Paper Girls

Paper Girls, a live-action adaptation of the comic from Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, comes to Amazon Prime Video on July 29th.

As it stands, Paper Girls feels like it could be the start of something cool. The best thing about the show is the girls themselves. The story ends in an interesting place, and if Amazon takes some of that Lord of the Rings budget to spruce things up, there’s a lot of potential. The day is important because, in the wee hours of the morning while the girls are biking through the neighborhood, there are still rowdy teens prowling the streets in search of kids to terrorize. (It’s not even a Fire Phone! The show also misses a perfect opportunity for an Alexa joke.) Sometimes the sky turns pink, but mostly, it looks like any other midbudget sci-fi series. Unfortunately, the other side of the equation, the sci-fi story, doesn’t hold up as well. It takes a long time to get to that point, though. It isn’t until the finale that Paper Girls really shows why it’s interesting — and you have to wade through eight very uneven episodes to get to that point. The girls don’t necessarily care about any of this. Whereas Paper Girls the comic is vibrant and colorful thanks to colorist Matt Wilson, Paper Girls the show often looks bland and cheap, particularly when it comes to the CGI and the futuristic outfits and locations. Overall, the show is just really well cast; the kids even look like their comic book counterparts. One travels through the years in order to fix things and improve life for humanity, while the other believes in keeping the timeline pure and thus goes about erasing the other side’s hard work.

In the second episode of 'Paper Girls,' Erin, KJ, Tiff, and Mac learn how different 2019 is from 1988 — and that the futures they imagined for themselves ...

KJ tries to make a personal appeal, explaining how she gets bullied at school for being Jewish. She also has that heart-to-heart with Erin in which she apologizes for, uh, shooting her (“I’m sorry I shot you, it won’t happen again,”) and commends her on how tough she acted throughout the entire ordeal. She discovers that her house has been knocked down and that her dipshit older brother Dylan is now a doctor. She wonders why she was the one who reacted with such violence and not one of the other girls. Hearing them reminisce about nice memories at the mall only makes her feel embarrassed about what she doesn’t have and so tears into each one of the girls — calling KJ “the psycho who killed a guy with a hockey stick” is gut-wrenching to watch — before announcing that she’s going off to find her brother and she’ll stay with him. In the midst of being shot at and ripped from 1988 only to be plopped in 2019, Erin, KJ, Tiff, and Mac are confronting who they are — sometimes internally, as they reckon with the decisions they are making in a time of crisis, and sometimes quite literally, as they meet their future selves. All of this is compounded by the fact that here, in 2019, her mother is recently deceased. Equally as cutting is adult Erin’s reminder that they’re the same person and she started quitting things a long time ago. Instead of a self-assured U.S. senator who is married with four kids and lives next door to her sister and best friend Missy, Erin discovers a Xanax-popping paralegal who lives alone, doesn’t speak to Missy much anymore, and ran away and hid in her room at the first sign of trouble. That whole “You are literally the worst version of how my life could’ve gone” is going to sting for a while. If the pilot episode of Paper Girls is all about giving people a look at the action they can expect with the series, the second episode slows things down and reveals the emotional center of the show. This is the last straw for Erin, who stops the passive-aggressive act toward her older self and goes full-on aggressive. Like, give her a minute to digest the insanity that is taking place, kid!

That's because the Amazon drama, based on the comic books by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, is set in the 1980s, has a science-fiction premise and preteen ...

It takes place in a world where young girls are the heroes of their own stories, which might as well be science fiction. While on the run and stranded in time, one of the girls gets her first period. The new series (now streaming, ★★★ out of four), follows four 12-year-old girls who are swept up in a time-traveling war that leads to adventure, timey-wimey (to quote "Doctor Who") science fiction and, most importantly, deep conversations with their future selves. The series begins in the wee hours of the morning of Nov. 1, 1988, when four newspaper delivery girls run headfirst into a battle of a legendary time-traveling war. "Girls" is ambitious, sometimes to a fault. That's because the Amazon drama, based on the comic books by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, is set in the 1980s, has a science-fiction premise and preteen protagonists on vintage bicycles.

