the box into his trolley and then throws in a gigantic box of Tampax to look casual. He then realises this probably won’t help in the embarrassment stakes, and hastily shoves the Tampax back on a random shelf. Heh.

At the checkout, the guy is… I want to say scanning Joey’s purchases, only he isn’t, because I guess they didn’t scan stuff in those days? and I literally don’t know what verb to use instead. He’s [whatever they did before everything had barcodes] Joey’s purchases. Conservative Lumberjack Grandad is behind Joey in the queue, and he and his conservative polyester-clad wife are traumatised all over again by the condoms on the conveyor belt.

The checkout guy picks up the condoms and says they’re supposed to be on special offer. Joey starts panicking, but the guy calls someone over to check for him, and it’s the same woman who busted Lucy and Voula for shoplifting from Sparkly Scarves 'R Us. She seems to have had a sense of humour transplant since then, because she clearly finds Joey’s plight hilarious.

Joey begs the man to just charge him the full price already, but the guy is just screwing with him at this point, and insists, “Come on, it won’t take a minute.” The conservative old-folks look ever more disapproving.

The shop lady comes back and trollfaces that the condoms are indeed marked down. Joey pays and leaves, stopping in the doorway to glower at his hilarious tormentors.

Meanwhile, back in the world’s ickiest subplot, Yick and Arthur are in a phone booth listening to Dr Sally on the radio. In a spectacular coincidence, she’s going on about how sex is a big decision that shouldn’t be rushed into. Arthur turns bright red at the phrase “sexual intercourse” and asks, “Can they say that on the radio?” Clearly, hip-hop had not yet arrived in Canada.

The guys argue over whether or not to call, and eventually Arthur gives in and dials. Dr Sally is now talking about how you can’t tell if a girl is “an easy lay” by the way she dresses, EVEN IF SHE’S A PUNK. I see what you did there, Degrassi writers. Because it was extremely unsubtle.

On a completely unrelated note, Joey arrives at Liz’s house and grins lecherously at it. Yes, even a house can be sexy when you’re a Horny Boy. Before ringing the bell, he opens the box of condoms and stashes one in his shirt pocket, because turning up for a homework session with just one condom is so much less skeevy. He leaves the bag of groceries out of view of the front door and rings the bell.

Liz lets him in and offers him a drink. He’s up for sex with someone he hardly knows, but is totally shocked by the idea of drinking alcohol. Luckily for his delicate sensibilities, she just means a soda.

Back in the phone box, the boys are on hold and Dr Sally is soothing somebody’s anxieties about losing their virginity. Arthur is still freaking out in case Melanie recognises his voice. Finally, they’re put through but Arthur is too scared to talk, so Yick grabs the phone, gabbles, “I’vegotafriendwho’stwelveyearsoldhegetsalotofwetdreamsisheapervert?” and hangs up.

The guys start to argue again, but they’re quickly distracted by Dr Sally announcing, in a relaxation-tape voice, that wet dreams are a normal symptom of puberty, “so tell your friend he’s not a pervert, he’s not an animal out of control…” Wait, what? Nobody suggested he was an animal out of control!

Anyway, Arthur doesn’t stop to think about what an odd, disturbing thing she just said, and when she says that wet dreams are “the body’s way of relieving sexual tension”, he and Yick high-five, which is pretty weird all round. I really don’t think guys usually high-five each other about their wet dreams.

At Liz’s house, she’s droning on about the War of 1812, which, in her considered assessment, was “totally dumb”. Eventually she notices that Joey is looking pallid and sweaty, and asks him what’s up. “Liz, do you wanna do it?” he asks. He sure doesn’t mess around. You’d think this was pretty unambiguous, but Liz is all, “Do what?” because this scene wasn’t quite awkward enough already.

“Sex!” says Joey. As ominous synth music plays, he pulls out the condom and sweet-talks the hell out of her: “I want it, you want it, let’s do it.” Liz looks completely disgusted, but Joey throws his last shred of dignity to the winds and actually starts begging. “Please,” he says. “I really want to.” Amazingly, this does not convince her.

Liz gets angry, but the actress who plays her is completely unable to emote, so she monotones at him about how she thought he was different and guys are perverts and she hates him, and she sounds like a robot. She emotionlessly throws him out of the house, and he actually stops to collect his bag of groceries before leaving. Well, I guess they can use the remaining condoms for more water bombs.

Liz sadly goes back in the living room and lies on the couch to ponder the perfidy of Horny Boys.

The camera slowly zooms in on her giant book about the War of 1812, with the discarded condom lying on top of it. I’m not sure what this shot is meant to communicate, except possibly that condoms, like the War of 1812, are totally dumb. Good to know, Degrassi writers!

Also, Liz should really get rid of that before her mother gets home from the Munich Putsch reenactment.

Next morning, the background music is back to being perky again, as it always is, regardless of whatever traumatic shit just went down. Liz is sadly walking to school, dressed in a baggy grey Lonsdale T-shirt and denim pedal-pushers, which I think is meant to indicate that she’s been scared into dressing more conformist, but for all I know maybe grey T-shirts had some scandalous cultural significance back then.

Wheels runs over to Joey and asks how yesterday went. Joey explains, in tones of disbelief, “She didn’t want to do anything.” Well, technically she wanted to work on her history project, but perhaps that doesn’t count. “Is she mad?” asks Wheels.

For some reason, a baby starts crying in the background at this point. No idea why.

Joey looks at Liz, who gives him a punk death glare, and he concludes that she is, in fact, mad. As the chirpy end credit music starts up, Joey moans, “Wheels, you know what’s the worst? I really like her.” The credits roll, and we freeze on his woebegone, unibrowed, pimply face.

OK, so, condoms. There have been three episodes so far where someone tried to have sex. When Wheels and Joey decided to be responsible and buy condoms, they got judged by the elderly and also failed to have any sex whatsoever. Shane didn’t bother with lame-ass things like contraception, and he totally got laid. (I mean, sure he got Spike pregnant and now their lives are sort of fucked up, and the sex apparently wasn’t very good, but I’m pretty sure it still counts as a win according to Horny Boy Logic.)

In conclusion: this show is messed up.

Dubious Lessons of the Week: Wet dreams are normal and should be discussed in detail with friends and local radio presenters. Vertebrae, on the other hand, are shocking. Contrary to apparently popular belief, just because a girl wears a tank top doesn’t mean she will automatically have sex with you. Even if you beg. The War of 1812 was totally dumb. Attempting to have safe sex will only lead to you being judged and embarrassed and, worst of all, sexually frustrated.

S01 E04 - The Cover-Up

Morning. Rick's sitting at the table reading a magazine on motorbikes. There are sirens in the background, because he lives in a working-class neighbourhood. The room is a mess because Rick's mom isn't around. There's a carton labelled "homo milk" on the table, for which I have no explanation.

Anyway, Rick's dad comes in, looking for his tie. Rick's dad has some of the worst grownup hair on this show (although the actual worst comes later in this episode). Combining two deeply wrong hairstyles, it's huge and fluffy like clown hair, and it's also a mullet. He spots Rick's magazine and asks where he got it, and if "Frank" gave it to him. We get the impression that he would definitely not see this as a good thing.

Rick's well aware of this, and says that he bought the magazine. His dad accuses him of stealing it, but Rick says he bought it with money he got for recycling some bottles. His dad starts lecturing him about how they don't have money to waste on stuff like this, while some kind of train or something goes by, in the next room by the sound of it, just in case you'd forgotten it was a working-class neighbourhood.

Rick's Bad Dad complains that he had "plans" for that money, and mumbles something that sounds like "get out of town with it". Rick's pretty sceptical about the idea that you could get out of town with the proceeds of recycling your bottles, but it seems Bad Dad really doesn't like it when people knock his ridiculous ambitions.

He comes over to Rick, his eyes all bulgy. "Don't you ever talk back to me again!" he says. Then he hits Rick. Then conveniently holds him still so the camera can pan over his bruises from previous beatings. Well, that's depressing.

Hey, it's the inappropriately cheerful opening credits! That'll cheer us up! Forget about the miserable squalid scene of child abuse you just saw!

Outside the school. Rick cycles up to the bike racks, accompanied by guitar music that might have passed for vaguely punky and rebellious once upon a time, and definitely doesn't now, but at least it's a change from the synth kazoo horror of last episode. His bike is some weird thing with a tiny front wheel, and it also has those little rear-view mirrors sticking up from the handlebars like on a motorbike, which is sort of cute.

Joey is dicking around on his skateboard, and for some reason he's going for a French beatnik vibe this episode, having spiced up his usual rotation of fedoras with the addition of a black beret. He's so busy showing off that he crashes into some purposeless concrete obstacle and lands face-first in the grass. Susie and Caitlin watch aghast, as does Stephanie, who's still in her morning burqa. Not that they actually move to do anything. Mr Raditch rushes over, but is disappointed when he realises that Joey's actually pretty much fine, except for a black eye and some stage blood on his forehead. He tells him to go see the nurse, then report to Mr Lawrence for a chastening.

