Happy Paradise Season 2 Premiere Day, friends! The day is finally here! In true Hulu fashion, the first three episodes dropped today so there is a ton of ground to cover in today’s review. Remember that this review and analysis will include MANY SPOILERS so do not continue to read unless you have watched them already! With that being said, let’s dig into the second season of Paradise! (Disclaimer: if you’re reading this far and are watching season 2, I’m assuming you are fully caught up on season 1.)
Episode 201 – Graceland
Annie is a tour guide in Memphis, Tennessee, when the world ends. Her survival in the ensuing years after The Day is revealed as well as her encounter with a traveling group of survivors.
The season 2 premiere introduces us to Annie, a young girl living a difficult life in Memphis, TN. She and her mother share a bond over Elvis, and Annie visits Graceland to attend the tours and brings her mom news and tidbits from the tour. One day, Annie tragically comes home to find her mom has passed away.
As a young med student, Annie’s past traumas continue to plague her to the point of a mental breakdown, forcing her to leave medical school. She drives to Graceland, her place of comfort and connection to her mom where she meets and befriends Gayle Edwards, a Graceland security guard who helps Annie get hired as a tour guide, giving the same tour she took as a child. During one of her tours, the attendees start to get news of the climate disaster that changed the world forever. She and Gayle decide to set up shelter inside Graceland to ride out whatever may come next. While preparing their new home, Gayle takes a bad fall, injuring her leg.
As the outside world crumbles around them, Annie and Gayle make the best of their shelter in Elvis Presley’s mansion. Gayle’s leg becomes infected, leading to what is likely sepsis. Unfortunately, Annie loses yet another maternal figure in her life, while the world remains in freezing chaos.
Almost two years later, Annie is still living in Graceland when she realizes the sun is finally out again. A group of men break into the property and find Annie inside. After realizing that they are not going to harm her, she cautiously gets to know Link, one of the young leaders of the group. We learn that they are traveling around to safely shut down the 94 nuclear power plants around the country. They think that two thirds of the world’s population have died due to the disaster or trying to survive the aftermath.
The group has a nice dinner on their last night at Graceland, followed by Annie giving them the tour. Eventually, the majority of the group pulls away leaving Annie and Link time alone (I think we can see where this is going). After their night together, Link tells Annie what he knows about the bunker in Colorado and mentions that it’s holding something very dangerous. The morning after Link asks her to go with him, Annie locks herself in a room and decides she can’t go with him, no matter how much Link fights and pleads.
After the group leaves, Annie finds a note from Link saying that he’ll come back for her. Time passes as Annie continues to live inside the Graceland mansion, and we get the reveal that Annie is in fact now pregnant. One night she hears a plane crash and finds it on the telescope. Worrying that it might be Link, she sets out on horseback to investigate. Upon arrival, she finds Xavier lying unconscious on the ground, clearly having crashed his plane on the way to find Teri.
Episode 202 – Mayday
Xavier battles the elements and other threats as he follows a broadcast to Atlanta in search of his wife, Teri.
Episode 2 opens on Xavier waking after his plane has crashed somewhere outside of Memphis as he flashes back to the plane going down I the middle of a hailstorm. He faces the reality of his injuries as he attempts to exit the plane. We see Xavier attempt to triage himself, intercut with flashbacks to a knee injury. A child comes along and startles him, telling him to be silent. He warns Xavier of a group nearby but runs off with his backpack and first aid kit. We think he’s deserted, but he offers Xavier a walking stick and helps him to hide from the strangers that approach the plane wreckage.
The boy leads him to a boat where he and several other children have set up shelter of a sort. We then get swap between the shelter and extended flashbacks of Xavier meeting Teri in the hospital as he recovers from knee surgery. A younger Teri is Xavier’s roommate, awaiting back surgery. Xavier is persistent in trying to get to know her and spend more time with her, but she resists all the while still engaging in banter. She’s focused on establishing her career and seems to not want children. Xavier still doesn’t take this for a no.
Back in the present, the kids give Xavier his things. Daniel , the leader of the group, informs Xavier that they are in Arkansas. The kids were all on a traveling sports team the day the climate disaster happened, and they have all lost their coaches and parents.
In the flashback, Teri has lost her sight after a surgical complication and is understandably distraught. In the present, Xavier leaves the boat as the kids drift off to sleep. Outside, a man approaches and holds him at gunpoint. Even while injured, Xavier manages to access his Secret Service training to fight back, choking the stranger to death. After realizing the children had approached at some point and witness it, they bury the man. Daniel’s younger sister lets Xavier know he has been stabbed in the abdomen. Xavier later wakes up back on the boat to find that his wound has been cleaned up and bandaged. The children left only his photo of his kids and a note saying “sorry”.
Even though younger Xavier was released from the hospital, he returns to stay with Teri through her recovery. As Teri slowly regains her sight, she realizes that Xavier is been taking care of her and making sure she has everything she need.
Present day Xavier returns to the scene of his plane crash where he passes out. Annie finds him, hoping to have found Link. She gets him onto her horse, and brings him back to Graceland. Once he wakes, he explains to Annie about the bunker in Colorado and his mission to find Teri. But Annie demands he take her to Colorado instead.
Episode 203 – Another Day in Paradise
Sinatra wakes to discover a new paradigm in the bunker and takes steps to safeguard its biggest secret.”
