The 3-Part Paradise Season 2 Premiere Is Trying So Hard to Confound, It’s Utterly Predictable

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This article discusses the first three episodes of Paradise Season 2.

The first season of Paradise was a wild ride, constantly shifting between the present and the past with unexpected twists and turns. It flipped everything you thought you understood on its head, revealing that seemingly good characters had dark sides and a picturesque town was actually a massive underground bunker built after a global catastrophe. You could only trust Xavier Collins, the Secret Service agent and father played by Sterling K. Brown. By the finale, many important characters were either dead or seriously hurt, and we learned that around 55 million Americans had survived the apocalypse – including Xavier’s wife.

When Xavier, a conveniently licensed pilot, flew a plane out of a Colorado bunker to search for her in Atlanta, viewers were left reeling, unsure if the uneasy feeling they had was excitement or just disorientation. Now, a year later, the show’s creator, Dan Fogelman – known for his twisty storytelling in NBC’s This Is Us – is back with a second season that doubles down on the surprises. However, the show, already complicated with numerous characters and timelines, has become even more convoluted. In the three-part premiere now on Hulu, Paradise relies too heavily on familiar plot devices, making it not only predictable but also surprisingly boring.

A significant portion of this eight-episode series relies on a classic thriller technique: delaying answers to create suspense. The first, unusually long episode, titled “Graceland,” is dedicated to introducing a new character, Annie, played by Shailene Woodley. We learn about her life over the three years following a global disaster referred to as “The Day,” during which she’s been hiding at Graceland, Elvis’s former home turned museum. The episode details Annie’s upbringing, including her mother’s brilliance and struggle with mental health, tragically passing away from a blood clot while sitting beneath her Duke University diploma. After a triggering incident involving a patient with a similar condition, Annie abandons her medical training. Fortunately, a Graceland employee helps her calm down, and she starts working as a tour guide. This lengthy introduction leads to the events of “The Day,” when Annie and a coworker take shelter at Graceland as society crumbles. Despite Annie’s medical skills, her coworker ultimately dies.

The entire experience turns out to be a prelude to a new group arriving a couple of years later: some resourceful individuals seeking the King’s classic cars for a trip to Colorado. They’re aware of the bunker. Annie, deeply affected by her time alone, is initially wary of these men. But slowly, she begins to trust them, and eventually falls for their handsome leader, Link (Thomas Doherty). When they prepare to leave, he asks her to join them, saying, “Come restart the world with me, Annie.” She retreats back into hiding. Soon after, Link leaves, promising to return for her, we discover Annie is pregnant, and we see her riding a horse when she spots Xavier unconscious next to his wrecked and smoking plane.

Despite the mystery surrounding his fate, Brown, the Emmy-nominated lead and producer of the show, is very much alive. However, the show still drags out the uncertainty, spending the second episode weaving between Xavier’s trip from Colorado to Memphis and flashbacks of his romance with his wife, Teri. We see him fall in with a strangely silent group of kids who were traveling for a sports competition on the day of the catastrophic event. (Honestly, it made me wish I was watching Yellowjackets instead.) Back in 2004, Xavier injures his knee and ends up in the hospital, where he quickly connects with Teri, a no-nonsense woman, by taking care of her after surgery temporarily blinds her. She asks him, “Is this what you do? Make sure I have what I need?” The scene seems meant to prove his love for her, but it feels redundant considering he just risked everything – even flying a stolen plane – to rescue her and bring her back to Colorado.

The story starts to come together towards the end of Episode 2, “Mayday,” when Xavier wakes up at Graceland. Annie, holding a gun, tells him they aren’t going to Atlanta to find Teri. Instead, she wants him to take her to the bunker, likely to see the father of her baby. His secret knowledge about the Colorado project begins to make sense in Episode 3, which revisits the Paradise location for the first time this season. Titled “Another Day in Paradise,” the episode continues to use the Phil Collins song, even though the show already used that reference extensively in Season 1. It feels repetitive, and a different song with “Paradise” in the title—like something by Green Day or Meat Loaf—would have been a welcome change.

Even though the episode title and music are a bit cheesy – leaning heavily on 80s soft rock favored by the late President Bradford – “Another Day in Paradise” is the strongest of the three installments so far. The story returns to the bunker, where Xavier’s colleagues continue to look after his children. Sinatra is recovering from a shooting by her security officer, Jane, and is also facing accusations of misusing the bunker’s power. Jane remains dangerously unstable, and the episode sees another presidential casualty. We also learn more about Sinatra’s past through flashbacks, revealing a conversation with a scientist who predicted an even greater climate disaster after the initial catastrophe. These flashbacks also show that Sinatra wasn’t always ruthless; she had an academic and entrepreneur murdered when he refused to sell her vital technology for the bunker, marking a turning point in her character.

Look, I’m a fan of Josh Fischler, but even I had to chuckle at the heavy-handedness of casting him as this unbelievably kind guy whose wife is battling Huntington’s. It felt a little… obvious, especially considering the show’s central theme. It’s clearly meant to highlight Sinatra’s flaws. But honestly, a Dan Fogelman show without big emotional moments? That’d be like a reality show without any drama – it just wouldn’t be the show, would it?

This episode builds tension by hinting at a new, larger danger, which also adds complexity to Sinatra’s reasons for wanting power. It would have been more effective if these plot points had been introduced earlier in the season. The first two episodes suffer from being slow-paced and from the show prioritizing characters’ pasts over developing their personalities – we learn what they’ve done, but not who they are. More concerningly, as the series progresses, it risks becoming just another post-apocalyptic story like The Last of Us, Fallout, The Walking Dead, and 28 Days Later. We’ve seen this setup countless times: a group of survivors banding together, struggling to live in a dangerous world, and desperately searching for a safe place. And how many stories feature a pregnancy at the end of the world?

Okay, so when Paradise first came out, I wasn’t blown away, honestly. It felt like they threw in a ton of characters but didn’t really develop them, and while the setting was interesting, it didn’t feel fully realized. It was all action and not enough substance, you know? It basically followed the familiar trope of rich people being greedy, although that one flashback episode before the finale was pretty pointed in calling out the folks who caused a lot of problems and then bailed. Still, it was entertaining enough to keep me watching. But Season 2? The first couple of episodes felt like a completely different show, and creator Dan Fogelman clearly wanted that. The problem is, it ended up feeling like something I’ve seen a hundred times before – another story about wealth and its consequences.

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2026-02-24 00:06