TV Review: "Paradise" Season 2 Challenges Xavier Collins to Learn to Survive in a Whole New World

The battle for the soul of humanity breaks out of the bunker in the action-packed and gloriously expanded season 2 of Paradise.

Intense moments of despair and the will to survive brought some members of humanity to a bunker in Colorado, but now that Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) knows that his wife Teri (Enuka Okuma) survived the extinction-level event that was meant to wipe out the planet, he won’t stop until they are reunited.

Meant to be a continuation of life inside the protection of Sinatra’s (Juliane Nicholson) bunker, in only three years since the death of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) forced Secret Service agent Xavier to question everything that he has experienced. Freeing himself from the confines of the utopian prison, Xavier will soon learn that the outside world poses a greater danger. 

Annie (Shaileen Woodley) has learned to hide from the world thanks to her job at Graceland. When the world comes to an end, she finds shelter at Elvis’ house, and her incubation in isolation has allowed her to grow from someone who didn’t feel like they belonged into a confident and capable survivor. When Annie forges a relationship with Link (Thomas Doherty), she has a chance at bringing a new light to the world that she never thought possible. 

Paradise is a fascinating concept that explores an end-of-the-world story with a twist. Led by Sterling K. Brown in the role of Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins, it was focused on the idea of what would happen if the President was murdered in such a ‘safe’ environment like the bunker. While the cat-and-mouse game led to an epic conclusion, the idea of Xavier leaving the bunker to find Teri is an incredible opportunity to allow the story to grow. 

Shaileen Woodley owns this second season with her stellar opening episode. Having the show restart with a brand-new character but allowing the audience to see her live a mimicked life of isolation much like Xavier did in season 1 was a brilliant way to show how, no matter where you were, if you survived the ash cloud and tsunami, then you most likely were stuck in your own bunker for some time.

Woodley sheds the glamor of a more stable and successful character to give Annie a personal touch. She is a funny and intelligent person who is just looking for her place in the world. It is in her isolation, and how Woodley paces the scenes with her worry and fear that allows the audience the opportunity to see Annie as a person and not a character on a show. 

Focused and sharp in the small moments when we see her as a medical resident, to the confidence and joy she shows as tour guide to Graceland and delivering a corny joke about Elvis, Woodley is a revelation in her role. She makes the audience forget about Xavier Collins and owns the focus of the show with her knockout performance. Woodley’s tour de force performance is the best she has been, and will no doubt bring her awards attention in this stunning addition to the show.

Woodley makes Annie a person the audience will connect with instantly, as well as root for. Her strength and defiance to the dangers that lurk in the world is something that we haven’t seen before with Paradise, and having Woodley start the new season will be the game changer in enhancing and broadening the narrative of the show.

Sterling K. Brown is simply perfect as Xavier Collins. This time, we get to see how Brown makes Collins adapt to a world he doesn’t know. Having spent the last three years inside the bunker, Collins is out of his league during his search for Teri, but it is the earnest portrayal of Collins that allows Brown to make his man grow into a better human. Throughout the season, as Brown brings Collins into new experiences, we meet the heart and soul of who the character is. 

No matter where he goes, no matter what he does, Xavier Collins is the living embodiment of hope for the new world. He makes allies and can defend himself. Brown has such a magnetic persona of holding the audience in the power of his voice and the manner that he carries Xavier on the screen that when he is unleashed on the outside world, it is easy to see the spell that his costars come under, as well as their characters. He brings purity and nobility to his actions, that even when he fights and kills armed goons, Xavier Collins is a Lancelot of the new world that is growing. 

A pleasant surprise is the backstory we get about Jane, played by Nicole Bloom. To anyone who has seen the first season of the show, Jane is not someone to mess with, however, with season 2 we fill in the unknown of her life. Bloom has a tough job in the role but somehow manages to blend her naïve innocence and killer instinct into a web of danger that even the smartest characters struggle to see, until it is too late.

Julianne Nicholson is back as Sinatra, and though she may be the mastermind of the bunker and a killer, Nicholson makes me want to care for Sinatra. The layers are unraveled a little more, and we learn there is more to the bunker than just surviving the eruption, ash cloud, and tsunami. There is another danger that she is looking out for, that no one else knows, and that’s what makes her important. She’s bad, like Darth Vader bad, but she has the possibility of being redeemed. 

Sadly, we only get some flashbacks with James Marsden as President Cal Bradford, and while it’s a loss for the show, Marsden makes the audience like Bradford even more with how he acutely makes the most powerful man in the bunker be human and not a monster.

Paradise is storytelling at its best, and season two unravels in a frenetic mass of narrative growth, odyssey, and an action-packed tale of survival. This is television at its best and is not to be missed. 

Season 2 of Paradise arrives on Tuesday, February 23, with a three-episode drop.