The Time Bandits head to the '90s

What would it be like to go back in time and meet your parents when they were younger? That’s precisely the question that gets answered for Kevin and Saffron in the eighth episode of Time Bandits. And now I’m a little jealous that I can’t witness my ‘rents as young people or see my grandma again and have her teach me how to bake apricot pies. What a gift it is to even be imagining these scenarios. And when the episode leans into that spirit, it’s at its best. The increasing complexities of the time-travel elements of this show that “Home Again” introduces are cool, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. 

Truly, there isn’t much—television, film, or otherwise—that handles time travel elegantly (besides, maybe, Primer), and this show struggles a bit on this front. People who love all of the intricacies of this kind of storytelling seem to either relish finding all the plot holes that result or they delight in the time-travel tales that really seem to get it right (i.e., Primer). Frankly, I’m only interested insofar as it gives us more information about the characters involved. Twisty plots for the pure sake of complexity are not really my style, and fortunately, not what TB attempts. We can completely relax about that stuff if we want to and focus on what happens at a character level.

Thankfully, the Bandits only interact with their future selves through a portal, in a mirror-like way, so none of them get doubled, imploded, or anything like that. (That is, none of the Bandits get doubled; only Fianna does. We’ll get to that.) What does happen is their perception of themselves “wreaks havoc” on their self esteem. Penelope’s future self speaks through the portal to say they need to go after the Haddock kids who have already jumped through. Regular timeline Penelope perceives herself as super bossy and does not like her vibe. She spends the rest of the episode trying, by turns, to either soften or justify her tone. Future Widgit tells himself that his understanding of the map is greater than he realizes and gives himself the cryptic hint that “time folds,” a little puzzle regular timeline Widgit agonizes over the entire episode. Future Biddelig isn’t with the others, and they can’t say whether he’s alive or dead, which has regular timeline Biddelig assuming the latter and descending into a personal crisis to make sure he does something meaningful with his life. It’s all very existential.

So through the portal the Bandits go, back to non-Ice Age Bingley—but this time it’s 1996. This is when the Haddock siblings meeting their younger parents comes into play. They decide to split up and find each parent at their respective childhood homes. Saffron goes to mom’s while Kevin goes to dad’s. If they can manage to warn their folks in some way, then maybe they won’t get “coaled” later. That’s sort of the main aim of the episode, and the way that it plays out is very sweet. (It’s also fun to see Felicity Ward and James Dryden dressed up as Kevin and Saff’s grandparents on either side, grandma in a fluffy blonde mullet, grandpa in a bald cap.)

Kevin straight up has the best day of his life with his dad, especially after grandpa Haddock confiscates the Gameboy the Haddock teen has been sneakily playing outside. Father and son play catch, dance to Jamiroquai, and have a bit of a heart-to-heart. Kevin’s dad even tells him he thinks he’s cool! When Fianna finally catches up to them and scares young Mikey Haddock half to death with her laser eyes, the image of her gets burned into his mind and it haunts his dreams for years. That’s how he manages to avoid his eventual “coaling.” 

Saffron has a slightly more complicated time with her mom, who at the time of this visit is only six. Still, it’s special to her. Saff suggests that they play a game of “mother and daughter” and takes this opportunity to apologize to her kid-mom for all kinds of things she can’t even begin to understand. Exercising good judgment, the Haddock kids’ grandma sees Saffron looking completely bedraggled in her neanderthal getup and calls some government child welfare agency. When the agents and Kevin arrive simultaneously, Saffron runs and tries to take her little six-year-old mommy with her back to the future. The fear resulting from that near abduction by a “feral orphan girl” leads to her practicing hostage negotiation skills all her life, which is what prevents her eventual “coaling” when Fianna arrives. In neither case was the event that saved each parent something that the kids intentionally did to save them, which is interesting.

Kal-El Tuck in Time Bandits (Photo: Apple TV+)

Now let’s talk about these double-Fiannas and how that whole thing came about. Pure Evil, spying on Kevin through the eyes of a cat and happy to have found him (and maybe the map), orders his huntress to rise from her rock and get him. Rather than this canceling out her 2024 emergence from the rock, that other Fianna who has been jumping through portals to find the Bandits is still out and about. This leads to the two ending up in Bingley of ’96, where they attack the Bandits, and each other, until Widgit and crew flee through the old Ice Age portal and close it behind them, leaving the Fiannas in the ’90s. Was that confusing? It confused me. But thankfully, that’s about as complicated as it gets.

Back in the neanderthal era, the tribe members get a chance to say “laters” to Saff. And Biddelig, who was really just away getting medical supplies at the time of the portal conversation between the once and future Bandits, gets a chance to tend to his rhino friend’s wounds. It seems that his lesson in this was that learning how to heal others, or maybe taking care of just one creature, is enough to make his life meaningful. Widgit has apparently figured out what “time folds” means. (I guess just by thinking about it all episode? Because of the clue he gave himself? I’m so confused.) Penelope has presumably made peace with her own tone, Kevin recognizes that the two lumps of coal in his bag are gone, and he and Saffron are thrilled, believing this to mean that their folks are safe and weren’t turned to coal after all. 

Everyone seems to have succeeded, to have achieved their goals for the episode, but then, a saber-tooth leaps at them, freezes in midair, and becomes a sort of intercom for PE. He reveals that he has Mr. and Mrs. Haddock there with him. He’ll only free them in exchange for the map. Instead of handing it over, they plan to go find PE in the “Time of Legends,” but that’s the exact corner of the map that’s missing. Now they’ll have to find it. Jemaine Clement fans, rejoice. It looks like we’ll be seeing more of him next episode. 

Stray observations

• • This is the first episode with any recognizable needle drops! (If “Georgian” featured some classical compositions, I wasn’t cultured enough to catch them.) Of course, they’re not the nerdy kind; it’s all mainstream. We’re talking “Wannabe” by The Spice Girls, “Lovefool” by The Cardigans, “Virtual Insanity” by Jamiroquai, and things of that nature. They’re very, very fun.
• • I still don’t like the anti-kitty bias that has put my feline friends in league with the devil, but I will admit it has been a handy device for the writers this season. They needed a way for PE to track the team’s movements, and having the evil one use a saber-tooth tiger as an intercom system to threaten the Bandits in the episode’s final moments was pretty ingenious. 
• • The Bandits spend some of their downtime/hiding-from-Fianna time in a store that sells CDs á la Sam Goody, and I have to say that’s a pretty perfect ’90s-era locale for them to visit.
• • When Alto tries to get info from the goths at the party the Bandits enter through the portal from the Ice Age, he matches their flat tone and sulky posture. It’s a fun bit, and it’s relatable for neurodivergent people like myself who find themselves occasionally dipping into social mimicry to get through life.
• • At one point, the Bandits are looking for Kevin, but find it difficult because all the little white ’90s boys had that long-ish hair cut of his (including my own brother). 
• • When the time comes for Fianna to attack Kevin’s folks, Kevin’s mom proceeds very calmly and even hands over cables for the Huntress to tie them up. Where does she get those though? Should we all be carrying cables around to offer ourselves up as prisoners as necessary?
• • In another important character beat, we also learn why some of the Bandits have been less than stoked on this whole operation to save Kevin’s parents: They reveal that they had tried to save their departed friend Susan and could not succeed. She fell off a cliff then was crushed by a giant boulder. It was “pretty conclusive,” they say.