Transcript - BSFC Netflix #2: Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls
Brooke Suchomel: 0:18
Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin and the corresponding television show on Netflix. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.
Kaykay Brady: 0:38
And I'm Kaykay Brady, I am a therapist and I'm new to the book series and to the Netflix show.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:45
Yes, we are both new to the Netflix show. In this episode, we're going to discuss Episode Two of the Netflix series, Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls. So the Netflix description of this episode is, and I quote...
Kaykay Brady: 0:57
Oh, I'm so interested to hear this.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:00
I know, it's very...we'll just put it right out and say, it's very different from the back cover copy.
Kaykay Brady: 1:05
Right, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06
Of the book.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06
Yeah, as was the episode.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08
Right. Anyone who's seen the episode and read the book will get that immediately. So the Netflix description is, quote, "The spooky spirit of Halloween sweeps through Stoneybrook. Meanwhile, Claudia explores budding romance and struggles to connect with her parents." End quote. So, obviously there's a lot left out there.
Kaykay Brady: 1:28
I mean, accurate. Accurate, as far as the show goes.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:32
Yeah, although I don't remember it being, like, "the spooky spirit of Halloween." The book itself was way more spooky, like we talked in our-
Kaykay Brady: 1:40
Yeah, you get the atmosphere. We loved that atmosphere.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:42
Totally. And the atmosphere was really missing.
Kaykay Brady: 1:47
It's harder to do atmosphere, I think, without words, but doable. You know, I mean, visually, you can do atmosphere a lot, with some nice falling leaves or some nature porn.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:59
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Some sort of hint of a breeze, you know? In the book, it was a lot of storms, and there's none of that in the series. But what did we get in the series? What else jumped out at you?
Kaykay Brady: 2:12
Well, we did not get any Phantom Caller.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:17
We really did not.
Kaykay Brady: 2:18
What the fuck? It's half of the title. Okay, so I'll just go where I am assuming- I'm just going to go there. This is what I assumed happened. I assumed that they looked at the second book, and they said, "This is really problematic," the same way we did.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:35
Right, where we were like, How the hell are they going to take this book...
Kaykay Brady: 2:39
And update this, like, serial killing misogynistic fantasy?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:46
Yeah, well, so just to get it right off the bat, in our episode on the book, so the second episode of this podcast where we talked about the book, Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls, which bears a slight resemblance to what we get in the TV show.
Kaykay Brady: 3:03
In terms of a couple of plot points, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:05
There's a couple of points. Like, the Halloween Hop exists. Trevor Sandbourne exists. That's pretty much it. Everything else is really different. We had, what they were fighting was puberty, gender norms, rape culture, each other. It was a heavy book. And that they were using constant communication with other females, so basically a whisper network, a way of women protecting themselves from the patriarchy and misogyny that was throughout the book. And I don't think that that's what was being fought in this particular show. The show was was more about Claudia and her relationship to her parents.
Kaykay Brady: 3:53
Yes, I would say that's probably the main fight I saw, was Claudia fighting against the expectations of her parents. And it's funny because I feel like the parents in this show are much more explicitly academic oriented. Whereas I think you get a whisper of that in the books, but somehow in the books you get the sense that the parents value Janine and Claudia equally, and see that they have different strengths. And in this show, it felt much more like, Claudia's the fuck up. Janine is some sort of perfect child or closer to a perfect child. But yeah, I definitely had that was the main fight. It was with the parents. What did you have?
Brooke Suchomel: 4:33
I had the same thing, that she was fighting others' expectations of her. We have it confirmed that our expectation for how they would handle translating the narration that you get in the book series, that that would be replicated here. As we had assumed when we talked in our last episode, Claudia narrates this episode.
Kaykay Brady: 4:55
Starting out with an amazing clothing montage!
Brooke Suchomel: 4:58
Ah!
Kaykay Brady: 4:59
Oh, your face. Just, bliss. Brooke's face was bliss.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:02
I am completely entranced by Claudia's wardrobe. And I see why the designer for the series won an Emmy for costume design. I mean, did you see the crocheted rainbow sweater with gold Docs and gift bow metallic earrings? I could not- like, I had to pause it for a second to collect myself because I was like, This outfit is everything.
Kaykay Brady: 5:28
You're like looking in the mirror.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:33
I mean, the fashion throughout this episode. I thought it was really interesting how we get this amazing montage right at the beginning. But it's not just like, "Look! Claudia likes clothing!" She starts off by saying, "I'm good at a lot of things." That's like the very beginning line, "I'm good at a lot of things, fashion, babysitting, art." And so I thought it was really positive. And the message that gets carried through at the close of this episode, it's basically Claudia is bookending everything with like, "I know I struggle with school. But that doesn't define me as a whole person. I'm also really, really good at other things."
