A Review of the Second Season of Degrassi Junior High

A Review by Nick Peron

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Episode 03 - Great Expectations:

The Characters:

Liz O'Rourke :

Liz is the new girl at school, but those with a keen eye will have noticed that the actress who played Liz was actually in the very first episode of Degrassi and quickly disappeared shortly after (either that or there was a clone) Liz is the "don't give a shit" punk chick who becomes fast friends with Spike. She's from Linden and aspires to move back there on her own when she's 16, and never wants to get pregnant. I'm sure she'd have a bright future in Linden, where she'd hang out in front of the local 7-11 talking about how much she hates parents.

Joey Jeremiah :

The Plot:

Our story begins with the introduction of Liz O'Rourke, the new girl to Degrassi. She's a sassy, don't give a shit about anybody, everything that's not like my old life in Linden totally sucks girl. She just started at Degrassi. When she's being admitted to the school she meets Joey Jeremiah who's just on his way out of Mr. Lawrence's office for some offense or another. Joey is asked to show Liz to her class since they are in the same grade, and right off the bat Joey asks her out. Slick Joey, very slick.

Liz has a hard time adjusting to her surroundings because it's not like her home town in Linden. So that means Degrassi isn't good enough. The people are snobs, the school sucks, she hates her life, and when she's 16 she's going to leave and go back to Linden. As I said above, this does sound like quite the bright future indeed! This can only be the well thought plan of a teenager that thinks they have everything figured out. As I suggested above, this plan more than likely involves her hanging out in front of 7-11's all day bitching about parents and begging her friends to crash on their basement couches. She wouldn't get a job because they're for "fascists" and she isn't going to work for the "man". She finds nothing humiliating about begging for change and living off cheesies and partially crushed cigarettes she picks up off the pavement thank you very much. She's 16 and she'll do what she wants.

Liz ends up making fast friends with Spike though, because you know, they're both punk rawk. And the misfits have to stay together!

Anyway, Joey really likes Liz and after conferring with his friends he comes to the conclusion that Liz "does it", meaning that he thinks she puts out. To put it bluntly he thinks he can strike a home run on the first date. Friends, he thinks he can have sex with her. What I'm trying to say is that he wishes to insert his penis into her vagina and stimulate each other until climax. In which I mean an orgasm. In other words the thing you do while having sex before breaking down in tears screaming "Why mother? WHY? WHY-Huh-huh-hiiiiiiiiii!?!?!"

Now Joey isn't the only one who thinks that Liz "does it" either. Soon a number of people at Degrassi, such as Stephanie Kaye start thinking that Liz is an easy slut as well because of how she dresses (and coming from Stephanie I think we've got ourselves an extreme case of pot an the kettle.)

Later that day in Mr. Raditch's class, Joey ends up partnering up with Liz to do a project on the War of 1812. That's the one where Canada took down the white house with a book of matches by the way (And the first lady was the one to lead the counter attack because the president was being a pussy and hiding in the rose garden) After studying in the library for a while, the two decide to continue their project at Liz's house, giving Joey the idea that he's going to get laid.

Now I don't know about you people at home, but I myself fail to see how somebody can misinterpret "let's study our project at my house" with "I want to have wild and casual sex with you", but then again nobody here is accusing Joey Jeremiah of being an astrophysicist either. All I can say is that perhaps we know why Snake and Wheels don't ask to pair up with Joey, because they might be uncomfortably aware of the fact that "study for project" is Joey's code for "lets have sex."

After class Joey asks Wheels if he has any of his condoms left from last season, Wheels states that he has not because they had used them all as "water bombs" during the break, and then declines Joey's offer to join him on a quest to purchase more.

What happens next could only happen in an episode of Degrassi, and perhaps maybe even in a Woody Alan movie: A trip to the pharmacy to buy condoms turns into a roller coaster ride of shame and humiliation! Because safe sex is supposed to be embarrassing, and you should be ashamed of the fact that your saving yourself from crotch-area creepy crawlies, or becoming the butt end of a Bill Hicks routine about the "miracle" of unplanned child birth (and let me tell you friends, it'll be funny to everyone but you.)

I present to you now some select findings from what I'd like to call Scenes From a Pharmasave:

Joey of course is just going to buy condoms at the pharmacy, but he doesn't want everyone to know that's exactly what he's getting, so he does resort to camouflage and subterfuge in his attempt to purchase his choice in contraceptives. So he ends up buying paper towels and cheesies and whatever else he can use for a trick I call "The condom purchase-slight-of-hand" trick. In which you have so many items in your cart that the cashier probably doesn't even notice the condoms.