When Joey's gone, Rick goes back to doing some nonspecific bike-tending. At least he got his motorbike magazine back. He's also got him a fanclub – Caitlin and Susie are staring at him from a distance. Susie says he's "sooo cute", and Caitlin distantly says, "Yeah. I hear he's on probation." It doesn't sound like that enhances his appeal for her. In a sweeping moment of judgmentalness, she decides that he's on probation for beating people up, because "he's always got lots of bruises". Bitch.

(I should warn you that I adore Rick, in a wholesome, maternal way, and I won't hear a word said against him. Plus, way to spectacularly misjudge the situation, Caitlin.)

Joey arrives at Mr Lawrence's office, apparently wearing some cotton wool taped to his head with the brown sellotape you use for parcels. Doris the School Secretary asks him what happened, and he claims he was rescuing a kid from being beaten up. FORESHADOWING OMG.

Doris isn't buying any of this BS, and calls his bluff by asking if he's here for a commendation. Joey admits that he's been sent to see Mr Lawrence. She calls the principal on his intercom, and his creepy disembodied voice sighs, "Send him in." Mr Lawrence sounds as if he's weary of life. But so might you, if you had to deal with Joey on a regular basis.

Once Joey's out of the way, Doris goes on the PA to make an announcement: it's photo day on Thursday, and they should all try to dress their best "for a change". Helpfully, we also see a poster repeating the same information. Wow, I wonder if photo day might have some importance to the plot later on? Steph and Spike are walking down the hallway chatting. I can't tell if their horrible awkwardness is intentional because those characters aren't friends, or just due to bad acting.

Anyway, Steph weasels away and goes into the Bathroom of Skanky Transformations. While she's enacting said transformation, Voula comes out of one of the cubicles. Steph tries to say hello, but Voula manages to say hello back in a way that's even colder than ignoring her would have been.

Steph grudgingly apologises for her general crappy electoral behaviour and asks if Voula's ever going to forgive her. I'd say the answer is no, because all Voula says is "You'd better watch out, Stephanie. It wouldn't look good for our school president to be caught talking to a lowly peasant like me." Well, if Voula doesn't want to be seen as a peasant, she should probably stop going around in peasant blouses: today's is a shade of mustard that precisely matches the bathroom door.

Voula's about to flounce out, but then, seeing an opportunity to mess with Steph's head, comes back and asks if she's going to wear her hideous skankwear on photo day. This scene would have a lot more impact if Steph wasn't wearing her least revealing and most non-horrible, something-a-sane-person-might-wear outfit to date (a stripy V-neck top and a skirt that's short but far from her usual levels of traumatic indecency). Voula points out that Mama Kaye won't be too pleased if she sees what her daughter dresses like at school. This genuinely seems to be the first time that this has occurred to Steph, and Voula (for once knowing when to quit) leaves her gaping in terror at her own reflection.

In the background is another hand-drawn photo day poster (do these kids have nothing else to do with their time?), which includes a cartoony drawing of a guy all dressed up to get his picture taken. Because of his huge clowny hair, he looks like nobody so much as Rick's Bad Dad. It's rather disturbing.

Rick enters the Grade 7 classroom, to guitar music that sounds oddly like the intro to 'Everybody Wants Something'. Foreshadowing, or they just couldn't be bothered to pay someone to write more background music? You decide. Anyway, he sits down to read his motorbike magazine in peace, unaware that the Rick Fan Club is staring at him again.

"He always looks so traaagic," says Caitlin. Susie thinks it must be weird to flunk and get left behind by your friends, but Caitlin reckons Rick doesn't have any friends. No, just fangirl stalkers. "He's such a loner, and he never smiles," Caitlin complains. "I think we should help him – we should make him smile!" And a lifetime of meddling and irritating activism begins!

In the Grade 8 room, Voula is blithering about how she can't wait for photo day. L.D. says photo day is "pretty special", so she's going to wear her Castrol T-shirt, calling up mental images of Alan Partridge's funeral jacket. Seriously, what was the deal with all the Castrol merchandise they used to have in those days? That seems so weird in retrospect.

Steph comes in and mocks L.D., obviously. She's closely followed by Joey, who tells Voula that he hurt his head when "these three big guys said Stephanie was only the second-best president the school has ever had, so I had to teach them a lesson". Stephanie kind of seems to buy this story, which is pretty stupid considering she was there when he fell off his skateboard.

Raditch comes in, and immediately grabs Joey's face to check out his injuries. He seems pleased enough with how banged-up Joey is, so starts in on yet another tiresome lecture about the quality of everyone's homework. Once he's gone, Tim leans over and asks Joey what he's wearing for photo day. Joey says it'll be "a classic case of the four J's – Joey Jeremiah and his jean jacket".

Anyway, Raditch hears them talking and gives his stock rant about how socialising is not done in his class, followed with a Stinkeye Lite. He then goes back to pacing and going on about verbs, and the camera zooms in on his blackboard, where there's yet another announcement about photo day, like we might have forgotten about photo day in the ten seconds since it was last mentioned. Jeez.

That afternoon, Joey skateboards home. The house is painted a shade of red-brown that makes me unutterably sad. Inside, his oddly dishevelled mother (wearing a blue sack and some proto-Uggs) is sewing some kind of jeans-like garment. I can't see this going wrong at all. She gets all worried when she sees the cotton wool sellotaped to his head. In a sad attempt to amuse her and thus win her approval, he claims he was studying when a book jumped up and hit him in the eye (wtf?). She completely ignores this and asks if the nurse had a look at it. Who does she think bandaged him – Wheels?

Joey goes upstairs and is appalled to find that someone cleaned up his room. He comes down to complain to his mother, who says she got sick of nagging him to do it. But his precious stash of fedoras and vitamin tablets is safely boxed up in the basement, so no need to worry. Joey, ungrateful punk that he is, whines about invasions of his privacy, and even tries complaining to his dad, who just laughs at him. You can tell Dad is a Good Sort, because he's doing the washing-up and wearing an apron.

Joey's already gearing up for a Category 4 tantrum, and then realises what his mom's been doing the whole time: she's patching his jeans with a piece of his favourite jacket. His parents say they bought him a new one, but apparently wearing a new jacket makes you look like a "broomhead" and they have to be broken in. And Thursday, in case you hadn't heard, is photo day! And we hit Category 5…. now. "You know what this is?" wails Joey. "Child abuse!" Yeah, it turns out child abuse can take many forms, including housework. Who knew?

Joey runs upstairs, and his parents for some reason don't burst into hysterical laughter, which would totally be my reaction.

Next morning. Rick cycles into school, and announces his arrival by tooting an extremely high-pitched horn. Which completely kills any sort of biker badass cred he might have had previously. Tragic abuse victim Joey is rambling at Tim about how he hates the brutal housecleaning savages who gave him life. "Parents are a real pain," mumbles Tim with the air of someone who's well-versed in pretending to listen to another person's rants while actually thinking about something else altogether.

"It's child abuse, is what it is!" says Joey. "It took me months to get that jacket right, and then they go and ruin it! Now I've got nothing to wear for photo day!" The menion of child abuse gets Rick's attention, and he tells Joey that he could sell him one of his jackets. "Like, used and everything?" asks Joey. "Everything I've got's used," says Rick in a sad, wistful voice, but Joey doubts the extent of Rick's poverty, and says he wants to see the jacket first.

"So come and see it," says Rick. "What?? To your place?" Joey exclaims. Jeez, Joey, if a poor kid asks you over to their house, the polite thing to do is not recoil in fright. If Rick's offended at this, he doesn't show it, and just tells Joey to meet him after school. After a second's terrified hesitation, Joey says, "All right. Thanks, buddy!" This, however, does cause offense: Rick calls him back to say, "Just 'cause you're buying my jacket doesn't make us 'buddies', OK?" He says the word "buddies" with a depth of scorn that's a little frightening in one so young. Luckily, Joey's interpersonal skills are so limited (probably because of his tragic history of abuse) that he doesn't understand he's being brutally rebuffed until some time later.

A little later, Susie and Caitlin are lying in wait in the hallway. Rick strides manfully past. "Rick!" Susie calls. He turns around with a vaguely suspicious look. "I've got a joke for you," she says. "It's really funny. Why did the turtle cross the road?" Rick doesn't even shrug, more twitches his arms in a sort of lukewarm pastiche of a shrug. Alex is listening in disgust from behind him. "Because it was the chicken's day off!" Caitlin answers. Both girls do some kind of stupid hand-flourish. Rick gives this joke the response it deserves, viz., he turns around stony-faced and walks off.

In the classroom, Voula is minding her own business when a terrifying apparition looms up behind her. It's Steph with her wheedling face on, wearing the halterneck collared shirt from a couple episodes back. A random selection of her hair is pulled up messily in a huge clip, in a style that appears over and over again in this show and consistently looks ridiculous. Also, Snake is in the background, and I'm 90% sure his Hawaiian shirt is made from the same fabric as her top.

"I need your advice," she tells Voula. You know what's coming, don't you? "I wouldn't presume to offer advice to someone as important as our school president," Voula snaps ritualistically. Stephanie is getting less and less patient with this, just like the audience. "Come on! We used to be best friends! I still want to be." She mumbles the last bit like she's mildly ashamed of it. Friendship is for squares!

