Memory Reaction
I know I saw this once as a kid, but I remember nothing
about it. Just that they find a note in
their house from someone who used to live there, and I always wanted to do
that. Sadly, we were the first people to
live in the house I grew up in so there was no chance of that.
Oh, and I totally mixed this up with the earlier
mystery/type episode a few months ago.
Revisited Reaction
Dawn and Claudia are in Dawn’s secret passage and find a
note that some girl wrote a long time ago. It’s about how she’s never going to
speak to her awful, mean sister again, because Bettina (the sister) thinks the
girl writing the note lost her (Bettina’s) diamond ring. The BSC takes this literally, and think that
the sisters must have feuded for the rest of their lives, and assume the note’s
over a hundred years old. They hold a séance to try and contact the sisters,
and fail, but they do find a small diamond ring in the passage, which they
think proves the sister writing the note didn’t lose it.
Claudia shows Janine the note and tells her how old she
thinks it is, and Janine kind of rudely points out that it’s covered with
transparent tape, which was not invented hundreds of years ago. Claudia goes to the library to look up the
exact year it was invented, cause they couldn’t just Google things in 1990. It
turns out it Scotch tape was invented in 1930, so the girls decide the sisters
may be alive. They take the ring to the
town jewelry store and ask the jeweler if he knows who bought it. He’s all, “we sold tons of those rings in the
fifties, I can’t help you,” but when they throw out the name “Bettina,” it
rings a bell. He says she married the grocer’s son. The girls go to the grocery
store in question and find out the current owner bought it from the old grocer
a few years ago, and that his family went on to open a flower shop. So, the
girls go to flower stores in town and find one run by a woman named
Bettina. However, they’re scared because
no one remembers what happened to the little sister, and think this means
Bettina could be a killer. Because these
girls have over-active imaginations.
Anyway it turns out Bettina and her sister Flora own the
flower store together and actually have not been feuding for 40 years. The
girls give them back the ring and they argue a little about whether it was
actually Flora’s fault, but then are all, “oh, that was ages ago, who cares.”
High/Lowlights
- I checked and transparent tape was in fact invented in 1930, by a man named Richard Drew. In case it ever comes up on Jeopardy. Googling “when was transparent tape invented” brought up more than 600,000 results. I can’t even believe there’s that much to say about tape.
- The BSC’s also working on some town project, where they put old photos of the town and themselves on a community bulletins board. It’s all a plot device to get them talking about the past and family, I guess. They are very impressed that Dawn came up with the very boring title of “Stoneybrook Through the Years.”
- Vanessa and Becca are in this episode, because they have a sister theme going. For a minute I thought Vanessa was a recast Karen. She’s rather blonde looking and wears glasses. I thought the Pike’s all had brown hair (except for poor red head Mallory).
- The secret passage looks nothing like I pictured it. It’s way too nice and neat looking. Also when they go in from Dawn’s room there are stairs up, but I think in the books the steps are supposed to go down. How else could you get from Dawn’s upstairs room to under the barn? The cover of one of the books shows stairs going up, but the covers were never accurate.
- The BSC decides to throw a little sister party for all their little siblings to show they appreciate them. They feel bad that they never sit at their own houses or something. It’s sweet, I guess. Stacey invites Charlotte (but I don’t think we see her), and Flora and Bettina come. And even though Claudia and Janine were fighting in this episode, Janine hears about it and says she wants to come because Claudia is her little sister. Awe.
- Kristy has a Sherlock hat on while she reads the note out loud at a club meeting. Do you think they just keep that in Claudia’s room so it’s there when they have a mystery to solve? Or maybe Claudia thinks it fashionable? Either way, I find it hysterical that Kristy stopped to put it on before reading the note.
- Of course Bettina and Flora talked again.....what kind of siblings don't fight? And aren’t these girls supposed to be good with kids? They should know a little kid swearing to never talk to her sister doesn’t really mean anything.
- Claudia says Janine talks with big words because she’s preparing for her “college entrance exams?" I guess she means SAT/ACT? I don’t remember anyone ever calling them entrance exams.
- We get a shot of Claudia opening her hollow book to get candy. Yay for a book reference! I really wanted a hollow book as a kid. I kind of still want one.
- Janine tells Claudia having séances are a waste of time, and Claudia says to leave her alone and that she doesn't criticize Janine for loving math. But, she criticizes Janine for being a genius/dork all the time. Janine’s not usually in the room, but it still counts.
- The girls go to the town hall to try and get the names of all the people who lived there before Dawn. They are disappointed to learn that it will take 6 weeks, which actually seems like a quick response to me. That must be a sign of me getting old. But anyway, they also ask if the deed will have the name of children on it, and the clerk says no. Obviously. But the BSC knows one of the kids names from the note. All they’d have to do is take all the last names from former residents and see if they can find any Bettinas with those last names. They don’t do try that though.
- Of course the jeweler actually remembers who they are talking about and makes it easy for them. Seriously, what are the chances? Bettina’s a rare name but we’re talking about 40 years.
- No one remembers what happened to the sister from 40 years ago and the BSC think that means Bettina killed someone. Did it occur to them that if some local girl had gotten killed/gone missing people it would have been news? That’s the kind of thing people remember.
- Flora’s played by Emily Gilmore.
- Claudia starts telling Janine how they found the sisters, but like two thirds of the way through gives up and just says it’s a long story. Once you get that far just finish.
- So, Netflix stopped streaming this show as of June 30th. And I don’t remember seeing any kind of notice this was happening when I watched the last episode at the end of June. I was really annoyed, but then I discovered that Hulu now (or maybe always) has the whole series. I love the internet.
