Transcript - BSFC Netflix #6: Claudia and Mean Janine
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 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'm a therapist, and I'm new to the books and new to the show.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:43
And in this episode, we're discussing episode six of the Netflix series, Claudia and Mean Janine, and the Netflix description of this episode is, quote, "A family emergency triggers an emotional feud between Claudia and her older sister. Elsewhere, Mary Anne works to hide her feelings." End quote. So Kaykay, you mentioned in our last episode that you were excited to see how the sibling rivalry with the Kishi sisters plays out in the TV show. What was your take on what you saw in this episode?
Kaykay Brady: 1:15
This episode, I felt like it was pretty true to the book in terms of the battles that they're having, you know, Claudia and Janine having together. It didn't seem too different from the book, although the ending was quite different. And some of the places they went were different. Janine seemed lonelier. Like the loneliness of Janine, the isolation of Janine seemed a little more prevalent in the show. Or maybe it's just the experience of watching it, right? Because you can see in a lot of, you know, there's a table [scene] where everybody's kind of laughing and playing and joking, and she's just kind of sitting there awkwardly. And you really see the kind of limitations of Janine's life in some ways in the crisis, right? Because she doesn't seem to have a close friend group, or a lot of people around her. And so it feels kind of lonely for her. That seemed different. But mostly, it seemed pretty true to the battle in the book. What was your take on it?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:14
The battle in the book referring to the struggles to communicate between the sisters? Is that what you're thinking of?
Kaykay Brady: 2:21
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:21
I agree. We said in the book that they definitely were fighting an inability to communicate, which the book stressed pretty strongly, although it was shaped differently than it is in the TV show. In the book, Janine is really, she's really isolated. She offers to help, and everybody is like, "Oh, no, no, you've got your schoolwork."
Kaykay Brady: 2:46
Yeah, sit in your room with your big books.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:48
Yeah. She even says like overtly in the books, I went back, I wanted to make sure that I was totally clear on what the source material was that everybody was working with. And in the book, she says to Claudia, "It feels like you're always pushing me out of our world and into my own," you now, where Janine kind of had stops and starts too like, try to be involved to try to take on more responsibility in the family, because we said that that was like another thing that they were fighting was the impact of time. And the change that time naturally brings around. Like Mimi says, "Time is change,” in the book, right?
Kaykay Brady: 3:25
That's right. I remember that.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:33
Yeah. And the impact of that time and change on family roles. Ultimately, that's what they use as a tool to sort of resolve that tension, is being flexible in the family roles. And so in the book, Janine goes and has tea with Mimi at the end. And I think that one of the reasons why it might be starker, like their isolation might just be brought a bit more into sharp relief in the TV show, is that you see more support in the TV show than you see in the book.
Kaykay Brady: 4:06
True. Yeah, very true.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:07
A lot more support. You know, I thought it was really nice that you see Kristy's mom coming over with pizza and Mary Anne's dad coming over with a casserole.
Kaykay Brady: 4:08
A healthy casserole, no less.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:22
So perhaps not made with the rage chips from Kristy's session with the bag of Doritos, unfortunately. I mean, missed opportunity there.
Kaykay Brady: 4:34
Bring me the rage chips or I won't eat it.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:36
Right. So you see adults and other people come in to help, and in this way, Claudia is able to be a child in the TV show that you don't see in the book. Like, in the book, nobody comes over to help. It's Claudia and Janine figuring out how to basically be home health care for Mimi.
Kaykay Brady: 4:58
Oh, that's right. And then I don't know if it's this book where they start the speech pathology lessons?
Brooke Suchomel: 5:03
Right, that Mary Anne comes over.
Kaykay Brady: 5:05
Right, there was none of that in this show. It
Brooke Suchomel: 5:05
Right. So it's like, "Hey, Mary Anne, come over was much more an appropriate role that Claudia is playing. and be a speech pathologist for Mimi." And you don't see that. You see adults stepping up and taking on responsibilities, so you can just really focus on these kids as kids. Like, in the book, this is the book of Stacey's backyard unlicensed daycare, where they have all of the daycare kids make Mimi Get Well Soon cards. And instead of it being kids who are being babysat, it's the kids who are babysitters that are making the Get Well cards, just to reinforce the fact for the viewer that these are still children, which I think was good.
Kaykay Brady: 5:52
Oh, definitely.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:53
It takes them out of bearing so much of an adult burden on their shoulders, so it seemed like the age appropriateness was definitely leveled out.
Kaykay Brady: 6:01
Yeah, you're right, all of the adults rally, and they pull together in community and support each other, and the kids get to be kids. And as a result, Claudia gets to have an experience in the show where she's making meaning of her experience and making meaning of her art. She's getting to develop as a person as a result of this crisis versus having to manage the crisis in the books.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:29
Definitely. Tell me more about your take on what we see of how she grows as an artist and a person.
Kaykay Brady: 6:35
They did a really cool plot point. In this show, the art contest was happening, which I think happens in another book, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 6:44
Claudia and the New Girl, with Ashley.
Kaykay Brady: 6:47
Your grasp of Baby-sitters Club World is just positively Janine-like. I'm just in awe of you.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:53
I know. My computer brain, "This is what happens in the Baby-sitters Club books." Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 6:57
I'm so glad I have you.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:59
You got to see the Trivial Pursuit, so Janine and I, we do have that connection.
