The Baby-Sitters Club: Claudia and Mean Janine

August 15, 2020 9:17 PM - Season 1, Episode 6

A family emergency triggers an emotional feud between Claudia and her older sister. Elsewhere, Mary Anne works to hide her feelings.

Vulture Recap: Mimi's Story

posted by toastyk (2 comments total)

It was good when Janine compared the WW2 internment camps to the ICE centers but the episode moved on a little too quickly from her line for it to properly land.
posted by one for the books at 12:50 AM on August 19, 2020

The timing of that line seemed about right to me. Consider the primary target audience of tweens (as opposed to the secondary audience of 80s-90s kids): Janine has just gone Professor Exposition about a dark time in American history that many of them won't have heard of previously. Ending on "I can't believe they split up families"/"I can't believe they still do"/(beat)(next scene) wraps it up without spending too much time in the Dark Place for this overall optimistic show while also planting the thought of 'wait, things like this are happening today? What else is still going on and isn't just a Solved Problem of the Bad Old Days like we learn in school?'
posted by Flannery Culp at 7:30 AM on August 29, 2020 [2 favorites]