Voula reluctantly turns around in a way that suggests she's prepared to listen. She's leaning on a huge book called "Drama IV", presumably a guide to dealing with drama queens such as a certain school president I could mention. Anyway, Steph explains her problem: if she gets her photo taken (on photo day) in home clothes, everyone will laugh. (Not an argument that'll win much sympathy from Voula, who's forced to dress like a 19th-century peasant because it fits with her father's vision of a socialist utopia.) But if she wears hideous skankwear, her mother will do the responsible thing and ground her forever (for which the general population of Toronto would be deeply grateful).

Voula weighs it up for a moment, then chirpily declares, "Its your problem!" and goes back to drawing up the latest party manifesto. Steph looks utterly bereft, like talking to Voula was her last, last hope, and there is now absolutely no way around this problem, such as wearing something that isn't convent-wear or in violation of local obscenity laws. OK, maybe she is stupid after all.

After school, Joey's waiting for Rick by the bike racks, and sits on his bike for a second. He then notices Rick watching him with arms folded and a very unimpressed look on his face (although what's new?) and Rick has actually got quite muscular arms. Joey leaps off the bike pretty sharpish. "Let's go," Rick snaps. "Come with me!" Joey whispers frantically to Tim, but Tim's having none of it. Off they go.

They arrive on a normal-looking city street, although Joey's looking around like he expects to get knifed any second. Going around in that stupid Hawaiian shirt and beret combo isn't a good way to prevent that. They get to the door of Rick's apartment, but the sound quality is so terrible that it's impossible to hear what they say.

Anyway, they go inside and up the stairs; Rick complains about how slow Joey is, then jogs up the stairs, his hair bouncing hilariously with each step. The carpet is one of those greeny-brown ones with a pattern of cabbages that old people always have in the good sitting room, along with a giant painting of the Virgin Mary and a matched pair of china dogs by the fireplace.

Joey's impressed by the moderate messiness of Rick's living room. "I like this place! Your mom must be real cool." "I don't have a mom," says Rick matter-of-factly. Joey flinches, for once actually realising when he's made a massive faux pas. Rick goes over to the fridge and gets himself a Coke, then turns to see Joey staring at him with a look of sheer unadulterated fear. "Do you want a pop or something?" asks Rick, in a vague effort to defuse the situation. "Yeah! Sure!" says Joey nervously. Rick shoves the last remaining Coke at him and goes to get the jacket out of the wardrobe so he can be rid of this weirdo.

Joey drifts over to admire a very grim-looking poster of a motorbike on the wall. "I've been on one of those," says Rick. "My brother Frank's got one. He takes me driving on it sometimes. When he gets it going real fast, it's like nothing can stop you. Like nothing matters any more." Joey looks briefly moved, but then both guys remember that talking about one's feelings is unmanly, and the moment's over.

Rick gives Joey the jacket. "This used to be Frank's," he explains. "Does Frank live here too?" asks Joey as he puts the jacket on. "He moved out," Rick explains, only, being Canadian, he pronounces it more like… oewt? Sirens wail in the background again, to remind you of the squalid working-classness of the boys' surroundings, and speaking of misery, here comes Rick's Bad Dad.

Joey actually tries to be polite, holding out his hand and introducing himself, but RBD ignores him. "Wouldn't believe the day I've had," he groans, then goes over to the fridge to look for… a Coke? I suppose if he wanted a beer, that would cross the line into parental alcoholism, which is reserved for a whole nother episode and an altogether less sympathetic character.

Rick can tell what's coming and he tries to bundle Joey towards the door. Joey asks about paying for the jacket, but Rick says they'll talk about it tomorrow and Joey really needs to go now. RBD doesn't notice this exchange, and complains that he had "something to drink" in the fridge (it's very obviously Coke, but actually mentioning the brand would be too blatant?). When he sees that Joey and Rick were drinking the last Cokes, he loses it. "You're asking for trouble, is what you're doing. You think we can afford to give stuff to every little punk you know? You wanna start bringing home a paycheque!"

Joey finally gets the hint around the point RBD starts smacking Rick in the face, and runs out the door. We can hear the world's most savage beating taking place inside the apartment. Out on the street, the cogs inside Joey's brain start to turn very slowly. "Wow, Rick's dad sure is an asshole. I wonder if he tidies Rick's room too?"

Back in the apartment, a freshly bruised Rick locks himself in his room and sits down on the bed to cry, while his dad yells insincere apologies outside. The scene is pretty damn sad, but its gravitas is undercut by the terrible, terrible musical accompaniment (a very shoddy synth clarinet).

After the commercial break (how I desperately wish the DVDs could have included some '80s commercials), we see some guys outside the school pulling some camera equipment out of the back of a van. Can it be? Photo day has finally arrived!

Joey skateboards up to Tim, who compliments his new jacket. Tim is wearing a keyboard-tie. "So, it went ok?" he asks. "He was cool?" Joey replies incredibly insincerely, "Yeah. Sure. He was cool." AAAAUGH Wheels is wearing those disgustingly tight corduroy pants again. Speaking of Wheels – how come Joey's had a different best friend in every episode so far?

In the school library, the photographer is at work. Everyone's queuing outside. Alexa's wearing a baggy orange satin jumpsuit with an enormous collar that makes her look like an evil alien queen. Voula's wearing her Austin Powers shirt again, and dear lord it is just spectacularly awful. She's also draped a cardigan over her shoulders, granny-style, like she doesn't even have the courage of her horrible fashion convictions. Steph arrives in a mint-green miniskirt and a pink boob tube that just doesn't fit her, being simultaneously too short and too wide.

"I've decided I have to be me," Steph announces proudly to Voula. Voula smirks. "Very sophisticated! I'd like to see your mother's face when she sees the pictures!" Steph looks freaked out all over again, like she forgot about this problem since she last talked it over with Voula, 24 hours ago.

The photographing continues inside the library. Melanie freaks out because she's got a zit on her forehead. What, even after she took all those vitamins? Caitlin is wearing one of her trademark headbands for the first time, and it already looks stupid. Melanie sits down in front of the camera and pulls her hair down so it covers most of her face, but apparently the cameraman doesn't give a crap, and just takes her photo anyway. One of the twins is trying really hard not to laugh at her.

Rick is next up. He goes to sit on the stool, and Susie and Caitlin stand literally like a foot away from him. Subtle and not at all intimidating! The cameraman tactfully arranges Rick's face so his massive bruises are facing sort of away from the camera.

Speaking of tact: Joey, who has just been staring at Rick with his bruised face and all, turns around to Tim and asks, "What would you do if you knew someone who was getting beat up all the time by his dad?" "Who?" asks Tim. "It's just a question," Joey says, and then goes back to staring fixedly at Rick. With his bruised face and all.

"Smile, please!" orders the cameraman. Rick just stares at him with a look of absolute heartbreaking misery. The cameraman tells him to smile again, then gives up and takes the photo anyway. Rick's incredibly unperceptive fangirls giggle fangirlishly to each other at this.

When the Grade Sevens are marched out of the room, Rick goes over to Joey and demands his money. Joey's five dollars short, though, and Rick demands the jacket back. Joey begs and pleads with him not to take the jacket, lest he look like a broomhead (I think that battle was lost long ago, actually). Rick really doesn't care, but eventually agrees to let Joey give him the rest of the money after school, and stomps off.

Joey, the King of Subtlety, yells after him, "Rick? Do you wanna talk about last night?" …Yeah, seriously. Whatever the situation, you never shout that at anyone in public. It will not instil in them a desire to talk about last night. And if you're a guy shouting this at another guy in the aggressively heteronormative environment of a 1980s junior high, this goes double. "Mind your own business," snaps Rick. Joey doesn't want to let it go, but Rick tells him to shut up, and he eventually does.

Spike gets her photo taken – she's wearing her usual punk hairdo, with a very demure blouse and an actual blazer. Sometimes stylistic incongruity in an outfit is cool and ironic, and sometimes it's just incongruous. This is one of the latter times.

Voula gets hers taken, and then it's the turn of Steph, who's looking at the camera like it might steal her soul. Silly Steph! Doesn't she know she has no soul? Eventually, she mans up and sits on the stool, frantically hitching up her boob tube, and the guy takes her photo. There's a quick, menacing close-up of the camera lens, and it looks eerily like a beigy version of HAL.

Back to probably the worst subplot of this whole series: Caitlin and Susie are out in the hall, putting on plastic pig-noses. Yeah, I know. Even Caitlin is aware that Rick might not find this funny, but Susie insists, "Of course he'll think it's funny!" When Rick appears, the girls oink at him.

Let's just say he doesn't think it's funny.

Not because he has a tragic life, but because it isn't funny. At all.

He shoots them a pitying look, shakes his head, and walks off. Shane and Alex watch with looks of stunned disgust on their faces; they couldn't look more appalled if the girls were wearing real pigs' noses from pigs they'd slaughtered for the purpose.

