Claudia and the Phantom Phone Calls
Claudia & the Phantom Phone Calls seems like a book that wouldn’t survive the transition to 2020. It was written in the era of landlines and answering machines with actual tapes in them, after all. And so, instead of adapting the story as Ann M. Martin envisioned it, the Phantom Phone Calls are relegated to a minor but effective b-plot. It’s a smart choice.
Claudia Lynn Kishi, Live and in technicolor
Kira Puru’s Molotov plays as we open on an unbelievable notebook cover. It’s like your emoji keyboard exploded into beautiful colored-pencil reality. Bubble letters! Highlighter stars! Exactly the notebook you’d expect from Claudia Kishi.
And then we’re in Claudia’s closet. Raina Telgemeier envisioned Claudia’s closet beautifully in the graphic novels, but everything on television is a little bigger and bolder, including this closet. It’s stuffed to the gills, an explosion of colors and textiles and patterns. “I’m good at a lot of things,” Claudia’s voiceover informs us, as she goes through a costume-test montage of jacket contemplations (each one is epic).
Fashion. Babysitting. Art. Being the coolest girl we know.
(That last one was my addition.)
Now we’re inside Stoneybrook Middle School’s art studio, where Claudia paints a traditional self portrait and contemplates how art allows her to be totally herself, free of expectations. Her inner monologue is interrupted by Trevor Sandborne, and she pulls the cutest reaction face. Momona Tamada has a natural effervescence (yes, I’m comparing a teenager to an alka-seltzer tablet I guess) that’s just darling to watch.
Speaking of reaction faces, turns out Stacey’s two easels over. As Trevor not-so-smoothly brings up the Halloween Hop, and Claudia fumbles around whether or not she’s going, the camera shifts focus to Stacey, dramatically widening her eyes and mouthing OH MY GOD to Claudia . . . who mostly plays it cool but hustles over to her new bestie’s easel as soon as the exchange is over. They giggle and squeal together and it is adorable.
would you rather: HEAD LICE OR BOY PROBLEMS
Chapter Two Paragraph-Long Outfit Description
I had decided to do a light theme dress for the day inspired by Mimi’s watermelon sorbet. So I put together red and black scrunchies (for watermelon) and a kelly green sweater (for the rind) with my new beaded watermelon slice earrings. I didn’t want to go too over the top, so I topped my sweater with a peach-and-lime colored graphic tee and pale blue pants. The overall vibe was fun and summery but casual.
“Did he ask you to the dance or not?”
Kristy is in her director’s chair (as she should be), double-fisting twizzlers. Seriously, she’s got three in one hand, one in another, and a look of skepticism on her face as she tries to understand why this whole art class thing is a big deal. Claudia and Stacey share a look -- the intricacies of boy-girl dynamics are not Kristy’s thing.
I really like the way the writers are handling the maturity divide between the club members. None of it feels mean-spirited, but they’re not just glossing over the reasons for Claudia’s faded friendship with Kristy and Mary Anne. It leaves us so many opportunities to watch the relationships develop and deepen throughout the season.
Stacey tries to explain to Kristy (and Mary Anne, silently but rapturously paying attention) that a boy like Trevor “isn’t going to show up at your door with a corsage.” She calls him sophisticated. Stacey, that’s your thing. Don’t you give it away to some boy, art class flirtation or not!
Claudia realizes she needs a new costume for this now almost-date, and I mourn the opportunity to see her as a Troll doll. A cultural reference for us olds that also works for the new generation, what with those troll movies (my son is only three and our screen time is all Winnie the Pooh and Wall-E, so my only association with the new Trolls franchise is the very important prestige podcast The McElroy Brothers Will Be In Trolls World Tour).
Kristy still isn’t over the ridiculousness of it all, and launches into another Baby Feminist speech. Stacey has an indulgent, she’ll-get-there look on her face as she listens to Kristy’s diatribe. It’s very, very cute. (I’m sorry I keep calling these actresses cute but please consider the pregnancy hormones, I am 500% mom right now and I can’t help myself.)
“What about you, Mary Anne -- that cute boy Logan might be there,” Stacey asks.