Kaykay Brady: 7:04
That's true. Yeah, so they they bring it into this episode instead of having the separate episode.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:10
And instead of it being the hand, can you sculpt anything other than a hand? Is that allowed? You get her drawing candy.
Kaykay Brady: 7:17
Right. Makes sense. Okay, so she enters an art contest and she does this pop art candy, which is fun and very Claudia, you know, because it's candy, and pop art seems pretty dope. But at the art contest, the judging lady, who actually reminded me very much of a judge you might find on Drag Race, and not just because she was wearing houndstooth. She had a very like intense Michelle Visage flavor to her.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:43
Yeah, that. Also, I was thinking like, you are giving me Project Runway. Like, original Project Runway guest judge. Unimpressed, providing helpful feedback.
Kaykay Brady: 7:53
Yeah, so I never watched that shit. Right, fabrics. Here's me with my fabrics! Are you impressed I know what houndstooth is?!
Brooke Suchomel: 8:00
Yeah, good job! High five. High fives, through the screen.
Kaykay Brady: 8:05
The only reason I know is because Bob the Drag Queen is obsessed with houndstooth, and so he talks about it constantly. That's the only reason I know.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:11
See, so you do you know fabrics! You just have to learn them from drag.
Kaykay Brady: 8:13
Yeah, I will remember a few things that a drag queen tells me. Once in a while it sticks. I don't know why.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:20
So basically, that's how you learn best. Most people, it's like mnemonics or things like that. We just need to get somebody in drag to tell you something that's normally hard for you to fathom.
Kaykay Brady: 8:31
It's so true. It's so true. There is drag queen reading events in libraries.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:35
Yeah! Storytime.
Kaykay Brady: 8:37
Fuck yeah! It works, people.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:39
If I was a kid, I would remember something a drag queen told me over something anybody else told me. Abso-freaking-lutely. That's gonna be on a platform for educational reform in America. We need to get math taught by drag queens, because that will help you remember the rules.
Kaykay Brady: 8:56
I may have had a chance with math. If this is what they did, I may have had a chance with math.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:01
Right? I'm telling you, we gotta go big. We gotta think different. That's what Apple said.
Kaykay Brady: 9:07
I love it. So this judge who looks at her pop art, she basically says if you choose to continue being an artist, think hard about what you want to say or what's your voice, something along those lines.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:22
Yeah, it was like, "Why this? Why now? Why me? What messages do I need communicate with my images?"
Kaykay Brady: 9:28
And Claudia is really fumbling with it and struggling with it. She doesn't have much of an answer. And in the course of the episode, it comes out that Mimi and her family were in an internment camp. And we only know this because Janine is able to speak Japanese with Mimi, who basically, English isn't as accessible or available to her after her stroke. So Janine is speaking Japanese with her and sort of figures out she's working through some of those early memories of her and her family in an internment camp. Claudia basically learns that history of this, and her last piece of art that we see her making is, I imagine it's a picture of Mimi as a child in the internment camp.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:08
With the tag.
Kaykay Brady: 10:09
Yeah, with the tag.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:10
Wearing the tag.
Kaykay Brady: 10:11
Yeah. And so it was really beautiful. It was a really lovely way of giving some more depth to this plot. You know, I felt like this was an example where the show goes a little more surface in some ways, just because the kids are supported, and they're able to be kids, right? So there's not a lot of angst in that regard. But it goes so deep in terms of this historical oppression and identity and cultural perspectives in a really beautiful way.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:43
Yeah. I mean, I think to your point, as you were just talking, that just made me think about how you say, like, it may be a bit more surface, because they don't have the full adult responsibilities put on their shoulders they do in the book. However, a kid without adult responsibilities still has problems. They still have things that they're going to encounter in the world that they're going to struggle with.
Kaykay Brady: 11:06
Yeah, it's kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? Once they're being cared for, and their emotional world is safe. And then they can kind of go deeper on these issues of identity and self and stuff like that.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:18
Exactly. Which helps them become more stable and actualized individuals before they become adults, and then have to take on those responsibilities. So that's a really good point, something that I didn't think about until you mentioned that.
Kaykay Brady: 11:32
What did you think of this new injection of story into the Netflix show that wasn't in the book?
Brooke Suchomel: 11:38
Yeah, I loved it. I mean, I love that this series is willing to push it further. Is willing to bring in issues that we're grappling with, some of us are grappling with, as a society. Some of us are trying to push down and not grapple with as a society. But I loved the words that they put in Claudia's mouth for her to express what the theme of this particular episode is, which is her referencing quotes, but they are quotes that you can picture a child grasping, because they're easy quotes to remember.
Kaykay Brady: 12:15
Oh, like the Faulkner quote?
Brooke Suchomel: 12:16
Yeah. Where she says, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." That was just a beautiful encapsulation. And I kind of struggled a little bit with trying to resolve that being where the show lands, with the beginning being this quote that isn't actually from Buddha. I just want to like, make a note to the writers...
Kaykay Brady: 12:37
I thought that was spurious.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:38
Yeah, yeah, I googled this. I was like, I don't know why, this just feels not quite like an accurate quote, and I looked it up. The first place you see this is Fake Buddha Quotes dot com, mentioning that it's never been quoted before 2006.