Riley Lai Nelet as Erin, from left, Camryn Jones as Tiff, Fina Strazza as KJ and Sofia Rosinsky as Mac in “Paper Girls.” (Anjali Pinto / Prime Video).

Although the girls come from the 1980s, and there are scenes set in the late 1990s, the series goes light on nostalgia and pop cultural references. (Young Tiff, taken by her older self to a late-1990s coffeehouse: “Why is there just, like, old furniture in here?”) In a somewhat confusing flurry of events, they find themselves kidnapped, or perhaps rescued, by a couple of black-clad teenagers and wind up stranded in the year 2019. Like all time-travel stories, it’s useless to try to make logical sense of it; and like all science fiction, it requires a certain amount of just going along for the ride. Eventually she’ll be joined by Jason Mantzoukas, of all people, as her superior, in a Tupac T-shirt, threatening yet comical — which makes him paradoxically more threatening. The series (after a brief, tense prologue) starts slowly, even poetically, as the four heroines wake up early to deliver newspapers before dawn in a fictional Cleveland suburb called Stony Stream, heading out on their bikes into the dark, empty streets. The series allows them time to get to know one another, which will take some work. The sci-fi elements frame the story, create danger, draw the protagonists together and allow for encounters not possible under the laws of physics as we currently understand them. (That Prime put reviews under embargo until the release date suggests it may have doubts of its own.) Developed by Stephany Folsom from a comic by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, and counting “Halt and Catch Fire’s” Christopher C. Rogers and Chris Cantwell as showrunners, it centers on a quartet of 12-year-olds. There is a lot of science fiction on television these days, and as with its theatrical big sibling, a lot of it relies on special effects and/or the built-in advantage of belonging to some extended, mutually promotional universe. Between occasional bursts of action, the pace remains leisurely, with room for stillness; there is very little in the way of spectacle, and much of what there is shows the modesty of its budget. That is not “Paper Girls,” which premieres Friday on Prime Video. I have no idea whether it will attract the audience it deserves, or even who exactly that audience might be.

Amazon's adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang's Image Comics series 'Paper Girls' blends time travel, youthful adventure and nostalgia, ...

The series loves and respects its characters so much and prioritizes them over the plot so totally that when the finale decides it needs to establish momentum for a second season, it’s a letdown. Jones provides the precocious, dogged heart of the show’s middle chapters, and Rosinsky and Strazza are tremendous in the sixth and seventh episodes. The show lives in the little beats, like a Black character showing her younger self how to wrap her hair before bed, or in uncomfortable awkwardness, like one of the best introduction to menstruation scenes in coming-of-age fiction, or in layered conversations, like a discussion of the films of Stanley Kubrick that isn’t about the films of Stanley Kubrick at all. They dream of college and professional success, but more than that, they dream of being fully realized and not balls of putty to be manipulated and controlled by their parents or limited by the confines of their hometown. It’s tremendously entertaining, though I’m not sure if it does a great job of clarifying its premise, so I thoroughly appreciate that Folsom and Rogers decided to foreground the bonding. It’s a mix that may cause problems, because the viewers attracted by the Stranger Things of it all will probably demand more end-of-the-world stakes, and the viewers mourning the demise of Netflix’s Baby-Sitters Club may find what end-of-the-world-stakes there are to be frustratingly intrusive.

(From left) Camryn Jones, Riley Lai Nelet, Fina Strazza, Nate Corddry and Ali Wong in 'Paper Girls.' (CNN) ...

Those hurdles are compounded by the age of the central characters, who, resourceful as they might be, seem over their heads as they lurch from one crisis to the next. An encounter with time-travelers caught up in a poorly explained war propels the group to the present, where one of them, Erin (Riley Lai Nelet), meets her grown-up self (Ali Wong It's a talented young cast, and the dizzying time-travel twist asks what it would be like to meet your past (or future) self.

The first episode of Prime Video's new series 'Paper Girls,' adapted from Brian K. Vaughan's comic, is sort of like 'Stranger Things' meets a PG-13 version ...

