TV Recap: “Paradise” – Episode 4 “Agent Billy Pace”

Xavier is truly questioning who he can trust.

We’ve traveled back to the past with a younger Billy Pace as he takes aim while hunting, only to have his shot at a deer ruined by his barking dog. This sets off his uncle who smacks Billy in the face. He calls him worthless and tells the boy to never hesitate. Back at the cabin, his uncle is angry at the dog and tells Billy that the dog must go, handing him a gun to kill the animal. Forced outside, Billy cocks the gun, and while he hesitates, his uncle gets angry coming at him to abuse the boy. Billy pulls the trigger shooting his abusive uncle.

The boy is sent to juvenile detention where he is approached by a threatening inmate which sets Billy off and he beats the thug to the ground as the fellow prisoners watch. Released from jail many years later, Billy (Jon Beavers) is approached by a mysterious man who offers him a second chance at life. Surrounded by fellow former cons, Billy learns that he has a chance to travel the world as a mercenary, and the man in charge introduces a fellow thug named Bull and wants to know if anyone can take him.

Billy steps up and doesn’t wait to be told when to fight, and attacks Bull and beats him to a bloody pulp.

Another day in paradise awakens Billy at home in the present day and Jane (Nicole Bloom) immediately starts talking to him about all the trouble the two of them are in with Agent Robinson (Krys Marshall). However, with all the trouble, Jane is very excited to go to the annual carnival.

Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) wakes up at Gabriela’s (Sarah Shahi) house and is upset that he spent the night. He knows Presley and James (Aliyah Mastin and Percy Daggs IV) will be worried, and he dresses quickly to get home. Gabriela wants to know if Xavier is going to take her warning about Pace, but he says he will talk to him later. A passing truck makes Xavier think about the time he and his daughters came to the city and how they escaped the calamity that befell the earth.

While Collins views the scene of the evacuation, Billy Pace introduces himself to Collins and tells him that they are supposed to start securing everyone into their residences. At home, Collins tries to sneak in and is greeted by his daughter Presley. She is upset that Xavier didn’t tell her he was working late. Xavier promises to take James to the carnival while Presley tells her shocked father that she will be going to the event with Jeremy Bradford (Charles Evans).

James tells his dad that he is ready for the Ferris wheel this year, but Collins gives him little attention because he is so focused on tracking down Billy and goes to his friend’s house. Outside of the Pace residence, Xavier remembers the night they got to the community and he and Pace secured a bar for the President’s possible entrance. Pace drinks with the bartender and the commiserate over their present situation.

Pace and Collins are with President Bradford (James Marsden) as he prepares for his speech. When Bradford asks for an opinion about his speech from Pace, he is blunt in his response. Pace tells the President that their situation is not normal, nothing is as it was. It might mean a lot for the people to hear from their President that this isn’t normal and that is ok. Bradford likes what Pace has to say and leaves for his speech.

Collins had texted Billy to meet up, but while Xavier watches from outside Pace’s house, as his friend walks back and forth by the window, Collins gets a response. Pace tells him, sorry but he is already at work. (Billy is lying. Everything about this episode is trying to tell us how dangerous that Billy Pace is, however, I think this is a giant red herring.)

Presley asks Jeremy if he is alright with performing with his band at the carnival. Jeremy tells her that it feels wrong, but Presley tells him that he is giving the people joy, especially for people living in a cave.

Collins enters the records office to learn more about his friend Billy. Throughout Pace’s file multiple papers are blacked out and redacted. (We know Billy was a mercenary. How on earth did he get to the Secret Service.) He’s interrupted by Jane, and Xavier asks her if she has noticed if Billy seems off.

Xavier thinks back to the time he and Billy are drinking at the bar two months after coming into the cave. Collins is thinking about all that they lost, and how drinking at a bar with a friend is normalizing their situation. Pace teases him because he called him a friend. Pace tells him the old world was hurting him, and that he is grateful for everything that is good and normal in the cave. Collins invites him for dinner to meet the kids, and Pace teases him again saying he should since they are best friends. (I like this dynamic a lot, Billy is not the killer, but he has some issues, and Collins helps him to be normal.)