Kaykay Brady: 12:50
We can get behind the sentiment.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:52
We can get behind the sentiment, maybe just don't misquote it. Where it said, "Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind." They say that in context of Stacey and Claudia going to Mary Anne's house to try to make everything good with her dad, and with Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady: 13:10
Right, with the decoration disruption that
Brooke Suchomel: 13:12
The creative collaboration that happened, yeah. So was it basically implying, like, "Just get past happened in the previous episode. it?" But you can't "just get past it." And so it was like, is it being contradictory here? But I think that what they were perhaps trying to imply is that it's Mimi's burden on the mind. That is the wrong that she's remembering. So it's not just a matter of like, "Well, just forget about it," because you can't get over it. Because when you are in your most vulnerable state, that's the first thing that comes to her mind. Those are the memories she can most readily pull up. So what you have to do is, you have to work through it. And I think that it was wonderful how they have Claudia say, "The past, good and bad, will always be with us. You have to understand where we’ve been to know where we're going."
Kaykay Brady: 14:07
Yeah. And I think that also, I see the first quote and the second quote maybe showing a little bit of Claudia's arc in the episode. You know, Claudia is such a breath of modern fresh air, and she's always moving forward and going, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 14:23
Bright, shiny, happy.
Kaykay Brady: 14:25
Yeah, exactly. And the ways that the past, even traumatizing pieces of your past and your family's past, can have an extremely grounding influence on you, and can actually inform who you are, as well. So it felt like maybe that was a purposeful arc for Claudia.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:44
I think you're right. I guess my concern was just, I hope that a viewer doesn't take that as like, "Oh, just get over it!" You know? Because the whole thing is that, you can't. Because it doesn't leave you. What happened the past, it doesn't just go away. I mean, this is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, because when I'm just sitting on my couch, just sort of like working through like, Okay, why? Why are we in another wave of COVID again? What is it about humanity that has brought me here? And one of the things that I was thinking about recently is that I think that so much of us, we see time, like, okay, let me just do a little experiment. If I tell you to, like, think about time, think about a scale of time, from, let's say, 1980 to today. What direction of scale do you see?
Kaykay Brady: 15:35
Of course, from the past to the present.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:37
Do you see like a horizontal timeline?
Kaykay Brady: 15:39
Yeah, like linear? Yeah, I do think of it linear.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:43
I think we all think of it that way. And normally going left to right, right? And the same way that, in America and many Western countries, we read. So it's like moving forward. You're going left to right, so you think that, a lot of people think, if you just get far enough to the right side of that timeline, away from that left point that might be bothering you, you'll be better. You're gone, right? Like, that's not how anything works. And so I've been like, what if we saw time as like, going upwards? Everything is like rooted in the ground, and progress happens upwards. Time moves on upwards, kind of like Tetris blocks.
Kaykay Brady: 16:23
Or I'm thinking like a branching tree.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:25
Yeah. And so it's like, you don't ever get away from it. It's still there. So like, you at 13 years old is still in you at 50 years old. The you, you know, who was in Manzanar as, probably based on Mimi's age, okay, I'm gonna do some quick math here. They say she's 83, right?
Kaykay Brady: 16:48
Like I said, I didn't get taught by drag queens, so I can't help you there.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:51
Okay. They say she's 83, so that means that she would have been born in 1937, because this is set in 2020. The internment camps started in 1942, so she would have gone into Manzanar in 1942, so she would have been five years old. The Mimi at five is still the Mimi at 83. More has been built up above and around it, but it's still nestled in there. You can't get away from it.
Kaykay Brady: 17:16
Totally. You're making me think of what I was sort of pinpointing as what they're fighting. And it's a term that we use in therapy called integration.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:27
I wrote down "how to integrate the past."
Kaykay Brady: 17:28
Hey! [acapella instrumental Jock Jam] That's what happens when we...
Brooke Suchomel: 17:34
But I think I got that from you. Because you've mentioned integration in the past.
Kaykay Brady: 17:38
I thought we had a psychic moment.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:40
So maybe instead of drag queens teaching me math, what I need are lesbians teaching me psychology.
Kaykay Brady: 17:47
Well, I should hope so, because I am a therapist. So hopefully, this is working for some people. All right, so integration is exactly what you're talking about. It's the idea that you don't want to dismiss earlier parts of yourself, trauma, stories that have happened to you. You need to integrate it into your current life in a way that is meaningful.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:11
Yeah. I think we see that with the past, overtly, because we hear so much about the past, expressed explicitly in the narrative. But I think that there's also, you can extend that out as well with what we see, and how do you integrate the different parts of the self? And I think we see that with Janine. So you see that Janine is actually the one who's able to communicate.
Kaykay Brady: 18:36
Yeah, that was an interesting twist in the show, I thought, really cool.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:41
Yeah. And because Janine understands so much about physiological processes. She mentioned that vascular neurology is a passion.
Kaykay Brady: 18:51
By the way, the doctor seemed really freaked out by Janine.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:54
The doctor was a little snarky, and I was like, vascular neurology is a passion of yours, too, so maybe don't be judgy.
Kaykay Brady: 19:04
I was like, what was the director going for in making the doctor just be like, Who's this fucking freak?
Brooke Suchomel: 19:11
They show the doctor being like, impressed, but also unsettled.
