The Baby-Sitters Club ending explained: Focus on friendship

How  Netflix’s The Baby-Sitters Club ended its first season

If you were like me when you heard Netflix was rebooting The Baby-Sitters Club, you were possibly a little nervous. Would it be another franchise-ruining reboot? A waste of time?

The good news is that this is an excellent reboot, perfect for the current day. Setting the young girls in 2020 doesn’t change their growth, their personalities, or their bonds. What it does is offer the opportunity to bring the storylines into the 21st century.

It gives the young girls of today something to inspire to be. At the same time, it’s a show we can enjoy with our children instead of wishing that the book adaptation just wasn’t attempted.

Throughout the first eight episodes, we got individual stories from each member of the Baby-Sitters Club. It cumulated to Kristy’s mom marrying Watson, with Kristy realizing that he wasn’t losing her mom at all. The wedding ended with mom and daughter apologizing to each other for their words and strengthening the bond between them.

The last two episodes were a two-parter, seeing the five friends off to summer camp. So, how did The Baby-Sitters Club Season 1 end?

Different friends got to know each other

The five friends were split up. Kristy and Stacey bunked together, Claudia and Dawn were together, and Mary Anne was on her own. They weren’t happy. The two pairs hadn’t spent time alone together at all, and Mary Anne worried about being on her own.

This was the perfect time for them to get to know each other better. Claudia and Dawn realized they were both passionate people about some similar things. When they realized the camp was class-ist, the two decided to stand up for the children without money. They put on lie-ins and other peaceful protests.

However, things didn’t go the way they wanted. The woman running the camp made it clear that everything couldn’t be free or the camp would go out of business. She was ready to send Claudia and Dawn home for disrupting things.

At the same time, Kristy and Stacey got to know each other a little better, while Mary Anne made a new friend in a bunk. It turned out the new friend was Stacey’s former friend in Manhatten. This gave Stacey and Laine a chance to reconnect. Stacey shared the hurt she felt when Laine turned her back on her, while Laine explained she was just a scared kid when Stacey collapsed due to her diabetes.

Meanwhile, Mary Anne found her voice throughout the season. The best moment was actually in “Mary Anne Saves the Day,” but the finale had some excellent moments with Mary Anne acting as co-director of the theater production she and Laine were putting on. She also stood in for Stacey when Stacey and Laine suffered badly from poison ivy.

There was also a moment when Kristy’s stepsister Karen went missing. Karen felt like she didn’t belong and had no friends, so she went to an out-of-service (not knowing that) bus stop to go home. None of the staff knew this. Kristy and two other girls went looking for Karen and got her back, with a beautiful speech from Kristy calling Karen her sister.

See a problem, offer a solution

At the very end, Kristy stood up for her friends. As Claudia and Dawn were about to be sent home, Kristy shared that sending kids home wasn’t the solution. The camp needed more people to look after the kids. There just wasn’t enough staff.

For the whole camp, Kristy had tried to convince the manager to let her and her group be helpers. Their ages went against them, but it was soon clear that they had the best intentions when it came to looking after younger kids. They were also skilled, patient, and knew how to help them have fun.

It also helped that Kristy shared Karen had gone missing and nobody had noticed. Kristy and a couple of the girls had gone looking for her and got her back. None of the staff had even seemed to care. So, the manager had no choice but to agree to The Baby-Sitters Club to look after the younger children.

Because of their help to find Karen, The Baby-Sitters Club went to find the two younger girls with the offer to be unofficial helpers. Kristy also shared that they were welcome to join the club as new babysitters if they wanted to. The friendships are stronger than ever.

The business is expanding, new friendships have formed, and we have a show about girls supporting girls. It’s most definitely one of the most needed TV shows right now for young girls from all backgrounds and of all interests and beliefs.

The Baby-Sitters Club is now streaming on Netflix.