Kaykay Brady: 6:18
Yes, we would call that a strengths based view. A strengths based view of herself, which is a very strong way to look at yourself and others.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:28
Right. And she basically says to her parents, like calls that to their attention and says, "With all of the things I can do, the one thing that they're focused on is the one thing that I can't do." And it's like they're so focused on her deficiencies that they're overlooking her strengths. Or even if they're not overlooking it, she feels like her failings- in their eyes, you know, not me saying that it's a failing, because I'm sorry, when is a 64 an F? Is a 64 an F? A 64 is a D. Come on now.
Kaykay Brady: 7:05
I probably couldn't have told you that even when I was getting grades.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:09
Right. So she didn't fail. She just didn't ace it. But in any case, she's like, "Look, I struggle with math, but I'm still really good at a lot of things." Like, I'm sure Janine certainly struggles, or would struggle, with babysitting.
Kaykay Brady: 7:25
She sure would.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:26
Janine babysitting would be like, she is being Mr. Robot in the corner, and the kids are just doing whatever the hell that they want. And that's not the worst babysitter to have, to be honest with you.
Kaykay Brady: 7:38
That's like an 80s babysitter.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:40
Totally.
Kaykay Brady: 7:40
I mean, a normal 80s babysitter, not these freaks who care and don't just sit and watch Headbangers Ball and eat a whole bag of Doritos. I'm not- who am I talking about? I have no idea. Wait, I've never admitted what a terrible babysitter I was. Holy shit!
Brooke Suchomel: 7:56
Wait, I didn't even know you babysat! How is this...
Kaykay Brady: 8:01
I did. Yeah, sure.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:04
I've now left the room.
Kaykay Brady: 8:05
Isn't it funny that I never talked about this?
Brooke Suchomel: 8:07
You never once! I just assumed that you didn't babysit. Wait, what?!
Kaykay Brady: 8:13
This is hilarious. Yeah, I babysat.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:18
We're like twenty some episodes in, now it's just now coming up on the Baby-sitters Fight Club. I thought you were the Fight and I was the Baby-sitter. Tell me more.
Kaykay Brady: 8:29
Well, I'm sure I was the Fight. I didn't regularly babysit, but I did babysit here and there. And I was a terrible fucking babysitter. Like I said, I just watched Headbangers Ball and ate chips. Or if they had any junk food cereal. We didn't have junk food cereal in my house, so I just ate everything.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:46
Okay, wait, have I talked about my babysitting junk food thing that I would do?
Kaykay Brady: 8:52
I don't know, do it again. Let's see. I want to hear it again, even if you did.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:55
Okay. So I babysat all the fucking time.
Kaykay Brady: 8:58
Oh, I bet you did.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:59
Just like all the time. And I didn't want to, but I also really wanted to have some money.
Kaykay Brady: 9:05
Sure. It's a good way to make it.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:07
Yeah. So, you know, I was definitely the 80s 90s babysitter. Like, I'd be like, "Okay!" if the kids wanted to color or something, sure, I'd color. But most of the time, let's be honest, I'd be like, "What do you want to do?" And the kids just wanted to watch TV.
Kaykay Brady: 9:22
Of course.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:22
So it was like, Cool, we'll watch TV, I'm down. So we didn't have too much, like, we never had Lucky Charms in the house, really. You know, we had a lot of healthy cereals and sometimes we would get like-
Kaykay Brady: 9:38
Mueslix?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:40
We had a lot of Basic 4 and Rice Krispies and stuff like that. I would have to work my magic to get the kind of cereal that I wanted. And if I did, you know, it was not often Lucky Charms. It would be something like Count Chocula. Something where it was like, Oh shit, this isn't
Kaykay Brady: 9:55
Oh, Count Chocula's number one. Number one. available all of the time. You gotta get that, right? So the concept of having just those little marshmallows at your disposal at all times was just amazing to me. And so there was one family that I babysat for that always had Lucky Charms. And, when the kids would go to bed, they would always be like, "Eat whatever you want in the house." And so I took that to be, like, "Eat just the Lucky Charms marshmallows from the box of Lucky Charms." Fair enough. Fair enough.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:27
Just with your hand in the box.
Kaykay Brady: 10:28
Gross. This has a whole new meaning in COVID times.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:32
Oh, god. Anyway, so that was me. So I was eating their Lucky Charms marshmallows out of the box while I watched MTV while the kids are asleep. You were also watching MTV, but eating Doritos.
Kaykay Brady: 10:43
Sure.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:43
It's something, when I go to sleep at night, sometimes that's the thing that comes into my head.
Kaykay Brady: 10:49
You're like, "I'm going to hell. I'm going to marshmallow eating hell."
Brooke Suchomel: 10:53
You can take the girl out of the Catholic Church, but you can't take some aspects of the Catholic Church out of the girl. So I am often haunted at night by Lucky Charms marshmallows right from the box.
Kaykay Brady: 11:05
That is fantastic.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:07
Claudia would approve.
Kaykay Brady: 11:08
Oh yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:08
So that's what Claudia and I had in common. I didn't have her fierce ass wardrobe, but I did have her predilection for junk food.
