TV Recap/Review: "Paradise" - Season 2, Episode 6 "Jane"
Recap:
It’s 1997, and it is the birth of Jane Driscoll. (Soon to be resident psychopath in the bunker) A tormented Circuit City employee who has been harassed for days with a message stating a killer would be born on June 6, at 12:01 am, delivers his message to Jane’s frightened mother as she is being wheeled out of the hospital to go home. According to the man, Jane is a killer but can be stopped when it matters. (Quite the supernatural/exorcist moment in the storyline. However, I do agree that Jane is the devil.)
At the train yard in Atlanta, Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) plans to set his bomb to rescue Teri (Enuka Okuma). Gary (Cameron Britton) wonders how he will pull this rescue off. As Xavier explains how he used to set up elaborate train tracks for his son’s birthday, we see Robinson (Krys Marshall) being brought to the secret prison, and Samantha (Julianne Nicholson) watching the video of Link’s (Thomas Doherty) message to the people in the bunker.
Jane (Nicole Bloom) enters Samantha’s (Julianne Nicholson) house to protect her. Now that President Baines is dead, she is back in charge according to Jane. Back in her childhood, Jane sees her mom going for a sauna with her boyfriend, and young Jane starts talking to an imaginary friend. She locks the door to the sauna and turns up the heat on the love birds. Then she stares at the two with a devilish smirk. Afte her mother screams at her to open the door, Jane does and then her mom locks her in the sauna as punishment. Her mother screams at her that the lunatic that warned her that her child was a killer, was right.
Gabriela (Sarah Shahi) listens to the conversations she has recorded with Samantha. Samantha constantly references the name Alex, and this has the good doctor wondering what is happening. An advisory council meeting is called and Gabriela needs to go.
Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and James (Percy Daggs IV) are left with babysitters as Robinson is in prison, and now the kids have to deal with inept sitters assigned by the Secret Service. Presley wants to know why the adults are not fighting back, and their response is that Xavier and Robinson told them to keep the kids safe.
Samantha enters the advisory council meeting and allows Jane to update about how Robinson murdered President Baines. The fact they have two dead presidents is unsettling to the council. Samantha shows the group a video of the militia that is massing outside of the bunker doors. Samantha tells them that she has a plan, but she will not act on the plan without everyone’s consent at the table. Gabriela leaves the meeting.
Jeremy (Charles Evans) is sitting with Anders (Erik Svedberg-Zelman) the designer of the bunker. He tells him that you can’t just bust the doors open, it’s a fortress, and if the oxygen supply is shut off, then this emergency situation will force every door open.
Samantha asks Jane to sit down in her office. She tells the secret service agent that Jane terrifies her, but she has no one else that knows all her secrets. Samantha admits that she remembered what Jane said to her after she shot her. Jane tells Samantha that she is a killer and if she had died than she has no purpose. Samantha tells Jane that she needs her to go negotiate the terms with the militia before she meets with them.
Ten years earlier, Jane is being interrogated by the CIA. She breaks free and though she is fierce, Jane gets beaten up. It is nothing more than a simulation at the CIA. Her supervisory officer is concerned about Jane’s psychological evaluation. She tells Jane that she needs to fight smarter especially when it is against an enemy that is twice her size and has twice the anger. Her supervisor tries to mentor her on how to use meditation to quiet the noise and the voices in her head. This sticks well with Jane, and she uses it in her training. In the present time, Jane goes outside the bunker.
Presley is sitting in the café and wondering what to do about Jermey, when Samantha’s daughter Hadley (Kate Godfrey) comes in. Presley joins her at the table and proceeds to tell Hadley that her mother isn’t who she thinks she is.
In the basement prison, Gabriela meets with Robinson and tells her that she knows that she didn’t kills President Baines. While the doctor tries to probe her about who is the mysterious ‘Alex’, Robinson is having none of it. She has no desire to help in any way, because as usual the evil rich people get away with everything. Robinson tells Gabriela that Sinatra is not the dangerous one, but Jane is the one to fear the most.