In Mr Raditch's room, the kids are sitting through a class on "confusing words". Tim's been mulling over Joey's feeble efforts at obfuscation, and finally leans over to him (a scene from the credits!) and whispers, "This guy getting beat up by his dad – it's Rick, isn't it?" Joey insists it's just some theoretical kid called Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadu, but Tim keeps pestering him, and eventually an apparently PMSing Raditch snaps and lectures them AGAIN on how his classroom is for learning, not socialising, blah blah blah, and sends Joey off to see the principal. Joey stomps off, giving Tim a filthy look on his way out.

Later, Joey comes out of Mr Lawrence's office. On his way past Doris's desk, he gets an idea. Because he doesn't learn from experience, he asks her the same question about "What if some guy was getting beat up by his dad?" Doris sort of jumps down his throat looking for details, and Joey panics and says he's only asking "in case I ever run into someone like that". Heh. Doris asks if everything's ok at home, and Joey gets a deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes and mumbles, "More or less, I mean… Parents, right?" and literally runs away. So you really can't judge Doris too harshly for promptly phoning Children's Aid.

After school, Rick is waiting for Joey, and reminds him that he still owes him five dollars. Joey's starting to look perpetually terrified at this point, but faintly tells Rick to come over to his place for the money. Tim watches them go, and so does the Rick Fan Club. For some reason Tim has tucked his trousers into his socks as if he was going rat-catching. It looks stupider than that sounds.

On the way to Joey's house, Rick's bike chain comes off. Joey says they can fix it at his house. They walk on awkwardly, and find a huge motorbike parked outside Joey's house. Rick says it's not as cool as the bike of his godlike brother Frank, but "not bad" all the same.

Inside the house, Joey's parents are having espressos and tiny snacks with some dude who has, hands-down, the lousiest hairdo in this show. The back and sides are cut short, but the top is long and has been spikily back-combed to an enormous size and dyed blonde. He looks like he has a huge sea anemone growing out of his head. His motorbike helmet is on the coffee table, which is almost certainly bad table manners.

Joey's dad is bitching that they've raised four kids and nobody's ever accused them of child abuse before, "although I can say there've been times I've felt like it!" Strained laughter all around. Yeah, reeeeally not a joke you should make to a social worker who's investigating you for child abuse.

The boys come in, and Joey's mother introduces Anemone Guy as Mr Somebody from Children's Aid. AG shakes hands with Joey and gets down to business: "This afternoon you told your school secretary about a father beating a child…" Joey insists that his parents never hit him and he got his black eye from falling into some bikes. Rick looks extremely shifty and starts backing towards the door. "Who are you talking about, Joey?" asks AG, staring fixedly at Rick. "Because if it's true, he needs help very badly. Even if he won't admit it!" The last part is yelled out the door at the departing figure of Rick.

Outside, Rick tries to escape on his bike but is thwarted by his gammy chain. Anemone Guy comes out the door and fixes him with another creepy stare. "Do you want a hand with that?" he asks. He has a really weird voice that sounds like he's speaking through a cardboard tube.

Inside the house, we see Joey and his parents crowding at the front window to spy on this little tableau. Classy behaviour, people.

Rick insists that he doesn't need help (ooh, symbolic!) but AG goes to his motorbike and fishes out some kind of bike-chain-attacher, which he uses to attach the bike chain. "I can get a court order if I need to," he says casually, out of nowhere. To fix the bike?

"Do you get a bonus for every kid you bag or something?" asks Rick. "No!" says AG, completely talking over Rick. "But the kid gets help."

Bike fixed, Rick cycles off, but AG isn't done with him. "I'd like to talk to you," he calls. And it looks really creepy, because he's sort of crouching down behind a bush as he says it, and we all know to avoid guys like that. Rick, not unreasonably, tells him to leave him alone. There's some emotionally overwrought bickering, everyone questions everyone else's motives, and AG insists he can help Rick, and asks if there's someone non-brutal who Rick can stay with.

Next morning, Rick's waiting for Joey in the corridor. He asks him for the five dollars, and Joey swears to him that he didn't say anything about Rick getting beaten up. Rick just wants the money, and Joey gives it to him and scuttles off to his locker and the soothing familiarity of his BUSTS poster.

After a second, Rick comes over to Joey again and says that he's going to go live with Frank for a while, and that Joey can come visit some time. Joey seems happy at this news, but possibly he's just relieved that Rick hasn't come to kill him. "So, see you around?" he asks nervously. Rick takes off Joey's beret and tosses it back to him. "See you around, buddy!" he replies. With a huge, extremely gap-toothed grin.

Rick's creepy meddling stalkers, Caitlin and Suzie, are watching as always. "Suzie," says Caitlin, "he's smiling! He's smiling!" The girls are delighted, and will no doubt go on to write lots of Rick/Joey slash. The credits roll over an incredibly unflattering image of Rick's toothy grin. Dude, I'm glad you're not being beat up any more, but please put those teeth away.


Dubious lessons of the week: Working-class parents beat their kids, unlike middle-class ones. If someone you know is being beaten up, you don't need to figure out what to do – just bumble around ineptly for a while, and eventually someone smarter than you will realise what's going on. Despite what you might think, if your parents tidy your room and fix your clothes that probably doesn't count as abuse.

S01 E03 - The Experiment

Mr Raditch's room. Mr Lawrence is on the intercom, asking for the caretaker to come to the broom closet with her master key. Obviously Joey hasn't got sick of locking kids in there yet. Yick is safe, though, because he's right here, getting in some last-minute Spiderman-reading before class. And Arthur's safe too, although if he wants to keep avoiding the attention of bullies, making friendly conversation with Mr Raditch about how he just got a totally funky new watch is probably not the best way to go about it.

Raditch manages to disengage himself from the conversation, and goes to the front of the class. In a doomed effort to seem cool, he's sitting on the table with his foot up on a desk and has his hands in his pockets, and he looks acutely uncomfortable.

Arthur leans over to ask Yick if he's going to basketball tryouts. Yick says yes. "This is great – just think! We could be on the same team!" Unfortunately, in his inexplicable excitement at this prospect, Yick's speaking too loudly, and Mr Raditch hears. Seizing the chance to get out of his ill-advised "cool" position, Raditch stalks down to Yick's desk, declaiming, "Mr Yick Yu, who else? Mr Yu, the Disorganised!" Which is a fair criticism as Yick has now covered his desk with several thousand random bits of paper. Raditch then proceeds to insult Yick with some kind of sports-based metaphor that I can't be bothered to repeat here, but the general point is that Yick's a deadbeat. Arthur looks deeply pained at the news that he's been wasting his time hanging out with some kid who can't even put together an efficient filing system. When Raditch has gone back to blahing about essays, Yick leans over to Arthur and whines, "He's always picking on me."

Opening credits. Give us a try at Degrassi Junior Hiiiiigh!

After class. Mr Lawrence is announcing that he'll address the whole school that afternoon in the auditorium, presumably from behind some elaborate system of screens and curtains and with a giant holographic head projected onto the stage. Arthur bumbles out of Mr Raditch's classroom and makes yet another doomed attempt to talk to Steph. She tries to get rid of him with the obligatory "I don't talk to Grade Sevens", but he ignores her and asks if she has the sports shoes he left at their mother's. Steph somehow resists the urge to bludgeon him to death with said shoes for referring to the fact that they have blood relatives in common. He then makes things worse by saying he's going to basketball tryouts because their dad used to play basketball – "It's in my blood!" Steph just tells him again to stay away from her: "If anyone finds out you're my brother, you're gonna wish you were never hatched." Arthur placidly answers, "Don't worry. No problem. See you on the weekend," but Steph is long gone and he's talking to himself. Apparently, being bullied by evil harpies is another Kobalowski trait.

And speaking of bullying: it's Joey, the most half-assed bully in the history of bullying! Today's effort: "Hey, Artie Smartie! I hear your mother recalling you!" What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Joey and Wheels then set off down the hall to jointly perv on Steph. Just another day at Degrassi Junior High.

Melanie and Kathleen come out of a classroom. "Junior high is a lot different than I thought it would be," says Melanie. "Yeah, too much homework," says Kathleen. "Not that!" says Melanie. "Parties! I thought there'd be lots of parties! Not political parties. But real parties. With music and boys and potato chips. And drugs! My mom warned me all summer: junior high is full of drugs. I haven't seen any." I think this is one of my all-time favourite speeches from this show. We were promised drugs, dammit!

Kathleen is looking scandalised, although she hasn't yet cultivated the Victorian scowl of disapproval that will be her default expression for most of the rest of the series. "You'd really try drugs?!" she asks. "Oh yeah, for sure. Wouldn't you?" says Melanie. "Um, yeah. Sure," Kathleen answers. Palpable awkwardness.

Basketball tryouts. First Snake gets the ball in the basket. Everybody claps. Then Arthur tries, but hits the ball off the rim and it bounces wildly off across the room and everybody laughs and embarrassing stuff like that is why I quit basketball in school. That and my debilitating laziness. Anyway. Shane tells Arthur that he can be Degrassi's secret weapon, by playing for the other team. Harsh!