Kaykay Brady: 11:16
Yeah, and back to your point about the clothes, the clothes are really presented as a way that Claudia is expressing herself. Because clothes can be this real sticking point where it's you meeting expectations of others, you know, in terms of fitting in or looking a certain way or disappearing or being invisible. And she very clearly is using the clothes as a way to be herself and express herself.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:41
Yeah, that's making me think too about how she uses clothing as a way to propel her in one direction or another, too. Like, to try to enhance something about herself that she wants to enhance. When you see her wear the quote "Ruth Bader Ginsburg Chic."
Kaykay Brady: 12:02
Yes!
Brooke Suchomel: 12:03
When she has to take her test, her algebra quiz.
Kaykay Brady: 12:07
And she has glasses.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:07
Yeah. And the earrings, and just everything about it, she's like, I'm gonna embody-
Kaykay Brady: 12:14
Hey man, fake it till you make it.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:15
Yeah! She's like, I'm gonna embody the spirit of one of the smartest women I know, and that will help me perform better on this algebra quiz, which she does pass, with a bad grade...
Kaykay Brady: 12:27
According to Brooke.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:28
But she does pass.
Kaykay Brady: 12:30
Let's see. Are there any teachers? Do we have any teacher listeners who can set us straight? What is a 64? What is a 64?!
Brooke Suchomel: 12:39
64 is a solid D. I stand by that. A solid D.
Kaykay Brady: 12:45
I don't know. I mean, 64, you've almost gotten half wrong.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:49
You've gotten two thirds correct. See, we need to do the whole "strength versus deficit" here.
Kaykay Brady: 12:57
Yeah, totally.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:58
You've gotten two thirds of the algebra questions correct.
Kaykay Brady: 13:00
Also, I'm terrible at math. So I shouldn't be talking about math at all. But I am good at sports and being a friend!
Brooke Suchomel: 13:09
Babysitting.
Kaykay Brady: 13:10
Not babysitting.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:13
If, by your definition of babysitting, you mean, eating somebody else's junk food on the couch while you watch their cable TV and ignore their children.
Kaykay Brady: 13:20
That I'm great at. It's a testament to what a bad babysitter I was that I barely remember. I definitely babysat probably 20 times, and I couldn't even tell you a single story.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:33
So you made at least like $80 in your babysitting career.
Kaykay Brady: 13:39
And then once I was able to create my lawn business, I was like, double middle fingers to babysitting. I was like, "This is horseshit. This for the birds. Let me just go do some lawns." And I made way better money.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:51
Yeah, the only problem is it's difficult to get all of the Dorito dust off your fingers while they're also covered in grass. Unless you're into that, no judgement.
Kaykay Brady: 14:02
That'd be hilarious. Like, "I will take this gig of doing your lawn, but I will take all of your chips out of the house and strap it on myself as I'm doing your lawn and just stuff my face while grass is flying in my face."
Brooke Suchomel: 14:17
"You have to let me sit on your couch for 45 minutes and watch music videos."
Kaykay Brady: 14:23
After.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:24
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 14:24
Or before.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:26
It's required. Key part of your payment. I love that. Yeah, so I mean, that's really what we get in this episode. We get Claudia and her struggles with her parents and her crush on Trevor Sandbourne, who in the TV show is not a poet.
Kaykay Brady: 14:46
He's an artist. He's sort of like Ashley.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:49
He is Ashley!
Kaykay Brady: 14:50
They kind of blended those.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:51
Yeah. Because they say that his dad is an artist, that he travels in these art world circles, he seems kind of pretentious, is all abstract.
Kaykay Brady: 15:04
Definitely pretentious.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:06
His self portrait is like what Ashley Wyeth would do for a self portrait. It's just like, random squares. So we get the appearance of Trevor Sandbourne. And unlike in the book, Claudia does not get to go to the Halloween Hop with Trevor Sandbourne.
Kaykay Brady: 15:20
That's right. Because there's a whole plot about her almost lying to her parents.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:26
Right. Or she does lie, but then comes clean.
Kaykay Brady: 15:29
Yeah, so at first Stacey gives her her own quiz that she got, I don't know, a 98 or something on.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:35
A 95,
Kaykay Brady: 15:36
95. And she says, "Oh, I did it all in pencil, you can erase it." And so she takes picture of it, and sends the text to her parents saying, "Oh, I got an A, I can go to the Halloween Hop." But then later she has, I don't know, an attack of conscience or something, and shows them actually what she did. And they don't let her go.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:56
Right. In fact, the only person who goes to the Halloween Hop is Stacey.
Kaykay Brady: 16:00
True.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:01
Because thank fucking god-
Kaykay Brady: 16:05
Alan!
Brooke Suchomel: 16:06
We have no Alan Gray.
Kaykay Brady: 16:07
I know where you're going with your face.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:09
Oh, thank fucking god, no Alan Gray. No Alan Gray, and to your point that you said earlier, no Phantom Caller. Like, the Phantom Caller exists, but did you catch a hint of social commentary and shade in that?