Kaykay Brady: 19:15
Very unsettled.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:16
Those were the vibes. So you see Janine, who, you know, she's really thrown, and justifiably so, when Claudia's like, "This is why Mimi loves me more than you..."
Kaykay Brady: 19:29
Slap!
Brooke Suchomel: 19:30
That hits her hard. And so you know that that's something that she's been feeling, like it hits home for her. So for her to be the one that's actually able to say, "Okay, I understand what's going on with Mimi here." She understands something about humans that Claudia doesn't, just because that's not Claudia's skill set. Like, vascular neurology is clearly not her passion. You know, it's nice that I think Janine can start to see herself, due to this crisis and the fact that it is in an area that she knows something about, she's able to provide a service to the family and what they need, that perhaps is the first time for her. So you see her bonding with Claudia, I think, more deeply in the show than you do in the book.
Kaykay Brady: 20:19
Yeah, they hug and Claudia moves closer to her.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:22
Yeah, and Janine hugs her back. And then she's also able to say, like, she knows that Claudia loves art. And so she's the one who's like, "I think you could communicate with Mimi through pictures." So she's able to actually help two people communicate, when communication has been, up to this point, not a strength of hers.
Kaykay Brady: 20:47
Yeah. You see a good example of the way that she is struggling to communicate when she says to Claudia, they're playing the trivia game, some trivia question about art that Claudia doesn't know. And Janine says something along the lines of, "Well, I would expect you to know this, given your chosen field of study," and then Claudia says, "What the fuck? That's so rude. I don't know this." And then Janine very genuinely says, "No, I wasn't trying to insult you. I honestly think that and was asking you." You just get a sense of like, there's something about Janine's communication style that's different from other people, and really can rub people the wrong way. And it's challenging for her.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:29
Yeah. Claudia says to her, "Have you ever felt anything?" So Claudia runs on feelings and emotional connections and bonding. And Janine is much more focused on rationality. So they're just approaching life in two very different ways, based on their own strengths. But because they both share this love for Mimi, ultimately, they're able to come together and bond around that. Which was nice.
Kaykay Brady: 21:57
Yeah. And they kind of represent the polar extremes of human experience, right? The head and the heart is a short term for it. And in the end, they kind of integrate. And there's this nice middle ground where they both bring something to the table to connect with Mimi and get through the crisis.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:15
Yeah. And I think it's important that you see them have that ultimate bond and hug after they talk about the internment camps. Because Janine, again, because she's rational and very fact based, she knows about these things. But she also has the emotional interest to reach out to Mimi and to have asked her about her experience, which Claudia hasn't done. It's not like she's completely shut down. And I think that Claudia is able to see that like, "Oh, wow, you knew something about Mimi. In this area, you were closer to her." And then when Janine tells her all about it, it's very focused on what it would have been like to live there. So it's not just super factual.
Kaykay Brady: 23:02
Yeah, "They were there from 19 blah blah blah, to blah blah blah."
Brooke Suchomel: 23:05
Right, "120,000 Americans were interned for three and a half years," which is true. Hopefully, you know, this introduction for kids watching it, and parents watching it, who might not know about this part in our history, because Americans don't like to teach anything that isn't shiny and pretty and lovely. This is one of the areas, I remember growing up, where I would get in the most trouble with my teachers, when I would be like, "But what about internment camps?" When they would go on rants about how like, "America, we're the most free loving country."
Kaykay Brady: 23:35
Oh, I'm sure they loved that.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:36
Sure, they loved that.
Kaykay Brady: 23:38
I'm sure you just went to the head of the class. Is that what happened?
Brooke Suchomel: 23:41
But if I was a teacher, I would want to talk, like, that's important to talk about, right? Why don't we talk about that? Why do we tell ourselves this false narrative that, you know, like Claudia says, "You have to understand where we've been to know where we're going." And so if we don't understand where we've been, we're going to be really blind about where we're going, because we're telling ourselves a lie.
Kaykay Brady: 24:01
And then also the use of Faulkner's really smart too, because Faulkner was a southern writer, and most of his work was focusing on the Southern experience and southern trauma and oppression around the Civil War. So it's kind of like also a little echo to that, another part of our history in
Brooke Suchomel: 24:20
Right. And I think it's good that they America. focused on Manzanar specifically. There were 10 camps. They could have picked any of those 10, but Manzanar has a pretty robust amount of documentation around it. Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams took pictures of it, so it's well documented. You can go there now. It's like preserved by the National Park Service. It's in the middle of freaking nowhere, intentionally so, too. It's High Sierras land that nobody would want to live on because you really can't. It's not made to support life, which is why they put them there. And the amount of information that's out there, a lot of it is digestible for kids too, because there is the book Farewell to Manzanar that was written back in the 70s. A woman wrote about her time there as a child. And it's a book that, at least in California, a lot of kids read. It is like, kind of a core reading assignment. Because that happened here. I mean, the vast majority of people that were sent to internment camps came actually from California, because the majority of Japanese Americans were on the west coast. So for Janine to show that, like, she's angry about this, about the way that people are retreated, justifiably so. I think Claudia is able to see some emotion in her, because she said, "Don't you feel anything?" And you can see she's angry about this injustice. And Claudia says, "How could anyone treat families that way? I don't know how anyone could treat families that way." And Janine goes, "I don't know why they still do." Which again, I was like, thank you, writers, for putting that in. So that we're not sugarcoating where we are. This shit is happening right now, by our government.