Wait, who's this woman in charge? Is this the only time we actually see a teacher other than Mr Raditch and Ms Avery? They seem to have some kind of a gym teacher here! She puts her hand on Arthur's shoulder and tells him to relax and try again, in the sort of deep, soothing voice you normally hear on relaxation tapes. Which I personally would find more distressingly patronising than Shane's overt insults. Anyway, Arthur tries again and misses horribly. Everybody laughs. Next is Yick's turn. He gets the ball in the basket easily. High fives all round. Go Yick!

After school, Shane and Alex are Yick's new basketball groupies. Arthur catches up with Yick after the others have gone, and weedily asks him for help with basketball, if he's not too busy and doesn't find him too loathsome. Damn Stephanie has reduced him to a shell of a boy! But Yick, unlike Steph, has a soul, so of course he'll help.

Training montage, accompanied by some dreadful music played on a synth kazoo. I'm wilfully ignorant about sports, so I can't really tell if Arthur's supposed to be improving over the course of this. On the way home, Arthur apologises to Yick for getting him in trouble with Mr Raditch, but Yick says that it's not his fault, because Raditch is always picking on him. "He always gives me the same crummy marks – he doesn't even read my stuff. He's got me stereotyped. I could hand in Einstein's paper and I'd still get a D or an F." Well, probably yes, but that might be because Mr Raditch doesn't teach physics.

The boys go into some kind of low-rent diner-type place. Melanie and Kathleen are at a table inside, and Joey's at the next table with Shane and Alex, bitching about his mom's cooking. What a total rebel! Arthur and Yick get milkshakes and sit down in a corner, in front of Heather and Erica (apparently, just filling the diner with kids from the school was cheaper than finding some extras for this scene).

Arthur suggests an experiment. He'll get a paper from last year's class, Yick will copy it out in his own handwriting, and if it comes back with a worse mark than last year, they'll know Mr Raditch has it in for Yick. Yick worries that he'll recognise it, but Arthur ostentatiously does some calculations on his calculator watch and says that Raditch sees 3,000 papers a year and won't recognise this one paper of Stephanie's. Yick wants to know how Arthur can get one of the school president's old papers, but Arthur just says it's a long story and to forget he ever mentioned Steph. Yick actually goes along with this, displaying levels of incuriousness rivalled only by the castaways on Lost. He and Arthur toast their plan with milkshakes.

Back to the much more entertaining secondary plot and the kids who have some vague theoretical knowledge of how to party! Kathleen's worried about getting "hooked" if she tries drugs. "Nobody wants to get hooked," says Melanie sagely. "I mean, I don't want to be an addict, in horrible poverty with rats and lice and everything – I just want to try drugs once." The empowered young woman of today knows exactly what she wants.

Joey overhears this, and comes over into their booth. "Joey F. Jeremiah, Esquire. F for Farmacy, at your service." See, this is something of a warning sign; I would want my drugs supplied by someone with basic literacy skills. "So," he asks, "what do you want? Smoke? Draw? Pot? What's your style? Lebanese Light? Bolivian Blue? Degrassi Grass? Or the top of my line, New Zealand Zappers?"

The girls are panicked and probably quite surprised that drugs turn out to have such stupid brand names, but they don't want to look like cowards, so they agree to it. Joey says he'll see what he can do.

Casa de Kaye. Steph's wearing her home clothes; this time it's an enormous knitted sweater with what looks like reindeer on it. She's laboriously accessorising it with a Lucy-style scarf, but hides it in a panic when there's a knock on the door. Ok, seriously, what is the deal with these scarves? They're completely unobjectionable – the sort made of really thin cotton with a few sparkly threads running through it that you get off market stalls or in hippie shops. Were they somehow subversive twenty years ago? Why on earth was Steph so surprised Lucy's parents let her wear them last episode, and why is she hiding hers now? Will somebody please tell me?

Anyway, it's only Arthur at the door, so Steph takes the scarf back out of her bag and goes back to practising wrapping it around her neck. Seriously. She is just sitting at the mirror, wrapping and re-wrapping it like it's an actual skill or something. Arthur says he's there to visit their mom, and then picks up one of Steph's perfume bottles, examining it rather intently. She looks ever so slightly alarmed at that, and asks him what he wants. He puts the bottle down and asks if he can borrow one of her English essays from last year, "strictly for research purposes". She doesn't believe him, but I think she sort of likes the idea of him cheating and is relieved he didn't come over to borrow her perfume, so she gives him the essay.

Next we see Arthur skulking in a darkened alleyway with the essay under his jacket. He sneaks up to Yick's house and knocks on the window. Yick's on the phone, but hangs up as soon as Arthur knocks. Sorry, Grandma Yu – low-level fraud trumps your annual call from Vietnam.

Yick opens the front door and asks for the essay. Arthur looks around veeery cautiously and takes it out from under his jacket. Miraculously, a horde of Mounties do not leap out from the bushes and arrest both boys. Yick unfolds Steph's essay and is delighted to see that it got a B+. Shocked that Steph can get high grades? Well, just because she dresses like an insane whore and stole an election through prostitution and screws over her friends and uses her huge teeth as a flirting tool and got outrageously drunk when she had to give a speech doesn't mean she's stupid! I think we all learned a little something about stereotypes today.

Yick is in his bedroom, copying the essay out in his own writing, accompanied by a synth-kazoo cover of the school song, only this time it's sort of tarted up and evil-sounding, so you know he's doing something WRONG. For some reason, his room is full of elaborate sound equipment; maybe he is in fact the one responsible for the synth kazoo effect, and he just likes to listen to his own compositions while working.

Next day, in a slightly dodgy-looking stairwell at school. Well, actually, it's just a normal stairwell with bad lighting. Mr Lawrence is on the intercom, issuing an urgent plea for new tuba players for the music club. Melanie and Kathleen skulk down the stairs to meet Wheels and Joey. Joey's wearing some plastic kiddie sunglasses for extra drug-dealer authenticity. He's got a little compartment on the underside of his skateboard, from which he takes out a few tablets. "Is that… drugs?" asks Wheels, the least useful drug-henchman ever.

Joey ignores him and tells the girls that these are the New Zealand Zappers, and they'll be $5 each. Well, they may be mystery tablets sold out of a skateboard by an imbecilic 14-year-old who's wearing sunglasses indoors, but if the price is right… The girls are pretty stingy, or else are having an attack of common sense, so Joey has to goad them into it: "No pay, no play. No tip, no trip. No pills, no thrills." He sounds exactly like the drug dealers off those Very Special War On Drugs Episodes of various '80s cartoons, which is presumably where he got this patter from.

Anyway, his spectacular rhyming ingenuity somehow convinces them that this is the less-stupid thing to do, and they hand over the money. Wheels is watching with a look of utter horror, but obviously has no plans to intervene. Joey tells the girls that they'll be "pushing up dandy-lions" if they tell anyone where they got the pills, and then says to try them. "Instant insanity!" he promises.

When they hesitate (they haven't actually said anything all scene), he takes one of the pills himself, and promptly starts tripping. "Oh… mild… cool… very cool… mild…" he mumbles, then gathers up his henchman and leaves. Wheels anxiously helps him up the stairs.

"You can go first," says Melanie, trying to sound generous. "No, you go first!" says Kathleen. "It was your idea." And I'm sure she'd persist in telling everybody that, forever, if Melanie proceeded to OD and die horribly, because that's the way Kathleen rolls. After a bit more prevarication and mutual accusations of chickenism, they swallow the pills together.

"You feel anything?" asks Kathleen. "Oh yah… cool… very cool…" says Melanie, then rolls her head around in a vaguely druggy way, watching Kathleen out of the corner of her beady eye. Kathleen catches on. "Mild… very mild…" she sighs. Then the giggling starts.

And then three tuba players walk past, presumably on the way to the music club. Or else they've mutinied, and they're the ones the music club is now trying to replace? Sadly, we'll never know. But the girls find it hilarious.

Upstairs, Wheels has grown a conscience, conveniently after the drug-selling is complete. "Selling drugs? Are you crazy?" "They were crazy," says Joey. "Wheels, my man, have a little faith!" He pulls out a huge bottle of vitamin tablets. "I saved these kids from a life of destitution, and gave them nourishing vitamins!" That Joey, he always has kids' best interests at heart.

Mr Raditch's classroom. Melanie and Kathleen come in, laughing hysterically. He gives them an entirely justified stinkeye, and they do that fake-shutting-up thing you do when you're trying to let on that you're not really intimidated. Everyone's staring at at them, and Kathleen's actually red in the face from giggling. Raditch's moustache looks especially huge; I think he may have blow-dried it with a round hairbrush for extra body.

Yick and Arthur come in. Yick shuffles up to Raditch's desk and hands in the essay, and Raditch makes a big show of being impressed that he's handing it in early. Plagiarism is a real time-saver!

The following morning, Arthur and Yick are walking into school. Yick's worrying about Raditch finding out what they did. Arthur says, "Even if he does, it's a scientific experiment! Nothing will go wrong!" …Arthur doesn't know much about science.

