Kristy and the Baby Parade
Episode 8 of The Baby-Sitter’s Club Season 2 begins this finale with the focus shifting back to Kristy once more. Kristy helps her mum pack up and get rid of old clothes, before focus turns to the big drama this chapter. Watson entertains the idea of going on a big trip to New Zealand but when he doesn’t get much of a reaction, he turns the attention across to the upcoming baby parade rocking up in town. Now, this parade has been a tradition in town dating all the way back to World War II. In fact, Watson even won the 1973 edition and now he wants to help Kristy win it for them this year. Claudia and the others find out and decide to enter a float of their own. Given the plan isn’t one of Kristy’s own, she’s not best pleased but does agree that it’s a solid idea and agrees they should go ahead with it. While the babysitter’s start setting everything up, Kristy and her siblings learn that their father is back in town, complete with his new partner and baby. They believe the parade is the perfect time to meet up, leading Kristy to begin setting herself up to meet her birth father. She’s pretty excited in truth, as is David, who begins making a new photo album for him. The only one not happy is Sam, who storms off. Unfortunately trouble strikes the babysitters outside as they run into crafting problems making their float. The shoe they’ve made isn’t the right colour (thanks to some spilt paint) and the structure isn’t strong enough to hold the baby seats. The costume design for the babies is another problem of its own, with Mallory’s colour choice completely clashing. However, Claudia comes to the rescue with a swanky design of her own. As everything looks set to end in disaster, Kristy and the gang receive some bad news when their father decides not to see them. After getting their hopes up, crushing them like this is a step too far for Watson to bear. He calls out this cowardly act, with Mary Anne even backing him up too. Instead, Watson decides upon the next best thing – he wants to become Kristy’s dad for real by adopting her. With an adoption on the horizon, the parade goes off without a hitch as Claudia manages to honour Mimi’s memory by winning the costume contest. The other girls all get conclusive arcs too, as the final scene shows the girls walking off with the adults into the distance, ready to get involved in the parade and hopeful over what the future may hold for them.
The Episode Review
Much like the first season, the big plot points are all resolved while there’s enough left on the table for a possible follow-up to come in the near-future. Whether a third season will be agreed by Netflix or not though, is left up for debate. The Baby-Sitter’s Club delivers an enjoyable follow-up season here nonetheless, with plenty of life lessons, lots of lighthearted drama and a pretty conclusive arc to the issues surrounding Kristy and Watson. Seeing him step up and decide to adopt her is a nice way to break down Kristy’s defences from the first season, and seeing her come full-circle to telling him she loves him is a massive step for her character too. It’s also a nice way to spin a potentially disastrous incident into a positive. For the rest of the girls, the individual episodes attributed to them go some way to close out their arcs on a high, with Claudia’s emotional farewell to Mimi given a little bit of screen time in this finale through her winning the costume contest. Either way, Babysitter’s Club has been a fun, vibrant watch and it’ll be interesting to see what’s in store for our teenagers in the future.