Kaykay Brady: 16:26
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:26
So in the book, the Phantom Caller is this burglar who, at least the Phantom Caller that they read about in the newspaper-
Kaykay Brady: 16:37
He's the Golden State Killer. Let's be honest. He's a burglar, he calls and he like obsessively calls, and then he breaks in and steals things.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:44
Right. Fortunately, unlike the Golden State Killer, we don't get any indication of actual physical violence from the Phantom Caller in the book. But it is that sort of emotional violence, right?
Kaykay Brady: 16:56
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:57
That tormenting. And so that is the story that's in the background as the girls are getting these calls, right? That's really scaring them. So these like breathy, nobody on the other end of the line, or hang ups or whatever, that turn out to be Trevor Sandbourne and Alan Gray, who have stolen their record book and are fucking stalking them.
Kaykay Brady: 17:19
Are stalking them!
Brooke Suchomel: 17:20
While they're on their jobs. And it's kind of presented as, Oh, isn't that sweet? And then they all go to the dance together, which, fuck no! "Let me give you a ride home!"
Kaykay Brady: 17:29
Yeah, and then we get the whole police involvement, where the police are basically like, "Hey son, Not like, "Time to go to a psychiatrist. Time for don't do that kind of thing. an assessment."
Brooke Suchomel: 17:42
So that wasn't great in the book, and I can totally see why the show creators were like, yeah, we're gonna ditch that whole plot.
Kaykay Brady: 17:53
I totally agree with you. I think they just said, This is radioactive. There's no saving this. Walk away.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:00
Right. But because the title of the book is Claudia and the Phantom Caller, I mean, it's like, how do they work that in? I would have loved to have been in the writers room while they were figuring out how they were going to address that. And so what they do is they have, really, the Phantom Caller is like the boogeyman that is talked about on local news. So it's presented as something that has been covered in the local news, probably by a Sinclair station, and the way that they describe it, it's like, it's an urban fucking myth. I saw the way that they dealt with the Phantom Caller as some real shade being thrown on the kind of sensationalistic local news stories that get thrown out there that are not checked, that get just spiraled into things that parents can use for fear mongering. And you see that happening in this episode. Because they say, Well, the Phantom Caller, what does the Phantom Caller do? He calls you and then you find out he's in your house. So it's very "the call is coming from inside the house." Like, that being presented as something that's real on local news is just like all of the Satanic Panic shit that was going on in the 80s and has evolved. Like, pretty much half of the shit that you see on local news now is fucking bullshit, because it's all these recycled, quote unquote, "human interest stories."
Kaykay Brady: 19:31
I would have no idea because I run like a gazelle from that.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:35
Oh, it's so bad.
Kaykay Brady: 19:35
But it's interesting, too, because it also calls back to the theme of negative reinforcement versus strengths based, right? It's focusing on fears and worries, no matter how stupid and sensationalistic and possibly not true it is. So it's sort of like focusing on the negative which, the whole show is toying with that, the sort of strength based positive versus negative reinforcement.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:02
Right, and we see it explicitly used by Mary Anne's dad as a reason for her punishment. So we get the appearance of Mary Anne's dad!
Kaykay Brady: 20:13
Holy shit. Oh my gosh, okay...Mary Anne's dad...
Brooke Suchomel: 20:15
Who is Shawn from The Good Place. Which I was like, that makes so much fucking sense.
Kaykay Brady: 20:22
Yeah, it's pretty perfect. I mean, he's so...he's a small man, and yet he's so menacing in his presentation. So it works pretty well. But I just kept waiting for Bad Janet. I was like, Please, god, is Bad Janet gonna show up?
Brooke Suchomel: 20:39
Maybe Bad Janet appears in the next episode, because we hear about the Baby-sitters Agency. Yeah, that's our cliffhanger!
Kaykay Brady: 20:47
Maybe Bad Janet is like the mom of one of the kids from the Baby-sitters Agency.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:53
Oh man, or is one of them.
Kaykay Brady: 20:54
Please, Netflix, make this happen.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:56
I just wanna see this like 35 year old woman in a leather jacket running the Baby-sitters Agency, calling
Kaykay Brady: 21:02
Which is so funny, because you know, they really everyone a dink. cast age appropriate kids as the Baby-sitters Club. I mean, they really do look 12 and 13. So that would be so fantastic.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:17
It'd actually be a hilarious commentary on how teens are usually played by such older actors. Yeah, so good. So yeah, so we get the appearance of Mary Anne's dad. Do you know who else I'm very excited to talk about?
Kaykay Brady: 21:35
Mrs. Johanssen?
Brooke Suchomel: 21:36
Well...
Kaykay Brady: 21:38
Oh, Karen.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:39
Yes, all of those things.
Kaykay Brady: 21:41
Yeah, Karen! Go! Go, I want to hear your thoughts on Karen.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:46
Perfect. She's perfect.