Kaykay Brady: 26:16
They're kind of modeling exactly what we're talking about, right? Modeling this idea of seeing time, as all a part, and never feeling that we've arrived, and never feeling like, "Oh, this is in our past," right? Always kind of not only thinking about the past, but then thinking about, "Wow, how does this apply to us today?" And also where might we be enacting the same kind of behaviors today, instead of just being like, "Oh, wow, how terrible we were. Great! So glad that's done."
Brooke Suchomel: 26:47
Right. "So glad we're not doing that specific thing anymore, because that specific thing has no relation to anything else that we're doing." It's like, no, it actually does. I mean, if you look at why the Japanese were interned in the first place, and you see that it was due to pressure from white farmers who wanted the Japanese off of their lands, because they were like, "They're going to take over all of the white farmland, so we have to get them off." And so then they all get shipped away. And when they left the internment camps, they were not allowed to return to their homes. They were told, "There's an exclusion zone, California and Western Oregon and Washington and a big part of Arizona, all of that, they're off limits to you. You can't live here anymore. We're going to give you $25 and bus fare, and you just have to figure out your life from here." That is how our government treated people. Cowed to pressure from people who saw a chance to exploit people, and then when the Japanese were off their lands, that's when they just made a deal with Mexico to bring in workers from Mexico to work those fields. And ultimately, you see that leading to Cesar Chavez and the Mexican farm labor movement. Like, all of this stuff, it just keeps on unfolding. And that's the thing I've why I thought it was so great that they said, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past." It's like we think that history is something that is over and done with, when it's like, history is just a documentation of time. It's just a documentation of events that have happened. We're living in history right now, and what's going to come in the future will be history one day. So maybe let's write it the way that we want to look back and be like, I'm proud of this and not ashamed. Girl raising your hand asking, "What about X?" Don't get mad at her for just being like, "Hey, can we can we get some truth here?" Because if we don't have that truth, if we don't understand the reality of our situation, that's when we all end up trapped indoors again, thanks to COVID, because people aren't living in reality. We haven't learned the lessons because we haven't been open to even considering that there is a lesson to learn.
Kaykay Brady: 28:55
Yeah, and I think this is something that the Netflix series is able to do in a way that the book was never able to do. It has this running theme of, you know, things can get better in the light of day with communication, with just facing them. You know what I mean? And like, nothing's ever going to be rosy and easy, right? There's going to be conflict between people. There's going to be lots of things going on, lots of shit things going on, lotta hard things going on. But turning away from them doesn't help. So it's this great theme in the show. The adults, too, bring it in the show, because the adults are so adult in the show, and they're doing good parenting, and they're really modeling good behavior. You don't really get that as much in the books, because adults are either like absent or struggling. But the show does such an awesome job of creating that central theme, and then showing it in a lot of different ways. I think what they've been fighting, what we've noticed through all these episodes, time and time again, it's communication, integration, you know, all these things that are opening to information and truth and experience of other people, versus closing or running away from.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:11
Because that's really the human experience, right? Like, ultimately, that's what it comes down to. Our life is lived encountering information and figuring out what to do with that in order to ultimately ensure our survival. When it gets down to sort of the base core motivations, that's what we're doing every day. It's just coded in a different way. Like, it's not like we're all pure reptilian lizard brain, but that's in there. We're trying to figure out how to get through the next day. And the best way to make sure that you know how to get to the next day, and how to make the next day better than the day you're in right now, is to learn lessons from what everyone has experienced up until now. And you can't learn those lessons if you're not honest. I mean, that was one of the things, when I was grappling with the fake Buddha quote at the beginning, I was like, Okay, it feels like the Baldwin quote that I love so much, which is, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed that isn't faced."
Kaykay Brady: 31:15
Amen.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:16
I was like, would that have been better? But then I'm also like, Okay, is a 13 year old going around quoting James Baldwin? Or would they be more likely to quote this random aphorism that they found on Instagram?
Kaykay Brady: 31:27
Incorrectly.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:28
Right. An incorrect Instagram quote is probably more likely than a correct James Baldwin quote. But I think that ultimately that is the theme, you've got to face reality in order to change it, in order to make things better. Every episode is kind of getting more and more down that path, which is lovely.
Kaykay Brady: 31:52
Yeah. And I think it's showing the challenges to that, you know, and the messiness of that. That's the other thing, is that it feels like the show, it's not so purist that people don't have the space to be humans. It's like, people are welcome with all of their pieces. Versus, you know, you have to be perfect. And if you're not perfect, you're going to be cast aside or something. So the show, a lot like the books, has that kind of like, come in your imperfections, and we will work through this together. Which is lovely.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:27
Yeah, we see Claudia not be perfect here. You see her be like, "This is why Mimi loves me more than you," and Janine storms off. And she's just like, "Yeah, that's right." You know, I mean, clearly, doesn't feel bad for that. And honestly, she probably wouldn't! Not at that age. When you're a teenager, you think the world revolves around you because your hormones tell you the world revolves around you.