The final episode in today’s Hulu drop, picks up with Sinatra in the hospital recovering from her gunshot wound as she flashes back to speaking with the conference presenter that warned of the climate disaster. He warns her that the first disaster won’t be the only one. A few years after The Day, greenhouse gases will take over causing the temperatures to rise and pressure will crush everything left. Sinatra seems to think her money and resources can beat it. Her next flashback is to the last election night, where we get the line from the trailer and she tells President Bradford: “It was never just about the bunker.” Hmmm…. We also learn that there is another piece of technology she wants to buy, but the developer doesn’t want to sell. Bradford’s father recommends reaching out to another type of person. This can’t be good.
Back in the present, the new acting president’s posters are being put up in the bunker and we see Cal Bradford’s son Jeremy and friends defacing property. Xavier’s daughter Presley finds a note from Jeremy that reads:
“Presley, My friends are disappearing. Taken to a secret prison, I don’t know where. We’re painting X’s on things in honor of your dad. Need to do something bigger. Love, Jeremy”
Agent Robinson is staying in Xavier’s house to care for the kids in his absence. She flashes back to the night that Jane shot Sinatra, where we see how skeptical she is of Jane (rightfully so, that girl is WILD). In the present, Robinson tells the kids, especially Presley, to stay out of trouble until their dad gets back (unlikely for her). Robinson has apparently been demoted to catering to Jane, who appears to have been promoted.
The acting President (former VP) is holding a cabinet meeting, where he suggests increasing the temperature of the bunker to give the citizens a summer, since they lack seasons. A staff member informs Baines that they lack enough power for this because a large portion of their power is being siphoned off for “Santra’s project” that no one in the cabinet seems to know about. The original engineer of the bunker points out how stupid the President’s summer idea is, so he is carted off by secret service agents and arrested by the police.
Sinatra wakes up in the hospital to her husband and daughter. Janes arrives and asks for a private moment with Sinatra. Jane asks her if she remembers what happened, and Sinatra claims that she doesn’t. Jane says that Xavier Collins is the one that shot her. But follows that up with, “ If you do remember anything differently, please know that I did what I had to do to keep you clean.” I told you this girl is out of control. She then informs Sinatra that Baines wants her to be brought in for questioning.
Dr. Gabriela Torabi brings her into a lie detector test for questioning. Sinatra is upset with Torabi for working with Baines but proceeds with the questioning. She flashes back to a conversation with Billy Pace where she appears to be hiring him as a hit man to try to force the developer to sell her the technology she wants. During the lie detector test, Torabi asks if she’s siphoning power from the bunker and Sinatra claims to not know what she’s talking about, but when she’s asked a third time, she says no and Baines bursts into the room. How is this guy fit to be president when he can’t even stay calm through a few questions? Although that particular bar is in hell these days. She funnily says that Baines needs a breath mint.
We see a younger Billy Pace approach the developer in a bar where he attempts to get to know him in what he fakes it to look organic. The developer speaks of a young student that is such a genius that he made him a partner in his business and says that he’s like the son he’s never had. Billy then drops the bomb that the developer needs to sign the papers and sell, or they’ll have to do things the hard way and he’s armed. The developer appears to be signing the papers, but it’s revealed that he just wrote down an address that he handed to Billy.
Robinson is tired of seeing Jane put on a act and looks into her file, which is mostly redacted. President Baines insists on going for a run, although the Secret Service pushes back. Jane offers to go with him by herself and will stay far enough behind so that he won’t know she’s there.
While Sinatra is relaxing at home, Torabi pays her a visit and brings her a framed photo of the two of them from the first planning retreat for the bunker and uses a childhood story to tell Sinatra that their relationship is not worth fixing anymore.
At home, Presley learns that James did not give her Jeremy’s latest note asking her to meet up with him that night. James eventually fesses up an hour late, so she rushes to get to him. Unfortunately, before she arrives, the police get there first and arrest him. Presley arrives just in time to see him get taken away.
Robinson visits the crime scene in Billy’s home and learns that Jane attempted to cover up his murder as a suicide. She receives a notification that Jane is out with Baines on his run.
Back in the past, Billy arrives at the developer’s home, gun in tow. He walks in to see the developer’s wife in a hospital bed with Huntington’s disease. He administers a lethal dose of a drug into her IV and says he’ll see her soon. He clearly would rather die than give Sinatra access to his technology. He references an Alex, but we don’t know who that is. He asks Billy to at least let his student go when he arrives. Billy completes the job, shooting him and does indeed let the student go when he gets there. The student appears to be Link! Billy urges him to run away. He meets up with Sinatra again and informs her that it’s taken care of. She pays him and asks how to reach him again if she needs his services in the future. He says that he just needs a photo and a name, and she just needs to say, “they need a breath mint”. UMMMM UH OH.
In the present, we see Jane and Baines on their run. But true to form, Jane slits his throat and draws an X in blood on his back. Robinson arrives to find the body and as she attempts to call it in, Jane arrives and knocks her out, laying her body next to Baines’ and places the knife in her hand. Jane calls in that Robinson killed Baines.
The police bring Jeremy down several levels to the prison beneath the bunker where the engineer is also being held. Jeremy tells him that he needs to help him blow the doors to the bunker wide open.
Sinatra is at home speaking with her housekeeper, Carmen, who appears to know more about Sinatra’s secret project. Sinatra asks for an estimate of some kind, and Carmen just says, “she is getting closer.” I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!
What an incredibly jam packed first three episodes! We got to spend one in Graceland with Annie, one in Arkansas with Xavier, and the third back into the bunker. Where do you think we’re heading next after that cliffhanger?!