Anyway, he chooses Sheik brand condoms, the choice of condoms for Sheiks all over the United Arab Emirates I suppose (hence the name), I myself am a Trojan man. It seems like an appropriate name for the condom in case it breaks.

Anyway, I love how grandpa here peeks over Joey's shoulder and is shocked by what the boy is reading. The fact that Joey is getting all his information on the front of the package is something funny as well. It's almost like he's reading it and thinking "It's says 'condoms' on the package! This must be them!" Where is your sense of dickering my friend?

Of course being spotted reading condoms causes Joey to quickly toss the box into his shopping cart and then continue on his merry way grabbing random items and placing them in his cart. He grabs a box of Tampax tampons and begins reading the back of the box before realizing what they are and puts them back on the shelf. This of course, I believe the worlds first properly executed tampon/panty liner joke in the history of modern entertainment. Never has a menstrual product been perfectly lampooned since Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" (It's in there somewhere, trust me, all I know is that it's a play on words involving the words "crimson" and "flowage") This joke of course would be assimilated, perfected and then done to death by the Hollywood machine otherwise known as "A Farley Brothers Film."

Thank you Degrassi for being bold enough to be the first to make tampons funny! Because if you can't laugh about your monthly visitor, how can you begin to understand and cope?

Ah, the napkin person, this is another fond little shot for me that fills me with chuckles. He (or she, I can't tell man) is contemplating purchasing a number of packages of napkins (and not the sanitary kind!) I think it's funny that they're taking the time to read the label on one while holding THREE packages! Or are they debating on how many napkins are too many? "Hrm, it comes with about 500 in a pack, would buying three be too many?"

JUST BUY THE NAPKINS DAMN IT! They're on sale! And you know, you know, that when you get home you're going to think to yourself "You know, I should have bought more napkins" and you're going to keep yourself up half the night wondering if they're still going to be on sale tomorrow.

The next amusing scene in this episode is when Joey goes to pay for everything that he's purchased. When the cashier is punching in the price of the condoms, he thinks that they're on sale. He then calls one of his staffers to check and make sure that the condoms are on sale. This turns into this huge public display and judging from the tone of voice of these characters I'm not entirely sure if they're just doing this to fuck with the poor kid or if they really are on sale. I'd like to think that perhaps the employees at this pharmacy have a little fun with kids purchasing condoms. They try to humiliate the kid into not buying the condoms, then they keep a tally on how many they see 9 months later pushing a baby carriage. I know that's a long time to wait to see if a ones plan comes into fruitarian, but imagine the sense of satisfaction that these clerks feel when they see the punk ass bastard in the NOFX t-shirt and toque with the pot leaf on it that was trying to buy a package of Durex a few months ago that was laughed out of the store in tears, and then seeing him 9 months later pushing a baby carriage with not one, or two babies, but three. I'd be pretty satisfied myself.

And what better scene to make you feel confident about buying contraceptives than the unapproving gazes of the elderly? Because sex is totally not for young people, and certainly not for fun at all! In fact, Sid and Ethel here got married at the advanced age of 18 and probably only had sex to have children. Next thing you know it Ethel has shot out five hungry mouths to feed and Sid was working his ass off at the Rollidex company to scrap enough money to get by, and he had no time for this sex-for-fun thing! And then what happens? They go an invent computers and make rollidex's useless. All because somebody had sex for fun, and now they can see it on their computers too!

Getting back to the plot here.....

Just to wrap things up here quick, Joey shows up, leaves his bag of pharmacy items on the porch (taking time to remove a condom and put it in his shirt pocket of course. And enters Liz's abode. The two work for a bit until Joey gets all creepy looking and pulls out a condom and asks Liz if they can finally "do it." Because he wants to, and apparently she wants too, so they should just get it over with! This of course puts Liz in a fit of rage and she kicks Joey out of her place saying she hates him. The scene ends with a wonderful little shot, the guy who went to film school that filmed the answering machine in that last episode probably planned this one out:

The episode ends at school the next day where Joey explains to wheels he totally screwed the pooch (as opposed to the girl) and Liz now hates him. The sad thing is: He actually liked her. Aww.

The Sub-Plot #1 -

The sub plot to this episode has to do with wet dreams. Specifically Arthur's wet dreams. He's having a lot of them, and they make him "leak" (as he puts it in his own parlance) and thinks that he's a sex maniac. Now, if I'm not mistaken, but waking up with constantly wet sheets -- I believe -- means that you're a pyro maniac, not a sex maniac. So if anyone in the Degrassi is looking for a local fire bug, I think I know your man.

Anyway, this whole situation has him all worked up and he just doesn't know who to talk to about it! So he grabs himself a copy of the Color Encyclopedia of the Human Anatomy. Apparently up until 1987, it was always printed in black and white -- so as not to upset people of a delicate constitution.

