Transcript - BSFC Netflix #8: Kristy’s Big Day
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
I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist and I'm new to the books.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:42
And in this episode we are discussing episode eight of the Netflix series, Kristy's Big Day. And the Netflix description of this episode is quote, "Stoneybrook delights in a day of glitz and glamour as Kristy's mom prepares for a big day."
Kaykay Brady: 0:58
Delight! It's a delight.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:59
Delights in a day of glitz and glamour. "Later, Kristy hits a major milestone, much to her surprise." End quote. And that milestone was what I was hoping it would be.
Kaykay Brady: 1:11
Yeah, good for fucking Netflix. They went right for the period. Called it a fucking period.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:17
They did! So we got Chekhov's feminine products in the beginning.
Kaykay Brady: 1:21
Yeah, that was a good foreshadowing.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:23
Right, with the introduction. So the major milestone that we're talking about is Kristy gets her first period while at her mom's wedding reception.
Kaykay Brady: 1:33
That's terrible timing.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:34
It is really, really terrible timing.
Kaykay Brady: 1:37
It reminds me, I don't know. I really don't know if we can keep this in. I'm gonna share it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:43
Let's give it a shot.
Kaykay Brady: 1:45
One time I almost danced a tampon out at a wedding.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:48
Oh. Just one time?
Kaykay Brady: 1:52
But it was just, it needed to be changed like six hours before. Thank God I had some hose on, so the hose caught it, but I basically danced it out.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:59
Oh, so this was a while ago.
Kaykay Brady: 2:01
Yeah, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:03
Picturing you in pantyhose at a wedding right now.
Kaykay Brady: 2:06
Cuz I almost took the hose off. I literally would have danced a huge tampon out onto the wedding floor.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:12
What a great story that couple would have had for the rest of their life.
Kaykay Brady: 2:18
Yeah, sure. I'm sure they would have held that to their heart for time immemorial.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:24
Cherished that moment. Can you think of any other TV show? Do you remember growing up with any representations of...
Kaykay Brady: 2:30
Oh hell no! Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. That's the only thing I can think of. And I remember it was sort of a huge deal, you know, that was dealt with. And pretty much everyone knew that it was dealt with in that book, and it was shocking.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:44
So that was what struck me about the way that it was presented in this, is it felt so realistic. And like, an appropriate amount of stakes.
Kaykay Brady: 2:57
Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Not like the world is ending, you'll be humiliated...
Brooke Suchomel: 3:03
Yeah, it's not like, "Oh, what a huge moment," you know what I mean?
Kaykay Brady: 3:08
"You're a woman."
Brooke Suchomel: 3:08
Cuz you're not a woman now.
Kaykay Brady: 3:09
Yeah. Nonsense.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:10
You're a pubescent who now menstruates. That's what you are. You're still a child in every other way.
Kaykay Brady: 3:16
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:17
You know, the very first episode, we had Claudia sculpting menstruation. And it's just like, yeah, it's menstruation. It's a part of our life.
Kaykay Brady: 3:25
Deal with it.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:26
Right. And then Kristy, it's like, "How are you?" "I'm okay." And it's fine. And she's got her friends there, you know, Mary Anne, I love love that they have all of the sitters run to the door when they see Kristy run off, because they want to see how she is. And Mary Anne says, through the door, "Here," hands her a pad, and tells her how to put it on. And then they just go about the rest of their night. The time doesn't stop and everything changes, it just is what it is. And they use the word "period." You know, Mary Anne says, "We have to make sure we pack feminine products for our summer at camp." And Kristy's like, "Feminine products?" You know, she's like, "Yarn?"
Kaykay Brady: 4:15
"Fabrics?"
Brooke Suchomel: 4:15
Right. Claudia's like, "Tampons and pads." Just use the word. It's fine.
Kaykay Brady: 4:21
Actually made me so happy because those euphemisms drive me crazy. And so the show found a way to both use the euphemism and then, you know, actually use the real words to be like, there's no fucking big deal. You can say the word "pad" or "tamp
Brooke Suchomel: 4:34
Right. And Mary Anne explains how to attach a pad. If you've got a kid who's watching this, who maybe isn't having, doesn't feel like they're safe having these conversations with anybody. They've just got some really helpful information in a way that doesn't make them feel judged. So I love that. I want to see more open discussions about periods.
Kaykay Brady: 4:59
Oh, hell yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:00
This got me thinking, I wonder what sort of conversations people are having with their kids today about these topics.
Kaykay Brady: 5:07
I sure hope they're better.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:09
Yeah. Did you have a conversation about your period at all?
Kaykay Brady: 5:12
Yeah, I think my mom talked to me about it. I think maybe my sister talked to me about it more. She was four years older, and she's the one who taught me how to like wear a pad.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:22
She was your Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady: 5:23
She was my Mary Anne, and she taught me how to wear a pad. And I put it on and I was just waddling around, like, "I feel like I'm wearing a fucking diaper." And she just died laughing and she was like, "Welcome to womanhood."
Brooke Suchomel: 5:35
Yeah, I mean, especially back in the 80s and the 90s.
