The Case of the Curious New Girl
"The Case of the Curious New Girl" is the premiere episode of the Australian Children's mockumentary comedy drama television series The InBESTigators. Directed by Wayne Hope and written by Robyn Butler, it originally aired on ABC Me on June 21, 2019 only in Australia and New Zealand,[1] being released on Netflix worldwide on August 9, 2019 along with the other episodes of the first season.[2] In this episode, a 11 years-old boy named Ezra Banks takes the job of taking care of the new student, Maudie Miller, and gets fascinated by her cleverness when she solves a school robbery, causing the two, along with Ava Andrikides and Kyle Klimson, to form The Inbestigators Detective Agency.[3]
| "The Case of the Curious New Girl" | |
|---|---|
| The InBESTigators episode | |
 Title card. | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | Wayne Hope |
| Written by | Robyn Butler |
| Original air date | June 21, 2019 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
Zane Slater as Billy | |
The episode was filmed at Moorabbin Primary School in Moorabbin, Victoria, featuring guest appearance of Zane Slater as Billy, a not-good soccer player that steals Ava's money to buy soccer boots for participating in the soccer tournament along with Kyle's team. Anna Cooke, Aston Droomer, Abby Bergman and Jamil Smyth-Secka stars the episode as the main characters of the series. It serves as the beginning of the series. Critical acclaim for the episode was positive, as it was considered "funny". Its cast and performance were also acclaimed by critics.
Plot
The episode begins when a boy starts to record a video with his cell phone connected to a device that moves him to be able to film it. The boy introduces himself as Ezra Banks (Aston Droomer), who welcomes his account of a story that happened last Wednesday, where he begins with Ezra having an urgent favour with the principal of the school where he studies, Mr. McGillick (James Saunders), in which he calls him by his fore name, Henry, however, Mr McGillick refuses to be called Henry, but by his working name, where he asks what Ezra wants with him.
Ezra then asks Mr. McGillick if he can borrow the school's credit card to buy website software that costs $75, but again refuses. Soon, Ezra tries to change his mind by offering to redo the school's official website, however, Mr. McGillick refuses the request as part of his thousand refusals, where Ezra corrects that he said this 900 times, at most. Ezra's mother decides to talk to Mr McGillick to give her son a special project that estimulates him. Soon, Ezra gives several suggestions for a special project for Mr McGillick, however, he refuses all proposals, saying that he had already decided on a special project for the boy, which is taking care of the new student at the school, which shocked Ezra, without believing, and at the same time thinking that it is not a good special project for him.
At the playground, Ezra looks for the new student, but he doesn't see her. Soon, he meets his friend, Ava, selling cupcakes in the pebble garden, where he says she sets up various events to raise money for school, where Ava says that the goal of her new cupcake stand is to raise enough money to buy a space where children can leave their bikes. Ezra agrees to buy a cupcake, and then talks about the new student, where Ava says her name is Maudie Miller and thought she was really cool, so she didn't know her. Ava then decides to save her a cupcake for free as soon as she meets her, so Ezra decides to check in the living room to see if she is there, and when he leaves, he takes a hefty head. Ezra then says that a ball in his head means that it is the work of Kyle Klimson, one of his friends, so no one, even Ezra himself, does not know the reason for their friendship, where he accidentally throws several balls in his head, at any time, including in the classroom or in the playground.
However, Kyle denies it was him this time, but Billy, where Kyle trains with the boys in Ezra's classroom, inculcating Billy, who is in the other fifth year. Billy apologizes to Ezra, saying he had slipped in the mud, because everyone else wears cleats, except for him, because his mom will only give him cleats until he is good at football, but because of that, he can't, where Kyle warns that next week, the teams for the championship will take place and he won't be able to enter if he doesn't have a boot, which makes Billy sad. Ezra says that he told Billy that he was never chosen for any football team, however, he did not say that he did not participate in any selection for any team. To cheer him up, Kyle decides to buy him a cupcake. He goes to Ava's stall and orders two cupcakes, and Ava asks if he has any money, where Kyle denies it and says he wants to buy without money, so Ava remembers that he had done it several times when she was selling other things besides cupcakes and he didn't pay later, so Kyle says he wants to buy just one cupcake, however, Ava refuses to give him a cupcake until she gets paid, where Kyle keeps arguing with her trying to convince her.
Meanwhile, Ezra, when he arrives in the room, sees no one, so he decides to pick up his favorite book containing mystery puzzles and starts reading, and soon sees that the police realise that the thief is a man and his name is Craig, and they go to a house where they find a carpenter, a driver, a bricklayer and a mechanic playing cards and arrest the bricklayer, but Ezra wonders why. Soon, a girl appears entering the window, saying that the mason was the only man, where the others were women, and then, when Ezra decides to look at the book, he realizes that what she said was also in the book, where he is impressed, and Ezra finally sees that she is the new student, Maudie, and she soon speaks his name, because it is written in his backpack, and Ezra asks if she read the book, but she denies it, which creates doubts for Ezra, since she knew the answer to the riddle and soon after, Ezra asks why Maudie entered the room through the window, since he never saw anyone do it, where she promises to use the door. So, Ezra decides to start guiding her at the request of the director, and when he is going to do that, Maudie was gone, which shocked Ezra.