Kaykay Brady: 21:49
Yeah. Bad Seed, Firestarter, she's got all those vibes, Drew Barrymore, she's killing it.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:56
Like, she is so much creepier in the TV show than she is in the book. And that makes me so happy. It's just leaning full into creepy Karen. From the beginning, she's lurking around corners, staring. You just see her with her hands on the door jamb, peeking around the corner, looking at Kristy. Holy shit.
Kaykay Brady: 22:20
Well, that's why I think it supports the idea that the people that made the show are such fans of the books, because they really take the way that character goes and the beloved pieces of that character that people take, which is the creepiness, and they just lay it on thick.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:35
Yeah. The first thing she says to Kristy is that she's having a wake for her doll. And I actually said out loud, "Oh, fuck yes." Like, I said it out loud. I didn't even realize that I said it. I was like, whoa, I'm talking out loud to the show, because that is so perfect. So she has a wake for her doll in a coffin. She says, "Don't close the doll's eyes, because it's dark enough in the grave."
Kaykay Brady: 23:02
Yes!
Brooke Suchomel: 23:02
And the line, "Krakatoa was an atheist." So the doll's name is Krakatoa, and Kristy asks if they should say a prayer, and it's just, "Krakatoa was an atheist." And I was like, Praise the heavens for whoever and whatever in this universe brought us the creators of this show, who wrote in the lines to be delivered from Karen's mouth, "Krakatoa was an atheist." Said with such disdain, like, "How dare you pray over my atheist dead doll?"
Kaykay Brady: 23:38
That brought me so much joy.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:40
It's so good. But yes, also, Mrs. Johanssen. What about Mrs. Johanssen?
Kaykay Brady: 23:45
Well, all we know is she's a lez.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:47
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 23:48
I mean, that's pretty much all we get. She's at the Halloween Hop holding hands with a nice looking partner.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:53
So you have Mrs. Johanssen and Dr. Johanssen, instead of it being "Dr. and Mr." We don't see Charlotte Johanssen yet. We find out that one of her moms is the art teacher, and then we see...
Kaykay Brady: 24:06
Dr. Johanssen.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:07
Yeah, Dr. Johanssen comes to the dance. So they both come and talk to Stacey at the dance because they are chaperoning, and that is where Stacey finds out that the Baby-sitters Agency is watching Charlotte.
Kaykay Brady: 24:19
I know. It definitely made me want to watch the next episode,
Brooke Suchomel: 24:23
For sure.
Kaykay Brady: 24:23
It was a nice little...especially for this episode, where this episode was kind of light, which is interesting, given the way that the book was so heavy. It sort of felt lighter than the first one in some ways.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:36
Yeah, cuz they're not being actively stalked.
Kaykay Brady: 24:38
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:40
It's funny how much the removal of an active stalker will lighten the mood.
Kaykay Brady: 24:44
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:46
No, it's very much like, Will I be able to get the correct grade that I need to get in order to go to the dance with a boy that I have a crush on? It's sort of a classic, what you would think about as a preteen girl's...
Kaykay Brady: 25:01
Age appropriate struggle.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:01
Like the kind of thing that hopefully they should be concerning themselves with as opposed to being stalked while they are caring for others' children for insufficient pay. But yeah, the focus on the grade is so important in this book because Claudia's attendance is predicated on her good grade, which only comes about because of Janine.
Kaykay Brady: 25:22
Janine!
Brooke Suchomel: 25:23
Janine busts Claudia's ass in this, totally unnecessarily.
Kaykay Brady: 25:29
It's interesting. It's sort of like Janine stepped in to parent in that moment, and in a really negative way, which she doesn't really do in the book. I think they're more equals in the book. But somehow in this show, it's like Janine taking on a pseudo parenting role in that moment, and the parents are grateful for the leadership, it seems.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:50
What was your take on her stepping in like that? Because it wasn't even, like, the conversation that they were having is just like, "Oh, I hear that you're struggling with math." And then all of a sudden Janine's like, "Well, I hear Claudia wants to go to a dance, and she's planning to go with a boy."
Kaykay Brady: 26:05
Oh yeah, she's taking her down. She's taking her down, no doubt about.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:07
Right, like there was no, to me, I was very confused. Like, "Wait, how did we get here?" The only thing that made sense to me about that was, we know by looking at the list of the titles that they're covering in this series, just the episode titles, we know that Claudia and Mean Janine is one of the books that they cover. That's the next one that Claudia narrates. Is this like, "This is our one chance to show the sort of real strain between the two siblings before we get into Claudia and Mean Janine, we have to ramp it up, Janine has to do something like that."