Kaykay Brady: 5:39
They were like diapers. There was some fluffy shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:41
Yeah. So the way that I had the conversation with my mom was, Mom just says to me, "There's a VHS on the table for you." It was just there's a, "There's something on the table for you," and I was like 10.
Kaykay Brady: 5:56
"Your Period and You."
Brooke Suchomel: 5:57
It was this tape that she ordered off of the back of a Tampax box.
Kaykay Brady: 6:03
Wow.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:04
And it was called, "Who Am I Now?"
Kaykay Brady: 6:06
Haha! You are a woolly mammoth.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:11
I found it on YouTube. It's fucking spectacular. It's so good. I watched it by myself, and I just laughed my ass off. Because I had been reading the "Say Anything" in YM magazine for some time. They weren't telling me anything I didn't know.
Kaykay Brady: 6:30
This tracks. This tracks with Brooke, you know, like Brooke is the kind of person that educates herself. And, you know, is gonna be two steps ahead of you, no matter what you try. Sorry, mom.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:42
The only thing that was new was the anatomical figures and illustrations and talking you through it. That to me was fucking hilarious. And of course the picture that they have of what a woman looks like as she matures, it's like she matures into Pamela Anderson. So that's what you're going to look like. The whole premise is that there is a girl and a boy who are both approaching puberty, and they have this like magical mirror where they see the future version of themselves. And then they have a conversation with the future version of themselves about what it's like to go through puberty. Then they play a game at the end, it's like Double Dare, but you're like answering trivia questions. It actually holds up pretty well, although it's just pure 80s cheese. At the very end, they all like, sing. They lip sync this, "Who am I now?"
Kaykay Brady: 7:46
Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph...
Brooke Suchomel: 7:48
"Show me, who am I now?" They're all like, lip synching, and then the four of them get together and put their arms together, and they're in a circle and they all start spinning around as they sing this, and it looks like they're on the set of one of those laser pictures that you took when you You were the most popular kid in five counties. were in school. So this was my whenever I would go to a friend's house for like the next two years to spend the night, this was the video I would bring.
Kaykay Brady: 8:02
You were the most popular kid in five counties.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:18
People would be like, "What?" I was like, "No, it's fucking hilarious." I would sing the song a lot on the playground and stuff. "Who am I now?" It's amazing.
Kaykay Brady: 8:31
I'm going to immediately watch that 1000 times.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:34
Like, I need your take on it. Maybe we should do a separate episode where we just discuss "Who Am I Now?"
Kaykay Brady: 8:40
Yeah, if we ever do a Matreon.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:42
Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady: 8:43
I can't believe I didn't get a video. Christ, Mom.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:46
I'm sorry.
Kaykay Brady: 8:47
We can't have all gotten a video.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:48
You had your sister. You didn't need a video.
Kaykay Brady: 8:50
Older sisters are the best. I mean, they really are.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:53
Did it make you think about anything about when you got your period?
Kaykay Brady: 8:56
Not really. I mean, I feel like my period was pretty inauspicious.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:00
You didn't feel like, "I'm a woman now"?
Kaykay Brady: 9:02
No, nothing like that. It definitely freaked me out because I think I had complicated feelings about my gender.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:09
Mmm. Oh, yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 9:10
You know, as all these things started happening out of my control, it did not make me happy. You know, like the boobs, I was like, "What is this? This does not feel right." The period, none of it quite felt right. But you know, certainly there was nobody to talk to you about that. It was like, you just deal with those feelings as best you can. How about you?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:31
My Kristy at the dessert table moment was right before I went on stage in sixth grade to be a sailor in the HMS Pinafore.
Kaykay Brady: 9:42
That's when you got your period?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:43
Yeah. White sailor pants.
Kaykay Brady: 9:45
On a stage! Brooke, white sailor pants on a fucking stage!
Brooke Suchomel: 9:51
White sailor pants, when my whole performance was those little "jump, click your heels in the air," it was a lot of that dancing in white pants on stage.
Kaykay Brady: 10:02
Holy shit. Oh, my fuckin’ partner, they had a boat called "HMS Pinafore." She tries to claim that she's not a blue blood, but we know different.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:11
And then you're just like, "You had a boat called the HMS Pinafore. So we're gonna end this conversation."
Kaykay Brady: 10:17
Which, by the way, is very fitting for this episode. Because this is sort of like the episode where Shannon comes into play, except it's Karen. There's a lot of money stuff in this episode. A lot of class stuff, money stuff.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:31
Definitely. So this episode, to me, it was reminiscent of Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls, in that it's really the same episode kind of in name only. The book was all about all of the babysitters watching 14 children for a week while Kristy's mom and Watson throw this wedding together last minute because they decide to move it up so Kristy's mom can sell her house. The only things that are really similar from the book to the episode are Kristy's mom and Watson get married, there is a pretend wedding between David Michael and Karen right at the beginning, and then Karen sees Morbidda Destiny at the wedding and screams. Except in the book, Morbidda Destiny crashes the wedding right at the end, right after they have their like, "You may now kiss the bride" moment, which thank god doesn't exist in this one. It was a very gender positive wedding. And she just shows up, she's like, "Here. I have a gift for you," crashes the wedding at the aisle. Whereas in this, Morbidda Destiny is the officiant.
