Paradise turned into a surprise hit in its first season, and while the second year has brought some changes, the show continues to deliver an excellent sci-fi drama.
What Is It?
In this political thriller series, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins finds the president dead in his home and begins investigating the murder. This leads to a broader conspiracy that raises questions about who is actually in control of the government… and the fate of the world.
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Airing: New Episodes Arrive on Mondays
Starring: Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs IV, James Marsden
Created By: Dan Fogelman
Johnny Jay’s Thoughts:
Just an advanced warning for spoiler-phobes: I will be spoiling the first season of this show in this review and will have some minor spoilers for the second season. If you have not watched Paradise yet and are interested, I recommend checking out my mostly spoiler-free review of Season 1 (at this link) and then proceeding with watching the show from there. If you continue with this review, the big surprise from early in the show will be blown.
Paradise arrived on Hulu a little over a year ago and barely seemed like a sci-fi entry based on the trailers. But I was intrigued, so I tuned in, and the end of the first episode delivered quite a twist as we discovered that the setting is an underground bunker where a large number of people have fled from apocalyptic conditions on the surface (Season 1 surprise spoiled as promised). That changed the course of the show from the political thriller it started as, and it immediately moved into Lost territory with mysteries upon mysteries and flashbacks filling in events prior to the bunker arrival.
But even though Paradise adopted a structure similar to Lost, it did so in the best way possible, and that has continued into its second season. There are plenty of mysteries, but we get answers as the show goes along. And the writers are not taking those mysteries to the point that they can’t solve them without resorting to huge leaps of logic, at least so far. In addition, the flashback scenes work quite well, fleshing out the characters and filling in plot points.
By the end of the first season, the story of the bunker and who was in control after the death of the president had mostly played out and prepped for a move outside. As the second season begins, Xavier Collins has left the bunker in search of his wife and other survivors, and the show is moving into a post-apocalyptic setting while still adding more mysteries and introducing new characters. In fact, the first episode is almost completely focused on new characters, and some viewers may be excused for thinking they tuned into a different show. Xavier is back to center stage by the second episode, though, and the third checks back in with the situation in the bunker as Sinatra awakes from her coma and attempts to reassert her control.
These new threads expand the story, but unlike the second season of Amazon’s Fallout (you can read my review of that at this link), Paradise does not get too confusing and convoluted, as the writers still appear to have a good grasp on the story. I will admit that in the fourth episode (which is as far as I have gotten on this one), Xavier does seem to make a rather questionable choice by heading out into a devastated world with a pregnant woman about to give birth. But then Annie is the one who insists on it, and that does lead to a nice twist on the typical television Walking Dead-style post-apocalyptic cynicism. (And by the way, the episode also throws in a nod to TWD as Xavier rides into a ravaged Atlanta on a horse.)
Apart from that one major leap of logic, the second season has continued on quite well from the first, delivering an excellent sci-fi series with plenty of twists and turns and very little in the way of copy-and-paste storytelling. Sterling K. Brown continues to provide a strong lead, and he is surrounded by an excellent cast, including some of the second-season newcomers. There are some surprise deaths, just like the first year, so brace yourself for that. But this show has not lost a beat, and I am looking forward to new episodes each week.
What’s Next?
We have not seen the viewership data for Season 2 yet, but the first year performed quite well, and I expect the audience to stick around. Series creator Dan Fogelman has a third season planned and will end the show at that point. That seems like a good target, wrapping this one up before its mysteries get too convoluted and take it off the rails. And while it has not received an official Season 3 renewal yet, work on that has begun, and I expect we will be hearing an announcement soon.
Where Can You Watch It?
The show is streaming on Hulu and releasing one episode a week on Mondays. It is up to its sixth Season 2 ep as of this writing, and the finale will arrive on March 30. Last year, the show got an encore run on ABC in late spring, and it would not surprise me if they did that again.
Did you watch Paradise and do you think it is doing a good job of handling its storylines so far? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section below.
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