Paper Girls – Season 1 Episode 2 “Weird Al Is Dead” Recap & Review

Weird Al Is Dead

Episode 2 of Paper Girls starts with the older Erin losing her mind over seeing her younger, 12 year old self in the house. Don’t worry guys, there’s no grandfather paradoxes, butterfly effects or the like here. It’s simple time travel. Try not to think too much about it!

Mac decides they should go back to the capsule and find a way back but KJ thinks they should just call 911 instead. Given there’s an Alexa on the table (nice subtlety there Amazon!) it freaks the kids out.

Erin decides to speak to her older self and try to make sense of what’s happening. 12 year old Erin learns more about her life in the future, including how she’s alone and single. Erin works as a paralegal. After the excitement of what’s transpired, the kids decide to crash at older Erin’s place for the night.

When they all fall asleep, Mac decides to head out and explore more of the town, riding her bike all the way up to her place. Or where her place was anyway. In the future, the whole lot has been knocked down. KJ also shows too and the pair connect over their shared issues.

Meanwhile, the Prioress and her strange alien group find their fallen comrade – the one KJ killed – on the floor. They also find KJ’s hockey stick too, with her name carved in the side. The Prioress has seen enough and decides to torture the other alien teen who helped the kids last episode. She demands to know if KJ is Underground.

In the morning, the older Erin takes the kids out into the woods. The body is nowhere to be seen and KJ’s hockey stick is missing too. Realizing that strange tech Tiffany received is a clue, the group head back into town, where they arrive at a repair shop to try and get it fixed up. There, Erin starts flirting with the clerk. He’s never seen tech like this and tries to work out what it is… only it starts sparking while doing his tests.

Outside, Mac apologizes to Erin for shooting her. She praises the girl, pointing out that Erin is tough and handled it well.

With the repair shop gig a dud, the group head back to older Erin’s, where they discover the internet and decide to research themselves online. Tiffany’s older self is actually in Cleveland and has her own institute. Older Erin decides they should stop but her younger self hits back, pointing out that she’s the worst version of how she could turn out.

Erin has heard enough and decides to leave her older self to wallow in self pity, intending to make it over to Cleveland. Unfortunately they misplace the device, having left it at Erin’s place. However, older Erin plays around with the device, which seems to turn on and activate after scanning her face. Somehow it activates and “arms” itself, with the kids held up in an abandoned mall.

Whilst there, Mac decides she doesn’t want to go home. Her brother is an ER doctor and Mac chooses to go and stay with him rather than returning home.

Meanwhile Prioress heads over to KJ’s place with the hockey stick in hand, determined to get some answers. After killing them (off-screen of course!) she turns on her heels and leaves.

The Episode Review

Paper Girls certainly has the tone and feel of the comics nailed, but this series is definitely taking liberties with the story, having deviated from the source material into a slightly different direction.

There’s nothing wrong with that of course and after such a pulsating opening chapter, this one slows down to actually explore each of the girls and how they’re feeling about their newfound situation. Seeing the girls actually connecting, while embodying their comic counterparts, is great to see and certainly leaves lots of question marks over the direction this one is likely to take.

Of course, this is also the sort of story where you can’t ask too many questions – especially when it comes to time travel. The rules are played with a little hard and fast but there’s enough here to like all the same. Let’s hope the story gets back in line with the source material.