Mikey's Back On Wheels, Ontario, And He's Got A Crutch

As Kroll Show begins its third season, it continues to crib Wheels, Ontario plotlines from the Degrassi episode guide, THANK GOD. When we last visited with Mikey and Tunes, she had just embarked upon a career as a rapper, in which capacity she accidentally discharged a gun that was pointed at Mikey. Would this, finally, topple the last hurdle between Mikey and complete conformity with the other differently abled teens at his school? Had Tunes actually done Mikey a real favour?

Well, unlike the kid who got shot on Degrassi ("Wheelchair" Jimmy Brooks, a.k.a. Drake), Mikey didn't end up totally paralyzed from the waist down. However, he does, at least for now, use a cane, which will mean that he should gain access to many fine socialist assistance programs that he and his mum will have undoubtedly investigated and signed up for without shame or stigma.

Speaking of shame and stigma: Tunes also thinks Mikey's new hair and jewellery styling mean that his unfortunate incident has caused him to come to terms with his trans identity -- which, in Canada, would be perfectly fine and universally accepted, even by the very religious! -- but he's just expressing himself, which is also a perfectly acceptable thing for Canadians to do within reason. But the cane isn't Mikey's only helper these days: Tunes discovers that he has a secret in his zip-up pocket sac.

While it may be true that the Queen prescribed those pills to treat Mikey's physical pain, Tunes rightly suspects that he's found an off-label use: mitigating his emotional pain. With the help of Coach Teacher, she gathers Mikey's loved ones so that they can each tell him how his drug use has affected them at the most searing, forceful event a Canadian drug addict may ever face.

Once again, Wheels exists half in a parallel universe -- one in which the Queen writes prescriptions and a girl's period is called her "menstrual slough." But if I had been inclined to dock points for these flights of neo-Canadian whimsy (in reality, a Canadian man calls a menstrual period NOTHING, HE NEVER MENTIONS IT AT ALL, AND IF HE THINKS HE HEARS A REFERENCE TO IT HE BLUSHES RIGHT UP TO HIS TOQUE), I would have been forced to make them all up, and more, at this.

I will always refer to "writing cheques" no matter how many Americans call me adorable, so this one really tickled my bagged-milk-fortified funny bone.