Kaykay Brady: 26:40
Yeah, it comes out of nowhere. And it also doesn't necessarily ring true with what we're seeing elsewhere with these parents. You know, if they are so grade oriented and goal oriented, they would have their own consequences, and they wouldn't be looking for leadership from Janine, I don't think. That you might see from a more permissive family style, where they don't have a lot of boundaries or consequences, and then the other sibling starts leading. That happens quite often. But it doesn't make sense that the parents would be so focused on that stuff, and then not know how they're going to back it up. Because they would have had, you know, this would be a struggle that would have been going on for a long time.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:19
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 27:20
But it's interesting, the way that Janine says, "Negative reinforcement works," but you see in the show one of the main consequences of negative reinforcement, which is lying.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:31
Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady: 27:32
That's the thing about negative reinforcement is, it works in some ways, but it often has unintended consequences that you can't foresee, like a kid being dishonest because they don't want the negative consequence to happen, versus positive reinforcement typically doesn't have negative consequences and produces better.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:52
As you're talking about it, it seems like negative reinforcement really overlooks the subject of reinforcement, their agency
Kaykay Brady: 28:00
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:01
You're presuming that this person isn't capable of figuring out alternative methods to getting what they want and avoiding the punishment.
Kaykay Brady: 28:10
And you're also just sidestepping their motivation, because that's the thing, to get anybody to do anything, they have to be internally motivated. Negative reinforcement is an external motivator, de motivator, and so it tends to work less well. Because once that negative reinforcement is taken away, then they go apeshit, because they now have no internal motivation and the thing that's been sort of stepping on them is now removed.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:39
Well, and you see, it's not like this makes Claudia more amped to do well at math.
Kaykay Brady: 28:45
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:46
She really did try her hardest. And got a D, not an F.
Kaykay Brady: 28:50
Come at us. This is what we're saying.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:53
But I think that ultimately where she lands, so like, if what she's fighting is others expectations, the tool that she uses to fight that, you know, when you say that negative reinforcement leads to lying, we see that that happens. And then we also see her coming around and saying, "You know what, I'm not gonna lie." But she says straight up in her narration, when she's talking about the Phantom Caller, that the feeling that makes you feel sad, or like you're not good enough, that's the real Phantom Caller. She's really focused on the voice in her head, as RuPaul would say, the inner saboteur. And that's why she loves art so much, because when she's creating, she says that the voices that tell her that she should do something else or be somebody else, that those voices go away.
Kaykay Brady: 29:40
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:41
So clearly, that internal voice comes up and is like, "You gotta tell your parents. You're gonna feel shitty." But she's honest with them. So she's like, she's going to be true to herself, and I think it's inspired by Mimi. When Mimi comes in to help her as she's in her costume, her fierce costume for the Halloween Hop as Tippi Hedren in the birds.
Kaykay Brady: 30:05
It's super fierce.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:06
Oh, it's so brilliant. And Mimi comes in and compliments her on that, and is helping her get ready and says that she's proud of her. And Claudia's like, "Oh, because of my 95 on my algebra quiz?" And she's like, "Well, that's great. But I'm proud of you because you're my Claudia. For me, that is more than enough." And that seems to be the thing that gets her to come clean with her parents, is like, she's just gonna be herself, and ultimately, they're going to have to accept it.
Kaykay Brady: 30:33
And it's enough, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:35
It is. And again, going back to the message of, with all the things that she can do, just as she says at the very beginning, she's great at fashion, she's great at babysitting, she's great at art. She's not great at math. But you know what? That's okay. They've got Janine to be great at math.
Kaykay Brady: 30:49
Exactly. And you make such a good point of where it comes from, because that's what I was wondering. Because all through you just see a kid that is so confident, and so values driven, in a way that 12 year olds often aren't without parents behind them, giving them that messaging. And so I think it's a great point, it comes from Mimi.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:12
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 31:13
And you could also then go into a really interesting interpretation of cultural differences between Mimi and her kids who are more Americanized.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:23
Yeah, definitely. It's like, she's got this great combination of knowing that she's got something that she's really good at, she's got a few things that she's really good at. But with art, she has an outlet that she can use to express herself. And she feels really confident in her abilities in that. And so that is the place that she goes to to feel better about herself, and she has at least one person in her family telling her that she's enough as she is.
Kaykay Brady: 31:48
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:49
And if you have that, here's me going all Lady Gaga, "You can have 100 people in the room." Mimi is that one person in a hundred to give her that confidence that she needs to keep pushing.
Kaykay Brady: 32:01
Yeah, it's that kind of unconditional positive regard and care and empathy that we've talked about with Mimi before. And it's really cool to see the way people flourish under that. And they really do.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:12
Definitely.
Kaykay Brady: 32:13
And just having even one person in your family that's going to provide that for you, and basically say you are enough, just as you are exactly as you are, it's huge.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:23
Totally. So overall, we see struggles with relationships, but then we see not just positive outcomes, but positive strides being made, at least with Claudia and her parents. But then we also have Kristy being kind of a dick, and I didn't know quite how to feel about the whole Kristy and Mary Anne dynamic that we see.