One of the white coats closes in on the four girls and Tiff considers trading that piece of tech — which the man seems VERY interested in — in exchange for their lives. The girls confront the cloaked guys in the basement of some new construction and realize they are not who they thought they were — their faces are scarred and they’re speaking a language none of them recognize. There’s someone else in the house and she threatens to call the cops, but it’s not Erin’s mother. Erin has a trippy dream about Ronald Reagan (the ’80s, baby!) and when she comes to, the guys in cloaks are leading them all off of some sort of small ship. The pilot is so efficient in that it drops you right into this world and very quickly you get a picture of who these girls are and how they might function as a unit. Tiff is convinced it must be the Russians. Remember kids, the ‘80s seem fun and all, but they were also full of paranoia about a nuclear apocalypse, so, like, it kind of evens out. They don’t really have time to process any of that because outside, the sky has turned pink, there’s a giant storm cloud that cannot mean anything good, and perhaps most off-putting: Everyone else in town seems to have disappeared. Mac, the first girl to get a paperboy route from The Cleveland Preserver, comes from the other side of town, and when we first meet her at 4:30 a.m., she’s stealing a pack of cigarettes off her passed out step-mother and lying to her brother about taking his walkman. And if you’re here because you assumed this series is about the evolution of the newspaper in America or some gender-flipped version of Newsies, um, buckle up. Rounding out the crew is KJ. Consider her the Sporty Spice (she is never without her field hockey stick). Her family is wealthy and well-known in town and she’s currently in a battle with her mom because she would rather die than wear the pink frilly dress her mother has picked out for her bat mitzvah. It’s hard enough being a 12-year-old girl — you’re getting confusingly close to that “not a girl, not yet a woman” stage in life — but add being thrown into the middle of a centuries-old war over time itself on top of that and you’ve really got yourself a stressful situation. Welcome to Paper Girls! If you’re watching the series because you’re a fan of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s comic-book series, you are not alone!

A strong cast and thoughtful themes don't quite elevate Paper Girls above its most basic flaws.

Much of the conflict in the show comes from how the characters grapple with the future and the revelations of their fates. Even if the finale leaves something to be desired, this is a series that deserves at least a second season, if only to try and course-correct some of the shortcomings present in its premiere. Where Paper Girls really shines is how it explores the theme of time, particularly in how drastically things and people can change over the course of years. While Riley Lai Nelet works well with what she is given, Erin's journey often feels like an afterthought, even though she is the first character introduced in the premiere episode, and serves as the audience surrogate into the world of paper delivery. The set-up for Paper Girls is intriguing enough. While there is plenty to mine from the source material, the Paper Girls streaming series, unfortunately, often feels like it's only getting half the story right.

'Paper Girls,' Amazon's adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan's popular comics, is more than its superficial similarities to 'Stranger Things.'

Those who are tuning in to “Paper Girls” for the sci-fi mystery of it all might find themselves frustrated toward the middle of the season. After all, there’s no use traveling through time if you don’t care about who you’re traveling with, and so “Paper Girls” does everything it can to make sure you do. Yes, “Paper Girls” also opens in the 1980s with four 12-year-olds on bikes who end up tackling otherworldly forces way bigger than themselves. With the four leads barely knowing each other at the start of their journey, the show forces them to build their friendships from scratch. When the series kicks off on November 1, 1988 with the quartet taking on the dreaded post-Halloween paper route, Erin (Riley Lai Nelet) is simply “new girl” to the others, who in turn have only occasionally crossed each other’s paths. As written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang (both executive producers on this show), the original “Paper Girls” comics developed a devoted fanbase thanks to its sharp characterization, unsparing twists, and Chiang’s angular imagery rendered in fluorescent pinks and blues by colorist Matt Wilson. The Amazon adaptation, which premiered its first eight-episode season on July 29, picks and chooses its moments to follow suit.

A review of the new Prime Video series, Paper Girls.

