Collapse Into Now

Since most streaming services have forgone the pilot process in favor of full-season orders from established creators, a renewal isn’t an automatic sign of success. The first season of Hulu’s Paradise was buzzy enough to earn major Primetime Emmy Award nominations, but there have been plenty of intriguing mystery box shows that petered out in their second seasons when the swerves no longer felt unexpected. The expectations for Paradise were particularly high when considering how unusual the first season was; what was initially marketed as a politically-charged murder mystery was really a speculative drama about an underground society forged after a globally catastrophic weather event. It’s the type of premise that could get less interesting once the logical inconsistencies start to stack up.

It’s because of these handicaps that the second season of Paradise is a welcome surprise that doesn’t automatically announce how the audience should feel, which is something that creator Dan Fogelman has been chastised for in the past. Fogelman’s successful development of This Is Us would suggest he has an eye for understanding universal life experiences, but the ABC drama lost steam when it presumed there was only one way to respond to each scenario. This wasn’t an issue in the first season of Paradise because the narrative was so wonky that the protagonist Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) could be excused for his shortsighted decisions due to the revelations about conspiracies and political maneuvering. It wasn’t sustainable for a mystery show to solely focus on the perspective of an idealistic character who was unwilling to see the moral weakness in others, so Paradise made the smart decision to broaden its point-of-view.

The premiere episode of Paradise has the benefit of being aimed at an audience already hooked on its premise, which meant it had room to manipulate the formula. Xavier’s absent because the new installment is set amidst the cataclysmic world event in which his former employer, President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), released a news broadcast to his constituents where he explained the gravity of the situation. The implication that the city-sized bunker that Xavier has resided in was the sole remainder of humanity was inconceivable; it would’ve placed more pressure on its representatives to maintain a long-term plan for the future, and not simply an attempted replication of functioning society. The season two episode “Graceland” has the revelation that the Colorado community is the only organized civilization that’s reformed. Other survivors have waded through the devastated Earth surface in a hunt for resources that made the premise of The Last of Us better than the disappointing second season of the HBO drama.

The key addition to the cast is Shailene Woodley as Annie Clay, a former medical student who became a tour guide at the Presley estate in Graceland. The connection to Elvis may be an excuse to use his discography within the show’s soundtrack, but it’s also an individualized history that has made Annie a mirror to Xavier. Both characters aspired to a career where they could save others, and they each faced trepidation after tragedy; while Xavier didn’t face a crisis of confidence until after President Bradford was murdered, Annie never fulfilled her potential because she dropped out of college before any serious responsibilities were given to her. A protagonist who’s faced with their calling during a time of crisis is a seamless translation of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey,” which is why Annie’s rejection of societal obligations is an interesting wrinkle.

Woodley’s an actress who peaked with her performances as teenagers in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now, which made it more challenging for her to be believable in mature roles. The sunny, intensely moralistic perspective that’s permeated her performances is perfect for roles in which she’s played self-assured adolescents who are wiser than their age, but that doesn’t mean those qualities can be grafted to a thirtysomething character. The role of Annie is written to her strengths because she’s a character who’s independent and not unshackled from the outlook of a young person who has yet to “find themself.” Woodley’s expressive and charismatic enough to counterbalance the rigid culture of the bunker; she’s an Elvis fan who has impeded on a community populated by Frank Sinatra listeners.

Paradise isn’t too self-important to omit a classical evil villain. That role in the second season is occupied by Bradford’s successor, President Henry Baines (Matt Malloy), a sniveling political lackey whose sole platform is to close all borders. Although the show’s insightful enough to suggest that Bradford was simultaneously a decent guy and an ineffective politician, the ascension of a transparent charlatan to high office is a worst-case scenario. Baines is too broad of a character to be the season’s primary antagonist, but Nicole Brydon Bloom is a serviceable enough secondary threat as Xavier’s rival Secret Service agent Jane Driscoll, savvy enough to mask her sinister inhibitions.

Part of what’s made Paradise so enthralling is that there’s a possibility that it could collapse at any given moment. There aren’t many showrunners like Vince Gilligan that plan years in advance, and it's not unlikely that Fogelman doesn’t have a concrete idea of how to wrap up Paradise’s dangling plot threads. For every laughable needle drop there is an actor like Patrick Fischler who can imbue complex emotions to a character with little screen time. Regardless of whether Paradise has any larger ambitions beyond being a string of increasingly dense mysteries, that it’s refused to yield to conventionality is an indication of success.