Another evening Billy comes to dinner, overdressed and a little shocked at how young James and Presley are. He introduces himself in an awkward way, and makes the kids laugh.

At the carnival Jeremey plays a song by Poison, his dad’s favorite band, and starts to perform. Jane is pushing Billy to do all sorts of activities at the carnival and before Pace can answer, Robinson interrupts them and tells Billy they need to talk alone.

James and Xavier are walking to the Ferris wheel, and while his son is trying to work up the courage to ride the ride, Xavier is too focused on trying to find Pace and not paying full attention to his son. As they approach the ride, Collins sees Pace talking to Robinson and Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson).

Pace finds Presley and tells her he’s looking for her dad. Pace immediately senses something is wrong and wonders if it is Jeremy. Not sure what to do, Pace offers some advice about how he and Jane got together. The agent also reveals that Presley was a part of their game night at the Presidents’ house and tells her not to say anything to her dad, because Pace is in some serious trouble. He tells Presley that he took a chance and told Jane how he felt, and that she should never hesitate. (Pace’s depth continues to reveal themselves. He seems like a good guy, which makes the intrigue more interesting.)

Night falls on the carnival, and Xavier brings James to the Ferris wheel. He tells his son it’s time to face his fears, and then Gabriela joins them. Collins is very awkward, and she tells him to relax. While they talk about their last night, Gabriela wants to know if Xavier has talked to Pace. She tells him that she saw Pace in line for funnel cake. (mmmmmmm funnel cake.) Collins leaves James with Gabriela and he searches for his friend.

Back in time, it’s month three of being in the cave, and Xavier tells President Bradford that he is becoming a regular at the bar, and that he should allow them to secure the premises. Bradford quickly reminds him they are in a cave and there are no weapons. (Ah Bradford, there are always weapons.)

Bradford wants people to cheer up, they survived, but Pace reminds him that people lost someone, and that people don’t know what happened. (Oh is this a clue about how this resolves. Was the event truly extinction level?)

Bradford tells Pace and Collins that communication is gone, and if someone were to survive the event they would struggle to survive now. This makes Collins wonder if it is possible for someone to survive out of the cave. (The man misses his wife, and Bradford should be smarter than what he is for this grieving husband.) Xavier copies Pace and tells the president that it’s the not knowing what happened to their loved ones that is the worst feeling for everyone.

Three months later, Bradford addresses the community and tells them all the world outside the cave is gone. He connects with the people who wonder and decides to send four explorers out of the cave to find out what has happened. Bradford states they may not find anything, but they must try.

Xavier finds Pace and they start walking at the carnival. Pace tells him he needs to back off and stop reading up on him, then Xavier wants to know why Pace lied to him this morning. Xavier asks if Pace killed the President, which angers Pace, and then Collins tells him that the President told people before he died to watch out for Billy Pace, that he was a dangerous man.

Jeremy and Presley are talking and laughing, James is enjoying the Ferris Wheel alone, while Gabriela is watching from the ground, and Xavier comes over to sit by her. (Gabriella should not be trusted. Her actions make me think she is trying to isolate Xavier from everyone, his friends, and family. I think she is the most dangerous person in the cave.)

Xavier tells Gabriela that it’s not Pace who killed the president. She wonders why the President would tell her about Pace, but Collins has no answers. At the bar Pace is drinking alone in a quite establishment talking to the bartender. Pace listens as he hears the bartender talk about the loss of his wife as one of the explorers who left the cave, and Pace flashes back to his mercenary days.

In Pace’s flashback he has killed multiple people, and when he comes upon the last remaining member alive, this is not a moment from the far past, but the more recent. The last person he is about to kill is the bartender’s wife who was sent by the President to see if the world was livable still, and she tells him it is. Pace shoots her. (Oh my god! The twists this show brings are unbelievable. I would never predict this. Is this why Bradford said Pace was dangerous, because he had Pace follow them and kill them? Or was it someone else?)

