Paper Girls lets its teens actually confront — and live with — death

Amazon’s adaptation of the Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang comic series, much like the source material, is a show about death. Paper Girls’ time-traveling tale is about many other things, sure: the tensions between who we wanted to be and who we wind up being, generational divide and trauma, plus a time war. I was struck by the fact that its brilliant cast plays characters who know their end long before they are due, leaving them with to face death, which is something no one can escape. It’s a gnawing, knotty feeling that’s difficult for just about anyone to unpack. These characters have to deal with it even though they are only 12 years old.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the first season of Paper Girls.]

You can see it best in the story of Mac Coyle, played perfectly by Sofia Rosinsky, who has to shoulder some of the show’s darkest themes. She’s the group’s brash, loud, swearing kid who’s had a truly shitty hand dealt to her. She has had a turbulent upbringing with violence and absentee parents, making her one of the more cynical among the four paper girls. You learn quickly how bad she’s got it and it leaves all her barbs feeling fragile, concealing a lot of hurt she’s not yet old enough to begin dealing with. Hell, she isn’t even really able to acknowledge it. This is all she’s known and she has to survive it first. It’s a shocker when she learns that her trip to the glamorous, bright future of 2019 will not lead to an unplanned adulthood as the others, but of a sudden death from cancer at 16 years old. It’s cruel and unfair. And the show doesn’t pretend otherwise.

One major change the show introduces is the presence of an older brother for Mac, Dylan, who greets her in 2019 like he’s seen a ghost (which I guess he has). He soon accepts his role as guardian and is eager to help Mac recover from their horrible childhood.

Because of his instincts, he is an excellent surrogate for adults who are keen to help Mac. He plans to catch the cancer early, pretend she’s a niece and fold her into his now affluent life and family. In his own words, “giving you the life you deserve.” Watching him tear up over this second chance with his dead sister, you get a sense of not only that urge to save her but also a resurgence of the grief that has shaped his whole life. He became a doctor after losing her. This job helped him get out of poverty and started a family. Perhaps there’s some guilt, a sense of a debt to be repaid, for the life he got to live that she didn’t.

Photo: Anjali Pinto/Prime Video

Mac is hesitant to share her struggles with him or the girls, and she tries hard to keep it to herself. She’s not the only one who tries to manage alone. But while its other characters have to come to terms with death — including poor Larry, who bites the dust twice — it’s the kids who remain the focus.

Erin is the first to confront a future death, the demise of her mother, something that preys upon her existing fears, caring for a parent who doesn’t speak much English and struggles in the small town of Stony Stream. Riley Lai Nelet portrays well the isolation of being not just the “new girl” but someone distanced from their community and their grief because of their race and responsibilities. It’s that loneliness that makes it difficult for her to reach out, whether that’s her future self’s reluctance to connect with her sister or her past self’s struggle to open up to the other paper girls — especially after she has to watch her older self die saving the group in the future, potentially locking in her fate. Unaware of Mac’s fate, it leaves her feeling singled out from the group yet again.

Tiff, too, feels an obligation to manage on her own even if it isn’t with her own death. As she grapples with the potential danger her friends are in, in a scene in episode four delivered so poignantly by Camryn Jones, she’s trying to hold her own among adults, desperate to grow up and have control of her life while also having to overcome her inexperience.

While Tiff and Erin feel isolated by their fears, it’s KJ who helps the group start to depend on each other as they confront their grim futures. Fina Strazza’s performance allows Fina to use her calm demeanor and her strength to misdirect. She’s the first person Mac opens up to (their blossoming crush for one another, a whirlwind of confusion for two girls from the ’80s), and her immediate response is not to try and shield her or protect her but to share in her pain with a tender hug of understanding. She eventually helps Mac share the news with the others, an act that finally solidifies the group’s bond and allows them to confront their dark fates together.

Photo: Anjali Pinto/Prime Video

But it’s not that! Paper Girlsis the only one putting children in grave peril. Over the past few years, it has been shown that Stranger Things Wilds have put teens decisively in harm’s way. Those kind of dangers are different from the fate Mac and others are confronted with, though — in those, characters get killed off, but in ways that are often outright heroic or tragic. These big scenes are filled with excitement and signposting, which offer a payoff for character sacrifices. There’s catharsis in the tragedies these shows present that isn’t in Paper Girls. I think that’s why Mac’s story has lingered with me ever since I read the comic. It doesn’t fixate on the death itself or the fallout but instead Mac’s own internal struggle with a fate that has no grand meaning, just terrible misfortune. There’s no resolution, only ever an acknowledgement that it is brutally unfair.

It is possible to argue whether Paper GirlsIt is appropriate for all ages. But I’d say it certainly has appeal to adults and youngsters both, but with its central cast, teenagers are definitely kept in mind. That’s a precious thing. I know I didn’t have access to any kind of fiction like this as a youngster. Even as an adult, it’s a reminder that kids have rich internal lives. Their autonomy is important and they should be allowed to face the hard realities.

Paper GirlsThis story is one of the few that relates to what this feeling feels like for young children. To give voice to an experience that’s all too common but almost never discussed. Like Mac’s brother, our instinct, understandably, is to shield kids from these harsh realities. It’s a fantasy, though; whether we like it or not kids have to deal with all kinds of problems we wish were reserved for adulthood. Paper Girls might be a fantastical time-travel show, but it’s not offering up a warm slice of nostalgia. It’s offering teens a cold piece of reality.

Paper Girls Season 1 of Amazon Prime Video is available now.