Claudia gives her a look that clearly shows they’ve talked about Mary Anne’s fascination with Logan before and she can’t believe Stacey’s coming right out with it. Mary Anne responds “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” one octave too high.
Claudia and Stacey exchange an amused look, and it’s another moment that points to the fact that they’re still two pairs, even if the dynamic between them as a quartet is getting easier.
Logan aside, there’s no way Mary Anne’s dad would let her go to the dance, because of the . . . Phantom Caller. Mary Anne explains his home invasion m.o. just in time for the club phone to ring. The girls all panic and Kristy reaches slowly but bravely for it . . .
. . . and it’s just Elizabeth (HAY GIRL HAY) looking for a sitter for Karen and Andrew. Mary Anne points out to Kristy that Elizabeth and Watson have been obsessively setting up sitting jobs because they’re dying to get the kids and Kristy in the same room. Kristy’s not moved by this emotionally astute observation, and lets her mom know that Mary Anne will be taking the job.
Parents just don’t understand, even in stoneybrook
In the Kishi’s (beautiful!) kitchen, Mimi and Claudia work on dinner together. Claudia gushes about Trevor, and Mimi is just as gentle and lovely and supportive as she is in the books.
Mimi’s warmth, acceptance, and love is contrasted with the uncomfortable environment at the dinner table. John and Rioko Kishi are nice enough but kinda hard on their younger daughter, even letting Janine dictate the terms of Claudia’s dance attendance. It’s blatant sibling favoritism that would make even the most well-adjusted kid feel like an outsider in their own family. Mimi is silent but you know she does not approve.
On the bright side, Janine is wonderfully brought to life by Aya Furukawa, with spot-on Janine The Genius dialogue. She refers to the Baby-sitters Club as “the meeting of Claudia’s caregiving circle.” When Claudia calls her out for eavesdropping, she embarrassedly responds that she “misplaced [her] noise-cancelling headphones” and something about the delivery of that line just SENDS ME.
Give me the Janine Kishi spinoff, I love her.
Over at Casa Spier, Mary Anne arrives home twenty minutes after 8:00 to find her dad sitting in the dark like the uptight weirdo we all know Richard Spier is. Marc Evan Jackson is SUCH a good casting choice, and he really leans into the fussy, overbearing dad here. He’s even more on edge because of the Phantom Caller (Richard Spier loves true crime podcasts, a thing I have just decided about him absent any evidence) and he takes away Mary Anne’s phone for her curfew violation.
Poor Mary Anne. The one grown-up -- or even age-appropriate -- thing she has is her smartphone, and now she’s downgraded to a trackphone that is call-limited to her father and 911. As if it wasn’t hard enough being a middle schooler.
Dress For algebra success the claudia kishi way
The next day, Stacey’s doing her best to help Claudia cram, but Claudia’s distracted by her own amazing style. As SHE SHOULD BE.
Chapter Two Paragraph-Long Outfit Description
Nervous about the exam, I decided to use my best confidence trick: dress up! My favorite black dress with the thick white cuffs and Peter Pan collar would be perfect. A little bit mod, a little bit Supreme Court. I threw my hair in its signature bun to show off my giant pearl drop earrings, and added a swipe of white eyeliner and a sundial-style ring. Finally, I laced up my white Doc Martens and threw a pair of (fake) cats-eye glasses into my book bag for that extra scholarly look. I was as ready as I’d ever be.
It’s so good and a nice nod to Claudia’s concept of test preparation as seen in Claudia and the Middle School Mystery: a special smart outfit. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg chic. Super cute.” Stacey is all sweetness and moral support — and wearing color for the first time, I think, a pink corduroy jacket and skirt — as she talks about the joy of math.
But Claudia’s distracted, again, by Trevor’s arrival on his skateboard. He’s even coming over to them, and the girls get giggly and cute in preparation . . .
. . . When suddenly the younger half of the club interrupts. Kristy is all bull-in-china-shop, mad as hell that Mary Anne lost babysitting privileges for Friday night. Claudia is disappointed by the missed Trevor opportunity, and neither she nor Stacey are particularly moved by Kristy’s histrionics.