Raditch is wearing a white suit that makes him look like a CIA spy unsuccessfully trying to go undercover in Havana. He hands back everybody's essays. Susie is wearing socks with gladiator sandals. Melanie's essay was "very imaginative"; B vitamins are almost as good a source of inspiration as LSD. Little-known fact. Yick gets an A- on Steph's essay. Arthur's delighted, but Yick just looks annoyed.

After school, Yick explains that if he and Steph got different marks for the same essay, it means Mr Raditch is a bad marker. Arthur says it doesn't matter, because it proves Raditch doesn't hate him. Yick says Raditch actually just thinks he's stupid, so he was overimpressed by him handing in a non-dreadful essay and gave him too good a mark. There is no pleasing some people.

Still, Yick masterfully overcomes these doubts he tells Arthur to bring him more of Steph's work. Arthur says that "once is an experiment, but twice is cheating". Actually, once was cheating, too. Twice is just cheating twice. But Yick says slightly menacingly that he has to give him more essays, because he helped Arthur to not suck at basketball. So what is he going to do if Arthur says no – break his fingers? It doesn't matter, though, because Arthur is completely spineless, so of course he'll agree to this.

Later that day, the cause of his spinelessness is in her room, painting her toenails. When Arthur knocks on the door, she hides the nail varnish, which is pointless because you can smell that stuff for an hour after you use it, but I digress. Actually, while I'm digressing, I would like to theorise that Steph is pretending her mother is stricter than she really is, because nobody in their right mind would object to a 14-year-old painting her toenails in winter, when nobody is even going to see it. Steph is just doing this so that she can feel hard-done-by. In later years, this will be refined into an art form known as being an emo kid.

Anyway, in comes Arthur. He returns the essay and then stands there, watching her paint her toenails (a slutty, slutty shade of hospital-décor pink), until she asks him what he wants. He tells her that "the experiment was successful, but the thing about experiments is that they need to be replicated". She looks at him blankly: "Replicated?" I suppose we can blame this on the nail varnish fumes.

Anyway, he gives her some brief pointers on research design, but his point is that he wants another essay. "Are you in some kind of trouble?" she asks, apparently thinking there might be loan sharks or heroin dealers who will let you pay them off with old bits of homework. When Arthur says no, she says he can't have any more essays.

And this is where Arthur discovers a spine! And promptly decides to use his powers for evil! He ever-so-subtly alludes to the fact that he doesn't tell their mother about Steph's hideous skankwear. Steph can see where this is going, and tells him, "That's blackmail!" See, she does have a vocabulary! Arthur just nods, like, "You're really not in a position to negotiate, dollface. It's this or the convent."

Next day, in the school library. Lucy is standing at a rack full of books. Joey and Wheels sleaze over to her. Joey tries to flirt with her, but she just walks away without a word. Nice. The guys busy themselves looking through the books (the one Wheels picks up has a man and woman in a passionate clinch on the cover, and Joey tries to wrest it out of his hands). Melanie and Kathleen come over, along with some background guy I've never seen before and the current Token Wheelchair Girl, and Wheels and Joey anxiously square up for a fight.

A few words on Degrassi's Token Wheelchair Girls: there is always one, who is in the background of every episode, but she changes at least twice over the course of the series. There is never more than one girl at a time. I think accusations of tokenism are justified because only the final girl actually gets a name and plotlines of her own (plotlines which are, of course, exclusively centred around the fact that she is a Wheelchair Girl), but not until Degrassi High.

Anyway, it turns out that the girls want more drugs. (Obviously Melanie's decided that being hooked and having rats and lice aren't so bad after all.) Background Guy and TWG want in on it too. Joey says he'll bring some tomorrow. "You bring the money, I'll make you funny." It'll take a lot more than some cheapass recreational drugs to make Kathleen funny.

Next day, the Stairwell of Druggitude. Mr Lawrence is on the intercom, advertising a talk on "street smarts", as a sunglass-wearing Joey counts out vitamin tablets, accompanied by ominous MIDI music. This guy already has all the street smarts he needs.

A few minutes later, in Mr Raditch's classroom, and the school junkies are giggling again. This place went downhill in no time. Raditch quiets them yet again with his Anti-Giggling Stinkeye (ably backed up by the uptight twin), and announces that everybody's essays were good, and Yick's was especially interesting. "Yes, I was impressed. Not as impressed as I was last year, when I first read this paper." Obviously he was up all night rehearsing that line.

Raditch asks how Yick got the essay, and eventually Arthur owns up. But Yick says that it was Raditch's fault (not an argument likely to get him any leniency) because he made Yick cheat by always giving him bad marks. Arthur says Raditch is bad at his job because Yick and Steph got different marks for the same paper. Raditch protests that "literature is not an exact science", which is true, but we're really not dealing with literature here, are we? To more drug-addled giggling from the New Zealand Zapper kids, Yick complains that Raditch gives people any mark he feels like, and stereotypes them. Raditch rants about "perceived imperfections in the system" and gives them both detention and demands an essay on what they did and why it was wrong. Sad music. Oh the injustice!

Later, in the diner, Steph sits down next to Joey and Wheels (absent-mindedly flashing The Teeth at Shane on the way over) and announces, "We've gotta talk." Both guys seem to think this means there will be sexy talk, although Wheels discreetly moves his drink away from Steph, probably worried that she might drunkenly throw up in it if he's not careful. Joey asks if she wants to come to the mall and help him buy new clothes – if a guy asked me that, I would think he was gently telling me I was Not His Type. Wheels sits there and ogles her in silence. Creepy.

But it turns out that Steph is not here for sexy talk or even clothes talk. "I hear you've been selling drugs," she mumbles. Cut to Kathleen and Melanie at a nearby table. "I don't care what you think," says Stephanie, "but drugs are dangerous!" Wait, is she actually displaying some sort of responsible school-president-type behaviour? How dreadfully disappointing. Joey tells her, "I wouldn't sell drugs, I wouldn't even take them. They wanted drugs so I sold them vitamin pills. They just thought they were stoned!" Melanie and Kathleen listen in horror.

Steph, who's being uncharacteristically ethical all of a sudden, chews him out for swindling the kids out of their money (so it would be better if the drugs were real?), but he tells her that "lessons don't come cheap". Actually, $5 and some public humiliation is extremely cheap, compared to the gothically Tragic Consequences that will come from drug use later on – but I'm getting several years ahead of myself. For now, Melanie and Kathleen look distinctly queasy.

Detention. Wow, Mr Raditch's hair is luxuriant. Arthur is writing but Yick is just sulkily tapping his pen on the desk, until he gets a patented Raditch Stinkeye (he'll wear that eye out if he's not careful). Someone hammers on the door, and Raditch actually wipes the chalk dust off his hands with a towelette before he goes to answer it. A little neurotic, don't you think? It's some woman at the door, asking to speak with him for a moment, with the hyper-clear diction of an actress who knows she may not get any more lines in the show, so she'd better make the most of this one.

Left alone in the classroom, the boys bemoan their lot. Yick thinks it's all Raditch's fault, but Arthur points out that there was the matter of their repeated cheating. Yick is unconvinced and decides he's not going to do the assigment because he "can't write papers". Arthur tells him to make an effort, but Yick takes offence and says not only is he not going to help Arthur with basketball any more, but Arthur is the worst player in the world and has no hope. Not no hope of success, just no hope in general, which is pretty harsh.

Arthur maintains that being crap and trying to improve is still better than cheating – hang on, wasn't the cheating his idea? He does have an impressive talent for bamboozlement, though: before Yick can point out his hypocrisy, Arthur distracts him by listing off his many faults and then claims that Raditch only thinks Yick is dumb because Yick hasn't given him any reason to think he's not. Oh, there's that spine again; this time, he's using his powers for good, but still being kind of a dick about it.

Raditch comes back in, giving them both the frowning of a lifetime just for good measure. Yick starts to write. For no particular reason, we cut to a janitor mopping the hallways, then back to Yick and Raditch in the classroom after Arthur's gone home. There is the most confusing poster on the back wall – it's headed "CONCESSION" in huge letters, as if it was a motivational poster, but the illustration is a sciency diagram of the solar system or something. What?

Anyway, Yick finishes his opus and hands it to Raditch with a Significant Look. Raditch starts to read it. It's a rather widely spaced half an A4 page, which really doesn't qualify as an essay. Plus I'm pretty sure that page has been crumpled up and flattened out several times. I'm getting more and more convinced that Raditch has a point.

Next morning, the Degrassi pill-poppers are gathered outside the school. Melanie's explaining to Token Wheelchair Girl and Background Guy that they've all been scammed.

Cut to Joey checking himself out in the two Playboy mirrors he has inside his locker. Also in there are some bits of Stephanie Kaye propaganda and a poster called "Busts", which shows about 20 different pairs of boobs in unflattering sports bras. What… what the hell? The concept may be pure sleaze, but this is in fact a thoroughly unerotic poster, like something that might be on the wall of a breast doctor's office. A more salacious person than me might speculate that that's why it's here in Joey's locker instead of at home under his mattress, but I'm not a more salacious person than me, so let's move on.