It's more about getting to know these girls and the surprise paths they take, decades away from their paper delivery gigs or the people that they thought they would become. “Paper Girls” is a story that constantly shifts in an exciting fashion, but maintains its gravity while moving through different eras and developments thanks to its great young cast. Throughout the episodes, the show is also careful to give its characters real dreams and trajectories; it provides them a certain edge. This meeting of the two Erins brings up a lot of feelings between the two, but also launches a journey to look into a certain piece of time travel hardware that confuses them all. Based on the graphic novels by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Cliff Chiang, “Paper Girls” takes a wild route to become a time travel adventure, starting off initially as watching four girls work their paper route on Hell Day, the morning after Halloween in 1998. Premiering today in full, “Paper Girls” only looks on the cover like Prime Video’s answer to “Stranger Things,” though that image could help it get the viewers it deserves.

Erin Tieng (Riley Lai Nelet), left, Tiffany Quilkin (Camryn Jones) and Mac Coyle (Sofia Rosinsky) in “Paper Girls.” (Anjali Pinto / Prime Video).

It’s such a great scene because it really encapsulates all the discovery you make at that age, being 12, and finding things out about yourself and what you want to become.” Her work involves trying to maintain the sanctity of the timeline, which in the comics includes the occasional giant mecha robot fight. In the comics, Mac learns her future self has already died when she heads to what should be her family home and encounters a stranger. But both comics creators agree that “what [the show] preserves is the emotional road map of the story,” and they welcomed the “expansion of the original idea” as long as it remained true to the heart of their story. Because the series doesn’t exactly follow the time-travel itinerary set in the comics, KJ learns about her future in a completely different way. Prioress (Adina Porter) and her allies are from the future, but not as far in the future as the teenagers of the STF who don’t believe in restrictions to time travel. It felt so organic to everything we were trying to pull off in the comics.” As a viewer of this show, I want to be surprised even though I wrote this thing.” They want the freedom to change history, and Larry believes in their cause. “One of the great things about having 12-year-old protagonists is that at 12, you’re really feeling things so intensely, and you’re starting to ask yourself, who do I want to become?” said Chiang in a recent video call. “We didn’t want to do something that was about looking back at the ’80s with rose-colored glasses,” said Vaughan. The book takes “a hard look at this difficult place we came from. Vaughan and Chiang, who served as executive producers on the adaptation, explained that they shared notes detailing extensive backstories, as well as the art and visual inspirations, early on in the adaptation process but encouraged the team to make changes to make the show’s story their own.

Like Stranger Things, Amazon Prime Video's new sci-fi series Paper Girls—based on the acclaimed comic series by writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Cliff Chiang— ...

You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. The music of Paper Girls is essential not only in establishing a subtext as to who these new characters are and what kind of music they feel expresses themselves, but also a good way to make clear just how much the worlds around them have changed as well. When the time period in which a show or movie is set is one of the most vital things about it, it's important to get the details right. This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Sofia Rosinsky, Riley Lai Nelet, Camryn Jones, and Fina Strazza look up at. Playing the quartet of unlikely time-hopping heroes, the show's four leads are a ...

Every win they experience feels like a victory for the young and inspired against the old and oppressive, and the actors throw themselves into the high points of their characters’ adventure just as emphatically as the disappointments along the way. And like The Goonies, Paper Girls feels like a story about a bunch of kids that’s likely to resonate most powerfully with today’s adults. Relying on an ensemble cast of child actors to carry a series aimed at older audiences is always a bit risky, but as Stranger Things and other shows have proven, it’s a gamble that can pay off in a big way when it works out.

Writer Brian K. Vaughan, artist Cliff Chiang, and showrunner Christopher C. Rogers discuss bringing the Image Comics favorite, Paper Girls, to Prime Video.

