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, Claude shows that in yourself, you must believe.

Episode 1.11 “All In A Good Cause”

(Dir by Eleanore Lindo, originally aired on January 16th, 1990)

There’s a wonderful moment in this week’s episode in which Claude tells Caitlin that they have a moral obligation to vandalize a factory that is being used to make nuclear weapons.  (Yikes!  In downtown Toronto!?  Really, Canada!?)  Claude says that Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t let the law stop him.

Caitlin agrees.

The Chicago Seven, Claude continues, didn’t let the law stop them from protesting for what was right.

“Who are the Chicago Seven?” Caitlin asks.

Claude gets frustrated.  “They were seven guys from Chicago.”

“What did they do?”

Claude, after a pause, “They were totally radical!”

Of course, Claude is incorrect.  The Chicago Seven were not seven guys from Chicago.  They were seven (originally eight) guys who came to Chicago from all over the country and they were arrested during the 1968 Democratic Convention.  As for whether or not they were totally radical …. well, it depends on who you ask.  Abbie Hoffman thought they were radical.  Bobby Seale thought all of them were poseurs with the exception of himself.  Jerry Rubin went on to become a businessman.  Tom Hayden went into state politics and married an Oscar winner.  As for the other members …. well, who cares?  There’s a movie about them if you really want to subject yourself to it.

Claude is like a lot of young activists.  He’s passionate and he’s convinced he’s going to save the world but he’s also totally shallow and given to hyperbole.  Claude’s plan to vandalize the factory amounts to spray painting one anodyne anti-nuke message on a wall in the middle of the night.  Caitlin serves as his lookout.  When the cops arrive, Claude runs and leaves Caitlin behind.  That stupid hippie!

Catilin does the right thing  She dumps that pretentious douchebag!  Good for her.  Don’t get me wrong.  I get it.  I went through a period of time where I had a weakness for passionate activists as well.  It was between my first bad boy phase and my second bad boy phase.  But Claude was just so annoying and, even worse, Caitlin dumped Joey for this loser.  Joey may not have known much about politics but Joey also would never have abandoned Caitlin to the cops.

This was a really good episode.  Along with the Caitlin/Claude fiasco, this episode also features Kathleen finally reporting her abusive ex-turned-stalker Scott to the police and getting a restraining order against him.  Good for Kathleen!  (Rebecca Haines really did a good job portraying Kathleen’s ordeal with Scott and, in the best Degrassi tradition, she showed the audience that there was more to Kathleen than they may have originally assumed.)  Even Arthur got a decent storyline this episode.  Eager to show that he could be just as dangerous and daring as Yick, he and Yick toilet-papered Raditch’s house.  What was funny about this plotline is that Arthur wanted to impress Luke.  This is the same Luke who gave Shane the PCP that caused him to fall off a bridge.  Get better heroes, Arthur!

This was an excellent episode.  It’s tempting to hope that Caitlin learned a lesson from this experience but those of us who have watched Degrassi: The Next Generation know better.