Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi Junior High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1987 to 1989!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, we meet Dwayne Myers!

Episode 2.6 “Fight!”

(Dir by Mike Douglas, originally aired on February 8th, 1988)

After appearing in the background over the past few episodes, Dwayne Myers (Darrin Brown) takes center stage in this episode.

At first glance, Dwayne is the school bully.  He’s bigger than everyone else.  He appears to be in a permanently bad mood.  He deliberately knocks Joey off of his skateboard and then laughs about it.  When he later overhears Joey calling him a “dozer,” (which is seriously one of the most Canadian words that I’ve ever heard in my life), Dwayne tells Joey that he’s going to beat him up after school.

And yet, Dwayne is not all bad.  When Scooter (Christopher Charlesworth), a student who is younger and smaller than everyone else, needs help opening his locker, Dwayne is the one who yanks off the lock.  Later, when Scooter can’t reach his bag of chips (because some other bully put it on top of a high shelf), Dwayne lifts Scooter up so that Scooter can get them.  Dwayne seems to sincerely like Scooter, perhaps  because Scooter is the only person at the school to not show any fear of him.

Scooter, however, is shocked to hear that Dwayne is going to beat up Joey because Joey, like Scooter, is considerably smaller than Dwayne.  When Scooter asks Dwayne why he’s going to beat up Joey, Dwayne shrugs and says, “It’ll feel good.”

And Dwayne proceeds to do just what he said he would do.  Joey doesn’t attempt to run away from the fight and that wins him a measure of respect from the other students.  But, in the end, he still gets thoroughly beaten up.  On the plus side, it wins him some sympathy from Liz and it also wins him a new friend when Scooter decides that he would rather hang out with Joey than Dwayne.

Speaking of hanging out with each other, Stephanie is still obsessed with getting Simon to notice her and Simon is still only interested in Alexa.  Even when Stephanie pretends to sprain her ankle, Simon barely notices.  (Ankle sprains are no joke, Stephanie!  Believe klutzy little me, I know.)  Stephanie finally asks Simon to go to the fight with her and Simon says sure.  Stephanie is overjoyed until Simon brings Alexa with him as well.  Amazingly, Simon and Alexa are both totally clueless as to what Stephanie is doing.  Then again, I think we’ve all known at least one couple like Simon and Alexa, who are so perfect for each other and so thoroughly vapid in their personalities that you just know they’re never going to have any disagreements at all and that the real world is never going to invade their fantasy.

This was a good episode, largely due to Darrin Brown’s multi-layered performance as Dwayne.  While this is Dwayne’s only big Junior High episode, he is destined become one of show’s most ground-breaking characters once the action moves into high school.