S01 E11 – It's Late!

Finally, as the episode title suggests, we have come to the infamous Teen Pregnancy Plotline. Anyone who was even marginally aware of Degrassi back in the day knew that some chick got knocked up in it. The story won the show something called an International Emmy and was a big part of why it became so famous. More importantly, it also features some of the most ham-handed foreshadowing and attempts at being educational in Degrassi history. Which means it's time for another Degrassi drinking game! Grab some Canadian booze and get ready to get as drunk as Stephanie Kaye at the big school dance.

We start at Lucy's place, where a party is winding down. You can tell it was a wild party, though, because there's popcorn strewn over every available surface. Nothing says "fun" like popcorn-flinging! And it seems everyone's getting lucky tonight. The first thing we see is Shane and Spike making out in the hallway. In the living room, people are slow-dancing; Heather is dancing with Tim, Snake is dancing with (and kissing) some extra in a lumberjack shirt, and Erika is dancing with Wai Lee. As Lucy's going up the stairs, she meets Joey coming down, and he's followed by… Wheels. Ok, some of the kids are getting luckier than others.

They congratulate her on what a great party it was. "My parents would never let me have a party if they weren't around," remarks Wheels. "Lucy's are never around," Joey whispers to him. What, even Joey knows about her abandonment? Obviously Voula told everyone, possibly in revenge for Lucy getting her arrested.

Joey and Wheels go down the hallway, where they find Shane kissing Spike. In an incredibly creepy move, they both start stroking Spike's shoulder, and when she tells them to go away, Joey asks, "What's the matter? Can't we all share?" AAAAAUGH MENTAL IMAGES.

Oddly enough, Spike is not all that keen for a foursome, and Shane leads her into a convenient nearby bedroom, shutting the door behind them. (Wait, if Lucy's bedroom is in the basement, and her parents' is on the ground floor, what the hell is upstairs?) Joey laughs and says to Wheels, "Let's go over [to the kitchen] and pick up some – " either "chicks" or "chips", I can't tell which he says, but I can tell which he's more likely to get. (The sound and lighting for this whole scene are awful; it's hard to hear, and impossible to see anyone's face properly.)

Spike sits down on the bed. Shane smirks (I think?) and sits down next to her, and they lie down. The whole thing looks incredibly awkward.

Back in the living room, Heather comes over to Erika and taps her on the shoulder, saying it's time to go. "Now?" asks Erika in dismay, then says a regretful goodbye to Wai Lee. I mean… Wai Lee? Is he that much of a catch? He's wearing a tan sweatshirt to a make-out party, for Chrissakes! (Although Snake seems to be wearing something pastel pink and sort of lacy, and has totally scored, so I don't really know what to think.)

The twins start looking for Spike, and Joey directs them to the bedroom, adding in an insinuating tone that Shane's in there too. The girls roll their eyes as if he'd suggested something totally ridiculous. What do they think is going on in there? "Spike!" yells Erika at the bedroom door. "Heather and me are leaving – are you going to come?" Isn't that kind of a personal question?

Erika realises that the door is locked, and wants to know what the "big idea" is. "Come on!" she yells. "What are you doing in there?" Wait, isn't she the streetwise twin? How has she not figured out what's going on?

And the scene just ends there, with the twins shouting at the locked door and everyone else staring at them. So… I have no idea how that whole thing ends. I mean, other than the fact that Spike and Shane totally do it. Duh.

Anyway, after the credits, it's morning, presumably somewhat more than two weeks later. Spike's being dropped off at school by her mother, who's lecturing her: "Christine, you know, when you're late [drink!] and I have to drive you to school, then that makes me late… What's the matter with you these days? [drink!] You do nothing around the house – you're thoroughly unpleasant to live with." Spike snaps back, "Well, maybe if you stopped treating me like a little baby – " Drink! "Stop acting like one!" shouts her mother. "Listen, it isn't easy raising you by myself [drink!] – a little co-operation from you would make things a lot better!" Spike gets out of the car and storms off to school. She's wearing yet another pair of fugly trousers, by the way: grey, very baggy, very tapered, and two inches too short. They are most certainly not punk.

In the classroom, Mr Raditch is talking to his class. "This morning I'd like to talk to you a little about a decision that you're going to have to make in the very near future." Drink! Just then, Spike comes in, and Raditch complains that "being late [drink!] is becoming a habit. It's disappointing when such a student sets such a bad example." Drink! I wasn't kidding about the foreshadowing.

Anyway, Raditch rambles on about how they're going to be choosing courses for high school soon. Spike looks over at Shane, but when he smiles at her, she turns away and stares at her desk. He looks frustrated.

After class, everyone's leaving, and Voula's wearing a sweater vest over her peasant blouse. It's a whole new level of ugly. Also, Alexa is wearing Caitlin's badly handmade pink sweater from last episode. Anyway, one of the twins asks Spike what she wants to be when she grows up, but Spike snaps that she doesn't want to talk about "careers and stuff". The twins are offended.

Just then, Shane pervs over to tell her, "Lucy's having another party like the one last month." Like the one where we had sex! We could have sex again! Please can we have sex again? Spike angrily tells him that she doesn't want to go, then flounces off.

Joey, the king of tact and timing, immediately corners Shane and demands to know what really happened at Lucy's party. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Shane smugs. Um… acting like that is probably not the best way to convince a girl to sleep with you again, Shaney boy.

"I bet they were just kissing," Wheels mutters to Joey. What's it to them, anyway?

Well, time for a light-relief subplot, and thankfully it's not an Arthur and Yick one this time. Melanie is reading her horoscope to Kathleen. Unfortunately, her diction is kind of bad, so I can't hear the exact wording, but the word "romance" is in there somewhere. "I could do with a good romance," says Melanie brightly. "Course, what I'd really like is a hickey."

Kathleen, predictably, says that hickeys are gross. "They're not gross!" says Melanie. "They're romantic. If you've got one, it means you've got a boyfriend. If you've got a boyfriend, you can go out on dates!" Ah, Melanie logic. I've missed Melanie. And speaking of dates, Snake the Man-God walks by. Melanie says hi, he says hi back, then walks off. As always.

"I give up," she sighs. "I'll never have a boyfriend." Kathleen points out that she's still only 12. "Twelve and three-quarters, actually," Melanie argues. "That's old." Bless. Just then, they pass Arthur and Yick… oh, I spoke too soon. Feck. Melanie says hi to Arthur, but ignores Yick, who stares after her wistfully.

"You like Melanie?" asks Arthur. Yick says yeah, but he's too scared to ask her out because she might say no. "She might says yes," Arthur tells him. "You never know till you try." Um, all of Arthur's experience with girls comes from once having nearly watched Swamp Sex Robots, which presumably had some girls in it, but we'll never even know that for sure. I wouldn't set great store by his advice.

Oh man, Joey and Wheels are peeing again. Why, Degrassi, why? Joey is rambling about how cool Lucy's parties are, because her parents are loose and don't love her. "Would your mom and dad leave you alone for a party?" he asks. "My mom won't even let me turn the lights off," Wheels admits. Wait, like, as in shutting up the house last thing at night, or she actually won't let him operate the light switches? Canadian parents are strict, you guys.

"No way Shane and Spike would have gotten into the bedroom at my house," Joey remarks. "Do you think they really did it?" asks Wheels. Bearing in mind the party was several weeks ago, I think this is developing into an unhealthy fixation. Just then, Shane comes in, and Joey immediately asks him, "If you really did it… tell us what it was like."

Shane looks at them very seriously and asks, "Why, you guys never had sex?" "Yeah, of course I've had sex," Joey says quickly. "Yah, me too!" Wheels chips in. "Lots of times!" They are both very bad liars. As all the guys stand in front of the mirror and comb their ridiculously flowing '80s locks, Joey again asks Shane what happened, and Shane tells him it's none of his business.

Wheels, who has slightly more brains than Joey, asks a rather more pertinent question: "How come Spike won't talk to you any more?" Shane is surprisingly unbothered by this particular bit of nosiness, and says she's just in a bad mood. "Probably her period or something," laughs Joey. Drink! Joey and Wheels walk off, chuckling merrily at the thought of Spike's period. Guys are weird.

Meanwhile, Spike goes into the girls' bathroom. She stares at her face in the mirror, the way people on TV always do when they're worried about something, and people in real life never do, unless it's acne they're worried about. The twins follow her into the bathroom and demand to know what's up.

After some angsty staring at the far wall, Spike turns around and announces, "My period's way late – it's always been on time before. I think I'm pregnant." The twins look horrified, and there's a long pause, during which we can hear the crappy plumbing making weird noises.

"But you can't be pregnant unless you've had sex!" says Heather. Uh, yeah… about that. Spike hangs her head. "You did it?" asks Heather. "With Shane?" asks Erika. Why are they so surprised? They were listening at the door! Spike continues to look tortured; the plumbing continues to be distracting.