Anyway, he spots his disgruntled clientele reflected in the mirror, and turns around to see if they want "to buy some more". "Some more vitamins, huh?" asks Kathleen. Kathleen is dressed as a preppy boy today: she's wearing these very manly grey slacks, and a sweater vest with a pinstriped shirt underneath. She looks better than usual.

Kathleen and Melanie demand their money back, while Background Guy and Token Wheelchair Girl scowl menacingly. They're obviously not being paid to speak. Joey admits that he spent the money on a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt, then runs for it, pursued by an angry four-person mob of vitamin junkies. Bust-ed! You see? Because of the busts? Ah, forget it.

Later, in the classroom, the kids are quietly working when Mr Raditch announces that he wants to read out an assignment that "one of them wrote". It's about how stereotyping people is wrong, and "this guy I know" apparently doesn't suck royally at basketball after all, and "this other guy I know" supposedly isn't an idiot despite appearances to the contrary. Yick, by the way, has the worst poker face in the history of anything, and is pulling an assortment of silent-movie-grade nonsensical faces while his essay is read out. Way to preserve your anonymity, Yick.

Raditch dismisses the class but calls Yick back. He tells him that the paper really deserves an A, and generously doesn't mention the fact that he assigned him a completely different topic. Yick turns to go, but Raditch asks him for a "clean slate" and for both of them to try harder, and this is apparently as close as he ever gets to offering an apology. Which is not terribly close. He even offers to stop calling him "Mr Yu the Disorganised", which is just as well, because it was the least catchy nickname ever, and I'm sure he's going home to work on something infinitely more hilarious. After a not-at-all-suspenseful period of hesitation, Yick agrees to shake on it. Happy music.

Arthur's opening his locker. Caitlin walks past in a black-and-white leopard-print catsuit of some kind. Yick arrives with his basketball, and we get a glimpse inside Arthur's locker. There's a carefully cut-out photo of a moustached basketball player, and a calendar: this month's picture is a barn owl. I would mock it, but owls are kind of nifty, and anyway I'm too busy feeling relieved that Arthur didn't also have a "Busts" poster, or its companion poster, "Asses in High-Waisted Panties".

Yick asks Arthur if he wants to go practice basketball and then go for a milkshake, if he's not too busy. He knows how to show a boy a good time. Arthur gives it a bit of thought and decides he does have time to hang out with Yick and be henpecked by his sister and cut out photos of sporting heroes. Bless.

Just then, the guys hear someone yelling from inside a broom closet. They open the door, to find Joey inside wearing nothing but his Y-fronts and his hat, which he immediately uses to cover the Y-fronts. For which I am grateful. "Drug-crazed [inaudible]s stole my clothes!" he explains – the early episodes have quite poor sound quality. The missing word might have been "zombies", or it might have been "homies", or it might have been more ludicrous made-up Canadian slang.

Anyway, Arthur and Yick cheerfully shut the door and leave him to starve. At least there does seem to be a urinal in there (or just a giant sink?), although it probably isn't connected to actual plumbing. But I guess you can't have everything.

The boys head to the exit, engaging in some very undemanding basketball-horseplay, and the credits roll.


Dubious lessons of the week: Don't buy drugs from a shady kid you don't know, because they might not really be drugs, and then where would you be? If you do decide to set up as a dealer, your skateboard is a foolproof place to hide your stash. Cheating at your schoolwork will lead to increased understanding and empathy between you and your teachers. Breasts, contrary to popular belief, are not always sexy.

S01 E01 - Kiss Me, Steph

We start on the lawn in front of the school. Steph is striding militantly down the sidewalk, dressed in a gigantic blue skirt and white blouse, with a purple sweater knotted over her shoulders a la someone in a yachting catalogue. She looks like a preppy tent.

Arthur spots her and calls out, and she pretends not to know him, only he won't stop yelling so she has to turn around. In principle, I'm on his side here, but considering he has not one but two fountain pens clipped onto the neckband of his T-shirt, I can sort of understand how she feels. Arthur apparently doesn't know he's a geek and is thus confused that his sister is ignoring him, so she rolls her eyes and says that he's not allowed talk to her and she doesn't want anyone to know that they're related. He still doesn't get it, so she expositions that since their parents split up, and he lives with Dad and she lives with Mom, she's enterprisingly taking the opportunity to cut loose all her style-cramping male relatives (and swap Dad's Polish surname for Mom's Anglo one, presumably in preparation for a career in showbiz). "It's not you," she protests, "it's the system! I'm in Grade 8, so I'm important. You're in Grade 7, so you're, like, totally embarrassing." Ouch. As she flounces away, Arthur looks baffled but not that upset; clearly, he knows when he's on to a good thing.

Epic opening credits are epic. Inside the school, Steph exchanges some awkward, apparently improvised, chit-chat with Shane and Rick before going into the girls' bathroom. Here she has an overwrought reunion with Voula, who is wearing a lace-trimmed plaid blouse with a high neck and a bib, because her people are immigrants. Also, Deirdre glasses. In an uncharacteristically generous gesture, Steph has bought her a silver bangle "from one best friend to another", although actually it looks like half a pair of handcuffs. Voula is thrilled by this emblem of servitude. Steph tells Voula about her callous abandonment of her brother, and Voula is, ironically, entirely cool with this. Don't let the bracelet fool you, girl: Stephanie Kaye will chew you up and spit you out. With hilarious results.

Although I can't blame her for maybe getting a little distracted from the conversation at this point: Steph has casually started to strip. Underneath, she's wearing an outfit that's more or less a direct rip-off of Olivia Newton-John's in Grease. "What are you doing?" asks Voula, sounding as horrified as I feel. Steph's top is so revealing that I feel violated having to look at it. "This is Grade 8!" says Steph. "We're supposed to be more mature, so I'm going to start dressing more mature." Actually, her previous outfit was way more mature, in the sense of "a woman of mature years", but I don't think that's what she meant.

Arthur shuffles into school and interrupts a bizarrely warm-hearted reunion between Joey and Doris (the school secretary) to ask for directions. Joey introduces himself as "Joey Jeremiah Esquire, Chairman of the Welcoming Committee" and forces Arthur into some kind of '80s gangland handshake. Arthur looks appropriately terrified.

Back in the bathroom, Steph has backcombed her hair and is applying bright blue eyeshadow and a vast amount of blusher; she looks like Madonna with consumption. Voula watches in open-mouthed horror (even with the poor image quality, I think Steph has kind of a hairy belly). Mr Lawrence announces over the intercom that the school elections are coming up. The girls talk about what they'd do if they were president, and Steph fantasises about making sure there was less homework (perhaps slightly overestimating the powers of a school president to make curriculum decisions) and more dances. Ah, politics! She then ogles herself in the mirror, and decides to run for president. Not two activities that should ever be combined unless your name is Barack Obama. Voula encourages this reprehensible decision. Voula, there are people who do evil, and there are people who see evil being done and do nothing to stop it.

Joey continues to escort Arthur, exchanging high-fives and Freemason handshakes with one and all, and finally manages to simultaneously introduce him to some guy called Hank and usher him into a broom closet. "What a broomhead," says Hank. And thus is born one of the stupidest insults in TV history. Down the hall, Voula and Steph emerge from behind Spike's hair, already planning the campaign. Joey's eyes pop out on sticks. Steph is working some kind of Celebrity Grin, and… I know it's not nice to harsh on people's appearance, especially kids. But I'm assuming everyone grew up OK-looking in the end, and it would be dishonest of me to ignore this: her teeth are just bad. These are Bad Teeth They are huge but also have huge spaces in between them, and the effect is not pretty. Teeth like this are the reason braces were invented. And a toothy grin is one of her main flirting moves. But strangely, nobody seems to mind.

In the classroom, Voula greets LD. LD is a tomboy because she's wearing shorts and a baseball cap and announces, "My dad let me work on a '59 Chevy!" Steph laughs at her but LD does a pretty classy job of ignoring her. Which is an essential survival skill if you go to school with Steph. Joey sleazes over to Steph and introduces himself as "Joey Jeremiah, playboy. Wanna play?" It's Steph's turn to look horrified. Not a nice feeling, is it?

Luckily, before this can go any further, Mr Raditch comes into the room, his demeanour oozing tough-but-fairness, and says he hopes they've brought their "malleable little minds" with them. Degrassi has always been at war with Eurasia. Also, Spike's punk friend Lisa is sitting in the room, although she's later going to turn up as a "new student". I've watched this show too many times.

Out in the hall, Yick is looking for his classroom when he hears Arthur (who has been screwed over twice this morning but for some reason still hasn't lost his faith in humanity) calling for someone to let him out of the broom closet. Yick lets him out, and it turns out they're both looking for Ms Avery's class. "It's gotta be somewhere," says Arthur. No wonder he was valedictorian at primary school! "Two heads are better than one, unless you've only got one hat." Yick politely (if a little too forgivingly) pretends not to hear this last bit.