Kaykay Brady: 32:54
Can I also just point out that Claudia said, "Right now I have to think like a mathematician and not like a marriage counselor," talking about Mary Anne and Kristy? So yeah, subtext called out explicitly.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:08
Not like a Boston Marriage counselor.
Kaykay Brady: 33:11
Right. I'm saying that, you know, that's probably the writers joking. A little nod to the subtext, I believe.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:18
Yeah, definitely. So you can see that Kristy is still very stressed out about her family dynamic. And then she's really stressed because Mary Anne can't babysit for Watson, which is why Kristy ultimately goes and babysits for Watson on the night of the Halloween Hop. So she's babysitting instead of being at the Halloween Hop with fucking Alan Gray, which is, I mean, if you have a chance to go to a school dance with your stalker, or to have a doll wake with your creepy stepsister to be? Doll wake every time. Always pick the doll wake, that's my advice. But Kristy really lashes out. I think we understand why she's so frustrated. Because Mary Anne is 20 minutes late getting home from, I don't know if it's ever stated, but we're probably to assume that it's a babysitting job because it doesn't seem like Mary Anne does a whole lot else. So she's late, she doesn't call her dad, and is punished by being grounded and she has her smartphone taken away and is given like a fucking Jitterbug.
Kaykay Brady: 34:28
I loved my flip phones, they were far superior to any of my smartphones.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:33
But it's one of those that is programmed with like, it can dial four numbers and four numbers only, and three of those numbers are Mary Anne's dad and the other is 911. So that's the punishment.
Kaykay Brady: 34:45
You can only call a demon from The Bad Place and
Brooke Suchomel: 34:48
Right. So that is what is predicated on the 911. fight that they end up having, which is, Kristy just like lashes out about how Mary Anne's dad is a psycho. First calls Mary Anne "unprofessional" for getting grounded, and then calls her dad a psycho. And then I think starts to take it really far when she's like, "Even my mom thinks so." It's that whole, like, "My family talks shit about your family when you're not around" being thrown in there.
Kaykay Brady: 35:20
Yeah. It's way crossing the line.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:23
To me, that was a verbal foot stop. Where I was just like, Ooh, like, do you think Mary Anne is happy about this? It sucks for Mary Anne, why are you making her feel worse about it, you know? And then Mary Anne tries to reach out to her with the flashlight, so we get the flashlight communication and Kristy just looks at her and closes the blinds on her.
Kaykay Brady: 35:44
Pragmatically, how are they communicating with those flashlights?
Brooke Suchomel: 35:46
I know.
Kaykay Brady: 35:47
Cuz they were like, "Click, click!" "Oh, she doesn't want to talk to me." Weren't they supposed to be using Morse code or something?
Brooke Suchomel: 35:55
Where it's like, "I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah," and then goes on like a monologue, and it's like, "Blink, blink. Blink." Like, she gets it, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 36:04
I was like, what kind of communication is happening here? Don't try to pull one over on me. I did have walkie talkies, and flashlights, and I knew Morse code.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:12
Personally, my read on that was that's another one of the little winks and nods.
Kaykay Brady: 36:16
Oh, a joke. Oh, a joke!
Brooke Suchomel: 36:18
That's kind of how I took it. Because in the book, it's explained as, it's Morse code. But if you look at the kind of conversations that they're having, you'd be up all night.
Kaykay Brady: 36:27
Great point, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:29
All frickin' night to have that conversation. So for it to be just like a...
Kaykay Brady: 36:33
"Click clack!"
Brooke Suchomel: 36:34
Right, like if you've seen Wayne's World, when he learns Cantonese to speak to Cassandra, and then he says like one word and it translates....
Kaykay Brady: 36:47
And it's like a paragraph.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:48
Right. And it's a joke, right?
Kaykay Brady: 36:50
Yeah. Okay, I think your read is probably right.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:52
I think it's a joke. But this is the Kristy that can be problematic that comes up, and she comes up early
Kaykay Brady: 36:58
And I think honestly, she's a little more in this. believable for me in the in this show than the book.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:03
Hmm.
Kaykay Brady: 37:04
You know, it didn't seem too much for the character.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:08
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 37:08
It seemed obnoxious. But it didn't step out of the realm of plausible to me.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:13
Right. It's your friend who can be really mean when they're stressed.
Kaykay Brady: 37:18
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:18
That's who Kristy is.
Kaykay Brady: 37:20
She's spinning, hard.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:20
She's spinning, and Mary Anne's probably been dealing with that for a very long time. You know, it even is said in the previous episode when Kristy's mom's talking to her and she's like, "Well, when Mary Anne gets upset, you don't call her a baby." And Kristy's like, "Yeah, I do, sometimes." So we kind of know that Kristy can go over the line with Mary Anne at times, and I think we see that happen in this. We just don't really see it get resolved. So hopefully that will happen in the in the next episode.
Kaykay Brady: 37:48
Yeah, with the Baby-sitters Agency. Maybe it brings them together, of course.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:52
Gotta take 'em down.
Kaykay Brady: 37:53
Take 'em down!
