Bell Park is 12 years old. She wants to be a private detective when she grows up. She loves to spend time with her best friend Cassidy and she likes how fast her heart beats when she's near her.

Bell Park is in her early 20s. She is a private detective and she's struggling to make ends meet. She just broke things off with her girlfriend in a sort of self-loathing fueled impulse. And she's just been given a case from her childhood crush/first heartbreak Cassidy.

Together, they solve crime.

It just works. The core gimmick of Bell maneuvering an emotionally weird case while trying to wrangle her younger self is just a great avenue for comedy AND emotional drama. It captures a general odd clash of managing gender and sexuality in your 20s vs being a kid and just wanting to understand your base attractions. It works!

The mystery itself isn't very complicated and also not that interesting, but its sort of that way by design. The lives of the heterosexuals you're investigating are just so much dumber and more straight-forward than you could possibly imagine. Investigating their shit just exposes how shallow the pool really is. At the same time, it also acts as a good awakening for both Bell Parks. The world doesn't have to be as complicated as it is in their heads. Little Bell's initial rejection of what Adult Bell represents is gradually eroded with the realization that this taboo she's afraid of can be fulfilling and happy in a way she couldn't imagine. Adult Bell, wracked with self-doubt and overthinking things, can finally recognize how simplistic the answers to things can be. The one complicating things is ultimately just herself. And that's freeing too.

Its a coming of age story in so many nuanced ways. And it just works.

Reviewed on Mar 28, 2023


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