What a way to open the series! Amazon Prime Video’s first episode of Paper Girls introduced us to their adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang‘s graphic novel series. In the second episode, “Weird Al is Dead,” the girls try to figure out how to get back to their time, and a mysterious woman is hunting them down.
DISCLAIMER: This is a recap and, by definition, will include spoilers. So, if you want to go into this series blind, we highly suggest bookmarking this page and coming back later. Paper Girls can be found on Amazon Prime Video.
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“Weird Al is Dead” opens where episode one left off, older Erin (Ali Wong) is freaking out over the idea that younger Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) and her three friends (who she claims she never had) are in her house. The similarities in her freak-out and younger Erin’s makes it pretty clear they are the same person. Mac (Sofia Rosinsky) and Tiff (Camryn Jones) try to share their theories, but nothing makes sense. KJ (Fina Strazza) is still worried about the man she might have killed.
Things are made worse (and a tad bit funnier for us) when they trigger an Alexa-type device, and it seems like the AI is rising against them. Of course, during this entire conversation, the older Erin is listening in, and we can only imagine what she thinks this is all about. Eventually, young Erin spots a memorial for her mother and rushes off to find the older Erin. Mac realizes what sent Erin running but doesn’t follow them upstairs.
There, young Erin tries to get older Erin to talk to her. They talk about what happened with their mother and sister, Missy. It seems like Erin’s life hasn’t gone according to plan, and hearing her say, “are you happy?” is a loaded question hits way too close to home. Older Erin asks her younger self why she is covered in blood, and the reaction is priceless. At first, it felt like the way they were handling this whole “I’m you, and you’re me and time travel is a thing” situation well and then it’s made clear that all of this is freaking them out. Older Erin gets the girls prepped for the night, and I gotta say, we love pickles too.
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“Weird Al is Dead” jumps to the mysterious woman (Adina Porter) we saw at the end of the last episode. She is searching the woods and finds the man KJ killed. One of the others mentions something about “Grand Father,” but we don’t know what that means. And then she finds KJ’s lacrosse stick, and it seems as if she recognizes the name. But how does she know who KJ is? And what could this mean for the girls?
Back at the house, Tiff and KJ try to comfort Erin about her mom. She then explains the Chinese traditions for in-home memorials. The conversation turns to the idea that all of their parents might be dead. And that Weird Al might even be dead. (News flash – in our universe, he is still very much alive.) The conversation swaps to pets, and the mood lightens. However, Mac doesn’t seem to want any part of it.
Upstairs, older Erin is trying to come to terms with everything while giving herself a pep talk. Put those positive vibes out into the universe. Everything is going to be okay. At least, we think it will be. Downstairs, Mac sneaks out and takes a ride downtown. Welcome to the present day, and surprise, there is an Amazon Bookstore. She heads to her childhood home, which is now just a pile of rubble.
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While she is hanging out on a picnic table looking over the remains of her home, KJ sneaks up to check on her. The two talk about how much has changed in the town and who may or may not still be alive. The conversation swings back to Mac making comments about KJ’s family and referring to them as “those people” taking jobs and “those people” controlling money. “Those people” is a reference to Jews. This sets KJ off, and she shares that not only was her grandmother a survivor of the Holocaust but that she was also bullied for being Jewish in school.
“Weird Al is Dead” jumps back to the mysterious woman in 1988. She found one of the men who had attacked the girls. She wants to know how who this KJ person is. It seems that she didn’t recognize the name at all. She refers to him and his friends as the “teenagers,” and we are starting to see that there must be two different factions of time travelers at war.
Back in the present day, young Erin gets older Erin up and asks her to take them to where they arrived at. When they get there, the blood, the guy and KJ’s stick are missing. Older Erin pulls out her phone, which Tiff geeks out over before realizing it’s exactly like the thing she was given before they ran off the night before. However, it’s broken, and older Erin agrees to take them to get it fixed.
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At the store, KJ and Tiff look through all the new tech while older Erin waits for help. Tiff worries that older Erin might not be the right person to help them with this job. Maybe now would be a good time to call future Tiff to get some assistance. Outside, Mac and young Erin chat about the changes. Mac feels free because she knows she didn’t get sucked into the life her mother did, while young Erin feels like something must have gone so wrong, and she needs to change it. Mac also apologizes for shooting Erin.
Back inside, older Erin meets with the rep, and it’s clear he was someone she went on a date with. We love Ali Wong in an awkward situation. The guy tries to fix it but only makes it worse. This freaks out Tiff, who doesn’t know how she will get home now. KJ tries to calm her down, but Tiff continues to freak out. Older Erin decides that now is the best time to find the rest of their counterparts since they might be able to help them more than she can.
“Weird Al is Dead” returns to older Erin’s house, where she uses the internet to look each of them up. She lets Tiff and Mac take over the computer and decides to chat with KJ for a bit. She gets her to open up about what happened in the woods. KJ doesn’t understand why it was her who attacked him and not one of the others. She wants to know what drove her to it but can’t figure it out. Older Erin tries to make her feel better, and the two start talking about baseball, but younger Erin jumps in a calls her older self out for not even liking the sport.
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Tiff eventually finds herself, and she is in Cleveland. But older Erin needs them to take a beat before they go running off to a major city. This leads to both Erins fighting over what has happened in their lives. Younger Erin can’t understand what could have possibly happened that stopped her from being elected to congress and getting married and having kids. Clearly, the older Erin must have screwed up somewhere along the way, and the younger Erin needs to get back to the past and fix all of this.
Older Erin hits her with the truth that she quit the paper route after one day on the job and that she never became more than the “new girl” to the other three. They aren’t friends now and never were. So if she has anyone to blame for how she turned out, it would be her younger self. This leads younger Erin to round up the rest and head off to find anyone else to help them with their problem. During their walk, Mac tries to make Erin feel better by reminding her that her life could have been worse.
They realize they don’t even have the needed device, but Erin and Mac refuse to turn around. Back at the house, older Erin is cleaning up when she comes across it. She gets it to turn on, and some weird AI things (even for the future) start to go off. Somehow she gets the thing to arm and then heads off to find the girls who have snuck into the old mall. They reminisce about what the mall used to be like. This leads to another argument about Mac’s lack of money and how her life is worse than everyone. She reminds them that they aren’t friends and has no intention of going back.
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While she was at older Erin’s house, she looked up her brother and learned that he is an ER doctor in town. Mac plans to go live with him until she can get on her feet in this new world. Everyone else thinks they should try to stick together, but Mac doesn’t want to – they aren’t invited. KJ tries to get Erin to let her go, and Mac taunts her about killing that man before leaving them behind.
“Weird Al is Dead” comes to a close as the mysterious woman, who calls herself Karen, arrives at a couple’s house and asks about the field hockey stick. They recognize it but tell her it’s impossible that her kids found it in the woods. It turns out that the couple are KJ’s parents in the future. “Karen” does something to them that leaves the house lights glowing purple inside before leaving and walking off.
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Who I Am: A nerd by the strictest definition. I enjoy diving straight into my favorite fandoms without a care in the world. I live on video/board games, fantasy movies and TV, and all things geeky.
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