TV Recap/Review: "Paradise" - Season 2, Episode 4 "A Holy Charge"
Recap:
Link (Thomas Doherty) is woken up by Geiger (Michael McGrady) and told that their ‘train’ has been delayed. They aren’t going to wait, but the mission to find the bunker proceeds. The whole caravan loads up and leaves the temporary campsite.
Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) wakes up in Graceland still handcuffed and wonders where he is. Annie (Shaileen Woodley) tells him that he needs to start moving and uncuffs him. When he starts walking around the room, he sees the horse in the distance and asks where he is. Xavier is shocked to find that he is in Graceland.
In the past, Xavier watches as President Bradford (James Marsden) walks into Samantha’s (Julianne Nicholson) to tell her about the first person to give birth in the bunker. She is less than receptive. Cal is not as thrilled by the complexity of the bunker, and while she gives him the brush off, Cal tells her he thought it was a great way to bring the community together.
Annie checks Xavier’s stitches, and while he pleads with her to let him get to Atlanta and she tells him that he can’t go anywhere until his injuries are healed. Annie learns that the bunker is real from Xavier. She wants to know what it is like, and he tells her just like before the event, but creepier. She tells him that outside in the world, the little things will kill, and he needs to wait it out.
Xavier spends his days trying to heal and gain his strength, which ultimately builds the friendship he needs with Annie. The bond on the rooftop porch is where they talk about their experiences since the eruption of the super volcano. Xavier thanks Annie for saving him but tells her that he can’t take her to Colorado until he finds his wife Teri.
Annie reveals that the father of her baby is on his way to Colorado, and she feared leaving so she hid in a locked room. Xavier shares his experience of being a father and relays how the joys of parenting is worth the aches and pains and worry. (This is a brilliant piece of dialogue between Annie and Xavier. The depth of the story and the character development is extraordinary. Woodley is phenomenal.) Annie sets the terms; they will go to find Teri and then Xavier promises to take Annie to Colorado.
Together they pack up and leave Graceland for a possible future. Xavier on foot, and Annie mounted on the horse.
President Bradford arrives at the hospital to see the woman who is about to give birth to the first child in the bunker. Cal connects with the woman and makes the nervous mother laugh.
Stopped at a church, Xavier listens as Annie describes her craving for waffles. He finds Link’s driver’s license on the ground, and gives it back to Annie, asking if that is the father of the baby. Something about his picture reminds him of something from the past. (Of course they are connected.) Xavier tells Annie that he has had dreams of things that haven’t happened. She tells him that he must have had a concussion, and that he will no doubt have trouble sleeping for awhile.
On the road Xavier and Annie are discussing baby names when they encounter another group of travelers. Annie warns him not to say anything just to keep going, and the two groups pass without incident.
Pacing the hallway of the hospital, Cal asks what Xavier did after the birth of his children, and while the secret service agent gives him an answer not to his liking, Agent Pace (Jon Beavers) joins in on Cal’s joke, and they learn that there are some complications with the birth of the new baby. The woman is brought by and asks Cal to join her in the operating room. The father died on the plane that crashed with the Congress. Xavier doesn’t want Cal in the operating room, so the president tells him to scrub up and join him.
Back on the road, Xavier notices that Annie is feeling uncomfortable, and he suggests they take a break. It just so happens that they end up at a place called the Waffle Barn. Looking through the abandoned restaurant, there is little to see. Xavier takes the time to teach Annie how to swaddle a baby, and he talks about how scared he was when his daughter was born. Xavier tells her that they are all capable of great change.
The next morning, as Annie is about to mount the horse, her water breaks, and she goes into labor. She tells Xavier that it’s too early because of her symptoms for preeclampsia which could threaten Annie and her baby’s life.
In the operating room Cal and Xavier watch the surgery, and Annie in the present time gives Xavier a list of things they need to have the baby in the diner.
Cal enters and starts talking to the woman, keeping her calm, and in the present time Xavier realizes he needs help and tells Annie that he will seek out help from the people they passed. She doesn’t want him to go, but he knows he needs help. This leaves Annie alone and panicked in the restaurant.
Xavier enters a farmhouse looking for assistance and finds no one. Begging for help, he sees items he needs and starts to rummage through the house. When one of the owners approaches with a gun, Xavier attacks and defends himself but he is surrounded by several people all brandishing guns.
Cal tells a story about how the day he brought his son home they were in an accident. The doctor told him that babies are indestructible. This reassures her, and in the present time, Xavier returns with a large group of people ready to help. Annie is reassured, and while present day Xavier helps her, we watch as Xavier observes the operation and Cal sits by the woman’s bedside holding her hand and guiding her through the operation.
While the first baby in the bunker is born, Annie’s child is safely born in the Waffle Barn. They learn that Annie’s baby is a girl, and in the past Samantha actually listened to Cal and came to watch the birth of the first child in the bunker.
Complications ensued for Annie. The placenta won’t come out, and the bleeding won’t stop. She gives Xavier a letter to give, and she tells him that he needs to make sure that he won’t let her daughter be afraid of people. Annie dies in Xavier’s arms. (This is the biggest gut punch that I have experienced from a television show in a long time. I’m torn between the phenomenal arc that Shaileen Woodley had as Annie but also amazed at the storytelling of the show.)
They bury Annie on the nearby farm, and Xavier is left with caring for her daughter. Xavier spends his time at the farm gathering supplies, and when he gathers the horse to leave, he won’t leave Annie’s grave. The group offers to take the baby for Xavier, but he won’t break his promise to Annie.
With his new baby carrier and the baby inside crying, Xavier is figuring out how he is going to travel and that is when the horse joins him from Annie’s grave. They leave the farm in the bright lights of the sun.
In the bunker, Samantha visits the new mother and brings a gift and congratulates her on the birth of her child. It turns out the new baby is named after Cal Bradford. This makes Samantha laugh, and when Sam is given the opportunity to hold the baby, she does, and this allows the new mother to sleep for an hour.
Alone with the baby, Samantha tells the boy that someday he will see the real sky and feel the warmth of the real sun. (I knew Sinatra was too powerful, she has a master plan. She even says so. I guess this leaves me wondering if Sinatra is truly a bad person, or just willing to do what it takes to save people.)
Camping, Xavier reads Annie’s letter to her child. As Xavier makes his way into Atlanta, Link and his gang have made their way to the bunker door and want in. At the post office in Atlanta, Xavier meets a man who says he knows his wife, but she was taken from him.
Review:
I was not expecting the ending to Shaileen Woodley’s character. I loved Annie. Her premiere arc in the first episode of the season was television at its finest and should be enough alone to get Woodley an Emmy nomination. The fact that she is dead now is not okay. However, I understand why, and I accept that this is just a television show.
The buildup in this season for an epic confrontation has been masterful and well laid out with great backstories that helped to make the show such a gem on television. Paradise is not just a one trick pony. The layers to the story are what make viewers compelled and the casting is pitch perfect.
Having James Marsden back to show his charm as Cal Bradford, makes me want a prequel show of just Marsden as Cal. Dan Fogelman could call it Cal. It writes itself.
As great as Woodley and Marsden, and Julianne Nicholson are, the show lives on the shoulders of Sterling K. Brown. He is perfection in every moment in every scene. His altruism is so true and genuine that it would be easy to see that Brown puts so much of his own self into the role.
‘A Holy Charge’ is easily one of the best episodes of the season, and this is after the homerun of a first episode. Paradise just gets better and better. I can’t wait for more.