Kaykay Brady: 11:42
Is the officiant, it's Auntie Esme.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:44
Yes.
Kaykay Brady: 11:45
And not only is she the officiant, she directly addresses the witch rumors, and flips the whole motherfucking thing on its head and says, "In fact, I am a witch. And you know what? Witches have been historically persecuted and that's horseshit, blah, blah, blah." Hell yeah. Which really gets to so many of the themes of so many of these shows, which is the value of addressing things directly, talking about them, communicating. It's such a great little representation of of that spirit and theme that we've seen in all these shows.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:19
Yeah, it made me so happy when she says that, "Witch is a term for people, mostly women, who refuse to conform to society's expectations of who they should be."
Kaykay Brady: 12:31
God, it's so good.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:33
And she's like, "And that's me." And I...oh, again, my heart...
Kaykay Brady: 12:38
You really want to be Auntie Esme when you grow up. I see it in your face.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:41
I mean, yeah. Just the fact that they include that line, again, knowing who the audience is for this, it's not a minor thing.
Kaykay Brady: 12:48
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:49
That's a really big deal, you know? It reminded me of, I just finished reading Lindy West, do you know Lindy West?
Kaykay Brady: 12:56
Oh I love Lindy West.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:58
Have you read her collection from 2019 called The Witches Are Coming?
Kaykay Brady: 13:02
No, I've got to. I've only read Shrill.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:04
You will love it. Because the whole premise is all about how, you know, you get Trump and all of these bad men and people who support bad men, there's a lot of women who support bad men, who, you know, they're upholding this toxic white supremacist patriarchy, which does nobody any favors, except for those at the very, very, very, very top.
Kaykay Brady: 13:29
And even they're suffering under it.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:30
And they're suffering. Which, you're not one of them. Like, if you're listening to this, you're not one of them. Everybody is a tool in this oppression, so you have to fight against it. So her whole point is like, they're saying it's a "witch hunt," the whole what's turned into like "cancel culture" and all of that. It's a witch hunt, right? And she's like, "You know what? You're right. We're witches, and we're hunting you." That's the whole thing, so that's what The Witches Are Coming is.
Kaykay Brady: 13:54
"Buckle up, motherfucker."
Brooke Suchomel: 13:55
Yeah. So it's this whole thing where it's like, okay, you're out here persecuting people who are just trying to stand up for their own rights. If that makes us a witch? Fine. I'm a witch, just like Aunt Esme says.
Kaykay Brady: 14:07
Drains the power right out of that horseshit.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:10
Exactly. And so I love that the kids watching this have their own equivalent of that. If you're standing up for yourself, if you're fighting for what's right, you're going to encounter people who don't like that. That reflects on them and not on you.
Kaykay Brady: 14:25
Anytime somebody pulls together some sort of straw man argument and or brings in some heavy metaphor that paints themselves a certain way, it's like, you have to start fighting that metaphor. And that's part of the purpose of that, is that it becomes about now you have to defend yourself that you're not this or that, whereas Lindy West's approach is just like, "Okay, yes. And now, moving on," you know, it really takes the power out of that approach.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:51
Yeah, if you want to classify me as a "bitch" for standing up for myself. Okay, now what? Your name calling isn't gonna affect me.
Kaykay Brady: 14:58
Speaking of Lindy West, you know, she's a real fat activist. It makes me think of this amazing t shirt that just says "Fat Bitch." People wearing t shirts like, "Yeah, I'm a fat bitch. Next." Because they try to take our fucking power away, with women they try to say your body's wrong no matter what size you are, you're too big, you're too powerful.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:20
And that's your highest value that you provide as a woman.
Kaykay Brady: 15:23
Correct. And, you're a bitch, you're not kowtowing to ideals of femininity. So it's just like, "Yeah, I'm a fat bitch. Moving on." I love it.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:32
Bitches stand up for themselves. So you're goddamn right I'm a bitch. What are you gonna do about it, motherfucker? I'd rather be a bitch than a motherfucker. You know what I mean?
Kaykay Brady: 15:32
That's your T shirt. I'll make it for you for your birthday.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:32
Thank you.
Kaykay Brady: 15:32
The witches are coming, they're at the wedding, it's Auntie Esme.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:50
Actually officiating the wedding. The witches are officiating the wedding, so what are you gonna do about it? Yeah. This episode, it's not all about, like we said that in the book they were fighting this highly inappropriate level of responsibility that was placed on their shoulders, because it was like, "Hey, babysitters, we're going to pay you less than minimum wage to take care of all of these children, the adults are gonna go do other things," right? And that they use their organizational skills and patience, basically skills that are developed beyond their years, skills that they frankly shouldn't have developed yet, because they should still be kids, to deal with that. We get none of that. The show takes a wholly different approach, and it's really just focused on the day before and the day of the wedding. There is no caring for kids or anything like that. It is just focusing on the changes that Kristy and her family are going through. Some of those changes are physical and biological, and some of those changes are economical, environmental...a lot of class anxiety in this episode.