Jane spies on Link’s (Thomas Doherty) militia group from the hills and casually walks towards them. She takes one of the men hostage, and wants to talk to Link. She tells him that he can bring five men, but they can’t be armed. Link tells Jane that he hopes they have apple pie in the bunker. (Nicole Bloom has elevated her work by making Jane even crazier.)
While having dinner with her supervisory agent, Jane is celebrating her success and learns that her friend got passed over for a promotion. Jane learns that her supervisor helped her because she thought Jane was incredibly special.
Back in the bunker, Jane tells Samantha that Link and the militia agreed to the terms. She presents Jane with a gift, a Nintendo Switch, and this makes Jane so excited. (Like a child.) Samantha’s daughter Hadley enters and wants to know if she is Sinatra. Her mom tells her that it’s just a codename and nothing else. Her daughter presses her about the disappearances and wants to know what is happening. Samantha promises that she will get to the bottom of what is going on as soon as she can.
Robinson watches in the prison yard how Jeremy is actively working to break out. She tells him that it is as obvious as ever how he plans to escape through the sewer.
Jane in the past, arrives at the home of the man who got the promotion over her friend in the CIA. She asks him to turn it down, but he tells her to go away. Jane follows him inside. (This is not good. Jane has the crazy eyes!) When she arrives at her friend’s house, we learn that the male coworker was attacked, and when Jane is asked what is in the bag she is carrying, Jane tells her that he won’t get any more promotions because of a certain appendage. (Jane is crazy.)
Back in the bunker, Jane is sitting at Samantha’s desk pleased with her success. She stares at herself in the mirror, and mimics what Samantha has told her. When Gabriela arrives, Jane tells her Samantha is gone for the evening and then tells her that she is not there for Samantha but Jane. Gabriela tells her that she knows what she did, but Jane reminds her that she should know what she is capable of. Jane tells Gabriela that if she comes for Samantha, she comes through Jane.
Back at home Samantha turns off her daughter’s light, but Hadley is far from asleep. She texts Presley she knows where the people are sent, and she offers to help.
Robinson watches as Jermey and Anders are attempting an escape and decides to help. In the locker room, the two lift open the manhole cover and just as they are caught, Robinson arrives and knocks out the guard. The three of them escape from the hidden ladder.
Xavier is wiring up the bomb, and Gary relays information about who is active on the train. Carefully he sets up the train to blow, without anyone noticing. As he wires the bomb, Gary decides to rig up the detonator early. Xavier radios Gary and tells him that if anything happens to him he needs to save Teri. Gary reveals his true motives, and blows the bomb, (Gary, you are a crazy man if you think this was going to kill Xavier Collins.) but Xavier throws it far enough away so that he doesn’t die instantly.
On the ground, with armed goons coming his way, Xavier sees Teri approach him and the husband and wife are the closest they have been in years.
Review:
This is an episode that shows the craziest of the crazy people getting their way and showing their violence. Gary is a killer, but his attempt to blow up Xavier will go down in television history as the stupidest thing to do. Xavier Collins is never going to be killed by a bomb. The man is impossibly tough, and explosions are a minor inconvenience.
The real focus of episode 6 is Jane Driscoll and her endless ability to being a psychopathic monster that is to be feared. Since we get the ominous warnings of her birth, the over-the-top situation of stopping her is something I didn’t expect in the show but liked. The backstory of what she did to the one guy at the CIA is brutality at its best, and another building block of her psyche. I am afraid of her, and if I was Gabriela, I wouldn’t turn my back on Jane Driscoll.
Nicole Bloom finally gets a whole episode to explore her character’s backstory, and while she shows the warmth and innocence of her supervisory officer at the CIA, the fact is that Jane is a killer and one to fear. Bloom makes her agent a weapon of unbelievable power.
Paradise is superior dramatic television thanks to a brilliant concept that allows regular and guest stars to thrive in a world where their characters are richly developed with an incredible narrative.