A Review of the First Season of Degrassi Junior High

A Review by Nick Peron

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Degrassi Junior High Episode 02 - The Big Dance:

The Characters:

Vula Grivogiannis: The central focus of our little episode, Vula is the former token ugly best friend of Stephanie Kaye. In this exciting Degrassi adventure she latches onto Lucy & The Twins, but that doesn't work so well when she realizes they hang out with Stephanie as well. Wow sucks to be you. Vula lives under the totalitarian rule of "Papa", her father.

Papa Grivogiannis: A simple man from the small village who doesn't know it's the 80's yet. In Papa's world girls don't grow up until they are 16, they don't wear make-up and they don't go to dances where boys have only one thought on their mind (because as we all know, junior high school dances often turn into massive orgies where everyone goes home nothing but thoroughly fucked.)

Stephanie Kaye: If the "hottest girl at Degrassi" is trying to ruin her political career, she's off to a good start in this episode! We're such a big girl, we can drink, and we can ask boys out on dates (and believe you me, picking Wheels is not exactly the smartest thing you can do, he's cursed) and don't even get me started on how she's missing a tooth (See the picture above for the big close up of that gaping hole there kids.)

Erica & Heather Farrel: Simply the twins. They look and act alike, therefore have no separate identity and why I'm using the same picture twice over. The twins are like the double-mint twins, only instead of riding bikes, they talk about how they got drunk at their cousins place. Crafter's of destiny these two are, for they single handedly orchestrated Stephanie Kayes first drinking experience by asking her if she drinks. They also liked to get "Splashed", why they bring this up when they are drinking is anyone's guess.

Lucy Fernandez: The fashion victim who is ignored by her family and tries to fit in by telling everyone her parents are "Loose", I'm questioning how Lucy knows how loose her parents are, but you know your dealing with some new-age radical when they like to dress up with all the latest of styles from Frederick's of Bedrock, all they'll tell you is "Hey, it's the 80's, man." Like that suddenly means it's okay to look like a fucking moron. How someone with bad hair, bad clothes, and bad make-up, and possibly the lamest stories get to be everyone's envy is something we can only speculate about.

Derek "Wheels" Wheeler: Nobody knows where the nickname came from, or who thought it was cool to call somebody with the last name "Wheeler" a shitty nickname like "Wheels". That's very imaginative. Wheels is god's whipping boy, because of all the kids of Degrassi, all the worst shit happens to him. In today's episode, he learns the humility of being stood up by a drunk. Wheels also loves to wear aftershave that smells either like oven cleaner or mosquito repellant depending on who you ask, and has a tendency to wear the worlds ugliest sweaters.

The Plot:

If you haven't guessed by the title of the episode, I thought I'd let you know this episode is about the first annual Degrassi Junior High Dance, featuring the DJ skills of Rockin' Rollickin' Raddich, and featuring the ever popular crazy dance. Vula, who is head of the DJH Newspaper is excited about the dance but her father doesn't want her daughter going to a dance because she is far to young and he doesn't want his daughter going to a place where "boys only have one thing on their mind.".... He doesn't elaborate on this, but I don't think it has anything to do with miniature ship building (You know the kind that comes in the bottle?)

The next day at school, Vula is congratulated for organizing a charity for a foster child, when Lucy (The maverick that she is) suggests that they earn more donations by charging people a dollar to come to the Degrassi school dance, asks Vula to present the cheque. Vula declines stating that Stephanie is the school president, she should do it. It was a close debate, but Vula's suggestion won out when Stephanie Kaye agreed in between making goofy stares at Wheels (whom she is planning to ask out to the dance.)

Vula then lies to her father, saying that she has to go to a school meeting about the foster child on Saturday evening, for some reason, Papa, the master of the teenage mind (because he knows what boys have on their minds at dances) Vula's father believes the whole thing, but tells her that she has to be home for 9:00.

Vula goes over to Lucy's place to change, and then leaves when Stephanie Kaye and the Farrel twins show up. The three ladies discover that there are bottles of booze in Lucy's living room (kind of hard to miss, they're so obviously centered in the room.) The ladies then decide to drink... No wait I should use a trendy 80's pop culture word here... They then decide to get SPLASHED, because getting SPLASHED is fun! WEEEE!

