March 2nd, 2021 • 1 hr 15 mins • Download (60.6 MB) • Link with Timestamp
After the difficult subject matter of our last episode, Kate and Lauryn get a bit of a reprieve with a fluffy story about Stoneybrook’s collective obsession with stardom, Jessi’s audition process for the “practically off-off-Broadway” production of Swan Lake in Stamford, and the arrival of child star, Derek Masters. There’s bullying both of Derek and by Derek (spoiler alert – the superbrat is him, but not in the spoiled child star kind of way we predicted) and the BSC does what they can to ease Derek back into the “normal” world, helping him to make friends and then say goodbye to those friends with a surprise breakfast going away party when he books a TV movie and has to head back to LA. And Derek does what he can to support Jessi’s auditions for Swan Lake while also putting a bug in her ear about maybe switching to modeling and acting like he did. We revisit just how amazing Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey are and add some kudos for Mrs. Masters not being a nightmare stage mom. We discuss how much we’d love to see Watson’s financial statements to figure out just what kind of millionaire he is, how normal for Stoneybrook isn’t normal for the world, how little sense it makes that Jess, an 11 year-old, is beating out professional adult ballerinas to be cast in the corps in Swan Lake, how great podcasting is these days with so many perspectives that give everyone the level of deep diving into the subject matter, the detriment of each member of the BSC having that one “thing” that they automatically excel at, how the ghostwriter was just a little off for this one (in particular in how she had Claudia questioning whether the kids would prefer chocolate or coconut donuts), maximizers vs. satisfizers, the weird time vortex some of these books fall into, and the complete lack of weather accuracy in the teen shows of the 1990s.