Spoiler Warning: The following is a recap of the first episode of Paradise. There are major spoilers in this writing.
Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) is awake in his bed, listening to the sound of his clock ticking like a thundering train passing by. He rises and dresses. Before leaving the house, the father leaves all the necessary notes needed to motivate his children Presley and James as they get up for school.
Outside, Collins talks to his neighbor Carl (Richard Robichaux), and then he departs for a morning jog. Eventually at the end of his jog at the President’s house, Collins meets with Agent Pace (Jon Beavers), and the two professionals exchange some good-natured ribbing. Collins departs returning home to his kids eating breakfast. After being ridiculed by Presley (Aliyah Mastin) Collins thanks her for making breakfast.
When he asks his son James (Percy Daggs IV) what he’s reading, he sees that it is James and the Giant Peach (Subtle Disney synergy. I wonder if the viewership hours for that particular Disney film will explode now.) Collins is not happy but buries his resentment about the book.
Collins returns to his work, where he meets Jane (Nicole Bloom) and then proceeds inside the house. When he enters the building, he meets two more Secret Service agents where they tell him that their protection detail is still asleep. Xavier thinks that’s odd, Climbing the stairs, he makes his way towards the room of President Cal Bradford, (James Marsden).
Knocking on the door he announces himself but receives no reply. Xavier announces that he is coming in, (You just know something bad has happened. After all, Bradford is not following his usual routine. This is trouble.) Inside the room, Collins finds Bradford on the floor, dead, with a massive wound to his head. The sight of the body brings Collins back to a flashback at the White House.
Five years earlier, Collins enters the Oval Office where Bradford invites him to take a seat. Bradford is about to promote Collins as his lead agent. Bradford is fresh off his reelection victory, and he gets down to brass tacks. The President wants to make it to his retirement where he can enjoy sitting in his pool, and he doesn’t want to get shot. The President wants to know if Collins understands what he is asking. Collins is very closed off, and answers in the affirmative, and Bradford can’t take it anymore. He compares the meeting to the worst first date he has ever been on. Imploring the Secret Service agent to ask him anything, Collins wants to know why the President is changing lead agents.
The President says the lead agent he has now is old, and is a bore, and Bradford wants someone fun to be around. They debate the merits of their relationship, and the President sells Collins on taking this important position. Before leaving the office, the two have a laugh, and the future looks bright for Bradford and Collins.
Back in the present Collins checks to see if Bradford is still alive and then surveys the scene. The President is dead, and when asked if everything is okay in the room, Collins is hesitant on the communication system. Collins wants the mansion locked down quietly for the next thirty minutes and gives no explanation to Jane.
Going back to the past, Bradford asks Collins how he is enjoying his first week and starts asking about his family. While Collins offers some personal detail, the president describes how he is relatively certain that the First Lady voted for the other guy in the election. Bradford then explains that the second he is out of office, his wife will leave him and take their kid.
Asking why Collins’ wife didn’t want more kids, the president looks for some sort of story because he is feeling depressed. Collins tells him that his wife is building up her career and she wants to focus on her job and not have any more kids. The President tells him that’s a good idea, then he dismisses Collins for the night.
In the present, Collins continues to search the room and then calls in Agent Pace. He tells him that he needs him back at the house before it is called in, and Collins warns Pace that if he gets into this with him, it’s going to be a world of hurt.
Collins heads to the basement to speak with the surveillance agent Garcia. He wants to see the video log from yesterday. He watches as Bradford’s day plays out, and Collins is mentally reviewing the events from the day. The evening events are shown, and the last person to see Cal Bradford alive was Xavier Collins.
In the past, Bradford is at a press conference on the White House lawn while Collins and other agents scan the area. He notices a camera man acting suspicious, and then a gun is pulled. Springing into action Collins saves the President but gets shot in the process. In the hospital Collins wakes from surgery to the President waiting for him.
Bradford thanks Collins for saving his life and wants to know if there is anything he can do for him. The president orders him to take a couple of weeks off after he recovers and then tells him that he wants to talk to Collins about the future when he returns. Bradford believes that saying thank you feels insufficient for what Collins did.
