Amazon’s Paper Girls season 1, episode 6 recap: Matinee

Throughout season1 of Paper Girls, we’ve seen older versions of just about every member of the paper girls. But at the end of the last episode, it was finally time to track down an older Tiff to see if she can help them get back to 1988.

Surprisingly, given everything we’ve been led to believe about Tiff, and where her life is headed, the girls track her down to a rave party. Tiff runs into the older version of herself and explains the entire situation.

Older Tiff seems to take the whole thing in stride pretty well. She comments on the scientific end of how things must have happened in order for four girls from 1988 to go to 2019 and then end up in 1999.

Tiff has clearly been studying in the years between the 1988 version and the 1999 version. All four girls go to Older Tiff’s apartment to sleep for the night.

Paper Girls Season 1 Episode 6 recap – Striking out on their own…

In the morning the group splits up as everybody sets out to do their own thing. KJ, after having watched her older self kiss someone who was clearly her girlfriend, travels to the Kubrick film festival that she learned about in the last episode.

She watches 2001: A Space Odyssey, but she also watches the older version of herself, sitting with Lauren, her girlfriend. After the movie, while Older KJ is in the bathroom, Younger KJ approaches Lauren and asks her how she knew.

How did she know that she was someone who liked…movies? Lauren gets the subtext of the question and offers a loving and caring answer to Younger KJ, while still responding as if the question was truly about being a cinephile.

In an effort to keep things from getting even more complicated, Younger KJ ducks out before she can be seen by her older self. Erin and Mac spend the day together and check in on Erin’s family by spying on them from the bushes.

Erin is clearly still in shock from having watched the adult version of herself die in a giant robot battle. She bemoans to Mac that she can’t understand what Erin is going through, because Erin now knows when she will die.

This of course isn’t true, as Mac has learned that she’s scheduled to die of brain cancer in the next four years or so. She continues to keep that from the rest of the group, telling Erin that she was a veterinarian in 2019.

Paper Girls Season 1 Episode 6 recap – Larry’s return…

As for Tiff and Older Tiff, they get to work trying to decipher Larry’s journal to figure out when the next opening will happen for the girls to be able to get back home. Unfortunately, the code Larry has used needs a key and they can’t get the key from Larry because he’s dead.

Fortunately, this is a television show about time travel, and while 2019 Larry may be dead, 1999 Larry is still alive and on his farm. The two Tiff’s confront Larry, and prove to him that they know everything about the Time War, the Old Guard and all of the ins and outs of time travel.

Younger Tiff also yells at Larry for betraying her and the rest of the paper girls in the future. Larry gives the Tiffs the code to be able to decipher his journal.

He asks how he can contact them if he needs them again. Younger Tiff refuses, but Older Tiff quickly lets him know how they can be contacted. Back at Older Tiff’s apartment the two Tiffs set about cracking the code on the notebook.

But much to their dismay, the next opportunity to get back to 1988 won’t happen for seven years. Meanwhile, on the roof, KJ apologizes to Mac for punching her in the face.

KJ almost comes out to Mac, but Mac interrupts her friend by telling her that she’s doomed to die of brain cancer at sixteen. Mac tells KJ that she can’t tell any of the other paper girls.

Meanwhile back on Larry’s farm, a familiar pink storm kicks up and out of the sky falls several newspapers from 1988, as well as a bike that looks suspiciously like the bicycle of a newspaper delivery girl from 1988, as the show comes to a close on that cliffhanger.

Paper Girls Season 1 Episode 6 recap – Things left unsaid…

It’s clear that as the series continues, the characters are becoming more fleshed out. This episode had the group largely separated, with only Mac and Erin spending any real time together.

For the rest of the run, everybody seemed to be off on their own story. But it worked.

The build of the series so far has done a good job of laying the groundwork of each story, so that they can all stand alongside each other without any of the narratives feeling like the weak one. It’s also nice to watch what isn’t being said in this issue.

We know what KJ is talking about, but she never says the words, yet we understand. We know how Erin talking about her death is affecting Mac, but Mac never says anything.

It’s what’s not being said that’s the motivating factor. The same is true in the Tiff storyline.

There are a lot of things that are implied by Older Tiff but are never explicitly said. But by this point, we have such a clear picture of our main characters, that we can read in between the lines of each conversation.

The show is able to tell us a lot this episode without the characters really saying much at all.

Let us know your thoughts of Paper Girls season 1 episode 6 in the comments below!

You can watch Paper Girls season 1, only on Amazon Prime Video!