Kaykay Brady: 32:51
Yeah, I was just gonna say, Claudia is shown to be a little bit up her own ass in this episode. But she's got a great arc, right? And like, of course you're gonna be up you own ass when you're 13 years ld. It's developmentally appropriate. And even that is not dealt with in any kind of shameful or judging way. It's just, he needs that connection from Janine, they actually need the crisis to kind of integrate some of the family stuff more into her day to day sense of self.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:21
Absolutely. So you mentioned that the adults in this series are more adult, and you see them showing up, and that takes off some of the burden from the character so you can see them really be kids and develop in more appropriate ways. We see that with Mary Anne's dad, and Kristy's mom coming over. And I know in our last episode, you were like, Okay, so what's the history here, too? What did you think about the scene that we get between the two of them over the cast iron skillet.
Kaykay Brady: 33:56
Well, it definitely, I think, lends itself to your interpretation of just, they have a history with each other, they know each other from town, and she kind of thinks he's just a little bit uptight. But yeah, my guess that they were romantically involved, probably not true.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:11
I just thought it was really funny that they show Mary Anne's dad saying, "Well, I tuck my shirt in too tight."
Kaykay Brady: 34:19
Right, and then he said, "Girls talk." Okay, how did that get back to him? I didn't quite follow that.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:26
My thought is that, remember when Kristy sort of lashed out at Mary Anne for getting grounded?
Kaykay Brady: 34:31
Yep.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:32
And she's like, "Your dad's a psycho. Even my mom thinks so." It seems like Kristy is probably telling Mary Anne, "My mom talks shit about your dad. Here's what she said."
Kaykay Brady: 34:44
Wait, but the exact quote was said to Dawn's mom.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:47
Oh, did she say exactly, "He tucks his shirt in too tight?"
Kaykay Brady: 34:50
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:50
Oh my god, that's amazing.
Kaykay Brady: 34:52
So then I was like, does he mean those girls talk? Like, grown girls talk too?
Brooke Suchomel: 34:56
Oh, wow! I didn't even pick up on that. That's better. Yeah, that's a better read.
Kaykay Brady: 35:01
Yeah, because I remember that direct quote from Kristy's mom to Dawn's mom.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:05
You get the quote knowledge. Right? I get the fact knowledge, you get the quote knowledge.
Kaykay Brady: 35:10
This is where I excel. I'll remember a line, remember a quote, but you know, ask me what year I graduated high school? I don't know.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:19
I won't ask.
Kaykay Brady: 35:21
Don't ask!
Brooke Suchomel: 35:23
Okay, that makes sense. So now I'm getting a whole other story where it's like, Dawn's mom is like, "I'm not talking to you anymore. And by the way, this is why."
Kaykay Brady: 35:36
"You're a fucking stuffed shirt."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:38
Right. Wow.
Kaykay Brady: 35:38
Yeah, that was sort of my read on it.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:40
Now it's like, okay, so I wonder how that comes back around.
Kaykay Brady: 35:44
Right? It's gotta come back around.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:45
It makes you think that they have like a blow up fight. So how do they reconcile to get to the point where, or maybe do they? Do Mary Anne and Dawn becomes stepsisters in this version?
Kaykay Brady: 35:58
We'll see!
Brooke Suchomel: 35:59
Yeah. But I thought that that was nice that we got a quick recall on that. So we got to see that Kristy's mom gets a little bit like, "Oh, man..."
Kaykay Brady: 36:09
And God bless you, Mary Anne's dad. Cast irons should not go in the dishwasher.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:16
I was waiting, I was waiting. I was like, Okay, here we come with the cast iron cleaning tips.
Kaykay Brady: 36:22
You're like, "Don't fuck with Kaykay's cast iron."
Brooke Suchomel: 36:25
No. No, you don't.
Kaykay Brady: 36:26
Because Kaykay knows how to care for a cast iron and you're definitely not putting in the dishwasher or using soap. Good on you, Mary Anne's dad. You just earned like 50 lesbian points.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:37
Well, and that haircut, too. The hairstyle is a little...
Kaykay Brady: 36:40
Oh, it's pretty butch.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:41
Yeah, he was wearing clay in his hair.
Kaykay Brady: 36:43
I wear clay in my hair.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:45
There you go.
Kaykay Brady: 36:45
I have this fancy pomade that I get from my queer hairstylist, and it's clay and charcoal, and it's all natural.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:52
Maybe we're seeing a whole new evolution of Mary Anne's dad and I will be very excited for that.
Kaykay Brady: 36:58
Fuck yes!
Brooke Suchomel: 36:59
Fuck yeah! Maybe he'll be showing up with the moon sisters, tapping into his feminine side and just embracing it. Let's make him a more evolved and open human being.
Kaykay Brady: 37:08
I'm all for it. Fuck yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:09
Get into it. So I had that as my modern moment, was the Queer Eye reference.
Kaykay Brady: 37:15
I had the same thing! [repeat acapella instrumental Jock Jams performance] Okay, so every time we match...
Brooke Suchomel: 37:22
Wait, was that a house music song?
Kaykay Brady: 37:25
[more acapella instrumental Jock Jam] What is that song? It's a 90's song. [return to the Jock Jam]
Brooke Suchomel: 37:29
Is this like a Jock Jam? [joins in on the Jock Jam]
Kaykay Brady: 37:34
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:35
Okay. That was pretty.
Kaykay Brady: 37:36
Yeah, but exactly. The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy moment was exactly the modern moment I had, too.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:42
And how they're like, "We're the Terrific Two!" instead of the Fab Five. And they played the updated version of the theme song, which made me very happy. I thought that that was really cute.
