The Curious sits on a roof and watches as a girl, Esme, arrives for her babysitting job. The narrator warns that if you commit to a job you must do it properly; implying something bad happened to Esme because she didn't.
Esme, a teenage babysitter, acts very professional around parents of the children she looks after, but when with the children of her clients, she is very different. When left alone with the Tuthills' twin daughters, Esme tells them a scary story. She uses her boyfriend, Chaz, to dress up and scare the kids; frightening them into going to bed early so that she can get rid of them. With the children in bed, Esme and Chaz hang out all night and eat all the food in the house. Esme subsequently babysits for a new family, the Thornes. Their son Ashley catches her raiding the fridge and demands ice cream. Chaz and Esme pull their monster story routine, but Ashley laughs and thinks they're trying to amuse him. Esme orders Ashley to go to bed, but he warns that Kindlesticks won't like her being mean to him. He says that Kindlesticks protects children, and is now getting mad at Esme and Chaz. However, Esme and Chaz don't believe him.
Esme and Chaz get Ashley to go to bed, and watch TV together. However, Esme is disappointed that Chaz is texting his friend Patty Peterson rather than paying attention to her and the movie. They soon realise someone else is sitting on the sofa with them, tormenting Chaz and eating their food. Esme thinks it's Ashley, but when she goes up to his room, the lights in the house flicker. Esme threatens Ashley, but hears Chaz yelling downstairs. He has seen something moving in the garden, and felt someone pulling his hair. The piano starts to play by itself, and a plate smashes against the wall. Ashley says that Kindlesticks wants to play, just as a giant projection of a spider (which Chaz is scared of) appears on the ceiling. Chaz runs screaming out of the house. The door locks behind him and the word KINDLESTICKS appears on the wall.
Esme asks Ashley what she has to do to stop Kindlesticks, and Ashley says Kindlesticks wants to play with her. Esme tries to call 911, but the power in the house goes out. Kindlesticks disables her phone, bringing up pictures of the terrified faces of other kids she sat for. Ashley says that Kindlesticks has now decided to make Esme pay. Esme and Ashley hide in a closet, but Kindlesticks opens the door, and Ashley disappears. She hears his voice calling far off, but can't see him. Ashley shouts to her that Kindlesticks doesn't think she deserves him back. Esme sarcastically asks if Kindlesticks wants her to say she's a bad babysitter, but Ashley warns "that's the wrong answer." Kindlesticks' red eyes appear above her, and Esme breaks down; admitting that she just wanted to impress Chaz, the kids she babysits for didn't deserve to be scared and that before him other boys turned her down. The lights come back on and Ashley reveals himself as Kindlesticks in a costume, using lasers as eyes. He says he'd heard about Esme from other kids at school and decided to teach her a lesson, so he staged an elaborate prank to scare her.
Ashley and Esme make up and he goes to bed. When his parents get home, they invite her to babysit again and compliment her on a brilliant job as they state their daughter, Ashley, is sleeping peacefully and usually they struggle to get her to bed. Esme panics, realising that the child she has been sitting for all night is not Ashley. As she goes down the stairs, the male "Ashley" (really Kindlesticks) stares back at her with glowing red eyes.
Subsequently, The Curious retrieves Kindlesticks' laser projectors from a garbage can outside the house.
This episode contains examples of:
- Babysitter from Hell: Esme, who scares children with a story about a monster who will not go away unless they go to bed. To make matters worse, she has her boyfriend dress up as said monster to scare the children.
- Babysitting Episode: The episode centres around Esme babysitting Ashley.
- Closet Shuffle: Esme and Ashley hide in the closet for a little bit.
- The Ending Changes Everything: The Wham Line of Ashley being a girl instead of the boy in the fox pajamas makes Esme realize who was torturing her all night.
- Domestic Abuser: Zigzagged. Chaz is emotionally distant toward Esme and doesn't act as if he was her boyfriend at all. It's implied their relationship is a popularity stunt but it's left unclear what the exact agreement was. Esme is clearly attracted to Chaz and likes him as a boyfriend, though it's unclear if Chaz holds any real affection for Esme. Esme is willing to put up with his indifference and meanness if it means he will stay with her. Chaz is shown texting Patty Peterson while he's supposed to be spending time with Esme, and Esme worries when she notices this. It's unknown if Chaz is trying to make Esme jealous by using Patty, but he clearly is the dominant force in the relationship. Esme acts mean to try and have more in common with Chaz, and to make up for her insecurities.
- Enfant Terrible: Ashley is an awful kid, even before Kindlesticks appears.
- Gender-Blender Name: Esme's charge is a boy named Ashley. This actually foreshadows the reveal at the end that Kindlesticks was real; when the parents come home, they refer to Ashley as a girl.
- Insecure Love Interest: Esme seems to be this for Chaz. She admits that no one ever really liked her and was acting mean just so she had some love.
- Jerkass with a Heart of Gold: Esme is lazy and perhaps a bit vain, but she was only being cruel because she was trying to impress her boyfriend, who is just a complete Jerkass. She has admitted that she just wants to be loved and is simply insecure.
- Handsome Lech: Chaz. He is dating a pretty girl who is willing to put up with him ignoring her because she loves him so much. He’s also friends with another pretty girl, Patty Peterson, who may or may not have a crush on him, and who Chaz may or may not be manipulating. It's implied he and Esme are only dating for popularity, but that she has genuine affection for him.
- Non-Malicious Monster: While it goes to great lengths to terrify Esme, Kindlesticks was only trying to teach her a lesson and is never shown attempting to hurt her physically.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Esme sees Kindlesticks, who has been causing chaos during the night, he is shown to have red eyes.
- Shared Universe:
- Chaz is shown to be friends with Patty Peterson from the episode "Slapstick". Esme appears to be enemies with Patty because she doesn't like Chaz texting other girls.
- Ashley's parents have an account at Zucco's Pizzeria and went to a Zucco's restaurant as a night out, which is why they hired Esme to babysit. Esme also mentioned her mother works at Zucco's. It was mentioned in "Trolled", a receipt from Zucco's was seen on Kim's fridge in "Marti" and the family restaurant Kiera and Marcy's family owned in "No Filter" was called Zucco's.
- Shout-Out: The eponymous creature shares a number of traits with Hozir, a similar entity from The Tales from the Crypt comics, who also features in an episode of Tales from the Cryptkeeper. Both being supernatural entities that are extremely protective of the children under their care, who take revenge on the kids behalf.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Esme resolves to be nicer after her encounter with Kindlesticks.
- Wham Line: "She looks so peaceful." Revealing that the boy Esme was with all night wasn't Ashley and that Kindlesticks is very real.