Out in the corridor, Yick tries to say hi to Melanie but she ignores him again. "It looks to me like you need some serious help. From me," says Arthur. "What do you know about girls?" asks Yick. It's a legitimate question. "When you've got a sister like mine, you learn fast," replies Arthur, which is a statement that becomes more unsavoury the more you think about it, so please let's not think about it.

Back in the girls' bathroom, Spike and the twins are still talking. "If it's the first time, you're ok!" says Erika. "You can't get pregnant the first time." "I don't know if that's true," Heather meebles. "Of course it is," Erika insists. "Everyone knows that." Everyone except for scientists and doctors, that is. But Erika's suddenly decided she's the fount of all reproductive knowledge, and insists that Spike's period is just randomly irregular all of a sudden and EVERYTHING WILL BE JUST FINE. Spike stares into the sink and the twins awkwardly hug her.

Later, Spike walks into her mother's hair salon, and… look, you might as well just start drinking now and not stop until this scene is over. Spike's mom is styling some woman's hair, and the woman is telling her that someone they know is pregnant – "Again!" Spike's mom is delighted. Spike says hi, and her mother apologises for being cranky that morning. The client keeps talking. "Six kids and another one on the way. She seems very happy – she certainly must enjoy being a mother!" Spike, who's sweeping the floor, looks increasingly uncomfortable.

"Mom," asks Spike, "some friends and I were talking and someone said you couldn't get pregnant the first time you had sex…" "Wanna bet?" asks her mother. "They say one in five girls gets pregnant the first time." Wait, what? That's just a spectacular lie! What the hell, Degrassi writers?

Not content with repeating made-up statistics, Spike's mother proceeds to give Spike, and the viewers, a quick run-down on pregnancy myths. "It's amazing what some people believe, like you can't get pregnant if you stand up immediately afterwards – not true." "Or, you can't get pregnant if you keep your eyes closed," adds her client helpfully. Is everyone taking notes? As Spike goes behind a convenient partition to angst in private, her mother keeps talking. "All these myths! I wish someone had told me the facts. I was seventeen when I had this one. I was dreaming of going to university, but I had to leave school and go to work." "Well, Christine's a good girl," says the client. "You can be sure she's going to university…" OK OK OK, being a teen mother is hard! We get it!

Back at school, Arthur the Date Doctor is coaching Yick on how to ask Melanie out. "She can't say no after a compliment," he says, and this is clearly the day for sweeping, wholly unfounded statements. They stop halfway up the stairs for Yick to practise complimenting. He gazes into Arthur's eyes and breathes, "Your eyes are so blue, they remind me of swimming pools." However, Snake and Tim overhear this, and Snake looks deeply, deeply weirded out by it. And who could blame him? Not the gay thing, I mean; it's just that Arthur has brown eyes (and, in fact, so does Melanie).

Anyway, since that went so well, the guys go up to find Melanie, who is still rambling at Kathleen about horoscopes. Yick stares up at her (she's about a foot taller than him) and tells her, "Your eyes are so blue they seem like pimming swools." The girls burst out laughing and mock him mercilessly until he runs off, pausing only to call Arthur a broomhead.

After lunch, Spike's in the library with the twins. Heather's nagging her to get a pregnancy test, but Spike says it's too embarrassing. "I heard it's easy!" expositions Heather. "You can buy a test and do it at home, or go to the clinic and they'll do it. They won't tell your mom." I hope everyone's taking notes. Or at least another drink. Spike insists she's not going to the clinic, but the twins helpfully/nosily offer to go with her, and Heather points out that if she is pregnant, she'll have to see a doctor anyway.

"If I am pregnant, my mum'll kill me!" says Spike, then stares over at Shane, who's been sitting conveniently within her line of sight the whole time. He smiles tentatively at her, and is rewarded with death stares from all three girls. He hastily goes back to his book.

Once the bell goes, he grabs her by the arm on the way out, but she shakes him off. He follows her anyway. "Wait up! I thought we were going steady; why are you treating me like this?" Wait, going steady? Um, it's 1987, not 1957.

"You really want to know?" asks Spike. She drags him from the corner of the hallway where they're standing to… another corner, which isn't any less private. I suppose they needed to stretch out the scene a bit. "Remember Lucy's party?" she asks. Shane smiles sleazily. "Yeah," he tells her. His tone is wonderfully inappropriate for this moment. "I think I'm going to have a baby," Spike announces. Shane asks if she's joking, and when she says no, he just backs away. Literally, like, without a word, just backs away and is outta there. Shane is one classy, classy guy.

After the break, it's the next day. Voula's proudly showing off photos of a baby. Drink! When Spike and Shane comes in, Alexa calls them over: "Come and see the pictures of Voula's sister's new baby!" Um, either he's not that new, or I feel awfully sorry for Voula's sister, because he's the size of a two-year-old.

"I can't wait till I have a baby," Alexa announces. Take a big drink now. "Are you kidding?" asks Lucy. "Babies pee twelve times a day, so you're always changing diapers." Spike looks horrified at this newsflash. "Oh, but just imagine how great it'd be," Alexa sighs. "Someone to love you for the rest of your life." Spike looks up at Shane, who looks hastily away. Still classy. "Yeah, really great," says Lucy, "especially when they wake up in the middle of the night, so you don't get any sleep." Spike looks startled at this, too. Wait, babies wake in the night? She exchanges another awkward look with Shane, but just then Mr Raditch comes in, so everyone has to sit down.

Raditch announces that he has "a bit of a treat" for them: the Victorian Romantic poets. Par-tay! He starts to read out a love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Spike tries to make soulful eye contact with Shane, but he pointedly stares out the window until she gets the message. Ouch. Joey notices something's going on between them, and the twins exchange looks that say, "This really isn't going well."

Later, Shane comes into the boys' bathroom, and engages in some half-hearted cubicle-door-punching, but he doesn't get too into it, because he's quite middle-class. Joey and Wheels, who apparently have nothing better to do, follow him in. Joey, at this point, is a man possessed, and instantly demands to know, "At Lucy's party – did you or didn't you?" Why the hell is he so invested in this?

Shane starts to go, then turns to the others. "What would you guys do if you got someone pregnant?" "Spike's gonna have a baby?" asks Joey. "No!" says Shane. "It's just a question, that's all. I mean, it wouldn't be the guy's problem, right?" Shane McKay, ladies and gentleman: always classy. "It'd sort of be his baby too," Joey points out. Shane looks like he was really hoping that wasn't the answer, and shuffles away. Look, Shane, if Joey Jeremiah is less of an irresponsible douchebag than you, you should just give up now.

"You think Spike's pregnant?" asks Wheels. "Nah, they never really did it," says Joey. "He's bluffing so we'd think they did. Right?" "Right," Wheels agrees. Um, right.

Later, as the Grade Sevens are leaving their classroom (hey, they were being taught by the elusive Ms Baxter!), Melanie reads Kathleen her horoscope. Apparently she's due to get a surprise gift. Arthur and Yick overhear this, and Arthur promptly runs off to steal a vase of flowers from Ms Baxter's desk. He tells Yick, "She's got to talk to you if you give her flowers. Girls like to get flowers. They think it's romantic or something." I think Arthur hasn't quite understood the bit where girls don't like to be given stolen property, or patronised by porn-watching geek kids. Yick complains that he feels like a broomhead, and Arthur sensibly doesn't deny this, just tells him to hurry up and give Melanie the flowers already.

Unfortunately, because Yick is a broomhead, he shoves the flowers right in Melanie's face. As only happens on TV, she instantly starts sneezing (and throwing all her papers up in the air, wtf?). "She's got allergies! Flowers make her sneeze!" Kathleen unnecessarily expositions. Yick runs off, blaming Arthur as he goes.

After school, the twins are lying in wait for Spike. "We're coming to the clinic with you," announces Erika. "I don't want to go to the clinic!" Spike hisses. The twins decide that they'll buy her a test instead, because "you'll go crazy if you don't find out". That, or they'll go crazy from unsatisfied curiosity.

Yick is feeling dejected at his terminal lack of game. "I'll have lots more ideas tomorrow," Arthur reassures him. Yick snaps, "I don't think I want to try any more of your ideas. They don't work so good." So he decides to just man up and ask her out… which was actually Arthur's original idea.

He runs after Melanie and asks her to go skating with him. How delightfully Canadian! "You mean a date?" she asks eagerly. She turns to grin at Kathleen, who makes herself scarce, in possibly the only recorded incident of Kathleen behaving tactfully. (Arthur's standing about six inches behind Yick, because tact is not his strong point.) "How about Saturday morning?" says Yick. Yeah, nothing is more romantic than getting up early on a Saturday morning.

Melanie asks Yick what star sign he is, and he says Aquarius. "I'm Cancer," she replies. "I don't think we're supposed to get along. But you are a boy, and it is a date. Okay!" That acceptance was so lukewarm, it was worse than a refusal.

