In a bifurcated second season that can't seem to decide which story to tell, the freed Secret Service agent, played by Sterling K. Brown, searches for his missing wife while the bunker society fractures into factions.
Episode 7, "The Day," is the worst thing that could have happened to "Paradise." Remember "The Day," right? It's the penultimate flashback episode of the first season; the one that goes back in time to show exactly what happened when a volcano erupted, billions of people died, and a lucky few—notably Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and his protégé, Cal Bradford (James Marsden), the President of the United States—escaped to an underground bunker in Colorado. It's the episode everyone loves, or at least what everyone recognizes as "serious," which is often mistaken for "good."
Creator: Dan Fogelman
Stars: Nicole Brydon Bloom, Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson
The main problem is that "Paradise" isn't a serious show. It's a slightly wacky one. In it, our hero's name (Xavier) is just one letter away from "savior." It's a show that constantly references "Die Hard" while trying to create its own version of it. It's a show built around a radical twist: "Wow, the president is dead and all of humanity has been confined to a bunker designed to look like Pacific Palisades?" And it just keeps escalating.
Did you like Xavier's grumpy partner, Billy (Jon Beavers), after spending episode 4 witnessing his tragic backstory? Too bad he's dead! Isn't the Wii-addicted Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom) sweet and funny enough? No, she's a murderous psychopath who works for Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson)! (Oh, yes, the villain's name is Sinatra, how silly!) What a shame that Xavier's wife, Teri (Enuka Okuma), drowned in the megatsunami that also wiped out life on the Earth's surface, right? Oops, you guessed it again! Teri did NOT die, and there are plenty more people on the surface too!
Which brings us back to Episode 7 and its super-serious shadow. Absurd series can survive a silly ending. Laugh it off, forget about it, and go back to the good old days. But serious series—serious mysteries—only work when all the pieces fit together, and the seventh and eighth pieces of "Paradise" don't. If you're going to suddenly become terrifying and solemn, you'd better earn it, and what comes before and after Episode 7 doesn't lay the groundwork for "A House of Dynamite." If the tonal whiplash doesn't shatter your spirit, the double whammy of a relentlessly morbid penultimate episode and its incredibly ludicrous finale will leave you wondering if the second season can ever get back on track.
Unfortunately, it doesn't. It's stuck somewhere between its former goofy, twisted self and a more expressionless, bleak version, lacking the urgency and power of its inspiration. Whatever your favorite "Paradise" may be, the second season falls short.
Out of necessity, the second season brings changes—big changes. For starters, there's no new murder to solve. The driving force of the first season is gone, and the second doesn't invent another crime novel to fill the void. Nor is there another twist to alter the premise. Instead, the cast splits, new characters are introduced, and the story slows down to compensate. It's no longer a mystery novel; it's a survival thriller with plenty of stops for character drama.
None of this, of course, is Sterling K. Brown's fault. Although he's an executive producer, I've never met an actor who thinks the way to improve their show is by showing less of themselves—much less. Throughout the seven episodes screened for review, Xavier appears, at most, 50% of the time, which is a real shame, since a) Brown has always been the main focus of attention, and b) after six seasons of "This Is Us," he perfectly masters the turbulent emotional pacing of its creator, Dan Fogelman. (Few actors could survive the three-episode swing of the first season, which went from a "Die Hard" parody to a "Fail Safe" remake to "The Bone Collector" vibes, but Brown pulls it off, wow!).
While it's true that some ground needs to be sacrificed to rebuild the story's engine, the second season continues to overuse relatively flat characters, whose story arcs are filled with unnecessary subplots and superficial melodrama. Take Annie (Shailene Woodley), for example, a Graceland security guard who takes refuge in Elvis's old apartment to survive the apocalypse. She soon meets Link (Thomas Doherty), who tries to get her to join his caravan of benefactors. Later, she encounters a mysterious postman (Cameron Britton) and a bunch of needy children.
Episode 7, "The Day," is the worst thing that could have happened to "Paradise." You remember "The Day," right? It's the penultimate flashback episode of the first season; the one that goes back in time to show exactly what happened when a volcano erupted, billions of people died, and a lucky few—notably, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and his protégé, Cal Bradford (James Marsden), the President of the United States—escaped to an underground bunker in Colorado. It's the episode everyone loves, or at least what everyone recognizes as "serious," which is often mistaken for "good."
The main problem is that "Paradise" isn't a serious show. It's a wacky show. It's a show where our hero's name (Xavier) is just one letter away from "savior." It's a show that constantly references "Die Hard" while trying to create its own version of it. It's a show built on a radical twist: "Whoa! The president is dead and all of humanity has been confined to a bunker designed to look like Pacific Palisades?" And then it just keeps growing.
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