Kaykay Brady: 17:02
Yeah. And it's interesting because it's the first episode where you see Kristy's mom take her class anxiety and change anxiety out on Kristy. It's the first sort of big parenting flub you see from Kristy's mom. So it's it's interesting to watch them kind of work through that, because what happens is, in this series, Watson buys Charlie a brand new BMW when he was supposed to get like a Corolla or something.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:27
Yeah, Charlie was supposed to use his own money to get a 2007 Corolla, which is a much more appropriate first vehicle.
Kaykay Brady: 17:36
Than a brand new BMW SUV. Kristy's mom really doesn't love that, but they kind of work it out, her and Watson. And then Kristy is in a truly putrid, even this lesbian right here can tell you that that yellow dress was not working for her. You definitely can't put a fucking redhead in yellow. It's a nope. Even I know that.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:58
I actually thought it looked kind of good.
Kaykay Brady: 18:00
Okay, well, I was gonna turn the whole wedding outfits over to you in totality. So take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. But anyway, she hates the dress. She thinks it looks like a banana. And Watson is basically like, "All right, we'll get you another dress," and he gets her what I would say is a lovely blue thing that looks much better with her complexion. And her mom freaks out. You know, she's like, "This dress cost $800! When did I teach you to not even look at how much the dress costs?" Kristy goes right back at her and is basically like, "He bought Charlie a car! How could you begrudge me having a half decent dress?" It was a very cool conflict. Showed a lot about the characters, showed a lot about what they're struggling with, and was a very appropriate and believable struggle that a parent might have, given Kristy's mom's situation, where she is moving into a higher economic status. And there's probably a lot of anxiety tied into that, especially a lot of anxiety about her power. It's probably hard to be a straight woman marrying a wealthy man, you know? I mean, I actually think about this a lot, being a gay woman where we don't have gendered struggles over money. Like, it's just not in the cards for us. And it's so lovely, because, you know, one person's gender identity is not staked to what they're bringing to the table in terms of money.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:26
Or these are the roles you play in the relationship.
Kaykay Brady: 19:29
Yeah, exactly. So I thought it was a very astute and smart playing out of what you can really imagine might be Kristy's mom's greatest anxiety going into this relationship.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:41
And you see that play out over the course of the episode. So at the beginning, Kristy mentions that a year ago, her mom was on the phone with the power company trying to negotiate something about payment of the light bill, right? And we know that Kristy's dad ran off really soon after David Michael was born, so she's had seven years of basically keeping the whole family together on her own. And probably taking some pride, I'm sure taking some pride, in how she's done that.
Kaykay Brady: 20:16
Definitely.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:17
And I thought that it was really good how Kristy's mom is far from perfect in this episode, right? The adults are definitely more adult and taking on more responsibility in the TV show than we see them do in the book series. But like, they're not idealized. Kristy's mom, so Kristy says, like, "Charlie can get a brand new SUV, I didn't know how much the dress cost, I just didn't want to wear the dress I was gonna wear, it was Watson's idea," whatever. So Watson is sort of going down that whole "I'm going to buy the kids' affection" path.
Kaykay Brady: 20:51
And also, "I'm going to buy my way out of problems and struggles," too.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:55
Yes, which he obviously has been able to do his entire life, right? Because she says, like, "We're the sixth generation of Brewers to get married in this house."
Kaykay Brady: 21:05
This is old Connecticut money.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:06
Yeah. And she's like, "And I'm not going to be the one to change it." So she's got this tension of like, "I am coming into this world where they have all of these traditions and expectations that I haven't had," like, she's just been able to make her own way. And now she's entering this part of society where you have to conform to various traditions. And you can tell she's been talking to him about, "Don't go out and do these grand gestures," because she's not happy that Charlie comes home with this SUV. As she shouldn't be. Because that now is going to be like, okay, so he's got this level of expectation, like you've talked about before with your friends who come from the 1%, about "How can you rise above it, if you're used to so much at so young, and then you have to go out and make it on your own?" Like, do you ever feel like you're actually making it on your own? And the value that comes with feeling like, "I did this," you know? And also, a kid driving a vehicle for the first time, that car is gonna get so fucked up. That car is gonna get so fucked up. Give your kid a piece of shit car for the first car.
Kaykay Brady: 22:13
Yeah, because they're gonna have an accident. I mean, all kids have like one accident until they realize, "Oh, this is very serious, what I'm doing."
Brooke Suchomel: 22:20
Yeah, a safe piece of shit is the way to go.
Kaykay Brady: 22:22
An old Subaru. I know, I'm a lesbian, of course I'm gonna say this. But go buy Auntie Esme's old Subaru. She's probably got three.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:31
Yeah, ignore the dog hair in it. It's fine. It's fine.
Kaykay Brady: 22:35
It's good for your immune system, living in pet dander.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:38
All of the National Park stickers on the back just add cache.
Kaykay Brady: 22:42
"Eve was framed." Don't worry about that.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:46
Probably comes with a great amount of jumper cables and anything that you could need to take care of it. It will be well maintained.