At the chemist's, the girls are stealthily wandering around the aisles. At least they've had the good sense to stay away from Mama Kaye's shop. Erika pulls down a test and loudly reads the instructions. "Collect sample after first urine in the morning. Test takes two hours before results can be read." OMG, two hours? Heather looks at another one. "This one only takes an hour. Do you think one's better?" "Probably both are good, as long as you use them properly," says Erika for the benefit of the audience (so drink up!). I hope you're all taking notes, girls: '80s pregnancy tests are really, really, really crap.

Test safely purchased, the girls leave the shop, and the twins wish Spike good luck and promise to call tomorrow. Off she goes, and we hear some super-gritty, angsty synth music playing over a montage of her walking home. This is soon to become the Spike 'n Shane theme tune, and it plays every damn time they have a dramatic moment together. Which will be often.

Once she gets home, she says hello to her mother, and rather idiotically she's carrying the test in her hand, rather than hiding it in her bag. Her mother offers her dinner, but she says she's not hungry, and is going straight to bed, and there's nothing suspicious about that, no siree Bob. Her mother insists she needs to eat, and then sees the bag from the chemist's, and asks what's in it. Spike insists there's nothing in it, and then tries to hide it behind her back, and then just bolts and runs up to her room and lies on her bed in a rage. She is pretty terrible at acting casual.

Her mother follows her up to her room, and demands to know what's going on. Spike throws a full-scale teenage hissy fit. "I want to go live somewhere else! You don't care about me! You don't care how I think or feel! You know nothing what it's like to be fourteen!" Her mother starts to flounce out of the room, but then Spike calls her back and throws the pregnancy test at her. Um, way to keep a secret, Spike.

Her mother takes out the test, which is some kind of freakish contraption that looks like a cross between an hourglass and a Glade plug-in. "Oh no," she whispers, "you didn't." Spike lies face down on the bed and cries. The tense drama of the moment is slightly undermined by the rustling of the actresses' clothes/the carpet/Spike's blankets, which is for some reason much too loud, and why is the sound so terrible on this show?

Just then the phone rings, and Spike's mother actually goes to answer it. It's Shane calling for Spike, and she says Spike will call back, and look, I know she's stressed and all, but she has the weirdest, most robotic telephone manner ever.

And then they bond, and so on, and the Spike 'n Shane Theme Tune plays in the background, and the point is, the mother clearly isn't as angry as Spike had feared she would be. So the moral is, if you get pregnant, your mother will be totally OK with it. Yay!

Next morning, Spike and her mother are in the car outside a clinic. Spike sensibly points out that she could have just done the test at home, but her mother says that she likes the doctor, and if Spike's pregnant she'll need to see the doctor anyway, and anyway they really need to pad the episode out by adding in this extra scene. So that's that. "I'm sorry," says Spike. "It just happened. I wanted him to like me." "The number of us who've said that!" laughs her mother. "I didn't like it much," Spike admits. So… I suppose that answers Erika's question at the start of the episode?

Just then, Shane arrives, looking shifty. "I don't know why you told him," Spike's mom mutters. "If I am pregnant, it's his baby too, right?" asks Spike. Her mother looks at her watch and says the doctor should have the results by now. What, was the doctor injecting a rabbit or something? She offers to go in, but Spike says she and Shane will go together. Her mother acts supportive, then cries when Spike is gone. More gritty music. Because this is a gritty show!

Spike joins Shane out in the car park. "I'm glad you came," she tells him. But wait, isn't that what got them into this situation in the first place? Ok, ok, I'll stop now. They go into the clinic, leaving Spike's mother to freak out in peace.

Then we cut to a montage of Yick and Melanie ice-skating. They laugh a great deal. They skate. They have lots of wholesome fun. Ice-skating: better than inept, pregnancy-causing sex.

Some time later, Spike and Shane come out of the clinic. They walk towards the car, very slowly. Spike's mother gets out and walks towards them, very slowly. Everyone stares at each other for a bit. "Mum," says Spike, "I'm pregnant." Absolutely nobody is surprised, because otherwise this episode would have been a massive waste of time. Spike and her mother hug, sad music plays, and Shane watches them from a safe distance.

Next day, Spike's sitting alone in a stairwell at school. Some girl asks if she's ok, and Spike insists she is. Then continues to sit in the semi-darkness, staring at her hands. The girl, who is gullible, leaves her alone.

Then Shane turns up, and sits next to her. Because the episode needs some kind of wrap-up, they proceed to have a staged debate on the whole issue; they bicker about whose fault this is, then wonder what to do next. "You don't want me to marry you, do you?" asks Shane, still keepin' it classy. Spike just gives him a withering look. Obviously she's already figured out that being married to Shane would be the only thing worse than being pregnant by him.

Next she suggests having the baby and giving it up for adoption, then adds, "But I don't want to get big and stuff!" Actually, this show consistently presents weight gain as one of the major reasons why teen pregnancy sucks. I don't know why they didn't also have a special episode on how hard it is to find fashionable maternity clothes.

Then she suggests having an abortion. Shane is all anti, and there's a lot of obligatory "It's got rights!" "But what about my rights?" etc. They both agree on one thing: this whole situation is kind of a downer.

"Why is this happening?" asks Spike. "It was just a little mistake." "Sort of a big mistake," mumbles Shane. The closing credits start up and we freeze on Spike's face, as she realises just how much of a douchebag she's dealing with.

Dubious lessons of the week: Underage sex on TV always leads to pregnancy. Your mother will be fine about the whole thing, but the guy will be a total asshole. And pregnancy will make you fat. Go ice-skating instead.

S01 E08 – Nothing to Fear

Morning. L.D. comes out of her house, eating a scone the size of a man's heart. She goes into a large garage, i.e. the kind where you take your car to be fixed, not the kind you have at your house. Nonsensical country music is playing on the radio – I've tried to decipher the lyrics, but all I can make out is "Your lips roasting at sunset, and bigger out what, you know what you gets it, you know what you got." Perhaps this is some obscure Canadian dialect, because it makes no damn sense in standard English.

Over at one end of the garage, L.D.'s dad and his garage minion are doing car stuff to a car, while L.D.'s dad smokes, which seems like a fire hazard to me, but what do I know? Also, this actor is a very unconvincing smoker. The garage minion tells "Mr. D" to look at what L.D.'s eating, and Mr. D mutters "marshmallows on toast" in a tone of deepest loathing. Which, again, makes no sense because, as I mentioned, she's in fact eating a gigantic scone.

L.D. comes over to say goodbye, and her dad asks if she's finished cleaning the kitchen yet. When she looks shamefaced, he says she has to do it right after school. Without opening her mouth properly, she mumble-lisps that he "promised I could fix Mr. Jeremiah's transmission". Her dad sexists irritably at her: "It's time you stopped monkeying around out here! You're thirteen years old! You're supposed to be turning into a lady! Now go, or you'll be late for school!" His voice has a ridiculous echo; I'm pretty sure his lines were actually dubbed in with a recording made in a giant underground cavern.

L.D. rolls her eyes and leaves, but before she's out of earshot, he shouts at her to get rid of her shocking, manly baseball cap: "You think your mother would let you wear a cap like that?" L.D. mutters "Drop dead" as she cycles away. And I think somebody is going to get an extra-large serving of irony any minute now.

(For those who are reading this without being overly familiar with the show: L.D. always wears a baseball cap. It's kind of her thing. She also wears check flannel shirts, even though she does not listen to grunge. That's how we know she's a tomboy. We've never actually seen her do anything tomboyish.)

As he tries to resume doing non-specific car stuff, Mr. D. suddenly grunts in distress, and clutches his left armpit. Yes, it's annoying when you suddenly realise you forgot to put on deodorant, but there's no need to over-react. Mr. D. sits on the floor, looking irate, and his garage minion runs off to call a doctor. This episode's themes of contentious tomboyism and parental heart attacks firmly established, it's time for the opening credits.

In school, Ms Avery (rocking a blue shoulder-padded power dress, yet another diamante belt, and career-woman neck scarf, with – in a brief departure from her usual left-wingitude – a giant hairdo reminiscent of Sarah Palin) is outlining some dumbass make-work project in which the kids have to split up into groups and map sections of the neighbourhood. Spike, L.D. and Voula are in a group together, and it seems they'll be mapping the area around a hospital. "I hate hospitals – they give me the creeps," says L.D., an utterance that will be in no way relevant to other events in this episode.

The project's due in on Friday, and L.D. doesn't think they can get it done on time, but Voula, young Stakhanovite that she is, says it'll be ok if they start today and work hard and so on. L.D., of course, has to clean the kitchen this afternoon, but the others say they can meet her afterwards. She complains that her dad was ok before her brothers moved out, but "now it's nag, nag, nag, like I'm supposed to be a little princess or something". Yeah, because princesses get nagged a lot? I guess? Also, given what happens in this episode and the complete absence of L.D.'s alleged brothers throughout, I stand by my theory that they don't exist. They are simply a delusion she's developed as an embodiment of the patriarchal forces that daily threaten to destroy her.