Soon after, Ava arrives in the room with the purpose of meeting Maudie, however, when she arrives, she sees Ezra, where he explains that she had entered and left through the window, which leaves Ava confused. Ava then decides to look in the park and asks Ezra to keep an eye on her things, where Ava throws her can of money and ends up falling on Ezra's feet, where Ezra started to think that, for Ava's can be so heavy, she would have sold many cupcakes. So Ezra leaves the can in the drawer and he decides to find out how Maudie solved the puzzle so quickly without a doubt, then he picks up the book again and when he starts reading the charade again, a ball hits the book, as if Ezra was a ball magnet.
That means nothing more and nothing less than Kyle, as always. When Kyle gets there, he asks if Maudie is very good at sports. A while later, Ava called Mr. McGillick to help her find Maudie, and the two go to the classroom, where the principal refuses to make a missing child report, however, Ava shows that the last time they saw it when she left the window, which leaves Mr. McGillick confused, and Maudie appears saying that she left to enter the room through the door, and Ava, completely happy, embraces her. Ava introduces herself to Maudie and when she says she saved a cupcake for her, she starts the question about her can of money, Ezra shows her where she left it, but it is no longer there.
Maudie then decides to ask what the can was like, where she describes with all possible steps, how she looks (an owl riding a bike) and also because she has a lot of money, which makes Ezra show her swelling as a result of she threw the can of money at him, where Ava explains that it was 80 dollars and sold 38 cupcakes, raising 76 dollars and left two for her and Maudie, where Kyle says she raised 42 dollars, which shows that Kyle not very good at math, where Ezra corrects him, and then Kyle interrupts saying he has to focus on stealing Ava's can, and she accuses him of the fact that he forgot to pay for everything he had taken for free, however, Ezra proves his innocence by saying that he was with him all the time, making Ava apologize, and Ezra says he was with the can the whole time.
Soon, everyone started looking at him. Mr. McGillick then began to think that Ezra took the money can from Ava to buy the $75 website software. Ezra then started to panic, swearing he didn't take the can, Ava started to defend him, but at the same time started to suspect him, where Mr. McGillick asks Ezra to give him his backpack so he can look, causing Ezra to conclude that Mr. McGillick thought he was a thief. Kyle begins to defend Ezra, saying that he would never steal anything from anyone, and when he picks up the backpack, he reveals Ava's can of money, which shocked her and left Ezra with more panic. Maudie disagrees that it was Ezra because his backpack was already open, where he then decides to ask Ava questions about what she knew about the can.
Ezra found this very strange, since the director let Ava tell everything about her cupcake stand, how she set up and sold several cupcakes, Kyle and Ezra told about Billy and the cleats, and Ava told about when Ezra left and Kyle showed up to convince her to give him a cupcake so he could pay later, and also when Miss Tan called them to help collect the papers that were flying away from the wind, where everyone went to help, except Billy, who was in fifth grade B, and pretended that no one was calling him. Afterwards, Ava said that she decided to go to the living room to meet Maudie, but she found Ezra there, she left and left Ezra taking care of the can, which seemed to be full of stones. Maudie then asks Ezra to show him where he put the can, and when he does, he remembers that Kyle had hit him with a ball, which must have hit the shelf and made it move enough to fall into Ezra's bag, which proves that Ezra did not take the money. Ava is happy to see that no one has taken her money, but Maudie claims that someone had taken it, and then, when Ava opens it, a pile of pebbles appears, which really proves that the can was full of stones.
Ava asks who was responsible, where Maudie says it was someone who needed to buy something, who is not Ezra, but someone who wanted cleats. This reminds Kyle of Billy, where Maudie says he was desperate after Kyle said he could only enter the league if he had cleats, so when everyone went to help Miss Tan, Billy took the opportunity to take Ava's money and replaced it with pebbles. Ava is angry to see that Billy has ruined plans to open a bike space, and Mr McGillick decides to go talk to Billy, and thanks Maudie, who was responsible for discovering the truth. This gave Ezra an idea for a much better project. Ezra states his intention to set up an investigative agency, and Maudie accepts, including Kyle and Ava, where the latter suggests that they should have an office with a sign showing the agency's logo.
Ezra says that the office can be in the granny flat, where his grandmother stays while she visits him. The four decide to think of a name that is quite catchy, and they decide to name the agency as "The InBESTigators", where Kyle describes it as an agency that solves crimes and gets paid, and the same asks what their name is. Ezra, during the report, shows the outside of the agency's office, and he realizes that the sign is backwards. Mr. McGillick loved the idea of the project and Ezra decides to welcome him to the first case report of the inbestigators, and then, Ezra calls the Ava saying that she can make the sign, and the episode ends.
References
- "Airdate: The Inbestigators". tvtonight.com.au. 6 June 2018. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
- "Netflix New Releases: August 2019". Hollywood Reporter. Kelsey Lentz. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- "ABC greenlights 'The InBESTigators'". if.com.au. 29 June 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2018.