Brian K Vaughan: I’m hopeful that it helps and that I still have never seen Stranger Things. I have to admit, because it came out as Cliff and I were in the middle of writing our series and I didn’t want to be influenced unintentionally or otherwise. Likewise, know that this show belongs to the girls and were going to be additive to their experience on set. Just because, I’m so excited about the show and what they’ve been able to do with it and being able to expand on our story. I think it’s a scene only Paper Girls could do and ironically, I had the least to do with it of any writer in our room. Jason Mantzoukas is a huge Paper Girls fan, who in fact gave the comics to Ali Wong and said, “You should read this” before there was ever a TV show, before there was ever an opportunity. So I really just couldn’t be more impressed with the actresses that took this on and really did the homework to understand where these characters were coming from. Christopher C. Rogers: The baseline opportunity of the show, in many ways, was to sit down longer in these great moments that are suggested in the comic. That’s the best of what we can do, which is to represent the real coming of age experience of people, young women this age, but also kind of fit it inside this kind of exciting arc. What do you think some of the appeal is as storytellers to keep returning to that decade? I think as we take on that time period and subsequent time periods, that’s always kind of our touchstone. They go really broad because it’s very colorful and it’s a lot of fun, but we tried to take a lot of inspiration from Amblin movies, things that felt a little bit almost documentary-ish about exploring suburban life in the ’80s. We tried to lean into things being lived in and feeling authentic, but at the same time giving a level of stylization to it. At the time I recognized that they were pioneers, the first of their kind.

In this new sci-fi series that starts streaming Friday on Amazon Prime, a group of young friends time-travel from 1988 to 2019. Ali Wong co-stars as the ...

"When you give me this award, you honor my father, Paul Sorvino, who has taught me everything I know about acting," she said at the time. That's why I have to kick off this week with a time-travel series that speaks to my soul. What did you like about today's newsletter? I still do not have tickets. I did not have tickets. This iteration features a group of girls who are living 20 years after a series of tragic events almost ripped their blue-collar town apart.

In the fourth episode of Prime Video's 'Paper Girls,' Adult Erin is the only one who can pilot a giant robot through a “folding” to travel through time.

Yep, in the middle of a war for time when she’s stuck three decades in the future at the farmhouse of a guy who you just know is not stocked up on tampons. • After Larry takes like one minute to think about how he’s dealing with a bunch of 12-year-olds, he gathers himself and actually bonds a little with Tiff, who has taken to all the time-travel stuff really easily. She says she didn’t want Missy, who is busy with her own family and career, to have to take it on. Mac and KJ make it back to the farm just as the folding opens up. They have ten minutes to get in the robot and go. Adult Erin reminds Larry that she is the captain now and she’d rather not drop off a bunch of kids in the middle of a war zone. But really what this tangent means is that Erin gets a front-row seat to her relationship with Missy in 2019. Missy, though, says she never asked her to be a martyr and, even worse, blames Erin for robbing her of time with their mother in the end. Tiff, who is almost alarmingly into all of this time-travel stuff, comes up with another plan: Take them to 1988, they can stop Heck and Naldo from being killed, and then they can use Heck and Naldo’s time-traveling space capsule to both continue on with their mission and get adult Erin back to 2019. Although, yes, adult Erin flipping off Larry with that giant robot hand after he’s super condescending is a lot of fun! It turns out that Heck and Naldo’s whole mission was to get to that robot, jump through a “folding” (a precise and ephemeral rip in time that allows one to travel through it) and pop out in the year 1999, where they should be able to turn the tide in the war against the Old Watch. The device they were carrying (and handed to Tiff) allows them to pair themselves to the robot — which is why adult Erin, now paired with the robot, will have to drive the thing. Larry wants adult Erin to pilot them to 1999 and after they … finish the war, I guess (!), the STF there can help the girls get back to their own time.

Erin, Mac, Tiff, and KJ travel back in time, but not to the right time. There's an epic robot battle and major death, so it's not a great time for Erin to ...