It quickly gets uncomfortable, as Kristy piles on about what a psycho Richard Spier is (“even my mom thinks so”), running her mouth right into trouble (how . . . characteristic). Mary Anne sits and takes the verbal lashing until she explodes, asking Kristy “what would [she] know about having a normal dad?”
The hurt on Kristy’s face could be seen from space, even if you can’t exactly blame Mary Anne for biting back. She’s immediately regretful, and moans “I’m a terrible person” before running off after Kristy to apologize.
Such nice work on all fronts here. Sophie Grace and Malia Baker do an awesome job moving through the emotional turmoil of the scene — Kristy starts being irritated and hyperbolic, Mary Anne penitent until she’s pushed too far. You get the sense that Mary Anne snapping back at Kristy is just not something that happens. They’re both so bowled over by it.
It’s excellent foreshadowing for the big club fight to come, and beyond that the challenge Dawn’s arrival creates for their lifelong bestieship (well, that challenge is mostly for Kristy, who’ve as we’ve already seen is just great with change). And it’s just refreshing to see these kids experiencing and then working through conflict together — they’re at such a tough, in-between age. Little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems, right?
The exam stakes get upped for Claudia when Trevor approaches her at her locker before the math test (even her locker is well-accessorized, by the way) and does the awkward offering-a-parent-ride thing. It’s halfway to a date, and Claudia is adorably swoony in her cat’s-eye glasses.
FAILURE, SERVED THREE WAYS
1. Mary Anne hasn’t managed to make Kristy forgive her, and with her texting abilities suspended, she’s got to resort to their old flashlight system, another great pull from the books. It feels just as dramatic as it did in Mary Anne Saves the Day. Mary Anne apologizes sincerely, but Kristy just scowls and pulls down her window shade, shutting Mary Anne out.
2. Back at Stoneybrook Middle School, it’s a big fat fail for Claudia at 64%. Stacey is disappointed both for Claudia and for herself, complaining that this is her first dance opportunity at a new school, and she doesn’t want to have to go it alone. Avoiding this tween humiliation is huge for Stacey, so much so that she suggests Claudia takes her exam home, with its 95% score and easily-erased pencilled-in name. Claudia seems unsure about this.
She looks fantastic, though.
Chapter Two Paragraph-Long Outfit Description
I was wearing my favorite sweater, bright crocheted rainbow stripes, with red pants and my gold boots. The outfit was bright and bold and cheerful, especially with my goldenrod scrunchy and pink and red rhinestone cluster earrings. You couldn’t help but feel a little bit better in this outfit..
3. Looking for a place to center herself, Claudia heads to the art studio, where she runs into a teen angst-filled Trevor, throwing away the self-portrait his dad called derivative. (Continuing the parents just don’t understand theme . . . all the kid wanted was for his pretentious artist dad to be proud of him!)
Man, a lotta backstory for Trevor. The writers are doing such a nice job of making even tertiary characters feel fully formed, but Trevor doesn’t really work for me. Maybe partly because Trevor was bit of a non-entity in the books. But it doesn’t matter, because this show has been carefully constructed for multiple generations of audience, and maybe if you’re a little kid you’re hanging on every word. I get that I’m not exactly the target market for Trevor Sandborne character appreciation.
Claudia tells him he should make art for himself, and he, well, continues to be generally wowed by her.
“You’re special, you know that?” he says, and gives her a kiss on the cheek. And with that, subterfuge wins out, and Claudia rifles through her backpack to send her mom a picture of Stacey’s test.
Two houses, both alike in valuable lessons
Friday night, and we’ve got mice. Two of them, Watson and Elizabeth, in full-on grey fursuits (remember when Mary Anne and Logan went as cats to the Halloween Hop? I imagine they looked almost as ridiculous as this), introducing Kristy to the house and the kids. One of them, at least -- little Andrew Brewer, holding Watson’s hand.
Watson enthusiastically shows Kristy his ‘whispering gallery’, using it to send the message that they’re really glad she’s here. After he hustles Andrew upstairs for bed, Elizabeth acknowledges that “he’s trying too hard,” but also gives Kristy the Mom Look of get it together and behave. Kristy remains stonefaced, extending to her introduction to Karen.
