Stranger Things makes the world go round. After putting a cap on the incredibly long, Kate Bush-filled Season 4, we’re going to have to wait two more years until the next (and final) season of the show. Won’t the kids be in college at that point? Maybe. But while we wait, we’ve got a new batch of darlings looking to explore the extraterrestrial ’80s: the Paper Girls.
Imagine Stranger Things—bikes, glowing skies, and all—but with girls instead of boys, and time travel instead of the Upside Down. Even the radiant sunset has turned from red to purpley-pink!
In 1988, a gaggle of dorky girls find themselves in a mysterious portal that leads them straight to 2019. Little Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) is at the center of the madness, because the portal leads them straight to her house 30 years in the future, where a similarly closed-off adult Erin (Ali Wong) resides. While young Erin embraces the zoom into the future, old Erin isn’t so sure.
“This is a psychotic break,” she tells herself, hyperventilating. “The 12-year-old version of yourself broke into your house with her punk friends?”
Yep, and they’re hacking your Amazon Alexa now, too (great use of product placement from the Prime Video series). Eventually, all four youngsters have to face down with their adult selves, joining forces in order to save the world from an ongoing time war. Really, it’s just exciting to see them explore the new “time travel robots” of the future—aka iPhones, Alexas, and flat screen TVs.
The Paper Girls squad actually predates the Stranger Things crew. The show is based on Brian K. Vaughan’s comic book series of the same name, which ran from October 2015 to July 2019. With 30 total issues of the saga loaded into 6 books, there’s plenty of material for the Paper Girls to expand upon past Season 1. Get hooked now!
Paper Girls will drop on Prime Video July 29.
