The Buffy Reference You Might Have Missed In Amazon Prime's Paper Girls
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" changed television. Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as the titular monster hunter, the show chronicled her journey as she attended high school and protected the town of Sunnydale from supernatural menaces. Of course, Buffy wasn't alone on the ride; her friends Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) had her back, and she met other allies along the way who joined her in the fight against evil. They made quite a formidable team, too.
When "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" hit the airwaves back in 1997, the action genre was predominantly made up of male heroes. Similarly, horror had a long history of portraying women as damsels in distress that monsters liked to feed on. This series wasn't interested in adhering to tired old tropes, however, and it rejected them by telling a story about a young woman who literally saves the world.
Beneath the surface, though, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was about the complex horrors of adolescence and young adulthood, as described by Film School Rejects. It wasn't all doom and gloom, of course, as the series also celebrated friendship and hope. Some of these themes are also present in "Paper Girls," so it's understandable why the Amazon series referenced "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in one episode.
There's a Sunnydale suburb in the Paper Girls universe
The first episode of "Paper Girls" takes place on "Hell Day" — the morning after Halloween — in the sleepy town of Stony Steam, Ohio. The story follows Mac (Sofia Rosinsky), Erin (Riley Nai Lelet), KJ (Fina Strazza), and Tiff (Camryn Jones) as they try to complete their respective paper routes, but let's just say that things don't go according to plan.
After getting into a tussle with some local goons, the girls decide that it'll be safer if they stick together in order to complete the tasks at hand. So, Mac suggests that they start by taking the "Sunnydale" route, and so begins a journey that ultimately leads them into the middle of a war between time-traveling factions.
As previously mentioned, Sunnydale is the name of Buffy's old town of residence. Mac's comment is a subtle nod to the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in the grand scheme of things, but it's further proof that the legacy of the horror series remains strong to this day.