Voula mentions that her dad is pretty strict, but we all know that doesn't really count, because he's ethnic (and a former dictator) and it's expected of him. But we have a right to expect better of non-immigrant parents! L.D. continues to complain about how her dad won't let her do car stuff any more, and she's supposed to be a lady all of a sudden, and sometimes she wishes he'd get out of her life IRONY ALERT.

Meanwhile, Caitlin and Melanie are chatting about someone Melanie likes, and it is in fact Snake the Man-god, who's standing right behind them. Melanie, not even a little bit embarrassed by this, turns around and says a very grinny hello, and he says hello back, and it's all very awkward and cute.

And if you thought we were actually going to have a non-Yick-and-Arthur-related subplot for once, I have bad news for you. They're with Susie in the library, and she's berating them in her usual emotionless monotone: "'We'll be careful,' you said. 'We know how to take care of him,' you said." "Susie, be reasonable!" whines Arthur. "Reasonable? You want me to be reasonable?" snaps Susie, who for some reason seems to think that being reasonable is entirely beyond her abilities – which is actually true, at least when there's a supposed lesbian around.

Melanie comes in, sits down next to a large terrarium, and asks what's going on. "These guys left the top open. Amadeus is gone," says Susie. Melanie stares at the terrarium and explains to herself, and us, that Amadeus is "the snake", and was there seriously no less clumsy way for the writers to explain this situation to us? As Susie continues to rant at the boys, Melanie rambles to herself about how "Amadeus is loose in the school… slithering… slinking… waiting to crawl up somebody's leg… " Susie tells the boys to look for Amadeus, and they proceed to wander around the library calling his name. They truly are stupid: everybody knows the only person who can help them now is Barry White.

That afternoon, L.D. cycles back into the garage, where she's met by her dad's minion. He brings her up to speed in the least sensitive way ever: "Your dad's in the hospital… it's his heart, or something." Yeah, thanks for that, garage minion. Anyway, he gives L.D. a list of stuff her dad asked her to bring to the hospital for him, and in another show of diplomacy, observes that Mr. D was "grumpy as ever" and says that his health problems are all his own fault. He then struts off. Considering he doesn't actually seem to be trying to be an asshole, he's doing a remarkably good job of it.

Outside the school, Voula and Spike sit despondently on the steps. Voula's donned a gigantic, tourist-issue Aran sweater over her Russian peasant ensemble. Why wear one kind of lumpish Eurasian traditional outfit when you could can two at a time? "I bet L.D. won't show," says Spike. "I did a science project with her last year, remember? I ended up doing all the work." Voula points out that L.D. had the flu, but Spike darkly replies, "She's always got excuses."

Speaking of which, L.D. is at home, packing her dad's stuff. All the products in the bathroom are weirdly unlabelled, perhaps to compensate for the blatant product placement of three episodes ago. Also, her dad has apparently requested she bring him a huge pile of dishtowels.

As she puts some framed photos into a bag for him, she comes to a photo of a woman (presumably Mrs. D) with a baby (presumably the young L). And the show goes to a whole new level of manipulativeness, as we hear in voiceover Young L.D. asking her dad, "Why did they take Mummy to a hospital?" Flashback Voicover Mr. D explains that her mom's not feeling well, and she's gone to hospital so she can feel better, and he promises that her mom will be home soon. LIES.

Voula and Spike are still waiting, and eventually decide to phone L.D. Which, hilariously, actually entails getting up and going into the school to find a phone. Ugh, the old days! Also, why are Spike's tapered trousers always like an inch too short? For someone with such "outrageous" punk hair, her middle-aged spinster clothes are really incongruous.

In the garage, Mr. D's minion answers the phone (a rotary phone, with a real bell inside. Crazy) and gives the receiver to L.D. Voula nasally asks where she is, which is in fact a spectacularly stupid question considering they phoned her, on a landline. L.D. says she forgot to meet the others and offers no explanation, and pretty much hangs up on them. "I told you she's always got excuses," bitches Spike.

"Ready to come to the hospital?" asks the garage minion. L.D. looks terrified and says she's going to stay at home, since she still hasn't cleaned up the kitchen. Minion claims her dad would rather see her than a clean kitchen, but L.D. doesn't dignify this assertion with an answer, and says she'll visit him tomorrow if he's not out by then. Eventually, the garage minion gives in and heads off on his motorbike, and L.D. locks up the garage. Which, in place of a real shopfront, has yet another of those damn handlettered bubble-writing posters in the front window. Aaargh, the '80s!

Next morning, Arthur and Yick are in Doris Bell's office, making an announcement over the PA about the missing snake. As Arthur witters about how there's no need to worry, because Amadeus is "friendly, for a snake, and not at all poisonous", we see Melanie clump into school in a pair of tight jeans, which have been tucked into a huge pair of boots (I think they're ice skates with the skatey bit removed) and then heavily masking-taped around the ankles. She anxiously checks her locker for snakes, and in the background we see Joey grab Snake and yell, "I got the snake!" Well, at least we got that inevitable joke out of the way quickly.

In an unnecessary bit of exposition, Alex asks Melanie what's the deal with her boots, and she explains that it's an anti-snake precaution. Alex smirks and walks off. Melanie then says hello to Snake, who answers, "Nice boots, Melanie." But, you know, not meanly enough to disrupt the cuteness of their hamfisted flirting.

Later, in the gym, the girls are warming up. L.D. comes over to Voula and Spike and, lest we briefly forget that she is a tomboy, declares, "Thank goodness for gym, eh? Only place in the whole school that's comfortable!" Spike snarks at her about not turning up yesterday. Voula (who's not wearing her glasses, and would actually be quite pretty if not for her enormous eyebrows) says that there's lots more to do, and L.D. should come along today.

L.D. says she can't, and Spike totally loses it: "You think it's fair that we have to do all the work? Why don't you help for a change?" Eventually, L.D. does the sensible thing and actually explains that her dad's in the hospital. Suitably mortified, Spike and Voula apologise and say she doesn't have to help with the project. L.D. looks tormented. The background music is incongruously cheery.

After school, Snake and Wheels are chatting about the snake. "I heard it's in the girls' washroom," says Wheels. "So stay out of there, ok?" "Yeah, all right," says Snake, like he totally would hang around in there under normal circumstances, but if there's a snake in there he'd better stay away for a day or two.

L.D.'s heading home too, and everyone is sending their best wishes to her dad. Which is something I think most young teenagers would be waaaay too embarrassed to do. Joey, of all people, comes up to her and gently says, "Tell him Joey said to stay cool," without even asking if she'd be a doll and hurry up with his dad's transmission. As L.D. cycles off, we hear Steph and Lucy talking about how the snake is in the boys' washroom. Hilarity!

At home, L.D. goes into the garage, where her dad's minion is under a car, you guessed it, doing car stuff. She nervously goes up to him, carrying some flowers wrapped in cellophane. He's glad that she's evidently going to visit Mr. D, "but don't let him talk you into getting him more cigarettes – he tried that on me". Mr. D clearly does not learn.

L.D. sits down on the garage floor, a manly act which her father would almost certainly disapprove of, and asks the garage minion how long he's had his own apartment, and what it's like living alone. Minion says it's pretty rad most of the time, there's nobody telling him what to do, but sometimes he gets so lonely he has to put the TV on the kitchen table "so I won't have to eat alone". There's a nice little snapshot of bleak urban alienation for you, folks.

But, on the other hand, at least garage minion is not a tragic orphan: his parents live around the corner and he can go there for dinner whenever he wants. L.D. looks crushed, reckoning that if her dad dies and she is thus tragically orphaned, she probably won't be able to depend on Mom Minion for some home-cooked meals. You could always go live with your brothers, L.D. Oh wait.

Eventually, Minion realises the point of this conversation, and tries to reassure L.D. that her dad isn't dying, but she's not really convinced. She's also horrified to learn that Minion can't go to the hospital with her, because "Mr. Jeremiah's screaming for his car back". Wow, Mr. Jeremiah is in fact less classy than Joey. That takes some doing. Also, Minion is brandishing a lightbulb in his hand and somehow making it light up, which is a nifty trick. Looking distinctly ill, L.D. sets off for the hospital.

Next we see her outside the hospital, with some ominous bass strumming in the background. She shuffles into the building, and I think she's meant to look scared but she really just looks disgusted by all the sick people. Again, and with some extra echo effects, we hear Flashback Voicover L.D. asking her dad why Mummy's gone to the hospital, and Flashback Voiceover Mr. D saying that Mummy will be fine and hospital is where people go to get well. LIES. Oh yeah, just in case you hadn't noticed, L.D. has hospital-related trauma issues. There are also some super-creepy surrealist whooshing sounds in the background, yet again adding a vaguely Lynchian feel to proceedings.

