Paradise Season 2 Episodes 1-3 Review: Graceland, Mayday, and Another Day in Paradise

One season in, we’re no longer surprised by the number of character deaths or who causes them. Really, Paradise Season 2, Episodes 1-3 further the knowledge that anyone is capable of anything.

On “Graceland”, we meet Annie, a former medical student who becomes a tour guide at Elvis’s home and flees The Day with fellow guide Gail. Tragically, Gail is injured and eventually dies. 689 days later, the sun reemerges.

Shortly after, Annie is confronted by a group of survivors including Link, who she becomes intimate with. They leave again, promising to return, but a heavily pregnant Annie stumbles upon a plane crash- and Xavier- first.

On “Mayday”, we witness Xavier crash and be tended to by a group of kids. They bond and Xavier later kills a man stalking them. It’s when they also run off that Xavier meets Annie, who demands he take her to the bunker.

The episode also flashes to nearly two decades Before, when Xavier and Terri meet as patients in a hospital. Terri becomes temporarily blind and Xavier helps her. In the present, visions of her help return him to consciousness.

“Another Day in Paradise” covers what happens in his absence. A new president is assigned, Sinatra wakes after a month in a coma, and those who dare to speak against the new order are quickly arrested.

To that end, Xavier is an enemy of the state, and his and Cal’s kids take great risk working in his name. Robinson tends to them and is heavily scrutinized at work, where Jane has a hero’s reputation for “saving” Sinatra.

Sinatra herself is taken in for questioning by the new president, who demands obedience in a way Cal never did. And Jane once again proves herself the most ruthless of all when she kills him and frames Robinson.

While there’s no shortage of shocking moments in these few episodes, the only thing that surprises me is just how little we see of Xavier in the first and third hours. But this world is expanding quickly and there’s a lot to pack in.

Knowing for certain that there is life beyond Paradise makes the narrative the city feeds to those within its limits even more chilling. It’s not just what’s out there, but why people are being kept in at all costs.

Of course, it’s just as sobering to see what remains of the world with approximately two-thirds of its population decimated. The glimpses of people like Annie and Link are likely just a grim taste of what’s to come.

The closing moments of the first season left us with a sense of hopefulness that has quickly (and literally for Xavier) come crashing down to Earth. Though survivors do what they can, we’re a long time from happiness.

In Paradise, it’s maintained by force and is still just holding on by a thread. With the exception of the youth and a couple others wanting to start a revolution, we can’t trust anyone any more than they do each other.

It certainly makes for satisfying drama, but it’s also kind of frustrating to feel like every single character is somehow at odds with every single other one. And then there’s Jane, somehow still in a class by herself.

How realistic is it that in this world where everyone has to know everyone’s business that she’s tricked them all and so easily cleaned up after the few who manage to catch on to her? How much longer can it last?

Like the first episode of the series, this hour comes down do a dead president, but there will be no season-long mystery to who killed him. Instead, Paradise seems poised to reach a whole new level of quiet chaos.

As the bunker city and the outside world come closer together, and especially with Xavier and Annie on their way back, I can only imagine this turmoil will continue spread like wildfire. Buckle in, because it’s (still) a wild ride.

 

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New episodes of Paradise drop Mondays on Hulu.  

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