Burping Trash Hole
Episode 7 of “Paper Girls” starts with Tiffany watching her own graduation video from 1994. This is significant because it shows that the characters are stuck in the same time period for at least seven years. This is significant because it means that Mac doesn’t have to worry about her schoolwork during this time. ..
Tiffany takes her younger self out for coffee to have a reality check. When Tiffany makes it to MIT and gets into college, it’s not going to be anything like she thought. Tiffany is going to be so focused on the future, living for the approval of others, that she’ll miss out on family time and regret it.
Tiffany completely shrugs off the news of her adoption until she learns it on their sophomore year. Apparently, Tiffany learns this news on their second year, but Tiffany has a head start on this so she can get her headspace right for what’s to come. But then, wouldn’t that interfere with the timeline completely? If Tiffany knows this information before it happens and chooses a different path in line, wouldn’t that diverge the timeline as it is? See what happens when you mess with the source material! ..
Anyway, Mac’s birthday is actually July 5th. KJ and Mac celebrate by going to the cemetery to visit her grave and finding out the date she died. They also celebrate by dropping flowers at her grave on her birthday.
While KJ and Mac talk, they accidentally cross paths with Alice. When she breaks down crying, the kids find an excuse to take off and head back to the house without changing the timeline too much.
Larry arrives at Tiffany’s place and urges Erin to come with him. Before she does, Erin reveals how he’s going to die. Now, again, wouldn’t this mess up the timeline in the future?
Anyway, Erin noticed her own bike in the back of Larry’s truck and realized this could well be the folding bike she was looking for. She convinced Larry to take her back up to the farm to take a closer look. ..
In their absence, the two Tiffanys head back home. Tiffany is livid at her older self for revealing the truth and points out that her carefree party-life is just a phase. She also breaks the news that she’s going to have an Institute in the future. Tiffany demands her older self go to MIT again… but it turns out she actually got expelled, which is why she can’t return.
When they learn Erin has taken off, the two Tiffanys decide to rush down to the farm, where they find that the pink sky is still belching out various bits of debris. I’m struggling to see how no one else in the community has actually noticed this, but we’re so far removed from the source material, now playing hard and fast with time travel rules too, that it hardly matters by this point. ..
The 1988 hockey stick and Tiffany’s walkie are among the items that have been found in the ground recently. There is a bigger problem afoot because many people have reconnected and are looking over the different items from that year.
A probe from the Old Watch has been found stuck under a metal bucket in the kitchen. If the Old Watch knows where the kids are, that means they’re in trouble. ..
The Old Watch have their own HQ which is called the Cathedral. This is a mobile HQ that oversees the whole timeline. The only way out is to run. After destroying the probe, it seems this is exactly what the kids are going to do.
The Episode Review
Paper Girls is one of the most exciting and fast-paced graphic novels out there. The way the plot moves and the shocking twists and turns at the end of every chapter make it a must-read for any fan of comics. Seeing the kids in 1999, turning the page and noticing a huge robot towering over everything, is one of many memorable segments in that book. ..
We’ve seen very little about The Old Watch, who have all but disappeared since the plot has turned to 1999. Not only that but we have numerous instances of our kids interacting with different people and potentially changing the timeline. There’s no Butterfly effect, grandfather paradox or any of the myriad of other time travel entanglements being explored here, but yet we’re led to believe the kids can’t interfere with the events that have happened…even though they are. It really muddies what the exact rules are here.
Larry tells Erin about his death date, for example, and she could cause him to rethink heading to 1999 and if he’s really that selfish, wouldn’t be change it to 1998 and thus, completely change the timeline? And that’s before mentioning that Larry isn’t even in the books! These tiny changes, and not being consistent with the worldbuilding, are great examples of how quickly this story can get out of control.
Paper Girls is an excellent show, but it suffers from budgetary constraints. The visuals are good, but not as good as they could be. There are no giant dinosaurs, the pink portal in the sky looks bad, and there are too many simple shots. ..
However, with the Old Watch potentially knowing where they are now, could we see a big dramatic conclusion to this story? We’ll have to wait and see. ..