Yick finds out about Arthurs' leaking problem and attempts to help him find an answer to his problem. However, Yick has yet to experience a "leak, however can he understand the pain and the torment of that which Arthur deals with each and every night!

Thankfully the writers of this episode were merciless in not divulging what sort of wet dreams that Arthur has been having. Unlike the lesbian episode in season 1, they opted not to show us what goes on in the head of your average Degrassi student.

Arthur seems like a nice kid and all, but I've got the feeling that whatever wet dreams he has possibly involves Sasette Smurf, and if he were around today he'd probably spend his free time maintaining a website devoted to Smurf sex.

Anyway, they find about a radio show called "Talking Sex With Sally" where people can call in and talk to an old lady about the horrible mess their sex life is. Deciding it's best to call from a phone booth, Arthur chokes under the clutch. He totally pushes the panic button. So Yick grabs the phone and asks Sally if there is anything wrong with Arthur having lots of wet dreams. Sally responds to say that this is normal, and all is well.

Yick and Arthur high five each other upon their success and walk off into the sunset, firm in the knowledge that sticky sheets aren't a bad thing (unless you have to do the laundry! HA-YO!)

Sub-Plot #2:

In her continued efforts to get Simon to notice her, Stephanie Kaye attempts many drastic measures to get Simon to notice her. When wearing her trashy clothes again fails she attempts dropping her books. This ends up being foiled by Alex, who picks them up for her. Later when she tries the "direct approach" (this being "straight out asking him out") is also foiled once again by Alex. Who promptly interrupts and tells Simon the big game is about to start and that he has to be out in the field right away. Alex then hands Simon his team uniform. I don't know about you folks at home, but that's pretty creepy. The guy probably breaks into your locker and gets your uniform and hands it to you. I think there is reason to be alarmed. Especially since the guy is the school treasurer. He's got his hands in so many pockets, he can get access to just about anything!

Defining Moments :

You need me to identify the defining moments to this episode? What are you high? This episode involved a kid awkwardly buying a condom and two other kids calling a radio talk show about wet dreams. How can there not be anything that isn't defining about this episode that couldn't be explained there. I have to say though the scene where Arthur is about to tell Yick about his wet dreams is pretty hilarious. Just take a look:

And the Winner of This Episodes "Best Background Character" Goes to...:

This episode's "Best background character" is going to be awarded to a guy I'm just simply going to call "dude". He's this blond haired guy in a black baseball cap, who looks like he's trying really hard to be involved in the background.

We see him early in the episode in the background behind Snake as they are playing baseball and he's trying very hard to have a conversation. Later he's trying very hard to study in the library (and he looks like he's having so much trouble) and finally we see him talking to Simon before the big game.

This kid looks like the kind of dopey guy who requires to use a lot of brain power to even compute the most simple of tasks that doesn't involve "tackling" or "hitting ball with stick." You know the kind of guy I'm talking about.

The guy who requires all his mental energy to even talk about what he did the night before (unless it's about hitting ball with stick) and usually asks the most stupidest questions in class, or has an almost innocent idiocy which easily leaves him confused in most classes. You know, like he's the kind of guy who when your history teacher is talking about how during World War 2 they dropped the bomb in Japan and he'd raise his hand and ask something like "And that's how the Japanese won the war right?" and when corrected they'll look puzzled and go "Oh, I thought they did. Somebody I know said that."

And of course, somehow this ding-bat is also one of the most popular guys in school, and is dating one of the most attractive (and equally dumb) girls. Which is infuriating at the time, but you know he has a bright future of working for his dad's best-friends used car dealership (under the table of course) and is stuck in a loveless marriage with his high school sweetheart.

So in recognition of his future hardship, I award "dude" with the "Best background character" award for this episode.

The Award For "best poster" for this episode goes to...:

The "best poster" award goes out to the person who drew this really shitty Inner-City Essay Contest. The person obviously knew how to reach out to it's target audience, kids in the inner-city, because it's designed about as well as some of the low income high rises that probably inspired the contest.

I have to point out that there are far too many words on this poster. Again, defiantly not an advertising major working on this one, but that's quite all right.

I can really see how this contest would play out, you'd have a bunch of really uncomfortable white school officials trying to grade some kids essay about living life in the inner-city ghetto.

Comments would range from:

"You're parents live in a Crib? That's awful!" and "I really enjoy reading about this creature you refer to as the 'Five-Oh', is this a metaphor for your fears of repeating the fifth grade again?" and "That's an insightful look on why I should keep my pimp hand strong."

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