Kaykay Brady: 22:54
The oil has been changed like on the minute, dude.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:58
Oh my god, buy a lesbian's old Subaru. That's what you do for your first car!
Kaykay Brady: 23:01
Yeah, there should be a website that's just lesbian cars. Because you can trust it, you know what I'm saying?
Brooke Suchomel: 23:07
Old Lesbian Subarus Dot Com.
Kaykay Brady: 23:12
Does that exist? I'm buying that. I'm buying that URL if it doesn't exist already.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:15
Shit. I would like, literally, that would be the first place that I went anytime I needed a car.
Kaykay Brady: 23:20
Oh, yeah. And they'd be very reasonable, you know, they wouldn't try to screw you. They'd be like, "Let's go Kelley Blue Book."
Brooke Suchomel: 23:25
Exactly. You get a fair deal.
Kaykay Brady: 23:27
Be like, "We'll just go Kelley Blue Book. This is fair and square, and here's a nice car that was well taken care of."
Brooke Suchomel: 23:32
Yeah. Oh, man. Missed opportunity, we need to get on that. We do have a friend in the car business. Maybe we can make that happen.
Kaykay Brady: 23:40
And she is a lesbian. Shock shock. She is like Thee Lesbian. She's like The Boss of Lesbians.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:46
She's like Head Lesbian.
Kaykay Brady: 23:49
She's like Head Lesbian of the World, so...
Brooke Suchomel: 23:52
Right. So I think that she could make Old Lesbian Subarus Dot Com a thing.
Kaykay Brady: 23:59
I'm dying, this fucking website needs to happen. And then there'd be Old Lesbian Jeeps Dot Com for like, your weekend plans.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:09
Right. Well see, Old Lesbian Subarus Dot Com are for like, your kids, you know? And then Old Lesbian Jeeps Dot Com are for you.
Kaykay Brady: 24:20
Oh, shit.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:23
Yeah. So there's this class anxiety, this class tension, and she takes it out on Kristy. You know, I think she just kind of snaps.
Kaykay Brady: 24:30
Which is totally true. Where like, you're totally going to take it out on somebody you feel comfortable with. Which is kind of what kids do.
Brooke Suchomel: 24:37
And I think she's probably most concerned about the effect of this on Kristy. Because Kristy is her only daughter. Like, she wants to know that Kristy is and will be independent.
Kaykay Brady: 24:51
Yeah, and Kristy has real problems with the fact that she sees her mother giving up power in this relationship. This is already a bone of contention between them.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:00
Right. And so they have this little very realistic, I think, blow up, right as they're getting ready. And then they're not able to talk to each other until the very end. So Kristy spends the rest of the wedding and reception looking for her mom, not being able to talk to her mom. She wants to apologize, she wants to be in a good place. And at the end, as Kristy's mom and Watson are pulling away from the wedding, she sees Kristy finally, stops, comes and has a conversation with her. And it's just the two of them. And Kristy's mom says, basically, "I'm harder on you because you're my favorite."
Kaykay Brady: 25:42
And don't tell anyone that.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:43
Right. But I think it's also because of the fact that, you know, it's her only daughter. And I think it's true. I don't think that's good, but I think that it's true that she probably would sort of ride her more on things, because A, she thinks that she's capable of handling it, and B, she's the most concerned about her. And I think that that's probably something that's very real for mother daughter relationships. And I think that that is really complicated. The goal behind that is valid, but the impact that that has on the daughter is really tough.
Kaykay Brady: 26:21
Yeah. And it's kind of like, what do you...because what you're really highlighting there, or at least part of what I'm hearing, is the realities of the structural oppression that's facing women, right? And the way that they need to be taught the realities of the world, how to navigate those in ways that Charlie and Sam don't have to be.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:40
Yeah, because the world is made for them.
Kaykay Brady: 26:41
Right, exactly. They're going to be fine, you know, no matter what. So then it's like, as a parent, what do you do with sort of structural oppression? Do you sort of like teach the kids, "Well, it's the way the world works, and you need to navigate it, and I'm just representing the truth?" Or do you stand up against it really clearly, even though that might make the kids' lives harder if they decide to stand up against it. So it's a really cool view, I think, of this thing that parents face with kids. You can think about like, parents with their gay kids, you know what I mean? This is always like, this was a struggle in the 80s and 90s, especially, parents being like, "Well, I'm just teaching you how the world is," you know, and you're told your life's gonna be fucking terrible. Versus, "No. We're gonna stand up against it. I'm gonna have your back."
Brooke Suchomel: 27:31
Yeah, or parents that have black and brown kids, the conversation that you have to have with them about how to move through the world safely, in a world that, again, is not really made to keep them safe. Conversations that parents of white kids don't have to have, because they don't have those same concerns. You know, I think that it's a matter of like, it's good to acknowledge it, because it's not like Kristy doesn't know that she's growing up in a deeply misogynistic world.
Kaykay Brady: 27:59
Yeah, she definitely knows.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:01
But the important thing is to very clearly express that that's what you're doing. So it's not like, "I'm going to be harder on you, and I'm not gonna tell you..."
