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 High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991!  The series can be streamed on YouTube!

This week, everyone faces a test.

Episode 4.13 “Testing, One, Two, Three”

(Dir by John Bertram, originally aired on January 30th, 1990)

After being absent for the past few episodes, Joey and Caitlin are finally the center of this week’s story.  Both of them are struggling.  Joey, despite all of his efforts to study and pay attention in class, is still getting bad grades.  The school counselor thinks that Joey has dysgraphia, a learning disability that makes it difficult for him to express his thoughts in an organized fashion.  Caitlin, meanwhile, is going to have to appear in court as a result of getting arrested while vandalizing that nuclear plant.

A few thoughts:

• Claude — or “Clode” as he wants to be called — once again shows himself to be the worst ever when he says he’s not sure if he can go to court with Caitlin.  Claude is the one who convincing Caitlin to vandalize the plant in the first place and, when the cops showed up, he abandoned her.  Big-time rebel Claude actually asks his parents for permission to skip school to go to Caitlin’s court date.  They say no, just as Claude knew they would.  What a putz!
• “My parents aren’t liberal like yours!” Claude whines to Caitlin.
• Maya actually puts off a doctor’s appointment so she can go to Caitlin’s medical appointment!  Good for you, Maya …. except, doctor’s appointments can kind of be important, too.
• Actually, now that I think about it, why should anyone be going to court with Caitlin?  Caitlin made the decision to spray paint her stupid slogans on her own.  Claude shouldn’t have abandoned her but Caitlin shouldn’t have been there in the first place.  Caitlin acts as if Claude should take her punishment for her but actually, Claude being a coward doesn’t mean that Caitlin is somehow absolved.  She knew she could get in trouble when she climbed over that fence.
• This episode is a good example of why Caitlin drives a lot of people crazy.  Caitlin has a problem and everyone else is expected to drop everything and spend all of their time worrying about it.
• Joey, meanwhile, has a real problem to deal with.  He feels stupid.  He’s not dumb, not at all.  But his grades remain stubbornly bad and he’s just been told that he has a scary-sounding “condition” and that he’s going to have to take a special class to learn how to function.  And yes, there’s no shame in having a learning disability.  I have ADHD so when Joey talked about struggling to organize his thoughts, I knew exactly what he was saying.  But, when you’re the one hearing the words “learning disability,” it’s scary!  My heart went out to Joey in this episode.
• Evil bully Dwayne made an appearance, harassing Joey after he overhears Joey describing him as being a gorilla.  Joey and Dwayne get into yet another fight.  Joey gets detention.  Dwayne gets suspended.
• Caitlin is also in detention, as a result of slapping Claude.  Caitlin and Joey are still not getting along but we know that’s going to change.
• Finally, there was one other subplot.  The students in a difficult biology class were excited to learn that Alex (John Ioannou) had an advanced copy of the big test.  Alex’s older brother saved all of his old tests.  Alex gives Tessa a copy of the test but makes her promise not to let anyone know.  Tessa lets everyone know.  Everyone in the class passes!  They don’t get caught.  But the teacher says its obvious that the test was too easy so he decides to toss out the results and give everyone a new test …. WHAT!?  CAN HE DO THAT!?  What the heck, Canada!?
• Incidentally, I never would have passed Algebra II if my sister hadn’t saved all of her tests.  Thank you, Erin Nicole!

And that’s it for the week.  Remember — in yourself, you must believe!