Kaykay Brady: 37:52
It was very cute. And in that moment, Claudia and Stacey, they are like dressed to the nines. Oh, my gosh, it's like walking around Manhattan.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:01
That's apparently the Stacey influence.
Kaykay Brady: 38:03
I guess, get the bougieness.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:06
There were some nice little easter eggs in there with that, too. Where Stacey calls Mary Anne's rug her husband. She's like, "This is my husband," and then she's like, "Oh, no, I'm getting a divorce from the rug and I'm marrying this pillow instead." In the book, Claudia and Mean Janine, Claudia asked Janine if her computer makes a nice husband, because you're married to your computer.
Kaykay Brady: 38:30
How do you remember that?
Brooke Suchomel: 38:32
I don't remember it. I was just rereading the book. And I also thought it was very cute how they worked in the Broadway musicals after all. One of Kristy's suggestions got worked into the board and I thought it was very nice.
Kaykay Brady: 38:51
Yeah, and that is a cool way to do your room.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:54
Yeah. No navy blue. No yarn. But Broadway musicals, sure.
Kaykay Brady: 39:00
I was a little lost with the Humpty Dumpty storyline.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:04
Yeah. So that felt kind of like they were throwing it in there, like well, what else do we do for our B plot?
Kaykay Brady: 39:11
Yeah, with these other characters who haven't gotten a lot of attention?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:14
Yeah. So it seems like the Humpty Dumpty was actually Mary Anne's mom's, right? She felt like her mom was missing from the room, and so that's why they put the Humpty Dumpty back in with the framed picture of her mom and then her.
Kaykay Brady: 39:31
Oh, I thought somebody made Humpty Dumpty to look like Mary Anne's mom's face.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:37
Oh, no, no, no, no. No, it was Mary Anne's mom's Humpty Dumpty, because it didn't look like Mary Anne...
Kaykay Brady: 39:42
I know, that's why I was stuck. I was like, what is happening here?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:45
You're like, "This doesn't make any goddamn sense whatsoever."
Kaykay Brady: 39:48
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:49
You're like, "This Humpty Dumpty looks nothing like Mary Anne's mom. What is going on? No, I think it was just, it was hers, and she still wanted it to be Mary Anne's. I think that was nice too, how they, and that gets back to the past isn't past, it's not even past. So, you know, we're going to bring in the past.
Kaykay Brady: 40:05
Kristy says, "It haunts you with its eyes." And they all kind of laugh about that, which I thought was kind of nice sort of a reference to the fact that something can be, you know, not exactly your style or something you love, but it still has meaning to you because it is tied to your past. I don't know, the show has a very "yes and" approach to everything, right? Nothing is ever just one thing or just another thing. It's multiple things. And the show is seeking to increase the understanding of those things versus narrowing it.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:39
Definitely. Again, that gets back to integration, right? How Kristy's like, "I like what I like," you know, and it's like, it's fine to like what you like, but then there can be some other things too, that might not be exactly within your definition of your style. But because there's some element to it, it still speaks to you in some way, and so that's fine to incorporate. You don't have to have tunnel vision with who you are.
Kaykay Brady: 41:00
Yeah. It's funny, I was reading an article about how boys shows, they typically have one bad guy, one good guy, they're fighting and one guy wins. There's a tremendous stifling of any kind of emotional complexity.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:19
Yeah, there's no nuance.
Kaykay Brady: 41:20
There's no nuance.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:21
Toxic masculinity. The recipe for toxic masculinity. Black and white, no nuance.
Kaykay Brady: 41:25
Yeah, and there's just no conception of the true complexity of the human experience. So this show, I'm realizing as we're talking about it, the show is the opposite of that. The whole purpose of the show is sort of teasing out that human complexity and helping kids to see it and understand it. And that is really hard to write. That is really hard to write. It is so much easier to write, "Here's the bad guy. Here's the good guy. They fight out a mountain top and one dies. It's over."
Brooke Suchomel: 41:54
Which is why that's basically all that entertainment has been, right?
Kaykay Brady: 41:57
Yeah, exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:58
It's an easy storyline. It's not going to challenge the viewer.
Kaykay Brady: 42:01
You can like crap it out in a morning.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:02
It's gonna be escapism instead of like something where you're actually learning. It's speaking to everyone's confirmation bias instead of challenging them to grow, and to get a new perspective.
Kaykay Brady: 42:15
You go, writers. We'll overlook your Buddha quotes.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:19
We'll overlook the fake Buddha quote for now.
Kaykay Brady: 42:22
Come on writers. Come comment on our pages, we wanna hear. We're on Twitter.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:27
I'm a stickler for correct attribution. No misinformation. No misinformation, please.
Kaykay Brady: 42:31
Tell us what you meant. Also, I wanted to say there was a hilarious line in the Queer Eye portion where Claudia says, "Richard wasn't a bad guy. He just needed to be worn down to death." I just felt like I had to reference that, it just cracked my shit up. I love jokes, where like, the second part has really no connection to the first part. I don't know, it just made me laugh so hard.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:55
I thought that was good. Another thing that made me really happy was at the end when you see Kristy run up to answer the phone. Did you see Dawn go to take a seat in the director chair and Kristy gives her a look? And she gets up and she's like, "Oh, never mind."
