Can society survive when those still alive have been forced to start over in a giant underground bunker? That was the primary question posed by the first season of Paradise, which featured a handful of conspiracies and betrayals being perpetrated by those individuals seeking to gain and maintain power in what remained of civilization. Season two takes on a new direction, focusing on those who didn’t make it into the bunker to investigate whether they did in fact turn out any better or worse than those who, for all intents and purposes, had everything they could have wanted but still didn’t feel that it was enough.
Audiences tuning in for the season two premiere might think for a moment that they were watching an entirely different show with Shailene Woodley as its star, portraying Annie, whose life in Memphis is forever changed when the end of the world arrives. She soon meets up with Xavier (Sterling K. Brown), who has ventured out of the Colorado bunker in search of his wife Teri (Enuka Okuma) after receiving confirmation from Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) that she is indeed still very much alive.
Much of the appeal of the first season of Paradise was slowly unraveling the mystery of what this place was and the circumstances that led to its creation. Having already established that, season two expands to the world outside and to those less theoretically fortunate who have been forced to adopt typical postapocalyptic existences, while also returning frequently to those within the bunker who aren’t satisfied with the fabricated tranquility of this sterile society and wish to topple and subvert those they don’t believe should be running things.
This sophomore season feels in many ways like The Last of Us, with episodes that don’t always feel connected and main characters appearing sporadically. Its content isn’t quite as dark, however, and as a result, some plot points feel out of sync with the show’s overall tone. While this show has a science fiction-oriented premise due to its near-future setting, it’s not meant to be supernaturally-driven and instead highlight the human capacity for evil, and it sometimes feels like there’s more that’s meant to be going on, which itself is jarring.
Paradise remains at its best when it spotlights its best characters, and Woodley’s Annie is a formidable addition. The introductory episode is sufficient to make it feel as if she’s been a part of its universe since the start. Watching her television evolution from The Secret Life of the American Teenager to Big Little Lies to Three Women to this role has been enormously rewarding, and she is a clear standout of this season. Cameron Britton is also an excellent new recruit as a man Xavier meets in his search for Teri whose character details are best left to be discovered for audiences watching.
With James Marsden reduced to recurring status as President Cal Bradford, seen only in flashbacks, much of the weight falls to Brown to carry the show in the episodes that do feature Xavier prominently. That’s no problem, of course, considering Brown’s clear leading man status. Xavier, who was always quite serious to begin with, is even more hardened in this season now that he knows what he’s looking for, and Brown brings just the right intensity to the performance. Though they’re not seen nearly as much, Nicholson and Sarah Shahi remain strong assets from within a larger ensemble whose characters deserve more than the screen time demotion they get.
The world of Paradise is complex and full of complicated relationships and deceptive turns, which is both a positive thing that makes for an intriguing watch and a confounding crutch that sometimes makes the show feel needlessly shadowy. Its storytelling and worldbuilding are quite good, and relying on them to tell a straightforward narrative might sometimes serve it better than assembling plot points out of order to confuse and misdirect the audience, boldly – and not always correctly – presuming that the payoff will be worthwhile. There’s still much to be mined from this universe, and season two represents an overall competent if not always entirely fulfilling journey further into its mythology.
Season grade: 6/10
