The Truth About Stacey
Episode 3 of Baby-Sitter’s Club shifts the focus once more to Stacey. As the new girl in the group, she’s desperate to prove herself but for now The Baby-Sitters Club are facing their biggest challenge yet. A promotional video for a new group called The Baby-Sitter’s Agency, fronted by charismatic girl Lacy, puts a pretty big dent in their plan of baby-sitting dominance. Determined to differentiate themselves from the competition, Kristy and the others decide to fill boxes with different items and toys to make the kids excited to see them. While they busy themselves with this, via some expository voice-over work, we learn six months ago Stacey was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Since then her mother has been fussing over her constantly, seeing the disease rather than her as a person. However, Stacey has bigger fish to fry when she, along with the group, learn that The Baby-Sitter’s Agency has mobilized and caused them to lose a lot of business. Kristy calls an emergency meeting to discuss the situation but before Stacey can give her opinion, she’s distracted by Kristy’s brother Sam whom she takes a fancy to. As she starts to go lighthearted and faint, what she initially thought was love and first sight actually happens to be her blood sugar levels dropping. Stacey heads home and starts to get her energy back. Unfortunately, her Mother immediately starts fussing over her when she learns what’s happened. The next day the girls head out with renewed vigor and try to drum up some business but pause when they find Jamie, the kid Lacy was supposed to be watching, out playing in the street and not being babysat properly. Stacey phones through to inform Kim what’s happened but the repercussions are swift. Lacy leaks details about Stacey’s diabetes online, in particular a fitting episode, and she’s eventually forced to call a meeting with all the local parents to discuss what this means. Thankfully The Baby-Sitters Club and their strong foundational work with the kids in the past is enough to convince the parents to continue letting them look after their kids. The next day all their clients come back and it looks for now like the club is back on the high again, which is where the episode ends.
The Review Write-Up
With a lot more quirky humour and a raw energy that was missing from the first couple of episodes, The Baby-Sitters Club delivers a really enjoyable episode that brings with it its own stand-alone narrative surrounding The Baby-Sitters Agency. It helps that the girls have such great chemistry on-screen too and this definitely ties into the show as a whole finding its voice. Quite where this one will go next though remains to be seen but one thing’s for sure – The Babysitter’s Club is just starting to warm up into something pretty enjoyable.