Of course, the dance goes well, except for poor ol' Wheels who of course is dateless because Stephanie Kaye decided to stand him up for a bottle of Kaluah ("Come on Lucy it tastes just like a chocolate shake!".) But she does show up and I'm surprised nobody notices that she's drunk until Lucy makes mention to some one. Then Stephanie ruins possibly the highlight of Wheel's night (and his life), dancing with Stephanie Kaye during the crazy dance. Part way through the crazy dance she leaves him to go and vomit in the bathroom. Leaving Lucy to convince Vula to stay past her curfew (and out of the meaty hands of Arthur, who is apparently one of the said boys who has only one thing on his mind.) and hand off the Cheque to the foster child organization spokes person.

Vula's Papa shows up to pick up her daughter and realizes that he'd been had, that his daughter had pulled a fast one. And let me tell you, there was some firm talkings too that went down. Short of Vula shouting "I hate you, why do you have to ruin my life like this?" and slamming a door, it was your typical teenager to grown-up argument.

Meanwhile, Stephanie vows never to drink again and to take responsibility for her actions, good job Stephanie!

My Opinion:

I don't think I have a place to comment in regards to high school dances, I never went to any, I didn't even have dates (believe it or not, I wasn't the sexy man-beast webmaster that I am today.) it's a secret shame of mine that I will carry with me to the grave, unless I decide to go back to high school again, and by then I'll be the coolest guy there, because I'll be able to buy them booze and cigarettes.

I think on the subject of telling the truth to your elders is clearly stated in this episode, in the teenagers mind, you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Essentially it's easier to give into peer pressure and lying to your parents to get away with something that (at least to the teenage mind) is the ultimate no win scenario. All teenagers do this, but I find the most interesting thing is that the parents who stand up and try to be authoritative and try to keep their teenagers on a tight leash (which I find really funny, because most parents, probably pulled the same shit when they were teenagers.) it makes the teenager want to go out and do something even more monumentally stupid. In the case of Vula this involves dancing with Arthur, which can't be good for anything.

The drinking subject of this episode takes the typical teenager mentality when it comes to drinking and spells it out quite clearly. Teenagers are stupid when it comes to drinking, it's all a contest. God forbid you be someone who has never been "splashed" you have to prove that you can get the most splashed of them all. So in the typical teenager tradition you drink until you are violently ill in the bathroom at the school dance... because that is the ultimate price to be ultra cool, even if you look like a total fucking moron.

Here's a magic little tip kiddies: When your body tells you "stop drinking this shit I'm going to be decorating your shoes with your stomach lining if you don't" that is a definite good sign you should stop drinking. You aren't going to get more smashed than that, and any more your going to be an unintelligible stumbling vomit machine. Idiot.

Nancy Alert:

The Nancy count in this episode is a paltry some of 13 shots. With only two at the dance, it looks like Nancy's idea of having fun at the school dance is to stand in the corner and give people weird looks, like she is this flawless goddess looking upon a world gone mad. Give me a break Nancy, you are the Degrassi equivalent to T-Rex from Orgazmo , you didn't have a date, and the best you can do is stand around and give people dirty looks? Man, no wonder nobody likes you. But, perhaps it's all a vicious circle, could it be that nobody wanted to take you to the dance because of your weight, you decided to be a judgmental bitch is a better course of action instead of binge eating. Other Nancy sightings in this episode, are the typical in the hallway and/or class room shots, however, one memorable Nancy moment is when Stephanie Kaye is standing in front of the mirror fixing her hair and trying to think of ways of asking Wheels out to the dance, the toilet flushes and out comes Nancy giving one of her strange looks (I wonder how Stephanie Kaye could have stood there doing her hair and not notice the pungent smell coming from the toilet. I mean how can you not notice that? And don't even try to tell me she wasn't taking a dump, it takes Stephanie Kaye more than just a few minutes to transform into total slut mode. Nancy couldn't have been doing anything but taking a crap.)

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