The Baby-Sitters Club: The Truth About Stacey

July 8, 2020 10:40 PM - Season 1, Episode 3

As competition heats up for the BSC, Stacey attempts to hide a personal secret and revisits a painful event from her past.

Vulture recap: Welcome to the Free Market

posted by toastyk (10 comments total)

I thought the viral video was an interesting take on the bullying. Tbh, as a child, I found it implausible Stacey was bullied for her diabetes. I knew several kids with diabetes, no big deal! I now have a broader understanding of how much people can suck, and the whole plotline felt sadly believable.

So glad Charlotte Johanssen's mom is still a doctor in the series! 2 weeks ago I would have told you I read a bunch of BSC books as a child but didn't remember the details. Turns out my memory is better than expected (or, more accurately, I have wasted more memory on childhood trivia than I thought) - I keep getting delighted by little things they get right, like Dr. Johanssen's profession.

The Babysitters Agency spent so much money on swag, why did they need to bother babysitting? I enjoyed that the rival ringleader had a prominent establishing shot in the pilot when our BSC was handing out flyers.
posted by the primroses were over at 1:41 PM on July 9, 2020

Yeah, I also remember thinking that Stacey's deep dark secret was ... diabetes ... to be pretty implausible because it didn't seem like that big of a deal. (But I feel like I read somewhere once that it was meant to be an AIDS ... metaphor? or something.) But I think this episode deals with it well, in the framing of being bullied & no one really understanding what was happening and also her mother's desire to show some kind of "perfection" to the world (but it does it without beating the point too hard).

I am glad the show acknowledged these are 13-year-olds babysitting through the Babysitters Agency (although they were kind of comically awful. Ha ha, one sends a little kid outside so she can make out with her boyfriend) but I like the maturity the BSC showed in handling all of it.
posted by darksong at 3:41 PM on July 9, 2020

This story was also adapted in the recent graphic novels, and Stacey's insulin pump is made much more visible here in the show than I remember it being in the comic, which is a good decision. If Stacey's being open about it, the show has to be on her side.
posted by one for the books at 3:42 PM on July 9, 2020

I have cried at every episode?
posted by sixswitch at 11:44 PM on July 9, 2020 [7 favorites]

I luv this show. Sorry, had to do it.

The third episode is when I finally caught on what they were doing with the hand-writing and the opening/closing credits. Well played show.
posted by later, paladudes at 1:31 PM on July 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

I believe Ann M. Martin had initially written Stacey’s dad as doing something illegal in finances, and Stacey and her mom moved to Stoneybrook when he went to jail. The Scholastic editors thought this was too hard for their readership to follow and had her change it to diabetes.
posted by pxe2000 at 1:49 PM on July 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

To tell you the truth, this book taught me a lot as a kid about diabetes, which helped me understand when one of my best friends told me she had diabetes. Also, I tried to make my own kid kits, but I was too lazy to commit. :P

Also, does anyone wonder how much the adults are supposed to be paying the 13 year olds to babysit their kids on this show? In the books I remember it was somewhere like $3 an hour, but there's no way people are still paying that little for babysitting now, even if they're 13, right?
posted by toastyk at 10:19 AM on July 11, 2020

I loved how the shifting narrators on the series allows the show to subtly warp the reality of the narrative as needed. So in this episode, diabetes is a huge issue because it’s a huge issue to Stacey, our narrator. In a future episode, one of the girls experiences anxiety about disappointing her friends, and suddenly they are portrayed as being crueler to her than they have been in other episodes. It’s not exactly Rashomon, but it’s subtle and clever.
posted by Ian A.T. at 12:25 AM on July 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think the characterization of the antagonist was one of my favorite things about the whole series. It wasn’t exactly consistent with the rest of the show— I don’t think there are any other characters portrayed as cartoonish as her—but I was just so delighted by the Club suddenly grappling with an over-the-top villainous teenager who spouts Free Market rhetoric and empty Boss Bitch truisms. The role itself was perfectly cast, too, with the actress giving her the right amount of self-conscious arrogance.
posted by Ian A.T. at 12:37 AM on July 13, 2020

Mary Ann muttering, "That doesn't rhyme, sir" under hear breath at the dumb boyfriend make me squawk with laughter.
posted by Aquifer at 11:22 AM on July 20, 2020 [2 favorites]