“Paper Girls” Episode ‘A New Period’ Recap: Party Like It’s 1999

If you thought Paper Girls‘ fifth episode, “A New Period,” would be a run of the mill episode, think again! This one has major deaths, revelations and plot twists to spare! Let’s dive in!

I’m Gonna Win | The robot containing our heroes arrives near a factory through the time portal and everyone vacates the robot to admire the scenery. Tiffany (Camryn Jones) tries to help Larry (Nate Corddry) locate the men who helped them, but he snaps at her, hurting her feelings. Then, another portal opens with another giant robot and Future Erin (Ali Wong) leads the girls to hide in a trailer while Larry has the bright idea to fire a handgun at the robot, which immediately incinerates him into ash! What did you think was going to happen, dude?

The robot looks for the girls, while Future Erin races for the robot they came in and gets in it to fight the robot looking for them. She does okay, until the attacking robot knocks her to the ground then grabs her robot by the throat. Left with no choice, Future Erin presses a big red self destruct button and goes out in a blaze of glory, destroying the robot and causing Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) to break down in a teary mess. All before the title card!

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Off Course | Tiffany retrieves Larry’s backpack containing his notes on the time portals before Prioress (Adina Porter) and her boss (Jason Mantzoukas) can get it, as the boss orders Prioress to ablute the area and reset time. Tiffany makes it back to the trailer with the other girls right as the ablution occurs, but it has no effect on them. Tiffany wants to continue to save Larry’s guys, but KJ (Fina Strazza) and Mac (Sofia Rosinsky) are done with this shit. Erin then notices fourth of July flags everywhere and when Tiffany checks the newspaper’s date it doesn’t say November 1, 1988- it says July 3, 1999. The girls are stunned and KJ realizes that Larry screwed them over and lied to them about taking them home. Tiffany won’t believe it, but KJ insists that Larry never cared about them and that Future Erin died for nothing.

To add injury to insult, Erin’s still on her period and when Mac heads into a convenience store to steal maxi pads, she can only find tampons, which none of them know how to use, leading to an awkward moment as they attempt and fail to figure out how it works. And can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that a 2022 TV show is talking about girls getting their first periods in such an honest fashion?

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Personal Encounters | KJ suggests that they hide at her house, since her family goes on vacation on the fourth of July. But when they get to KJ’s house, there’s a party going down there. The girls go in anyway, desperate for food, and try to lay low, while Mac and Erin raid the leftover wallets and purses for cash. Tiffany tries to decipher Larry’s notebook, while KJ spots her future self (Delia Cunningham), who mentions that she’s living in New York and that it’s “Like ‘Friends’ but really poor.”

KJ goes upstairs and runs into a friend of her future self named Lauren (Maren Lord), who tells her that she’s in film school with Future KJ and they’re studying Stanley Kubrick. Lauren also invites KJ to a Kubrick film marathon at a theater nearby that she and Future KJ are going to. As KJ leaves, she sees her future self coming up the stairs and retreats into the bathroom, but spies on Lauren talking to Future KJ- and sees them making out. KJ is naturally shocked and after collecting herself, orders the girls to scram the house and lashes out at Mac when she protests, punching her in the face. This causes Tiffany to freak out on them and say that they need real help. She heads to a phone booth- remember those?- and dials a number that ends up being her future self (Sekai Abeni).

Paper Girls is now streaming on Prime Video.