Eventually, L.D. panics and gives the bunch of flowers to a receptionist, asking for them to be sent up to her dad ("Mr. Delacorte"). The receptionist is another inexplicably English dame, like the bra lady from a few episodes back, and what is it with this show and its weird old English women? L.D. scuttles out of the hospital, nearly wrenching the too-slow automatic doors open with her bare hands, another act of masculinity which her father would disapprove of. Commercial break.

Some time later, L.D. is standing across the road from the hospital. She goes into a phone booth and, in a scene that is surely stretched out unnecessarily, slooowly phones her dad. As they talk, we see him sitting in his hospital bed, from the neck down only, interspersed with shots of the stuff on his bedside table. It makes the scene creepy and mysterious for no reason. Was the actor briefly unavailable or something, so they filled in with some randomer and hoped we wouldn't notice? Because… it's pretty noticeable.

Anyway, L.D. asks her dad how he is, and he says he'll be fine (the camera pans over the framed photo of the late Mrs. D, to remind us of his track record as a LIAR in these matters) but he needs some more tests. When he asks why L.D. didn't call up to see him, she tells him that she had to go work on the mapping project, and her friends are waiting for her right now. Hm, seems like being a LIAR is a family trait.

Anyway, they say goodbye, and as a parting shot, Mr. D. asks, "How's that kitchen? You cleaned it yet? I don't want to get home and find it a mess." Patriarchal brute. We finally see his face at the very end, looking sad and lonely, and I still have no idea what the hell was going on with this scene.

Next morning, in school. Yick, Arthur and Susie are sneaking down into the school basement, with a big cardboard box, and I get an unpleasant sense that some wackiness is imminent. The kids bicker over whether the snake is likely to be in the basement: Arthur says yes, because snakes are cold-blooded so Amadeus is probably keeping warm in the boiler room, while Yick says no, because he doesn't understand what "cold-blooded" means. The cardboard box has some leaves taped to the corners, and crude drawings of grass, snakes, and mice on the sides. How old are these kids, seriously? Susie's worried that the snake might have gone off and got run over, but Arthur says they're sure to catch him with this spiffy cardboard box trap, which Yick is baiting with lunch meat. Because snakes love lunch meat!

Mmm, lunch meat.

So yeah. The kids sneak into the boiler room, and it seems kind of lax on the part of the school authorities to not, I don't know, lock the door? And by "lax" I mean "criminally negligent".

Up in the corridor, Melanie's still wearing her taped-up giant boots (and carrying her stylish Speedo gym bag, by the way). While she stows her stuff in her locker, Mr. Lawrence makes an announcement on the PA: "Please be aware that there is only one serpentine creature at large. Rumours of a dozen missing tarantulas are utterly without foundation." Yeah, sure, that's what they all say, until people start turning up dead.

Meanwhile, Alex and a couple of extras are hiding behind her opened locker door, and they sneak a very fake-looking plastic snake over the top of it. Melanie doesn't notice until it's at her eye level, then catches sight of it and shrieks, "SNAKE!" Snake thinks she's calling him, just to make things more embarrassing, and the other guys run away, laughing hysterically at her. Until they're spotted by Mr. Raditch, who seemingly dishes out the Stinkeye to anyone who seems too exuberant, just in case.

Melanie, seemingly pushed over the edge by this prank, just hides her face in shame and beats her head gently against her locker, not noticing that Snake is walking off with an affectionate smile. Mr Raditch stares at Melanie in total bafflement. Apparently the mechanics of adolescent embarrassment are beyond his ken.

In the classroom, Voula is carrying an envelope on which she's written "Flower MONEY", and also drawn a flower for the benefit of her stupider classmates. People are putting money in the envelope. Money with which to buy flowers. It seems the kids of Degrassi are pretty upset about Mr. D being sick; Spike helpfully reminds everyone that he sponsored their softball team last year (I dunno, sport sounds pretty unladylike to me) and even Steph is 100% in favour of sending him flowers. And truly Mr. D's plight has brought everyone together, because Voula even lets Steph express her opinion without launching a savage, painfully clumsy verbal attack on her.

Voula and Spike, obviously still feeling guilty about their previous judgeathon, say they'll take the flowers to the hospital at lunchtime. Surely they should make some handlettered posters too?

When L.D. comes in, everyone shuts up about the flower plan, and Voula asks how her dad is. L.D. cagily says that he's still in the hospital, and Voula, in a rare show of dumbassedness, asks her, "How do his eyes look? My grandmother says you can tell a person's health by looking in their eyes." Oh, ethnic people and their crazy ideas! L.D. mumbles that his eyes look the same as always, she guesses. Just then, Ms Avery creates a diversion by telling everyone that their mapping projects are going great. She delivers light shoulder-pats all round. Lesbian!

At lunchtime, we see Voula and Spike emerge from the hospital gift shop with a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums that might actually be one of the ill-fated bouquets from last episode. I would not put it past this show. They meander around the hospital and eventually find Mr. D's room. Spike, in the grand style of punk kids everywhere, has Tipp-exed some band names on her schoolbag: I can make out "The Cult" and "The Furs". I'm not sure if I'm disappointed or grudgingly impressed to learn that both bands actually exist.

Mr. D is morosely hunched over a ghastly hospital meal, framed photo of the late Mrs. D positioned prominently on his nightstand. He's a bit surprised to see Voula and Spike, but is touchingly pleased by the flowers. The girls explain that L.D. doesn't know they're there, and Spike says they wanted her to see the flowers next time she visits. "Next time?" says Mr. D sadly. "She hasn't been here yet. …But I understand she's got a big mapping project that's keeping her real busy." Yeah, I always use that excuse when I'm avoiding someone. Works every time.

The girls stare at him in horror, because Mr. D is putting on a brave face but it's pretty clear how depressed he is by this (admittedly very depressing) situation. He asks them to tell L.D. that he's going to be okay. They continue to stare.

Back at school, Arthur and Yick sneak back into the boiler room. They're wildly excited to see the trap has been sprung. Arthur bends down to investigate. "Oh no," he groans. "Dead?" asks Yick. "Rubber," says Arthur, holding up the toy snake from earlier Actually, much as I hate to admit it, that was kind of a funny prank by the other guys.

Voula and Spike are awkwardly saying their goodbyes to Mr. D. Out in the corridor, they share a long, intense stare that could be meant to express anything from terror to lust to "Seriously, WTF is up with L.D.?" I'm going with the latter. Spike declares that L.D. is "acting weeeeird".

Speaking of which, we next see L.D. huddled in the dark, sitting on the floor of the gym under a sadly ironic motivational poster. The effect is kind of weird. Voula comes in and says they've been looking everywhere for L.D., who says nothing in response. Voula explains that she's been to the hospital, and L.D. asks, "How do his eyes look?" She may or may not be trying to sound witheringly sarcastic, I'm not sure, but Voula doesn't understand sarcasm in others anyway, and just says that his eyes, and the rest of him, look fine. L.D. is not particularly comforted.

Out in the corridors, everyone's bustling around. Mr. Lawrence is on the PA again, reassuring everyone that "any cafeteria menus featuring Shepherd's Python or Corn on the Cobra are merely the product of a warped sense of humour". Wow, they're faking menus now? I kind of admire these kids' dedication.

Voula has refused to butt out, and is sitting on the floor beside L.D. "How come you don't go visit him?" she asks. L.D. mumbles a Tragic Backstory in Bullet Points: "When my mom got sick, she went into the hospital. Everyone said she was gonna be okay. I went to visit her. Then she died."

Voula has some truly revelatory words of wisdom: "Just because you go to the hospital doesn't mean you die." YOU DON'T SAY, VOULA. She starts droning on about getting her tonsils out last year, but L.D. interrupts her to say that her dad really doesn't want her there anyway. "He doesn't like me. I'm not at all like he wants me to be. He always yells at me. I always do stuff wrong." Voula remarks that he sounds like a normal dad to her, you know, except for the fact that L.D.'s dad strangely doesn't spend most of his time planning proletarian revolutions. "He needs you," she insists. "You're all he's got left." There's an overlong silence; I think one of the girls forgot her lines.

Closeup on L.D.'s legs in a pair of horrible tight tapered jeans, walking unsteadily into the hospital. Yet again, we hear the same voiceover flashback, as she makes her way through the corridors, confusingly mingled with the announcements on the hospital PA. Did they just page "Doctor Chlamydia"? This show is twisted.

Back in the school library, Arthur and Yick are looking under the couch cushions. In marches Susie. "Haven't you guys found Amadeus yet?" she asks, in possibly her most dead-voiced line delivery yet. Arthur insists that they're doing everything they can.