Brooke Suchomel: 37:55
What did you have for anything that stood out to you as being a very timely, like, we talk so much about Most 80s Moments...
Kaykay Brady: 38:03
Modern moments. How about Modern Moments?
Brooke Suchomel: 38:06
Most Modern Moments. Alliteration, everybody loves that, right?
Kaykay Brady: 38:10
We'll make a little song with the keytar in the background.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:14
Nothing says modern like a keytar.
Kaykay Brady: 38:17
Yeah, exactly! All right, so Modern Moments number one, fucking amazing Halloween costumes. They were off the chain, all hand created, and I do believe that is a phenomenon of our present experience of childhood.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:32
Right. They're not getting the one size fits all plastic poncho that has something screen printed on it, and then this plastic-
Kaykay Brady: 38:39
Face mask that snaps in two seconds.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:42
Right, that smells terrible, and then the band snaps and smacks you in the eye.
Kaykay Brady: 38:48
Yeah, they're not having the experience of like, their mom gets off work at 6pm on a Wednesday and Halloween is on a Thursday, and you're like, "Let's go to CVS!" And then at CVS, you just rummage around for the remnants of the costumes left. "You're He-Man!"
Brooke Suchomel: 39:03
Win! If you're at CVS last minute and you get a He-Man, it is a good day, my friend. That's a great day.
Kaykay Brady: 39:09
That's pretty good. So that struck me as very modern. And also I did love that moment where Mary Anne's dad took away the smartphone and gave her the flip phone, and I thought to myself, "Ah, flip phones are far superior, so don't be sad, Mary Anne." I had my phone for like 10 years. I dropped it in bar toilets, I stomped on that thing, that thing fell off balconies. That thing never broke. That thing gave me service every day. Most reliable phone I've ever had. RIP flip phone.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:40
That's why we don't have them anymore. Because the companies were like, "These things hold up too well."
Kaykay Brady: 39:47
Wow! Damn! Correct.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:48
We gotta give you some piece of shit thing that looks and feels like a credit card and you're gonna lose it in six months.
Kaykay Brady: 39:54
That is some Suchomel wisdom right there. So did you have any Modern Moments?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:59
Well, I had kind of the opposite of a Modern Moment, where I noticed something that I was like, wait a minute, that's not even a throwback to the 80s. That's a throwback to the 60s. And I don't know where it's coming from, and now I want to find out. So did you notice, when Claudia and Stacey were at Stacey's locker, and Stacey has one of those whiteboards on her locker door, and it says "Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!" on it?
Kaykay Brady: 40:25
Oh, I didn't notice.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:26
Yes.
Kaykay Brady: 40:27
And what is that?
Brooke Suchomel: 40:28
That is a line from Valley of the Dolls.
Kaykay Brady: 40:31
Whoa!
Brooke Suchomel: 40:33
The classic 1960s -- what is it, '67? -- camp classic about pills.
Kaykay Brady: 40:44
Shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:45
It is a movie about glamorous women on pills. And that quote is in Stacey's locker and it's all I can think about now. I'm like, What is that? Is Stacey on pills? Is Stacey the Jessie Spano of, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 41:03
She's so excited?
Brooke Suchomel: 41:04
She's so excited, so excited, so scared. I don't know. Is that going to be the truth about Stacey? She doesn't have diabetes, she has a pill addiction?
Kaykay Brady: 41:12
Ah, I would love that update. I really would. Holy shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:15
Yeah, that plus the Baby-sitters Agency might make the next episode really interesting.
Kaykay Brady: 41:20
Hey, maybe the Baby-Sitters Agency are peddling oxy. I mean, you know, they do stub out a cigarette into a couch, or burn a couch with a cigarette.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:30
Oh, and that's why Charlotte Johanssen is being babysat by the Baby-sitters Agency because Dr. Johanssen's their hook up?
Kaykay Brady: 41:39
Dr. Johanssen is running a pill mill! It's gotta be.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:43
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 41:44
Don't disappoint, Netflix.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:45
It has to be. It's the only logical conclusion we can draw from the "Sparkle, Neely, sparkle" quote. Oh, man, I hope so.
Kaykay Brady: 41:56
Good eyes, good eyes.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:58
Now I feel like I need to go watch episode three, like right now, immediately.
Kaykay Brady: 42:02
Yeah. All right, so we'll meet in about 20 minutes? Do number three?
Brooke Suchomel: 42:08
Yeah. Well, I'm very, very excited that we get to discuss that when we talk about the next episode, which is The Truth About the sophisticated Stacey. I noticed that she said the word "sophisticated" in this episode, that Trevor "runs in sophisticated circles." So that was a nice little nod to the OG series as well. But I can't wait to see if Stacey is involved in a pill running operation, as we suspect, in the next episode.
Kaykay Brady: 42:38
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:39
But until then...
Kaykay Brady: 42:40
Just keep sittin'. [theme song] What is a 64?!