Barging into Sinatra’s office Pace is livid. She is the one who sent Pace out to kill the explorers so that everyone would stay scared in the cave. Sinatra talks about how this wasn’t the life she planned. She reminds Pace that even if it is livable out of the cave, it would be very difficult to survive, and the best chance at survival is in the cave.

Pace tells her that if she doesn’t leave Xavier alone, they are going to have a problem. Pace is threatening the most important person in the cave, and she reminds him of how she is in charge and he is merely a killer, and if he doesn’t apologize, she will take everything away from him that he thinks he has earned.

Pace doubles down and tells Sinatra that he doesn’t want to know what she did to the President, but she is not to mess with Xavier and the kids. Pace states that they are his family. (Ok Billy Pace you have won me back. A man of principal who does not back down in the face of the most powerful person in the world.) When Sinatra says she has other killers in the cave, Pace tells her she better send the biggest one she has if she plans to take him out.

Xavier and Presley are watching James shoot hoops in the park, and father and daughter are talking about how things are changing. When James makes a shot, he sees Billy join them and he hands the kids some sparklers. Pace offers Xavier a sparkler and when Xavier declines at first Billy states that he needs to take one and come talk to him.

Billy says that he didn’t kill the President, and Xavier believes him. Then Pace describes that he has done some bad things in his life and worked with the worst people on the world, but ‘Sinatra’, as he explains, is a cold blooded killer. Pace says that he has done some things for her, but when Xavier wants to know, Pace tells him that he will tell him all tomorrow, but he just wants to be Uncle Billy for one more night.

Billy leaves for the night and heads home to find Jane who is upset. The day didn’t get go the way she wanted but Billy has a sparkler for her. They split a funnel cake while the Collins family keeps playing basketball. Pace takes a drink from Jane’s glass, and immediately feels the poison hit his system.

He collapses on the ground as Jane pulls out a bottle of pills, spreading them around the table to make it look like suicide. (Jane is a killer too. My god this cave is filled with cold blooded psychopaths.) Jane restates the last threat Billy made to Sinatra, taunting him as he dies. (Oh how I mourn the loss of Billy Pace. So tragic, and I did not expect Jane to be another lunatic.)

Review:

This episode is filled to the brim with revelations and layers of deceit that it is easy to get lost in the melee of battle that takes place. A character like Billy Pace rarely gets to take the center stage of the story, and thankfully, we get the backstory of Pace with a brilliant portrayal of ruthlessness by Jon Beavers.

We get the customary origin story of violence and how it has impacted the world of Billy Pace, and then when the world gets thrown into the cave, we see how the raw nature of the survivalist Pace is matured, softened and refined by the good nature of Xavier Collins.

This whole episode is Jon Beavers’ moment, and he doesn’t waste a minute of time giving us the length, width, and depth of his character. At moments we hate Pace, then we see his redemption and admire what he has been able to become.

Beavers is great and his character is tragic, but Julianne Nicholson as Sinatra is something to behold in villainy. It’s clear that Sinatra is an architect of control, and someone who has to much power and influence, but wow, she is someone to fear.

I still maintain that Gabriela is the true villain who is manipulating everyone. She has contact with everyone, including Sinatra. She has proudly told Collins how she sees herself as the ‘Architect of Social Well-Being’. Plus, the way she manipulated Collins in chasing after Pace, while she seems to slide into Collins life and convinces his son to ride the scary Ferris Wheel without him, that is deadly in the disruption of family bonding. That was a father and son moment, and Gabriela ruined it.

Did she kill the President? I’m starting to think she did.  

Bill Gowsell
Bill Gowsell has loved all things Disney since his first family trip to Walt Disney World in 1984. Since he began writing for Laughing Place in 2014, Bill has specialized in covering the Rick Riordan literary universe, a retrospective of the Touchstone Pictures movie library, and a variety of other Disney related topics. When he is not spending time with his family, Bill can be found at the bottom of a lake . . . scuba diving