Time Bandits – Episode 8 “Home Again” Recap & Review

Home Again

Episode 8 of Time Bandits starts with Widgit using the map to travel back through time but a few minutes before everything has happened. Kevin is convinced that the past can be changed (although we’ve already seen this with the cavepeople right?) and they show up at a party… right out the fridge.

Everyone in the house are nonchalant to Saffron and Kevin appearing as they do, but the people inside alert them to the right direction. While they head out, a future Penelope shows through another portal, warning her earlier self to be careful and that they need to go immediately. Widgit gives his earlier-self some advice that he needs to let “time fold”, whatever that means.

Kevin and Saffron show up back at Bingley…but it’s 1996. This is obviously nearly 30 years before they existed. Kevin shows up at his dad’s place and they begin playing Gameboy together. The pair connect, with a good chat as Kevin realizes how hard his granddad was on his dad in the past.

As for Saffron, she goes off to see her mum and obviously she’s not going to remember anything but Saff speaks about her and Kevin’s exploits in the past, apologizing for the pranks.

While this is happening, Pure Evil happens to be watching from his lair and notices Kevin nearby. He decides to awaken Fianna in this time period to go after him.

The Bandits arrive at the same party as Kevin and Saffron, with nobody mentioning anything about the fridge again, and they set out to try and find Kevin. Bittelig gets a clue from the locals to head over to the shopping center; Fianna heads there too after blasting the front door.

The gang evade Fianna to begin with but Alto finds himself face to face with the demon at the shopping center. Saffron sneaks out the house and eventually decides to steal her mum. It’s only a brief moment though as Fianna soon shows and action ensues. The group all convene at the shopping center inside the record store. There’s more than one Fianna and while they beat down Bittelig, the rest of the group head to the starting area again.

This time, Widgit understands how the map works but the group basically repeat their same statement. When our group arrive in the Ice Age time again, they find the lumps of coal gone from the bag.

When a sabre-toothed tiger attacks, it suddenly freezes in mid-air, as Pure Evil takes control. He’s heard of the bandits and points out that they have the map and their leader (Kevin, not Penelope) is to hand it over. In exchange for this, Kevin and Saffron will get their parents back. They’re still alive and it seems like time was changed. Their influences to the past are enough for Mike and Lisa to rewrite history. They decided to comply immediately with Fianna rather than fighting against her, which saved their lives.

However, the only way to get them back is to save their parents from the fortress of darkness. After finally saying goodbye to the ice age guys, they head to the fortress themselves… only there’s a problem. It turns out a chunk of the map is missing. So now they need to get that chunk back before they do anything else. Will they succeed? We’ll have to wait and see…

The Episode Review

As we reach near the end of this comedy, Time Bandits has been a proper mixed bag. If you’ve enjoyed the humour so far, it’s likely that you’ll be really invested in this, and I have to say these later episodes have been a bit better with the timing of jokes. They’re not as dragged out a they have been across the earlier chapters, but the show is certainly not going to win any awards when it comes to being laugh out loud funny.

On that same note, the plot is now contradicting itself and basically broken the worldbuilding in a pretty big way. We saw in the last episode that Saffron has changed history by having the Neanderthals learn slang English thousands of years before they’re supposed to. But that doesn’t change history, while Kevin and the gang being in the desert with Mansu Masa also doesn’t change anything. But yet, speaking to their parents rewrites a huge part of their history? It just feels like very convenient writing and it’s rather sloppy.

Of course, all of this is a far cry from the original movie, which is far superior in terms of quality and production.