Kaykay Brady: 28:09
"I'm going to participate in your oppression. In fact, you're going to be oppressed more."
Brooke Suchomel: 28:13
Right. Instead, it's like, "Here's some bullshit that you're going to encounter. And here are some tips of how to navigate that. But this is bullshit. Like, let's acknowledge that we both agree this is bullshit." I am hoping in season two we get a closer alliance between Aunt Esme slash Morbidda Destiny and Kristy's mom.
Kaykay Brady: 28:33
Yes! I wish they would get married. I say sadly and plaintively, knowing it won't happen, but still.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:41
I mean, the fact that Watson like, does that, without...
Kaykay Brady: 28:45
It kind of sucks.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:46
It sucks. It's not cool.
Kaykay Brady: 28:48
No, it kind of sucks. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:50
Hopefully they're having some serious conversations. Aunt Esme will whip him into shape.
Kaykay Brady: 28:53
And hopefully, maybe he learns. Maybe he's able to sort of understand ways he's been living with this kind of entitlement, you know, and maybe Kristy's mom can help him understand.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:04
Right. You know, he's clearly not, at least from what we see, he's not coming from a bad place. He's just fucking clueless.
Kaykay Brady: 29:10
Well, and it's interesting, because old Connecticut money typically is not going to act that way. Because you're not going to have that money for many more generations if you do. That uber sense of entitlement, real old money, they try to teach the kids to, like, earn it. Because otherwise the next generation will lose all the money, because they'll have no idea how to earn it, how to keep it. So like that was interesting, too. I was thinking, well, that's interesting, you know, Watson is coming from this multi generational wealth, and yet he's acting like he doesn't in this circumstance. You know, play it out, what happens to Charlie and Sam in 10, 20 years, getting brand new BMWs without doing a goddamn thing. It's not great, right? They're not gonna have any kind of appreciation for earning something themselves. They're just gonna have that sense of entitlement, which is why the old saying is like, the first generation makes it, second generation keeps it, and the third generation loses it. Like, that's how wealth naturally flows, unless you really are conscious about what you're teaching kids.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:16
Yeah. I mean, we see a little bit at the beginning where Karen is wearing this tiara. This diamond tiara that Kristy's mom is gonna wear, that's a family heirloom.
Kaykay Brady: 30:28
Oh, and she says, like, "Don't worry, it's insured."
Brooke Suchomel: 30:30
She's like, "It's extremely insured," and it's like, "Ohhh, shit. Shit." Cuz again, that...
Kaykay Brady: 30:36
That's very Shannon Kilbourne.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:38
But that, plus Q Karen? That's scary. That's like funding some Cambridge Analytica type bullshit.
Kaykay Brady: 30:47
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:48
She's like, fuckin' funding some dark web shit. Gotta be careful with Karen there. So yeah, it seemed to me like what they were fighting in the show was change.
Kaykay Brady: 30:57
I had the same.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:58
And the tool was communication.
Kaykay Brady: 31:01
Yeah. And it was made extremely explicit by Kristy's mom in the end, who basically says, "I'm afraid of this change." And then Kristy says, "Wait, I'm the one who's afraid of change." And she's like, "Where do you think you got it from?" Change is so excruciating. I mean, as a therapist, there's just nothing you see more than change is so excruciating for people, and they're so ambivalent about it. Even change that they consciously know would be great. It's just so hard. And there's all these steps of change, right? And people, they'll circle around them, they'll go back, they'll go forth. And I love that this series really makes that a sort of central conflict in so many of these storylines, because it is just so true to human beings. And it's inescapable.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:49
I think that that's one of the reasons why we're seeing so much of the social and political environmental strife that we see right now, is because of the fear of change. We all know that it's going to happen. The biological world doesn't give a shit what we think about it. The biological world will change, and so we have to figure out how to change with it.
Kaykay Brady: 32:11
Yeah. And in fact, I would say, change is necessary to growth, and growth is necessary to any sense of health. And I don't mean that in like the medical model healthism horseshit kind of way. I mean it more in like a holistic person, self actualization type of way. If you're not changing, you're stagnating.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:34
You're dying.
Kaykay Brady: 32:35
You're dying! And you're suffering, right? I mean, change is suffering, too, but it can bring so much more life. Again, that sort of growth mindset, right? People can keep changing through their lives. Psychologists now understand that, they used to think like you stopped growing around 50 or 45, or something. Like, you're now an adult, and you're done. But now they've come to understand that...
Brooke Suchomel: 33:01
Like, people don't adapt?
Kaykay Brady: 33:03
Well, there was like all these stages of life, and it only went to like age 55 or 60 at first. And then as the psychologists that created these stages, as they aged, they realize, no, no, no, there's actually a final stage. You keep growing until the day that you die. And in fact, you do some of your hardest work, obviously, you're preparing for death, you're doing some of your hardest work in your 60s or 70s, your 80s. It's tied to some people dying well, and some people dying with great, great amounts of suffering, because they didn't continue to kind of do that work.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:42
Again, it's like you can't avoid it. You can't put the brakes on time and just stop it. It's going to keep going, so you have to figure out, how are you going to evolve? And how are you going to adapt? And if you refuse to do that, hoo yeah, you are going to feel like you're left behind, because you left yourself behind.
