Judge Me Tender

Bridget Perkins is caught off guard when her ten-year-old brother Wyatt comes home from his very first visit to church acting a little different. That evening, when the family sits down for their weekly guilty pleasure, a silly reality show called Spoiled Brat Flat, Wyatt announces that he doesn't want to watch it anymore because the people on it have such negative attitudes. He also apologizes, out of the blue, for taking his mom's lipstick and offers to replace it with his allowance money. Bridget is annoyed. One trip to church, she grumbles, and suddenly Wyatt thinks he is the morality police.

The next day at Wyatt's birthday party at Whit's End, Bridget's mom nudges her, since she hasn't made any friends since the family moved to Odyssey, toward the girl handing out cake: Jules, Connie Kendall's younger sister. To Bridget's surprise, the two hit it off instantly. They both prefer pie to cake, both find ten-year-old boys exhausting, and both love Spoiled Brat Flat, especially rooting against a whiny contestant named Brad. Jules invites Bridget to come watch the show at her house. But when Connie finds them chatting in the library and sends Jules off to clean up wrapping paper, Bridget overhears Connie ask a question that sounds like "Why are you hanging out with her?" She goes home convinced that Connie doesn't like her and thinks she's a bad influence because she doesn't go to church.

At Jules's house, Connie announces that a girl named Kristen from church will be joining them for dinner. Kristen turns out to be unlike anyone Bridget has ever met. She offers a long, flowery blessing over the meal, comes from a farm family with fourteen brothers and sisters, nearly all with names starting with K, and cheerfully explains that her job is milking the cows. Bridget can hardly believe she's real, joking that dinner feels like eating with Colonial Williamsburg.

Up in Jules's room afterward, Bridget suggests a game: everyone must confess the worst thing they've ever done. Bridget admits that at thirteen she secretly drove her mom's car to an ice cream shop and nearly got in two accidents. Jules confesses she once shoplifted a necklace on a dare and still has it, price tag and all. But Kristen's worst deed is oversleeping, lying about milking the cows, and then repenting and milking them that same afternoon. Bridget refuses to accept it. Insisting that nobody is really that squeaky clean, she pelts Kristen with mocking questions about bedtimes and campfire sing-alongs until Kristen leaves in tears. Connie, discovering what happened, tells Bridget to go home.

Jules chases Bridget down the street, where Bridget pours out her feelings of being judged and brings up what she heard in the library. Jules sets her straight: Connie actually asked why Jules was hanging out in the library when she was needed at the party. Then Jules delivers the hard truth: "The only one who's judging people is you." When Bridget apologizes, Jules tells her she's saying it to the wrong person.

Bridget meets with Connie and Kristen and sincerely apologizes. To her surprise, Connie says she genuinely likes Bridget, who loves her family, sticks up for her brother, and holds down a job. Kristen explains that her visit had nothing to do with Bridget at all; her mom had been arranging for weeks for her to meet Jules, who shares her interest in music. Connie then tells a story from her own teenage years, when she spent a whole restaurant meal fuming at a woman who seemed to be staring judgmentally at her outfit, only to watch the woman stand up, take out her walking stick and sunglasses, and leave. She was blind. Connie's point lands gently: "If you search hard enough for judgmental people, you'll find them," even where they don't exist. The real question is why Bridget is searching so hard.

In the end, Bridget and Jules make popcorn at the Perkins house, where Jules privately admits that living with Connie makes her a better person just by watching her. Then the whole family, Wyatt included, gathers to try out a new show, one about blindfolded janitors, popsicle sticks, duct tape, and a python in a toilet. Wyatt, delighted, declares, "This is gonna win awards!"