As the three bicker inanely (Yick suggesting that they should "do a dog" for their next class project, which… ew), Melanie walks in, cautiously scanning the area for snakes. She hears a squeaking sound and gasps. Over in the corner, Snake looks up from the huge glitter-covered dolls' house he's playing with. Look, I don't write this show, OK? He's 15. It makes no sense. Melanie realises that the noise is coming from a gym bag someone left on the table. She looks down, and sees Amadeus in the bag, flicking his tongue and making this weird squeaking noise. Do snakes do that?

Melanie opens her mouth to scream, but Snake's staring at her, and she doesn't want to look stupid in front of him, so she just nervously asks Susie to come over. Susie, overjoyed, picks up the snake and puts him around Arthur's neck (can you fashion a live snake into a noose?). "He's not slimy," Melanie realises. "He's kind of cute!"

Just then, Alex and his unspeaking henchmen come in. When he sees the snake, he panics, and his nostrils go even more enormous than usual. "Keep that thing away from me!" he tells Arthur, then runs out of the room. The others mock his weakness. "Honestly," says Melanie, "some people are afraid of the silliest things." Oh, the hilarity!

L.D. is still stumbling around the hospital, trying to find her way while being barged into by nurses wheeling dying people on trolleys. It's not a calming experience. And we get a new voiceover flashback! It's hugely long and bonusly traumatic: first Voiceover Flashback L.D. (who it turns out is actually named Lorraine) has gone into her mother's hospital room, and been freaked out by all the machines.

Next, she gets upset because her mother's been in hospital so long. Then, her dad's trying to comfort her/fob her off, when a doctor asks to speak to him in private. As Modern-Day L.D. gets to the door of her dad's room, Flashback Dad explains that Mummy won't be coming home. And right on cue, we see that Modern-Day Dad's hospital room has been vacated. Ouch.

L.D., horrified, goes into the room and reverentially takes off her baseball cap. Sad electric guitar music plays as she sits on the bed. And her plight is pretty heartbreaking, and we've all learned a valuable lesson about making the most of our time with the people we love, because they won't be around forever… *sniff*

Oh no, wait! It was just an incredibly manipulative trick from the writers. L.D.'s dad chirpily walks into the room, dressed and carrying an overnight bag. "You're alive!" exclaims L.D. "Of course I'm alive!" says her dad. "It's gonna take more than a little angina to stop me!" "Angina?" asks L.D., looking confused but not nearly as weirded out as most people are the first time they hear that word.

Mr. D says it's nothing serious, and he needs to take better care of himself, and they stare meaningfully at each other for a while before turning to go. L.D. chatters about how "from now on I'll be just like you want", but her dad interrupts her to say that she left her Baseball Cap of Manliness on the bed. He places it on her head in a symbolic gesture, and they walk happily down the corridor, and I swear someone called "Dr Mojo" is being paged on the PA, which is really distracting.

"If you think hospitals are scary," says Mr. D, "you should try being the father of a teenage daughter!" Which is a lovely thing for a father to say to his kid. "Don't worry," says L.D., "you'll get over it!" And off they go, friends at last. At least until he gets home and sees the state of the kitchen.

Dubious lessons of the week: If your parent has a heart attack, it's your fault for wishing it on them. Voiceover flashbacks are less dramatically effective the more you use them. Hospitals do not necessarily equal instant death. If you bait a trap with lunch meat, all you'll catch are teenage boys.

S01 E05 – The Great Race

The girls' locker room. On the PA, Mr Lawrence expositions that sports are "a big part of life" at Degrassi Junior High. Melanie's in her school swimsuit, staring at her own chest in the mirror. L.D. is watching and getting creeped out. "What are you doing?" she asks.

"Checking!" says Melanie brightly. "Checking?" asks L.D., who knows where this conversation is going and doesn't want to go there. And who could blame her?

"My mom won't let me get a bra. Which is really unfair, 'cause I need one. Don't you think?" asks Melanie. L.D. looks kind of panicked and mumbles something ineffective, but when Melanie gets mad, L.D. reluctantly agrees with her. "It's obvious!" insists Melanie. "I don't know what's wrong with my mom. Maybe she needs glasses or something?" L.D. politely resists the urge to point out that if your boobs can't be seen without glasses, they may not be all that big. The swimming coach comes in and calls the girls out. L.D. has to drag Melanie away from her fascinated contemplation of her own breasts. Opening credits.

So, there's a swimming pool, and people are swimming in it. People in swimming caps and goggles give me the creeps – they look like aliens. Anyway, Melanie is a fast swimmer, and they win because of her. This is Important to the Plot. Everyone jumps into the pool to celebrate. High-fives ensue.

Later, everyone's leaving Mr Raditch's classroom. Joey comes up to Steph, and breaks out a line he's obviously been working on all day: "Hey Stephanie, did you know I got an A+ in sex education last year? So if there's anything you want to know, Joey P. Jeremiah – P for Playboy – at your service." Thank GOD the P is for Playboy (and I'm pretty sure the uppercase P is appropriate here, as I think Joey has more experience of tacky "men's magazines" than of actual playboyism). Steph inexplicably continues to be entertained by Joey's flirting, and even feigns interest in the cutouts of "hot" '80s chicks and motorbikes pasted inside his locker. I never thought I'd say this, but Stephanie Kaye is aiming too low here.

L.D. runs up and tells Steph that the girls won their swimming race and are in the city finals of something unspecified. "Great," says Steph, with a spectacularly insincere toothy smile. L.D asks her to make an announcement about it, but Steph tells her that school presidents don't announce sports and to go see someone called Jason Cox. As so often happens to characters on this show, L.D. doesn't seem to realise she's being snubbed, and runs off to find Jason.

Close-up on the inside of Arthur's locker. We see a clumsily hand-drawn height chart with Arthur and Yick's heights marked. Arthur's replaced his owl poster with some horrifying photo of a sort of mummified face with lots of plaster of Paris melting off it, like if you were delirious from malaria and then took acid, you might have hallucinations of this sort of thing. There's also a really disturbing artist's reconstruction of a buck-toothed teenage Neanderthal, a poster of a slug, and another one called "Insects on Parade".

Yick and Arthur take turns standing up against the height chart, and both are pissed off to discover that they're still short, just like yesterday. They rail against cruel Fate for a bit, and just as they're going to leave, Snake (who's at least 6 feet tall) walks by. They both watch him like he is a man-god, come to earth just to make them look even shorter by comparison.

Melanie's getting books out of her locker when Snake the Man-God appears and goes to his locker, which is a couple feet away. Melanie blatantly ogles him, until he looks over at her and she turns away hastily. Scene from the credits! Snake totally noticed, though, and gives her an "Awww, cute" kind of smile. Which is not actually that encouraging, from her point of view.

Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence is on the PA again, and announces that the music club is looking for new members, and "new tuba players would be especially appreciated". Seriously, this is the weirdest running joke ever.

L.D comes over and teases Melanie about liking Snake. Melanie denies it unconvincingly. Random girls appear and congratulate them about the swimming thing. Did you know the girls are good at swimming? Pay attention.

A kid runs up to Doris the Secretary's desk, and he's got a football under his arm so you know he's Jason Cox, the sports guy Stephanie mentioned earlier. He tells Doris he needs to make an announcement on the PA. "Ok, just keep it brief. I've got a date!" says Doris, sounding all excited and squeeish. Awww. While Doris anxiously touches up her makeup (hee!), Jason announces that the boys have a soccer match that afternoon, and everyone should turn up to support them. No mention of the girls' swimming team. L.D. and Melanie hear him, and are filled with righteous feminist rage.

Outside the school, Arthur and Yick hide behind their stalking tree and spy on Snake. "How come he gets to be tall?" asks Yick resentfully. "I'm not sure," says Arthur, "but I read somewhere that you are what you eat. Maybe we should find out what he eats." Arthur needs to find some better reading material.

The boys are getting on with the important manly business of kicking a soccer ball at random, while some girls (who know their place) practice cheerleading. L.D. and Melanie march up to Jason and demand to talk to him. L.D. asks why he didn't make an announcement about the swimming team, and Jason says he didn't have time. L.D. correctly points out that this is a stupid excuse.

"Ladies, ladies," Jason begins. And nothing good ever started with that. "People don't care about girls' sports. Girls aren't good athletes." Smug nods from the soccer team. Indignation from L.D. and Melanie (and a collection of girls who've appeared out of nowhere). "Don't get mad at me," says Jason. "It's human nature, right?" "Ya, right on!" say the boys.

L.D. points out that the girls are actually good at swimming, while the boys lose all their matches. Jason has an answer: "We're unlucky, that's all. Anyway, soccer's tough. If you win, big deal. If we were swimming against a bunch of girls, we'd win too." The man knows how to work a crowd.