Kaykay Brady: 33:56
Yeah, and that creates a fantastical amount of suffering in human beings.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:01
Which is why we all need more Aunt Esmes.
Kaykay Brady: 34:03
Ah, I wish I had an Aunt Esme.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:06
Seriously.
Kaykay Brady: 34:06
I think I am Aunt Esme.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:08
You are. You are your own Aunt Esme.
Kaykay Brady: 34:13
I mean, I do have nieces and nephews, and I'm definitely the aunt that comes in the Subaru with weird music.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:19
Yeah, that tweet where it's like, "Hey, it's me, your gay aunt. I'm rolling up, I got you books for Christmas, and I'm listening to a podcast and drinking unsweetened coffee."
Kaykay Brady: 34:30
My partner and I have this plan to work on a song called "Lesbian Aunts." And it basically goes, "Lesbian ants, lesbian ants. Lesbian ants, not those kinds of ants." And then it's gonna flash to a picture of an ant wearing like a softball uniform.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:48
Uh huh. Like an ant that crawls on the ground ant?
Kaykay Brady: 34:51
Right. And then we'll put like, there'll be a big circle around it, you know, circled out like "not these kinds of ants."
Brooke Suchomel: 34:57
And then a picture of you in a softball uniform.
Kaykay Brady: 34:59
And a check. A green check.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:01
In your Jeep.
Kaykay Brady: 35:02
Yeah. And then we just list off all the things we do and don't do.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:06
"Hiking and dogs..."
Kaykay Brady: 35:07
"Never take you to church..."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:11
"Will cook you a steak..."
Kaykay Brady: 35:13
"Barbecue for days, ridin' in the Jeep..."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:16
"Listen to some vinyl, lesbian aunts..."
Kaykay Brady: 35:18
"Talk about oppression, validate your feelings..."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:22
"Teach you how to play the ukelele..."
Kaykay Brady: 35:25
"Buy you a keytar..."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:27
"We're gonna do a puzzle..."
Kaykay Brady: 35:29
"Of Eleanor Roosevelt..."
Brooke Suchomel: 35:33
The High Priestess of Lesbian Aunts, Eleanor Roosevelt.
Kaykay Brady: 35:36
Yeah. Correct.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:41
Oh shit, that's amazing.
Kaykay Brady: 35:43
Okay, so I feel that we can't leave this episode without talking about the outfits.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:49
Oh, shit. Well, here's a turn.
Kaykay Brady: 35:51
I know. But first of all, I want to say in this episode, whatever the writers did, I totally believed that it was important that Kristy look good at the wedding, in her mind. It didn't feel like such a departure of the character as it did in the book for me, because they really set it up as like, Kristy was kind of nervous. She wanted to fit in, she wanted to look good. There's all this tension going on. And when she sees herself in the banana, and is just like, wow, this is hideous, she's really stuck, right? And she's really hurting. And then when she gets a dress that actually looks good, she's like, "I can fit in." Anyway, it really rang true for me. They did it in a way that didn't feel jarring to me, like the book.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:35
Yeah, I think the first look we see her in, I think what unsettles her is that she looks mature. She looks much older, right? That style of dress, the way her hair was.
Kaykay Brady: 36:47
Yeah, yes, that's true. It's a real like sexy model type cut.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:52
It's like your college age daughter, right? Whereas what she ends up wearing is a much more youthful style. And she has a crown of flowers in her hair, which calls to mind the cover of the original book. She's wearing a flower crown, and it was also yellow. It was the yellow dress which we get in the book, it's made by Nannie. So we don't get any Nannie and the Pink Clinker, unfortunately.
Kaykay Brady: 37:17
Ah fuck, I forgot about Nannie.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:19
Yeah, no Nannie.
Kaykay Brady: 37:21
Nannie and Auntie Esme would be like, fast friends.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:23
Party.
Kaykay Brady: 37:24
Yeah, party.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:25
Fuckin' party.
Kaykay Brady: 37:26
Oh, yeah, they'd be dancing tampons out, fo’ sho’.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:29
Even though they're postmenopausal, they would put tampons in just to dance them out. Just to make a point. Just to make a feminist point on the dance floor. Yeah. So I thought that that was, I think that that was one of the things that unsettled her too, was you can tell she didn't feel like herself.
Kaykay Brady: 37:51
Good point, and it fits really nicely with the period story arc.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:54
Yes, exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 37:56
She's right at that age where you are having changes happening, and sometimes it's welcome, sometimes it sucks, sometimes it's scary, you know?
Brooke Suchomel: 38:03
Yeah. I wonder if anybody actually goes through puberty and is like, "Woo hoo!"
Kaykay Brady: 38:07
I knew a lot of girls that really wanted it to happen. I'm not sure if "badge of honor" is right, but they definitely wanted those markers of womanness coming.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:17
Ugh, god, I didn't. I just wanted to know, I just wanted to be able to get on a schedule. So that's what it was for me.
