Hi there! Welcome to Grading Degrassi, a column dedicated to rewatching and ranking the best episodes of every season of every series of the Degrassi franchise. While the planned HBO Max reboot of Degrassi may or may not be coming, we’ve still got more than 500 existing episodes to enjoy over and over again.
Degrassi Junior High is the second iteration of Degrassi. It first aired on January 18, 1987. And in some ways, it’s more important to the franchise than The Kids of Degrassi Street. There are characters whose storylines begin in Degrassi Junior High and continue through Degrassi: Next Class. This series also began the franchise’s longstanding tradition of having episodes edited or banned in countries outside of Canada.
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There is one thing very strange about Degrassi Junior High, though. Several actors from The Kids of Degrassi Street return, but they’re playing new characters. It takes a minute to get adjusted.
Now, without further ado, here are all 13 episodes of Season One of Degrassi Junior High, ranked from worst to best:
(Spoilers, of course.)
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“What a Night” (S01E09)
Recap: Lucy (Anais Granofsky) peer pressures Voula (Niki Kemeny) into shoplifting. Meanwhile, Stephanie (Nicole Stoffman) goes on a date with a grown-up TV star.
Reasoning: Oh, where to begin. So Stephanie lies to this smarmy TV star (Barry Tull) about her age so he’ll go on a date with her. (Never mind that the age of consent in Canada was 14 at the time of filming; it’s currently 16.)
The show makes such a huge issue about Stephanie lying about her age. No; the biggest problem is that Stephanie doesn’t want to have sex with this adult man. Full stop.
As for our other storyline — really, Degrassi? One of your three Black characters is a shoplifter?
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“The Great Race” (S01E05)
Recap: Melanie (Sara Ballingall) is bullied – because boobs. Jason (Tyson Talbot) doesn’t think girls’ sports are worth reporting about. And Arthur (Duncan Waugh) and Yick (Siluck Saysanasy) are waiting for their growth spurts.
Reasoning: Honestly, the episode was just kinda boring.
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“The Big Dance” (S01E02)
Recap: Voula wants to go to the school dance, but her dad won’t let her; she goes anyway. Stephanie gets drunk at Lucy’s house.
Reasoning: Again, stereotypes. The Jewish girl’s parents are too conservative to let her go to the dance? The Black girl’s parents are absent and leave her alone to give her friends booze? I’m glad later Degrassi series were a little more nuanced than this.
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“Nothing to Fear” (S01E08)
Recap: L.D.’s (Amanda Cook) dad (Kenneth Taylor) is hospitalized, but she doesn’t want to visit him due to the past trauma of her mom, you know, dying in the hospital. Meanwhile, for some reason, the school has a snake, and a bunch of kids lose it.
Reasoning: This episode would have ranked better if it weren’t for the fact that L.D.’s dad is a jerk. He routinely tells L.D. to abandon “boyish” things in favor of cleaning the kitchen. Meanwhile, there’s a strong vibe of “be nice to your ‘rents, lest you lose them.”
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“Kiss Me, Steph” (S0101)
Recap: Stephanie decides she wants to be school president, so she engages in the popularity contest that it is — by exchanging kisses for votes. Meanwhile, Joey (Pat Mastroianni) bullies Stephanie’s brother Arthur and his friend, Yick.
Reasoning: There’s a lot of unfair judgment placed on Stephanie. Should she have ditched Voula, who helped her win, after she wins? Should she have pretended not to know Arthur? No, of course not. But puberty is confusing, and school elections are a popularity contest. It’s not surprising she went this route.
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“Revolution!” (S01E13)
Recap: Stephanie asks Wheels (Neil Hope) out — again. When he declines, she tries to make him jealous by offering a cabinet position to Joey — undeservedly. The school revolts against her presidency.
Reasoning: Stephanie is a victim of the patriarchy.
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“It’s Late!” (S01E11)
Recap: Spike (Amanda Stepto) and Shane (Bill Parrott) have sex, sans protection, at a party at — you guessed it — Lucy’s house. Did y’all know you can get preggo the first time you have P-I-V sex? Well, now Shane and Spike do.
Reasoning: It’s amazing that there is an actual conversation about abortion in this episode. Like, it’s obvious that’s not the route they’re gonna go, but it’s discussed frankly. What bothered me is when Spike’s mother (Rhonda Kristi) sees Spike’s pregnancy test, she immediately gets upset and says, “Tell me you didn’t.”