Ms Avery is writing "WELCOME STUDENTS!" on her blackboard in that bubble-writing that was the last word in funkiness, circa 1989. It's multicoloured and everything, and looks like it took her about half an hour to do. She is dressed in a shiny pink shoulder-padded shirt and matching skirt, with some sort of Native American beadwork strung across the front. Oh, and there's a mother-of-pearl wind mobile thing hanging in the corner. I think she's left-wing. "My name is Ms Avery. Ms. M. S. Ms Avery." Yes, definitely one of those feminists I've heard so much about. She calls the roll (for some reason, one of the twins is called Stacy in this episode) and sees Yick and Arthur hanging around outside, and lets them in. "This is a very confusing school," whines Arthur. She does that sarcastically impressed look that people do when someone offers really unhelpful criticism. Rick is sitting down the back and seems to be chewing a huge wad of tobacco.

Unbelievably, Mr Raditch is drawing the entire weekly timetable on his blackboard and making the kids copy it down while he explains the concept of a timetable. You heard me. Steph leans over and tells Voula that she can't write speeches, so Voula delightedly volunteers to do all the work for her. Wow, these minions just oppress themselves! Raditch shuts them up with a moustached glower, and Steph, horrifyingly, seems to be trying to smoulder at him. Or maybe she just has too much under-eye eyeshadow. I didn't even know that was a thing. She also either has a sweaty face or some kind of sparkly stuff on her cheekbones; I think she's taken Claudia Kishi as inspiration.

An election-poster montage. Voula has made about 8,000 posters. More bubble writing, plus that military-style stencil writing that was also popular then (I remember finally getting a letter stencil of my own in about 1994, and being inordinately chuffed). Arthur raises his eyebrows at the sight of Steph wearing some sort of rag wrapped vaguely around her torso, but she and Voula give him matching glares, so he shuffles away. I get the feeling he'll one day marry someone who makes his life hell.

In the library, Voula is painstakingly colouring in yet another poster, the clanking of her symbolic bangle never letting her forget who's boss. Steph is attempting to read her Voula-scripted speech, demanding various earnest things (including more information about family planning. Which would actually have been kind of a good idea, as we'll later find out. Oh well). Meanwhile, Joey and Wheels sit about two feet away and wolf-whistle at her. There's a scene of Steph back-combing her hair some more, as we hear her reading her speech about how "being president is a responsibility not to be taken lightly". Is there some sort of lesson to be learnt here? Nah, probably not.

Yick's in a broom cupboard. Arthur lets him out. Yick: "I met Joey." I am really impatient for Joey to drop this joke and start drug dealing.

Out on the steps, Steph is making her speech again. Enthusiastic cheers for family planning and, uh, current events. Nothing to do with the miniskirt and low-cut top. No siree. Voula (in an Austen Powers-style frilly shirt with a Victorian cameo brooch) is mouthing the words of the speech to her from the bottom of the steps, as a sort of primitive Autocue. After the speech, Snake (in some kind of Capri pants for some reason) goes to the top of the steps and starts playing his electric guitar, ostensibly as backing for his own campaign speech, but actually to provide a "funky" soundtrack for the rest of the scene. As one of my friends points out, Snake's a really talented guitar player, because you can clearly hear drums and a bass as well, and not many people can get those kinds of sounds out of a guitar. Anyway, Joey comes over and starts sleazing again, and then does that cheesy thing of kissing her hand and all the way up her arm. Voula disapproves mightily, but Wheels offers to vote for Steph in exchange for a kiss. Pretty quickly all of the boys are queuing up to kiss her, while Voula gapes and Arthur and Yick watch from the bushes. "It's sexism!" mutters LD to some liberal type we'll never see after this episode (you can tell she's liberal because she has a beret and lots of eyeliner).

Later, still on the steps. For a second it looks like Arthur and Yick are going fishing, but it turns out they're carrying walkie-talkies with metre-long aerials. Turns out they have a dumbass plan to avoid Joey by, um, communicating via walkie-talkie. Look, whatever. It's stupid. Anyway, Arthur finds Joey outside the girls' toilets, at the head of a group of hormonal teenage boys chanting, "All the way with Stephanie Kaye!" She should have stuck with Kobalowski, it's really hard to make a licentious rhyme out of that.

Inside the bathroom, Voula is protesting, "Kissing's got nothing to do with the campaign!" "It's politics," says Steph from between gritted choppers. "All the boys are gonna vote for me. Two or three times, some of them." Wow, she has a natural flair for electoral fraud. How nice for her. Voula points out that the girls don't like it, but Steph sneers, "I don't need the girls." Oooooooh.

Steph comes out of the bathroom (wearing an unusually modest tube top) and announces a new manifesto: rock on the PA and co-ed swimming. Voula and Snake look majorly pissed off. Arthur pulls this face D-: and it looks hilarious. In about ten seconds, the discussion degenerates into calls for Steph to get naked. "Vote for Stephanie Kaye and who's to say what'll happen," leers Joey. Steph at least has the grace to look pretty disturbed by this. "Talk about unfeminist!" wails Beret Girl. Steph shushes the leching masses and announces that she'd like to thank one person in particular, who's done so much and been such a wonderful friend – Joey. "Oh ya!" he cheers, Canadianly. Voula storms off past Arthur, who looks at her like, "At least you never had to live with her. I'm already saving my pocket money for therapy."

Voting montage, accompanied by someone playing the school song on a really cheap keyboard. Cut to a politics class taught by Mr Raditch. "Of course, with three of you involved in the election, you'll already know something about the democratic system." Ha! I assume he means "how to subvert said system by appealing to the lowest common denominator". Speaking of which, the principal announces over the PA that Steph has won. Cue horror from the girls, high-fives from the boys, and a howling in the distance that I think is Germaine Greer. Close-up on Steph's victory grin, which she really ought to try and keep to a minimum. It's nearly as unsettling as her flirting grin. Joey actually gets out of his seat to hug her, until Mr Raditch tells him to "save that for the pool room". They have a pool room? Or does he just mean it as a figure of speech, for sleazy dives in general? Shane is wearing a bright yellow "No Smoking" t-shirt. And yet, one day soon he will get laid.

Once the class is over, Voula runs off in a sulk, and Steph tries to chase her but is waylaid by Suzie Rivera, the adorably enthusiastic vice-president. Suzie goes on about how she wants to go into politics and her parents will be so proud and she ran for office for All The Right Reasons, and there are student council meetings coming up and apparently being student president involves some kind of responsibility or something? Steph looks vaguely baffled to have encountered someone who isn't interested in flirting with her, but manages this quite impressive technique of wordlessly flirting with general ambient males while not actually taking her eyes off Suzie. Today she's wearing a tube top with (apparently) a fishing net draped randomly on top of it, and a bike chain looped around her waist as a belt. Her hair at this point is so big that I think it's starting to steal nutrients from the rest of her.

But what's this? Steph is summoned to see Doris, who reminds her that she has to make a speech at the PTA meeting next week. Steph reacts like Doris said "human sacrifice" or "public acknowledgment of your brother" instead of "speech". The theme tune plays, really slowly, because she's sad.

Joey and Hank have abducted Arthur and are literally carrying him along the hall. He's not struggling, because he grew up with Steph and he has long since given up. They put him in a locker, which, from the amount of Steph merchandise in it, would seem to be Joey's, only it also has a Popular Science cover taped up inside. I guess it's from that one time Popular Science did a special issue on the effects of fedora-wearing on reproductive success. Steph comes along just as they bundle him inside, and seems put out – possibly because it's the stupidest form of bullying ever, and she expected better from Joey, which is always a mistake. Joey's astounded that she knows this "gerp" (seriously, '80s Canadian insults are ridiculous). She distracts the guys by whining about her speech, and Arthur manages to escape as Joey feebly tries to convince her that he can write it. Steph and her hair go off in search of reliable speechwriter Voula.

Unfortunately, Voula is still mad at Steph for thanking Joey and ignoring her. "Oh, that," says Steph. "Sorry, but, you know." Worst excuse-making in history. Although her next comment, "Boys like that sort of thing!" comes a close second. Voula throws off the Shackle-Bracelet of Friendship Symbolism, and storms off, declaring, "You're on your own, Miss President – you and your new image." Don't worry, Voula, it takes time to learn how to make a good cutting remark. I have a ball; perhaps you'd like to bounce it.

In the bathroom, Steph gets ready to put on her nun clothes in preparation for going home. I think my granny had that shirt in 1980. Then she starts talking to herself about how she'll be the best school president ever. First sign of madness, that. Well, not specifically talking about being school president, but you know what I mean.

Outside the school, Arthur hides behind a tree until Steph comes out. He's adapted way too easily to being treated as a shameful secret. He thanks her for saving him, and clumsily tries to bond with her, which she more or less ignores. When she admits to being worried about the speech, he offers to help her, but she's spectacularly dismissive. He takes this better than I would (i.e., doesn't punch her in the face) and skips cheerfully homewards. But! Steph calls him back, and admits, "I need you!" He's pathetically happy to hear this. Steph forces her face into a non-flirtatious smile. End credits.


Dubious lesson of the week: If you try to cheat at democracy through low-level prostitution, nobody will respect you, but you will become successful politically. And don't worry if your geeky best friend dumps you because you sold out the sisterhood and treated her like crap – there's always someone else who's so desperate for approval that they'll be delighted to be used by you.