Back at the murder scene, Collins and Pace survey the scene, and Collins tells Pace that the safe is empty and that ‘it’ is gone. (I wonder what the ‘it’ is) Pace is assigned to walk the yard and take mental notes, because in a few minutes Collins will have to report what happened.
Pace makes a tour of the house, and is met by Jane, wondering what is happening. Pace ignores her and searches along the path outside the balcony where he finds some disturbances in the bushes. In the basement, Collins meets with Garcia again and finds that he left at 10 pm. Pace took over for the evening and Collins learns that Pace is not very thorough or attentive at his job.
Garcia has learned that from 10:42 to 12:13, the security cameras are frozen. (Intrigue, just what we need.) The possibility that anyone could have gotten into the house is strong, and with Jane on duty, Garcia theorizes that someone young and inexperienced would have missed some important clues.
In the house, Jane demands that Pace tell her what’s going on, and he tells her to be calm and that from now on everything they do will be looked at. Before Collins comes into the room, the two slyly hand each other something that is obscured from the cameras. Collins makes the lockdown official, and states that Wildcat is down, and it is a code red.
The house fills up with secret service agents, and Collins is brought into a room to answer some questions about the death of Bradford. Agent Robinson (Krys Marshall) enters the room and wants to know if Collins spoke to Bradford last night. Collins remembers the picture of the girl who spent the evening in Bradford’s room last night, who happens to be Agent Collins, and the earrings she left behind.
Back the previous evening, Collins opens the door for Bradford, and while the president is his usual talkative self, Collins just wants to go home. Bradford has retrieved his government tablet (this must be what was stolen) from the safe, claiming it’s the news of the world, and he begs Collins to have a drink with him.
Pleading with the secret service agent to speak his mind, Collins tells Bradford that he really doesn’t want that. Dismissed, Bradford asks Collins if he will ever be able to forgive him for what happened. (More intrigue)
Collins returns to duty after the assassination attempt and is welcomed into the Oval Office where President Bradford tells him that if he doesn’t have to speak, he should just keep quiet and listen. In the room are some powerful individuals with the president, where they pass around a black tablet. (This is what has gone missing in the present.) Xavier is told that the President has cleared him for a high level of national security, and he is asked if he wishes to proceed. Collins agrees.
The high-ranking general proceeds to explain that the tablet in the box on the table has some highly classified data and then the president mentions that Collins must know what is happening in Colorado.
On the night of the president’s death, Collins repeats Bradford's statement about forgiving him, Collins proceeds to explain the importance of their kid’s names. We learn that his son James is named for ‘James and the Giant Peach’. Collins continues to explain how his wife read that book every night she was pregnant, to their son. Xavier continues that he will forgive Bradford when he can sleep again, and he will sleep again when Bradford is dead.
Collins runs home from Bradford's house passing the town going about their business. (Local citizens are paying with things from a magic band like object, which makes me suspect this town is not what it seems. A man is placing model ducks in what looks like a creek, but it is barely deep enough for his shoes to get wet. Collins stops in the street to remove the president’s cigarettes. On a cigarette from the package, he finds a number written in ink. Behind him a display board flashes that dawn will be delayed by two hours, due to maintenance. (Dawn is delayed? Where are these people?)
Way back at the White House in the past, Collins hears the debrief about an extinction level event that could cause mass casualties in the near future. (Oh, now I am starting understand why dawn is delayed.) Collins hears from the group that the world’s largest underground city has been built in the mountains of Colorado.
As the first episode closes, we see Collins looking up at the sky and the shining sun, which reveals that the sun is a light projected into the ‘city’ which is encased in a dome deep inside the mountains.
Review:
What a kickoff to the series. We have a dead president, and a survival story inside the mountains from an extinction level event. I am hooked.
Sterling K. Brown and his talent make this first episode all about him, and how we see the world from his character’s eyes. James Marsden as President is a perfect pairing to Brown. While Brown plays the classic protector who is the epitome of good, Marsden plays the slick politician who gets by because of his money and little else.
Thanks to two stellar performances, the audience will be hooked by Brown and Marsden, and the big reveal at the end will compel the audience to stay for the last moment to see how everything gets resolved.
Perfect debut for an ambitious series that is packed with great performances.