She also makes sure to tell Erin that adult Erin “gave those bastards one hell of a fight” and that adult Erin doing that means that it was Erin who saved all of them. They start to tease her about seeing the other KJ flirting with a boy, and when she can’t take it — they call her out for acting like “such an asshole” — she loses it. Thus far, KJ’s been vocal about avoiding any version of her future self for fear of learning that she wound up exactly like her mother wanted, someone who loves pretty pink dresses and is going to go to business school like a good girl instead of living the life she wants. They’ll have food, a place to sleep, and can figure out a plan in the morning. The sequence is also a nod to the comics that they easily could’ve left out, but it’s worth the pit stop. They hide in a nearby trailer, but adult Erin knows the only way any of them survive this is if they get rid of that robot or at least distract it enough for the others to run. So yes, the scene offers a reprieve from the intensity of the first act and another bonding moment for these four, but the most important thing this scene does is remind us just how young these girls are. Mac steals a box of tampons from a convenience store for Erin, but it is clear that none of these girls have ever seen a tampon before, let alone know how to use one. Tiff tries to explain to them that what they really should be doing is heading to where they know Heck and Naldo will be at this time and get them this notebook so they can complete their mission. He was always going to follow through with the 1999 mission — he tricked them all and now adult Erin is dead. But then a second giant robot appears out of the sky and Larry shoots at it, yelling, “This is for Juniper, you son of a bitch!” The robot promptly zaps Larry. Larry is dust now. Adult Erin directs the robot through the folding and lands-slash-face-plants near the factory in Stony Stream. This all seems on track with the plan and the girls even get a minute to exhale — they’re home.

Tiffany Quilkin from Paper Girls is an incredible comic character. And she makes her mark on TV as leader teaching valuable lessons.

And then when you promised to take us home, you left us trapped here in 1999 and a woman died… But, no matter what, Tiffany Quilkin will be a hero in my book in all her iterations. You are children and it is totally okay to freak out and be upset.) She realizes that they didn’t ask to be there, but they have to do something to save themselves. I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I couldn’t wait to see Tiffany in live-action with her walkie-talkies and her determination to get s**t done. But, like her older self says, be flexible, take time to blast Whitney Houston, and just be. Because just seeing you again, let alone having to ask you for help, makes me sick to my stomach.” Tiffany continues to be one of my favorite comic characters of all-time. And, as you evolve as a person, you discover new depths of your love for certain characters and storylines. After seeing Cliff Chiang’s brilliant artwork, I naturally gravitated towards Tiffany. She was the kind of character I always sought as a kid: a bold Black girl who wasn’t afraid to get into the action. There’s the thrill of reading it the first time as you escape into a new world, allowing its magic to overtake you. She wasn’t just a placeholder character or someone who only existed to further the story of her white counterparts.

We finally see who Tiffany becomes, and it's almost too good to be true. Meanwhile, KJ learns more about herself and, just as important, Stanley Kubrick.

She tells KJ that it’s okay to take time to figure out that you like movies and that not everyone will understand it: “You find a movie that you really connect with, and it feels really, really great, and you hold on to that.” She says she has to take care of her mom because there’s no one else, but has her mom actually asked her to give up her childhood like that? Knowing her life doesn’t pan out the way she’d hoped before she bites it in a giant-robot battle is one thing, but what seems to be slowly washing over her is that she’s already very much like her future self. She tells her that the only way she survived her shitty childhood was by reminding herself that when she turns 18, she can leave Stony Stream. Things will get better for her. 1999 Tiff does seem quite cool — she’s unfazed by the existence of time travel (the science is there, so no biggie), she’s got a great loft in downtown Stony Stream, she’s some sort of “lighting designer” for local raves (the other girls can’t believe Tiff grows up to be “the life of the party”), and she has big plans to pull a Steve Jobs and revolutionize education with an online program (remember that in 2019, Tiff discovers the Quilkin Institute, so she feels confident in her future self’s endeavor). But Tiff still has some questions. I really feel for 1999 Tiff, who is trying to do right by these girls but is saddled with a bunch of kids who are boiling over with angst. Tiff may be the one who’s been handling her situation the best of them all, but let’s be honest: She’s the last to have to face her future, so let’s assume her breakdown is on its way. She’s beside herself with excitement to discover she does become class valedictorian and she ends up at MIT as she’d always dreamed, but she’s dismayed to learn she dropped out sophomore year. Mac tries to make her feel better by reminding her that “Tiff has always been in love with herself,” which is an objectively hilarious thing to say in this situation. So well, in fact, that it really pisses off Erin. She had the complete opposite experience with her future self. One of the first things 1999 Tiff makes the girls do when she meets them is come in for a big group hug. “My poor, time-traveling babies,” she says as she brings them all in — yes, even Mac — and holds them for a second.