A Review of the Second Season of Degrassi Junior High

A Review by Nick Peron

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Episode 04 - Dinner And a Show:

The Characters:

Christine "Spike" Nelson:

You know, this all looks familiar! It reminds me of this one segment of Orson's Farm on an old episode of Garfield and Friends , where Orson Pig is stocking his book shelf and he reads the title of the book, and each and every single one is "Deja Vu: The Feeling That You've Already Done Something Before."

Shane McKay:

You know, this all looks familiar! It reminds me of this one segment of Orson's Farm on an old episode of Garfield and Friends , where Orson Pig is stocking his book shelf and he reads the title of the book, and each and every single one is "Deja Vu: The Feeling That You've Already Done Something Before."

Shane's Dad:

You know, this all looks familiar! It reminds me of this one segment of Orson's Farm on an old episode of Garfield and Friends , where Orson Pig is stocking his book shelf and he reads the title of the book, and each and every single one is "Deja Vu: The Feeling That You've Already Done Something Before."

Shane's Mom:

You know, this all looks familiar! It reminds me of this one segment of Orson's Farm on an old episode of Garfield and Friends , where Orson Pig is stocking his book shelf and he reads the title of the book, and each and every single one is "Deja Vu: The Feeling That You've Already Done Something Before."

Spike's Mom:

You know, this all looks familiar! It reminds me of this one segment of Orson's Farm on.... You didn't actually think I was going to do that again did you? Anyway, this is Spike's mom. She works at a hair salon, is a single mom and all she usually orders from a restaurant is Balies on Ice. I think we know how she became a single mom!

The Plot:

So I'm going to breeze through this as quickly as possible because I don't want to dwell on the primary plot so much, as it's boring and repetitive. Essentially it goes like this: Shane's parents want to meet Spike and her mom and talk over the future of the baby with them. There's a lot of dickering about what to do with the baby (ie: keep it, put it up for adoption, or process it into a find blend of ground meat.)

Shane's parents also believe that Shane has totally screwed his life up so badly, that they also want to try and send Shane off to Strathcona Academy, a private school, and want to send Spike to a home for "Girls with similar situations." Because Shane's mother is so embarrassed she can't show her face at Bridge practice.

The dinner ends with the kids taking center stage and pleading their case at taking care of the child. The whole dinner episode doesn't really get resolved as Spike is going to keep her kid, and Shane isn't going to be shipped off to private school -- yet.. If this whole episode were a painting I'd be called:

Portrait of an Uncomfortable Dinner.

The Sub-Plot -

The big highlight to this episode is not the dull and boring Shane/Spike pregnancy plot line, but the love triangle between Melanie, Snake and Yick. In this episode, Yick asks Melanie out to the movies, and they two decide to go and see a movie called "Crying in the Wind" which is apparently a romance movie. Yick however really wanted to go and see "Revenge of the Lizards."

As it turns out, Melanie thinks of Yick as only a friend and is totally into Snake. When Snake asks her out to go see "Revenge of the Lizards" she of course accepts, and cancels her date with Yick.

Now this whole plot sure does read like a sit-com doesn't it? You know that this date is going to be a disaster and that Melanie is going to get caught in a lie. But remember, this is Degrassi, so you know it's going to be a million times worse, because as we all know the worst case scenario is the most common one to happen to the kids of Degrassi. It's like they took every "date gone wrong" episode from every sitcom from the late 80's to the late 90's that ended up on ABC's TGIF, and then add a dash of "serious teen issues" and you've got an idea of what's going on here.

So what happens? Well first of all, since Snake is going out on a date with a girl that's a whole year younger than him, Joey and Wheels decide to show up and give the two kids a rough time on their date. On top of all that, having had his movie-night with Melanie canceled, Yick decides to go with Arthur to see "Revenge of the Lizards"

The climax of this little escapade ends with Joey and Wheels sitting behind the couple, and Yick and Arthur sitting next to Snake. When Yick sees that Melanie is out on a date with Snake he gives her a dirty look and Melanie gets embarrassed and upset. I knew it would only end in tears.

Defining Moments :

1.) Whenever Shane stares at somebody seriously or has a serious look on his face is absolutely priceless. Mostly because it looks like he's thinking that he is the angel of death and the time of reckoning has come. Seriously, whenever he gets a serious look on his face he looks like he's about ready to kill everyone in the room in the most cold blooded fashion he can improvise at the moment, then sit down and make himself a peanut butter sandwich and then watch the re-runs of Charles in Charge like nothing happened.

2.) And if Shane isn't funny enough in this episode, when he tries to show interest in being a parent, it's even more funny! During the episode he says at one point "Don't you think it's neat to have a little baby that'll love you?", and it's like wow... Where the hell did that come from? Look man, having a baby isn't "neat", it's a responsibility and stuff. You know? Fuck I'm so tired right now, I can't think of anything else funny to say. You just have to see it to believe it man... Bar none, I find it astounding that this guy is going to be a parent.

3.) Shane in a PINK sweater.

4.) Yick's death glare at Melanie is even better than Shane's. Not only does it look like one of those "I'm going to kill you" glares, but it appears to have a hint of indignation, like how he'd probably look at you if made a really racist comment.

Excerpt From TV Guide - May 27 1991:

Revenge of the Lizards (1987) 1 1/2 stars - Horror - Matthew Mackay, Oliver Reed. Two friends end up getting more than they bargained for when a simple purchase of a lizard leads them to become the targets of a clandestine group of animal rights activists that have genetically modified lizards into giant, revenge seeking lizards.

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

This episodes best background kid is a kid I like to call "The Party Animal", mostly because of the fact that he is wearing a t-shirt that features Animal from the Muppet Show. You see him near the end of the episode carrying around a walkman. I'd like to think that the Party Animal never takes off his walkman, or his Animal t-shirt. He wears it wherever he goes, and is always listening to only the coolest tunes. He probably carries around his walkman everywhere he goes to try to achieve a social status that he would otherwise not have without the walkman. Actually, you know what, it's probably not even a walkman. He probably bugged his parents for months and months, himming and hawing. His parents never saw the point of spending so much money on a walkman. He'd complain but every time dad would say something like "You might hate us now, but maybe you'll understand a little better when you work for a living, money doesn't grow on trees." But every friendless day at school would bring back the same old argument. Eventually around Party Animal's birthday they got him a portable radio that you could only listen to with headphones. When P.A. would complain that it's still not a walkman, they'll explain to their son that it was a whole 40 dollars cheaper, and why pay money for a tape which costs money, when you can listen to all the songs you want on the radio... For free. Of course, swallowing his pride, P.A. goes into school each day with his radio hoping nobody will ask him what he's listening too. Of course when people find out the truth he tries to justify himself in the same way his parents did. Party Animal spends a lot of hopeless nights staring at the phone hoping it will ring.

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

This totally cracks me up, and what makes it really funny is that this was probably innocently drawn by a kid no older than 13. I guess in 1987 the slang term "Hot Lunch" didn't hold much meaning. But I can tell you that there is something hilarious about a poster advertising a "hot lunch" and having a picture of a big smiling mouth on it. Somehow I get the feeling that kind of "hot lunch" is not sanctioned by the school boards nutrition mandates. Still, they'd have to warn people that it may contain what were trace sources of nuts

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