L.D. challenges the boys' soccer team to a swimming race against the girls. Jason looks around at the rest of his team. The other guys look nauseous, cough and stare at their shoes. "Ok!" says Jason. "We'll be there!" His undoubted talents obviously don't include reading body language. The boys then hurry off and get into a minivan, presumably to go to their doomed soccer game. Jason actually grabs the cheerleaders by the arms and shepherds them in too. What a gent.

Snake's been watching the whole argument, and now exchanges goofy grins with Melanie before cycling off.

The next scene opens with some tremendously blatant product placement: a very tight close-up of two McDonald's milkshakes being slurped tantalisingly (it's that old packaging where everything had rows of M's in regulation '80s shades of brown and yellow, which makes me feel both nostalgic and hungry). The camera pulls out to reveal that the delicious, delicious milkshakes are being drunk by L.D. and Melanie.

"What a sexist!" whines L.D. "He's just like my brothers. They think just because I'm a girl, I'm a second-class person. Well, we'll show Jason, right?" Melanie is entirely not listening, and wonders out loud if Snake just sees her as a kid "But who could blame him? It's my mum's fault. She thinks I'm still a little kid! I'm nearly a teenager. A passionate teenager whose dumb mom won't let her buy a bra."

L.D. listens open-mouthed to this baffling monologue, then stands up and drags Melanie down the road, announcing that they're going to go buy a bra. Off they go, with Melanie making shrieky noises of protest, watched by passerby Nancy, who seems to exist for the sole purpose of rolling her eyes at the crazy antics of the main characters.

More product placement! Closeup of a shiny Wonderbra sign in a department store, which lists (in French and English!) the range of bra types made by Wonderbra. We will also see large numbers of clearly branded Wonderbras on the shelves and a poster for something called the "Wonderbra support system". Wonderbra Wonderbra Wonderbra. This is shameless. On the other hand, the bras the girls look at are all horrible things so big they could qualify as nightdresses, and the underwear models on the posters are all suicidal-looking middle-aged bottle blondes, so this may not have actually done much for Wonderbra sales.

"I can't do this!" giggles Melanie. "Of course you can! Don't be so chicken!" L.D. tells her. Melanie utters yet another timeless nonsensical Melanie speech: "I am not chicken! Well, maybe a little bit, but not a lot, though, sort of like a chicken wing, without the legs, or breasts…" "Ha ha! Breasts!" says L.D., and they collapse (almost literally) into giggles. Hilarious.

"What'll I tell my mom?" asks Melanie. "She doesn't have to know," says L.D. "You can change at school like Stephanie!" "Oh, like Stephanie," says Melanie, in a valiant attempt at withering sarcasm. She clearly realises that taking Stephanie as a role model in any area of life is a recipe for disaster. Smart kid.

L.D. shoves a huge bra at Melanie, who looks terrified, and then takes another one and sticks it over Melanie's eyes like a blindfold, which is pretty weird, really, and Melanie looks like she doesn't know whether to be amused or to run screaming and just avoid the whole bra issue by getting a sex change.

Before Melanie can make any life-changing decisions, though, an old and for some reason English shop assistant whooshes up and asks if she can help them. "She wants to buy a bra," explains L.D. "Mmmm!" says the woman eagerly, which, girls, should be your cue to run. She makes a vague attempt to measure Melanie (i.e. wraps a measuring tape diagonally around her torso, so that it goes under one boob and over the other) and declares, "I think I know what you'd like." She yanks a random bra off the rack and holds it up reverently, murmuring, "It is lovely, isn't it?" like it's some kind of antique Chinese embroidery rather than a fugly nylon bra – but at least the Wonderbra marketing department are getting their money's worth. Melanie smiles politely and wonders if this woman is actually insane.

"Would you like to try it on?" asks the bra lady. "What? Here?" asks Melanie in disgust. "In the change rooms, dummy!" explains L.D. Aw man, do you remember when you were a kid and your mother would make you try stuff on behind a rack of clothes if there was a big queue for the changing rooms, and it was the most embarrassing thing ever? Or was that just my mother?

"You really should try it on," says the bra lady. "You can't bring it back." She is extraordinarily patient with these two, who are laughing so squeakily through all of this that I think they might be back on the New Zealand Zappers. Off they go to the changing rooms, where no doubt more bra-based hilarity ensues, but thankfully we're spared actually having to watch it.

Next morning, Stephanie is in the Bathroom of Skanky Transformations, putting blusher on her cheeks and also on her chin for some reason. L.D. is begging her to put in an appearance at the swimming race. "Do I get to make a speech?" asks Steph, in her flirty voice (I guess she's decided that it's easier to just leave it switched on all the time, or else that a bit of lesbian flirting will provide her with a much-needed change of pace). L.D. says she doesn't have to, but Steph tosses her head, looks sideways at L.D, and smoulders, "I'm getting pretty good at speeches, you know." L.D, completely oblivious to Steph's dubious charms, cheerfully answers that Steph can say whatever she likes.

"Can I wear my new wet-look bikini? It's hot pink," says Stephanie. "Sure, wear whatever you like," L.D. says with difficulty, obviusly getting more and more uncomfortable with Steph's leching, but aware that this is the price of getting her to appear at the race. I feel a bit sorry for L.D., because she's considerably more mature than most of the people around her, and also because those sexist brothers she mentioned earlier? Don't exist. We get a whole episode later on centred around her home life, and she has no brothers. Whatever gets her through the day, I guess, but it seems kind of sad to me.

Melanie comes out of the cubicle, wearing the new bra under her T-shirt. The others stare. "What do you think?" she asks. The others tell her she looks "real nice", though Stephanie needs a bit of prompting from L.D., and is a terrible liar. "Isn't it great? I feel grown up at last!" sighs Melanie, and heads out to work her Wonderbra magic on the general population. Stephanie smirks.

Out in the corridor, Melanie meets Susie and Caitlin. They say hello, but that's all, so Melanie ostentatiously fidgets with her bra. They look rather disturbed at first, but eventually Caitlin catches on and says, "Your mum changed her mind!" Jeez, did Melanie tell the whole school about her braless woes? The girls awkwardly compliment her new bust.

And speaking of busts, here comes the bust connoisseur himself, Joey Jeremiah! "Nice BRA, Melanie," he says, then pretends to sneeze and asks her for a Kleenex. Melanie insists her suspiciously lumpy bosom is not made of Kleenex and Caitlin witheringly tells him to knock it off. Joey and Tim crack themselves up comparing Melanie's boobs to variously-sized fruits, then finish with a wolf-howl for some reason. Excessively ominous music plays. Melanie is crushed. Teenage boys say stupid things? Who knew?

At lunchtime, Sexist Jason, Wheels, and some guy who I don't think will ever appear again but whom the credits refer to as "Wai Lee" are huddled in a stairwell. Jason is insisting that the guys can't back down or everyone will call them chicken (and thankfully doesn't go of into a rambling discussion of chicken parts, a la Melanie)."We'll look pretty dumb if we lose," counters Wai Lee through a mouthful of carrot sticks. Wheels utters a cogent but very poorly acted speech about why the guys are utterly fucked, but Jason is still in frantic denial. "I thought you were men!" he wails. Wheels looks appalled at this error of judgement. Wai Lee just chomps on a carrot stick, which is an answer in itself, as carrot sticks are the wussiest of school lunches.

Jason suggests that they could win if Snake swims with them, but Wheels points out that he's not on the soccer team. Wai Lee specifies that Snake was, in fact, cut from the team for being terrible. Jason says that he's a good swimmer, and makes the others promise to swim in the race if he can get Snake to join. It seems that Sexist Jason is also Unethical Jason!

Snake the Man-God is unsuspectingly eating lunch on the front steps, wearing a huge pair of sunglasses with a cord around his neck, like old women have. But apparently in the '80s this just heightened a man's allure: women want to be with Snake, men want to be him. Arthur and Yick are staking him out from behind a bike rack, but they're too far away to see what he's eating. Just as they're getting ready to wander by for a better look, Generally Unsavoury Jason barges past them and goes to sit next to Snake.

Jason asks Snake to swim with the boys in the race, but Snake reminds him that he's not on the team due to his previously mentioned suckitude. "No," says Jason, "I remember the tryouts. You were… not bad, actually." That's some nice lying. Snake is still having some ethical qualms but Jason says he'll get him another tryout if he agrees to swim. Snake sort of agrees to it.

Jason goes, and Snake takes out his lunch. It's a pot of yogurt. Yick and Arthur are staring at him from two feet away. After a minute, he realises, and looks up. "Uh… excuse me… is that yogurt?" asks Arthur raptly. "Yeah," says Snake, looking so weirded out he might cry. The boys walk off, and Yick points out that he eats yogurt all the time and is still short, so Arthur decides that they need to find out what Snake eats after school. Because the problem couldn't possibly be that their plan is stupid in the first place. Nuh-uh.