If my young child came home with a pregnancy test, I’d wanna ask them what happened instead of rushing to judgment. (Not that I’d judge them in any case.)
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“Smokescreen” (S01E10)
Recap: Yick has to do a show-and-tell project about his family history; he doesn’t want to because he doesn’t want to share his refugee status. Meanwhile, Rick (Craig Driscoll) joins the environment (in)action committee to get closer to Caitlin (Stacie Mistysyn).
Reasoning: At first, it sort of bothered me that they didn’t explain where Yick’s family was from, but after doing research, I learned that the actor playing Yick is Laotian-Canadian. At one point in the episode, Yick says that no one wants to hear about “boat people.” As it turns out, this was common terminology for Vietnamese and Laotian immigrants. I’m guessing at the time; audiences would have known that.
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“The Experiment” (S01E03)
Recap: Two experiments are going on here. In the first, Yick and Arthur believe that Mr. Raditch (Dan Woods) is grading Yick unfairly, so they test the theory by passing off one of Stephanie’s papers from the year previous as Yick’s. As for the other experiment, for some reason, Melanie and Kathleen (Rebecca Haines-Saah) decide they want to try drugs.
Reasoning: Watching Melanie and Kathleen acting “high” immediately after taking the
“drugs” — aka vitamins — Joey sold them? Priceless.
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“Rumor Has It” (S01E06)
Recap: Rick wins one hundred bucks, so he buys a bunch of licorice and keeps passing it out. Perhaps more importantly, Caitlin has a sexual identity crisis over the dreams she’s been having about Ms. Avery (Michelle Goodeve). It doesn’t help that there are a lot of rumors floating around that Ms. Avery is a “lezzie.”
Reasoning: Like, good on Degrassi for going there. My headcanon is totally that Ms. Avery is a lesbian, though. I appreciate that Ms. Avery talked to Caitlin about the latter’s crisis, but it was a bit odd that she assured her that her dreams “didn’t mean anything.” Even still, the episode did suggest that being gay is A-OK. Plus, how can an episode with the line, “She’s not a lesbian, she’s my friend!” not be in the top four?
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“Parents’ Night” (S01E12)
Recap: Wheels’ bio dad (Dave James) shows up unannounced, which goes over real well. Spike and Shane still don’t know what they’re gonna do about their baby, so Spike asks Wheels intrusive questions about being adopted.
Reasoning: While there should have been more emphasis on the inappropriateness of Wheels’ bio dad just visiting out of the blue, I loved the way Degrassi Junior High handled the rest of it. It’s totally clear that Wheels’ parents are the people who’ve raised him, but that it’s also OK that he wants to know more about from whence he came. Hey, I would too if the man who raised me thought rock music was a “plot to take over the world.”
“Best Laid Plans” (S01E07)
Recap: Wheels and Stephanie make a sex date. Arthur and Yick make plans to watch a pornographic VHS. Unfortunately, their plans are foiled when their mom’s date (Jerry McNabb) is late to pick her (Pat Beaven) up.
Reasoning: First of all, the title of this episode is amazing. It’s great that the kids’ mom, a pharmacist, gives them pamphlets about safe sex. I did have a little trouble believing that same mom would refer to her child as a “tramp,” though.
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“The Cover-Up” (S01E04)
Recap: Caitlin and Suzie (Sarah Charlesworth) are determined to get Rick to smile, so they try telling him a bunch of silly jokes. Meanwhile, Joey figures out why Rick’s not smiling — his dad (Sidney Bruyn) is abusive.
Reasoning: “The Cover-Up” is Degrassi at its best. I could have done without Joey calling his parents abusive for cleaning his room and then getting a lesson on what “real” abuse looks like, though. But, the way that Joey tries to get Rick help is really great. It’s also got a few hijinks thrown in — with the school receptionist mistakenly thinking Joey wants help for himself.
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Grading the season overall
Season One of Degrassi Junior High is a mixed bag. There were extreme highs and lows. The later series of Degrassi certainly have way more cultural sensitivity, but I am impressed that the show was already touching on abortion, drugs and gayness.
Final grade for Season One of Degrassi Junior High: B
Grading Degrassi will be back next month with the rest of Degrassi Junior High! See you then!
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