Kaykay Brady: 43:13
I didn't see that. That's what I do with my
Brooke Suchomel: 43:18
Go and watch it. It's so good. It is a look. Just like, don't even think about it. And Dawn's like, "Okay!" And then Kristy sits down in that chair. It made me really happy.
Kaykay Brady: 43:31
Dawn is so lovable in the show.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:33
Yeah. And I like how you see Dawn and Kristy bonding. You know? Like, you see them together when Mary Anne is like, Mary Anne has zero game, and sees how clearly she has zero game when Logan comes up to her at the Art Show. And she's like, "What is it?" when she's looking at a very obvious still life of eggs in a basket, and he's like, "Uh," and she's like, "Ah." And they pull her away like, yeah, we're gonna help you here. Like they're both just like, Oh shit, watching this go down.
Kaykay Brady: 44:06
That was pretty funny and enjoyable.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:08
It was very cute. So the phone call that Kristy takes...
Kaykay Brady: 44:13
Oh, yes! Woo! Jersey Shore!
Brooke Suchomel: 44:16
When she is preventing Dawn from sitting in her chair. Yes. So we get Sea City.
Kaykay Brady: 44:21
I'm so pumped for Sea City. What are they gonna do with the creeper lifeguard? How the fuck is that gonna translate to today? Oh my gosh.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:32
I just want to know if they're gonna go to Burger Garden.
Kaykay Brady: 44:34
You love Burger Garden so hard.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:37
Because I've been seeing this tree with chocolate bars hanging off of it. It's like my Willy Wonka fantasy. And I want to know, did they make it happen? I hope so. I'm really excited to find out and the next episode.
Kaykay Brady: 44:49
I know. This one I'm super pumped about, as I was in the book, super pumped and I can't wait to see.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:55
There's gotta be mini golf.
Kaykay Brady: 44:56
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:57
Oh! Okay. I know they film this in Canada, I doubt that they filmed this on location. But I am just going to sit with an image in my head, until I'm proven otherwise, that they go to the mini golf facility where you won the championship. Where you were the illegal underaged mini golf champion of Jersey Shore.
Kaykay Brady: 45:15
There's like a picture of me up on the...
Brooke Suchomel: 45:18
In the background, yeah, and they have a very serious conversation right in front of your picture. Just being too young to hold up this trophy. You're perfectly in frame. Oh my god, I can't wait for this, Kaykay. I'm so excited to see you on my TV in the next episode of the Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady: 45:37
But you know I could hold up that trophy. You know I was a powerful 12 year old. Come on.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:41
Oh, I know. No, I know your arms could absolutely hold it up, you're just like, how is this small child able to so gracefully wield this massive piece of hardware that they won?
Kaykay Brady: 45:52
Oh, shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:53
It's just awe. Everybody is just watching you in awe, besides the one woman who came in second. So actually, if you pause and squint and you really zoom in, you can see her in the background, red faced, enraged. Her hands are like pointing in two directions because she's just so angry. She's just throwing, she's throwing hands.
Kaykay Brady: 46:15
Oh, fuck yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:16
That's how angry she is. And you're just proudly holding up the trophy that she wanted to be hers.
Kaykay Brady: 46:21
I really hope there's some sort of Jersey Shore reference joke. Of the series.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:26
Snooki is cast as a Burger Garden employee.
Kaykay Brady: 46:29
Snooki does a cameo.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:31
Cameo from Snooki.
Kaykay Brady: 46:33
Oh shit. Or like, the Situation is the lifeguard, and he's like, 50.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:37
Oh, no!
Kaykay Brady: 46:41
Too much?
Brooke Suchomel: 46:42
That's too much.
Kaykay Brady: 46:43
All right. Don't listen to me, writers. Because I would have the Situation as a lifeguard.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:48
Well, the Situation can be like the head lifeguard. He can be like the David Hasselhoff in Baywatch of this situation. I just don't want Stacey McGill macking on the Situation who is like a 40 year old man now. Even older than the guy they drew on the cover of the original book, which I didn't think was possible.
Kaykay Brady: 47:08
Yeah, I mean, Stacey is already 20 times more mature than the Situation today, so it's not gonna work.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:14
Right. But hey, she pretended to be impressed by the blender that Kristy's brother drew.
Kaykay Brady: 47:21
What the fuck was up with the blender?
Brooke Suchomel: 47:22
What is the story of the blender? That's gonna be the whole second season. Why the blender? It's Chekov's blender. You don't introduce a blender for no reason.
Kaykay Brady: 47:31
You do not.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:32
Well I can't wait to find out why.
Kaykay Brady: 47:33
Fuck yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:34
In the next episode, or perhaps every episode to come.
Kaykay Brady: 47:38
And listeners, if you like us, rate us on your favorite podcast app. It helps people find us and hear the word.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:47
And reviews! We love that, too. And give us a shout out on social media as well. We love to hear what you are liking and want and that's why we were like okay, we're going to go ahead and do a pivot into the TV show for a little bit, because we had gotten requests from listeners. So we appreciate that and it's been really fun to do that.
Kaykay Brady: 48:05
Sure has. It's been a nice change of pace.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:07
Yeah, and I'm excited to see how Sea City plays out next week.
Kaykay Brady: 48:14
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:15
But until then...
Kaykay Brady: 48:16
Just keep sittin'. [theme] Don't fuck with Kaykay's cast iron.
