Never About The Corn
Episode 4 of Paper Girls starts with Larry telling the girls he’s been keeping the robot safe for the last 14 years in preparation for their battle ahead. According to him, this robot is a battleship – and he needs Erin to drive it. This robot is programmed for older Erin to pilot, and apparently she needs to drive this to 1999. Older Erin decides to change course and instead, remains dead-set on taking the kids back home to 1988. However, in order to do that they need to find Mac. And with one shot to get back – that coming in 6 hours – the only thing for it is to find their friend. Older Erin receives a call from Missy, her sister, whom she skipped out on meeting. She doesn’t reveal where she is but does mention that she’s with a guy called Larry. So naturally, Erin decides to give Missy the farm address. Younger Erin is excited to see her, but it soon becomes clear that the sisters have a lot of animosity and tension between them. Apparently, Missy wasn’t there when their mum got sick and that’s the root cause of the issues here. Mac is still clowning around with her brother, who promises to be there for her, while the Prioress and the Old Guard continue to try and find the kids. The thing is, KJ has actually tracked down Mac’s brother’s house and decides to head out to track her down and bring Mac back before it’s too late. Only, she runs into trouble when the Prioress comes knocking. The chase is on. As for Mac, she’s settling in to her new life, with her brother serving as her adoptive father. At least, that’s the plan anyway. Mac soon realizes her brother is very different and she’s not exactly taking kindly to it. Dylan tells her that things are different for sure, but they’re still siblings and they’ve got a second chance here, something Dylan intends to savour by allowing Mac to stay with him. KJ shows up in the wake of this and warns Mac that they need to go. They’re not alone; the Prioress shows up and notices the pair leaving and just misses them. Unfortunately, it means Mac’s happy family days are over. The portal opens up just as the kids look set to launch their giant robot into the sky. Racing toward the portal, all huddled together, they launch inside and just miss the Prioress. Now, The Prioress is subservient to the Grandfather, who shows up and admits that he’s disappointed.
The Episode Review
The age old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” could so easily be attributed to a lot of different remakes nowadays. Paper Girls, unfortunately, is the next in the long line of IPs that have been changed from their core essence. Now, don’t get me wrong there are some positives here and fleshing out more of the girls’ lives is certainly an intriguing concept. However, there are certain plotlines here – like KJ’s sexuality – that have been butchered from the comics. Within the graphic novel there’s a much more natural flow to how this progresses but in this episode we just get it crowbarred into a random bit of narrative, in a world full of characters that have been made up specifically for this chapter. I’m all for changing the source material if it enhances what was there but so far Paper Girls has been a little disappointing and surprisingly slow compared to how the book plays out. Either way though, we’re halfway through and it looks like things are about to pick up.