And yes, here we have Karen Brewer. She’s a pretty polarizing character in BSC fan culture -- people either love the Little Sister books and have a soft spot for her and her antics, or they find her precocious nature and ‘two-two’ spiel endlessly annoying. Rather than putting her in glasses and spouting off about her two houses, the writers have opted for a more somber, weirdo Karen. Real Wednesday Addams vibes.
In Claudia’s room, we’re treated to her costume upgrade -- Tippi Hedren in The Birds! It’s such a cool choice, and also relatively believable. I feel like Claudia’s totally got the hustle to thrift a beige suit and hot glue a bunch of birds to it within the span of a few days.
Mimi comes in to check out Claudia’s costume and tell her how proud she is. Claudia’s face falls, thinking it’s because of the test grade she didn’t really earn, but Mimi tells her it’s “because you are my Claudia.”
Back at Watson’s, Kristy is getting to know Karen, which mostly entails bearing witness to her macabre doll funeral. Kristy is trying to play along, but she’s not quite goth enough to hang with Karen ‘Krakatoa was an atheist’ Brewer.
“Should we close her eyes?” Kristy suggests.
“No, it’s dark enough in the grave.”
Do I … love Karen Brewer? I was always in the camp that she was kinda tiring, but wow am I finding her hilarious here. And speaking of spooky, Kristy begins to get calls from an Unknown Number, which freaks her and Karen (who, of course, is well aware of the Phantom Caller) out. After staring at the phone through a number of attempts, Kristy finally answers . . . and it’s Mary Anne, calling from the mouse phone.
This plot morph is such a clever way of paying tribute to the original Phantom Caller plotline while still keeping it modern and focusing on the friendships between the girls and the overarching season plotlines. Do I miss the opportunity to see Malia Baker (after watching her in three episodes, I think she might be, like, the next Lucille Ball) set up all of Mary Anne’s burglar traps while sitting for David Michael? Yes, that would be amazing. Pounding Down The Walls forever. But this is pretty excellent, too.
Mary Anne is calling to apologize, and also to let Kristy in on a couple pro-tips about sitting for Karen — including the frozen Snickers bars in the downstairs freezer. She also gives Kristy some gentle real talk: “you’ve gotta deal with your stuff about Watson. He’s gonna be a part of your family whether you like it or not, so maybe start trying to like it.” Kristy’s not willing to acknowledge this directly . . . but tells Mary Anne she’ll see her tomorrow.
And, after getting off the phone, offers Karen the opportunity to raid the forbidden frozen Snickers bars.
Claudia comes clean, the BSA plays dirty
Claudia’s almost out the door when her conscience gets the best of her. Her gushing parents can’t stop talking about how thrilled they are about her grade, and when her mom asks to see it in person, Claudia shows them her real test.
“I’m not someone who can ace an algebra test after years of barely being able to do long division. I’m not Janine and I’m tired of feeling like I have to be,” she tells them. And yeah, it’s a good point about the expectations/reality gulf the Kishis are living in.
While they’re glad she ‘fessed up, the dance is now out of the question. As Claudia tries in vain to wheedle her way out of her punishment, Janine appears at the top of the stairwell, arms crossed, like the world’s most cantankerous parenting expert.
“Negative reinforcement works, but consistency is key,” she intones.
“Oh, shut up Janine,” Claudia responds.
Stacey’s waiting outside for Claudia in an unbelievably over-the-top Marie Antoniette costume when her phone chirps. Claudia’s voiceover narrates her text telling Stacey she’s not coming. “Don’t worry, everyone wants to be your friend. Especially me.” I put my hand over my heart because I can’t handle the purity of all this genuine support and friendship.
The next episode is teased when Stacey, standing uncomfortably alone near the snacks, runs into the Johanssons and asks them who is sitting for Charlotte if they’re both chaperoning.
Back in her bedroom, Claudia is sans blonde wig but otherwise still Birds-ified, painting a portrait of Mimi. Knowing that Mimi will not be with us forever, I’m kinda glad she wound up grounded, you know? The sweet scene is interrupted by a text.
“Oh Mimi,” she says, “looks like we’ve got competition.”
KISHI STYLE FILES
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Images copyright Netflix Family/Walden Media, Raina Telgemeier/Scholastic; collages by me