Later, in English class, Mr Raditch is reading out loud (the Player Queen's lines from Hamlet, in a squeaky woman's voice, since you asked). The line he's reading contains the word "breast", and all the boys laugh. Susie rolls her eyes in mature disgust; Caitlin gives the boys a look of pure loathing. The mention of breasts gives Alex an idea, and he reaches over and snaps Melanie's bra. "Ow!" she screams. Mr Raditch glowers at her and asks sarcastically if there's something she'd like to share with the rest of the class, like she would yell "Ow!" as a hilarious prank. Raditch is obviously unfamiliar with the concept of hilarity. Melanie hides her face in her hands. More ominous music. Let this be a lesson to you all, girls: breasts are a source of unending public shame, and don't you forget it.

After class, a glum Melanie shuffles out of the room, with Susie and Caitlin making feeble attempts to cheer her up. Joey yells that he can't wait to see her in her bathing suit. Melanie looks yet more shamefaced. Snake overhears and watches her anxiously, or he might just be daydreaming about bathing suits. Steph has a pink wet-look bikini she'd love to show him.

Melanie mopes out into the stairwell, where there's a poster advertising an "informal current affairs discussion group" run by Ms Avery. Because Ms Avery is a liberal. L.D. catches up with Melanie and complains that half the swim team are refusing to swim because they've got their periods, or don't want the boys to see them in swimsuits, but "at least there's four of us – Susie, Caitlin, me and you –" "I'm not swimming," says Melanie. L.D. freaks out, but Melanie walks off. Commercial break.

A little later, the boys are practicing soccer, and Wheels isn't very good in goal, by the way. Melanie and L.D. walk by, Melanie still insisting she won't swim. L.D. delivers a heartfelt speech about how winning this race would let her overcome the years of gender-based trauma she's suffered at the hands of her sexist brothers, which would be very touching if her brothers EXISTED.

Melanie, who's somehow acquired a big black cardigan with which to cover her shameful body, says that everyone laughed at her today and it'll be worse if they see her in a swimsuit. She insists that her bra isn't stuffed, it just "shapes" her, but she can't wear it under her "Speedo" (good lord, does the product placement never end?) and she'll look flat and the mockery will never end. She walks sadly homewards, the logo on her brand-new Speedo sports bag clearly legible. Yes, really.

Meanwhile, back on the soccer pitch, Jason and Snake come over and Jason announces that the coach let Snake on the team (presumably the coach is easily bribed). Manly cheering. The boys start to play, but Snake is just as bad at soccer as we have been led to believe. He tries to weasel out, but Jason insists he just needs practice.

Later, Arthur and Yick are lurking outside an unbelievably dingy shop called the "De Grassi Grocery", which looks like the kind of place with a secret back room where they remove bullets, no questions asked. Arthur watches through a pair of binoculars as Snake comes out eating something, which they identify as a "Super Crunch Delight". Once he's gone, they run in and buy forty of them. Oh, those boys!

Next morning. Melanie comes into school, still carrying her Speedo bag despite insisting she won't swim, and in comes Jason, also with a Speedo bag. This is getting ridiculous. Jason goes over to Snake, and then sees L.D., and proudly tells her Snake's on the team. L.D. knows what he's up to, Jason says there's nothing she can do about it, and Snake watches them argue. He grins goofily every time he looks at Jason and seems troubled and qualmy every time he looks at L.D. "I still don't think this is right," he says after L.D. is gone. Jason doesn't give a crap.

Inside, Melanie's going upstairs when she sees Joey and Tim (in a bookie's hat) taking bets on the race. Is there no adult supervision in this school? Cut to Snake, alone, tormentedly eating a Super Crunch Delight – the brunch of champions! – on the front steps.

Jason comes into the boys' changing room, but finds only Wheels and the perpetually depressed Wai Lee. "Where's Snake?" asks Wheels. "He's not here?" says Jason. "Sure he is," snarks Wheels. "He's just so thin you missed him." Heh. The others obviously hold Jason personally responsible for this hitch in their cheating plans, so he runs off to look for Snake the Man-God before they mutiny.

Meanwhile, Susie, L.D. and Caitlin are in their changing room, doing warm-ups in their spiffy matching Adidas jackets YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING. Oh look, a Speedo poster on the wall. The girls are all pretty depressed, because apparently Melanie's been carrying this team all along and they're doomed without her. Stephanie, in her tried-and-trusted pink boob tube and minty green miniskirt, her hair freshly back-combed to full mushroomy glory, practises her speech: "It's a big day for the girls' swim team, blah blah blah." Yes, really. L.D. asks what happened to the pink wet-look bikini, but Steph says there's too many people out there. What, all of a sudden she's developed a sense of shame? This isn’t the Steph we know and tolerate!

Jason runs through the deserted halls calling forlornly for Snake. It would be touching, if Jason wasn't such a pain in the ass.

Somebody's remembered that the subplot needed wrapping up. Cut to Arthur and Yick hanging onto one of those laddery climbing-frame thingies they have in school gyms, in an effort to stretch. "I'll never eat another Super Crunch Delight again," says Arthur. "I was sick all night." "Me too," grunts Yick. "My arms hurt." "Mine too. But that's the price of getting tall – there's no gain without pain," says Arthur. My sides are splitting, I assure you.

Finally, Jason finds another human being in the corridors, but unfortunately for him it's mere mortal Melanie. She says she hasn't seen Snake. "Aren't you supposed to be getting ready to swim?" asks Jason. When she can't look him in the eye, he realises she's not swimming, and is so delighted he does one of those little sideways kicks as he goes off to keep looking for Snake. It would be cute, if Jason wasn't such a pain in the ass.

Eventually he gives up, and returns to the changing room. He announces that Snake's still missing, but they don't need him, because Melanie's not swimming either. There's another Speedo poster in the boys' changing room, no surprise there, only it shows some huge oiled-up muscly guy in the world's smallest bulgiest swimming trunks, and frankly it's a little creepy.

With a level of self-belief that would be inspiring if he wasn't such a pain in the ass, Jason declares that Melanie backed out of the race because she knows the boys are going to win. Wai Lee and Wheels finally fall for his web of confidence-building lies, and exchange giant grins.

Meanwhile, Snake is sitting in godly isolation on the front steps, eating some kind of brown mush wrapped in tinfoil. Melanie comes out the door and tells him Jason's looking for him. "Yeah, well," snaps Snake. Then: "I thought you were swimming?" "I thought you were swimming," says Melanie.

Snake explains that he quit because it "wasn't right", as he was only put on the soccer team in order to rig the race. "They said I can play, but I know I can't. I used to be pretty good… but since I got tall, my feet don't always do what I tell them to any more." And this is the tragic revelation of the episode: puberty is a bitch, and it will shatter your dreams. Speaking of which, wouldn't big breasts make you all unstreamlined, so you couldn't swim as fast? Melanie had better hope she stays flat-chested.

Snake asks Melanie why she's not swimming. "I bought this b…" she trails off. "You saw the way Joey and them laughed at me. And I hate being laughed at."

Snake the Man-God, of course, has the answer: "Everyone hates being laughed at. But you can't let that stop you from doing stuff." Wow, that's like, totally deep. Melanie looks inspired. Hers has been a life very starved of inspirational material.

Joey leads his posse of male chauvinists into the stands by the pool. As the school song plays (of course), the girls' team emerge from the changing rooms in their snazzy Speedo/Adidas outfits. Much cheering from the girls, booing from the boys, and brandishing of handmade placards from everyone, because people had a lot of time on their hands before the internet. Then the boys' team comes out of their door. Cheering from the boys, and also for some reason from Alexa. Sell-out.

Inside the locker room, Melanie's in her swimsuit. She stares ponderously at herself in the mirror, then checks out her bosom one last time. Nope, still small.

Outside, the teams are standing by the edge of the pool, when the girls' door opens again and Melanie comes out. Her team-mates cheer. Wheels and Wai Lee look like they might beat up Jason. Joey leans over and yells, "Hey Melanie! You're so flat the walls are jealous!" Ominous music, but Melanie meets L.D.'s eye and they smile at each other, fondly remembering their hilarious Wonderbra-based capers of two days ago. With that, L.D. runs over to Joey, grabs him and throws him in the pool. Everybody laughs (even Rick! Caitlin would be proud).

Once Joey's been rescued by his chauvinist sidekicks, Stephanie starts the race. Thankfully, this is one Steph speech that doesn't end in a giant group makeout session or in vomiting. Though when the swimmers dive in, she gets splashed and recoils like the Wicked Witch of the West. People swim, the audience cheers (Snake's turned up to watch). Melanie swims last. Obviously she wins. In the grand tradition of this show, the credits roll over an unflattering, blurry still of her grinning face. But at least her teeth are straight.

Dubious lessons of the week: In the great race that is puberty, there are no winners. Also, Wonderbras are the sine qua non of womanhood and Speedo and Adidas make the most delightful sportswear.

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.