Kaykay Brady: 38:24
You wanted some reliability.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:26
Yeah. I was like, I don't want to not know when this is going to happen. I don't want to be taken by surprise. And then...
Kaykay Brady: 38:33
White sailor pants.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:35
HMS Pinafore, white pants. Go click your heels!
Kaykay Brady: 38:36
I mean, you literally are living the worst nightmare of every girl. And see? It worked out fine.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:42
It worked out fine.
Kaykay Brady: 38:43
Your worst nightmare happened to Brooke, and it worked out.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:46
Yeah. And I survived. "I Survived!"
Kaykay Brady: 38:48
You should do an "I Survived" show.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:51
Getting my first period right before I went on stage in white sailor pants and had to click my heels in front of a crowd of parents.
Kaykay Brady: 38:58
So Kristy's, yeah, I was happy that they were able to make that storyline in a way that appealed to me and I could understand.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:05
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 39:07
Stacey? She looks like a 75 year old socialite. It's incredible!
Brooke Suchomel: 39:11
She has a fascinator, yeah. She looks like she's going to a royal wedding.
Kaykay Brady: 39:16
Yeah, I was dying. And I was like, what is Brooke gonna say about this?
Brooke Suchomel: 39:20
I clocked the fascinator. Yeah, no, I think the outfits all were very appropriate for the characters. Dawn, super boho. Claudia, cool as fuck, with the puffy shoulders. Mary Anne, I don't remember what she was wearing, so that also seems like- she looked fine.
Kaykay Brady: 39:38
Yeah, it's kind of nice, but just, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:40
She's not trying to be flashy. She's just trying to sort of look like she fits in, and she did.
Kaykay Brady: 39:47
And one thing I did clock that was very true to the East Coast, everybody was wearing black and blue.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:52
I noticed that too. Except for the babysitters, with the exception of Stacey. Stacey's wearing the black and white, so Stacey is like, "I am from this echelon," right? And then all of the babysitters who are not from Stoneybrook society are wearing something more fun, more like them. And we do get the meet cute that I was expecting we would get between Mary Anne's dad and Dawn's mom. They do reunite at the wedding over what I had as one of my modern moments, food allergies.
Kaykay Brady: 40:28
Oh yeah, the mom has a nut allergy.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:30
Dawn's mom, she apparently puts on the RSVP card that she has a very serious allergy to yellowtail, but neglects to put down that she's also allergic to tree nuts. So in taking a bite of something with Nutella in it, she has to be whisked off to get an EpiPen and Mary Anne's dad takes care of it. They live happily ever after, I'm sure.
Kaykay Brady: 40:37
Allergies bring us together.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:49
They do. And I love that also we had an officiant that was just a local spiritual guide next door, who does not do that "will you obey" or doesn't even say like "he may now kiss the bride" where it's like, "Man, you may now take what is yours," you know, cuts all that bullshit out. So that was nice and modern. And then Claudia's eye makeup. Claudia's eye makeup was my other modern moment.
Kaykay Brady: 41:23
I don't remember Claudia's eye makeup.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:25
It was awesome. She drew just like a hot pink line. Like a hot pink crease, and that was it.
Kaykay Brady: 41:32
That's makeup I could get behind, Adam Ant style.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:35
It was almost like anti makeup, so very chic.
Kaykay Brady: 41:38
Fuck yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:39
What did you have?
Kaykay Brady: 41:41
I had, for modern moments, super fancy, specific camps. So, the art camp with Trevor Sandbourne at Yale, sorry, New Haven. That feels very modern. I feel like kids more just went to regular Camp 20, 30 years ago. And then now there's all these dope camps. You can go to rock camp, you can go to art camp. There were sports camps, that was about it. So that felt pretty modern.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:06
Well, that leads us right into the next episode then. Because the next episode is them going to camp.
Kaykay Brady: 42:11
What is it, Moosehead?
Brooke Suchomel: 42:12
Camp Moosehead. Camp Moosehead. So this is going to be our first situation where we haven't read- I read the corresponding book years and years ago, but we haven't read it. We haven't covered it on the show.
Kaykay Brady: 42:23
Oh, because they picked a book further along.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:25
They picked Super Special Number Two.
Kaykay Brady: 42:27
Whoa.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:28
Yeah. Which is Baby-sitters' Summer Vacation.
Kaykay Brady: 42:31
Why didn't they pick Super Special Number One? I can't imagine why.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:35
Disney didn't cough up the money that was required for the sponsorship.
Kaykay Brady: 42:38
I was gonna say, they did not have the money. Like, they're doing Jersey Shore at a Vancouver lake, they're not going down to Disney World.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:47
Yeah, no. So we get to see how the babysitters spend their summer vacation in the next episode, which is part one of a two parter, and then that closes out the series. We're going to have all of the babysitters together. Claudia opts not to go to the art camp, and to spend the time with her friends. So we get to see how that goes down in our next episode.
Kaykay Brady: 43:07
Oh, I'm so excited.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:08
I'm looking forward to it. But until then...
Kaykay Brady: 43:12
Just keep sittin'! [THEME] It's a delight!
