How To Find Missing Folder Contents in Time Machine

I noticed that if you search for certain folder contents in the "wrong" way in Time Machine (for the Mac), Time Machine will not show you the correct contents, and you will have thought the entire contents of the folder were missing.

Example: Today I was looking for my wife's Sex and the City episodes. They were on a folder in Time Machine, as she had deleted them from the computer itself (i.e., they were stored only on her external hard drive.) Here is what I did, which is apparently the wrong thing to do:

1. On my computer hard drive (vs. external hard drive) I went to the Sex and the City episodes folder (on mac these folders have little blue folder icons)
2. Clicked inside to jump in the folder (Note: We sometimes delete only the folder contents, not the folder itself, to remember we still have the item in storage, so that we don't go and make/buy more copies, forgetting we have one on the external drive)
3. From inside the folder, I entered Time Machine (using the icon on the top bar of the OS screen)
4. Now we are in Time Machine. I click the back arrows (the big white ones on the bottom right of the screen.)
5. To my annoyance, all the file contents are still gone! For all instances of the folder. All the way to the beginning of the folder's history. As if they were retroactively deleted (Note: Retroactively deleting all instance is possible, but that is a special process and you would be aware of it.)

In short, I would have never found the folder contents in this way, and would have had to purchase/"acquire" copies of the episodes all over again. How frustrating that would be!

However!~

Here is how I ended up finding the files after all:

1. Go straight into Time Machine. Do not bother finding any files before hand. If you have been searching anything before, close the Finder window and open a new one.
2. Enter the file name in the Finder Search bar (The little box with the magnifying glass.)
3. If you have identified a folder as not having what you want, then search only for the file contents, and wait until you find that as a result. When searching for my wife's Sex and the City episodes, most of the folders were empty; so I waited until I found (by going backwards in "Time" with the large white arrows." Eventually I found all the Episodes listed on one of the saved days! It was in the "This Mac" folder.

So the lesson here, in brief, is to be as broad as possible when searching in "Time Machine." Don't limit the way in which you approach finding an item. Also, it may be helpful to note somewhere (as in an Excel spreadsheet) which folders and items you have decided to and have already deleted retroactively, that is, deleted all instances ever existing in Time Machine. Another good tip is to make sure to back up the computer to Time Machine before you delete a very important folder, then go back and make sure the folder and its contents are still there by entering time machine itself and going to the first prior save to you current window, and making sure it was saved.