Hulu Paradise (1 Viewer)

[NeilO]

New show that just dropped January 28 with 3 episodes (further new episodes promised every Tuesday). The lead character (played by Sterling K. Brown) is the head secret service agent in charge of protecting the President of the United States. There are a few twists in the episode and "nothing is as it seems." There are flashbacks going to when he was first promoted to his current position.

I've only seen the first episode so far. Sterling K. Brown is his usual great self. I am intrigued.

I do have to admit that if I hadn't seen an ad for it on FB today, I would not have looked into it a little more and would not have watched it tonight.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I kind of wish the big twist hadn't been spoiled for me, but it almost doesn't matter because the show really works with or without that twist.

Spoiler: Major Plot Spoiler

If Silo is about the endgame of life after the end of the world, this show is at the very beginning of life after the end of the world.

Dan Fogelman has created another strong starring vehicle for Sterling K. Brown, one that is very like Randall Pearson in a few crucial ways and very, very different in most other ways.

Much like "This Is Us", the non-linear storytelling means that one of our series leads is dead in the first act of the first episode.

Julianne Nicholson gets lots of interesting notes to play as the power behind the throne, an ice queen who might not have it as together as everybody else things.

Despite the Persian last name, Sarah Shahi's therapist character looks and sounds way more like J-Lo than any other character I've seen Shahi play. But she too represents an interesting enigma.

Krys Marshall, the diligent and hardworking Dani Poole on "For All Mankind", is unrecognizable here as Special Agent Nicole Robinson.

I don't think James Marsden has ever been better than he is in this. His president feels straight out of a Tennessee Williams play, albeit without all of the homoerotic subtext.

I enjoy how the soundtrack takes one of the president's classic rock favorites, and then utilizes different covers to covey entirely different emotions from the same lyrics.

 

[NeilO]

Despite the Persian last name, Sarah Shahi's therapist character looks and sounds way more like J-Lo than any other character I've seen Shahi play. But she too represents an interesting enigma.

Just watching the second episode and I just see Sarah Shahi. I liked her in Fairly Legal and Person of Interest. I wish she were in more episodes of The Rookie than she ended up being there, but I guess the chemistry wasn't quite there with Nathan Fillion.

 

[TonyD]

First time I saw Shahi was in a show called teachers that was really funny and clever and that's what killed it, probably.

Teachers. (TV Series 2006) ⭐ 6.7 | Comedy

30m | TV-14

www.imdb.com

We watched the first episode last night on ABC and thought it was pretty great.
The first three are up on Hulu

 

[NeilO]

Just watched Episode 4 - more revelations and surprises.

There are 4 more titles of episodes on the wikipedia page. That appears to be it for season one - 8 episodes. I hope what I consider the main mystery established in the first episode is solved. There are plenty of other things going on that can carry on for more seasons.

 

[Joe Wong]

Episode 4 was very good, I thought. Great character development, and humorous. More layers revealed.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Just watched Episode 4 - more revelations and surprises.

Yeah, this show is taking some big swings and not pulling its punches. Didn't think we'd get a glimpse of the world above this soon.

Spoiler: 1x04 - Agent Billy Pace

While we still don't know the exact nature of the calamity that destroyed the world, the aftermath appears to be akin to a nuclear winter. Assuming it's the result of an ash cloud and the planet isn't irradiated with nuclear fallout, even with a massive event (say, the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupting) the climate would begin to return to normal in 5-10 years.

We also know from the deer that some life survived up there, and probably some people too. Given all of that, Paradise begins to look less like the future of humanity and more like a temporary shelter to ride out the worst of it.

And if the truth ever comes out, if Sinatra's role in suppressing it comes out, there aren't enough assassins in Paradise to save her bacon. She has a lot of power, but her throne is fragile indeed.

There are 4 more titles of episodes on the wikipedia page. That appears to be it for season one - 8 episodes. I hope what I consider the main mystery established in the first episode is solved. There are plenty of other things going on that can carry on for more seasons.

I would bet that the mystery of who killed the president will be resolved by the end of the season. But I bet the answer to that question will raise plenty of other questions.

Great character development, and humorous.

I really appreciated how three-dimensional Billy Pace was written to be. He was what the world made him into, but when presented with an opportunity to be something else--something better--he took it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

This week's episode offered up the most unlikely suspect yet for Cal's murderer, revealed to possess a very incriminating piece of evidence.

I enjoyed the flashbacks covering Cal's journey from unwilling political candidate to unlikely would-be whistleblower. He reminded me a lot of George W. Bush. Not politically, since we don't really get a sense of what Cal's policies were aside from building the world's largest underground fallout shelter for the megarich and their chosen servants. But in the sense of being the prominent son of a prominent family more or less pushed onto a path that he had neither the inclination nor the passion to pursue on his own.

The scene between the grandfather and the grandson was pretty powerful. They were having two very different conversations to the same person, too late to matter.

Xavier's swing at the end was a big one. No going back now.

 

[NeilO]

Definitely a surprise seeing that piece of evidence where it was. It should be interesting learning how that happened.

I don't recall, but have we seen Jeremy in a previous episode with the mix-CD his father made for him? Was he listening to that when Presley found him in the library or was that something else? If so, I would guess that he hasn't experienced the whole thing.

Yes, that swing at the end was big and I have no idea how it will change things.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The brilliant thing about Xavier's plan is that, in retrospect, it's exactly the kind of thing that the head of a security detail would come up with. His knowledge of how institutions react in moments of crisis allowed him to stay a step ahead.

At the same time, I found myself thinking throughout this episode how it's far easier to destroy than to build. Sinatra is a murderer and a despot. But she's also the only reason that Paradise exists as a refuge for humanity to comfortably ride out the end of the world. In trying to hold Sinatra accountable for her misdeeds, he risks destroying the last best hope for human civilization in the near term.

When she said she wasn't responsible for the president's death, I believed her because she readily admitted to having Billy Pace murdered. She isn't bothering to lie now because she knows she's either going to bring Xavier to heel or she's not, and it doesn't matter what she says if she can't.

And boy was her ace in the hole a doozy. And the flashbacks to the days leading up to the disaster were effective in giving that reveal real weight, since the episode allowed us to know and like Xavier's wife.

It looks like next week we're finally going to see how the world ended.

 

[NeilO]

We find out relatively quickly about that piece of evidence from the previous episode. And while it wasn't in Xavier's plan it looks like it will play a big part. I really thought Jeremy was going to get the right place in the mix-CD. I just can't imagine it not having a special message on it.

I liked all the call outs to Die Hard.

I also believed Sinatra when she said the President's death wasn't one of her plans (though if he kept digging it might have been).

I thought her ace was going to be what Jane was up to, but I guess she didn't give Sinatra more info on that. I was quite surprised about her reveal at the end.

Two episodes to go.

 

[Joe Wong]

I liked the episode’s title, “You asked for miracles”, which alludes to the influence of Die Hard on this episode.

The score was also quite exciting!

 

[Joe Wong]

I’m also wondering if there’s one more stinger regarding the end of the world. And whether it was due to humans (nuclear war?) or similar, and whether it was engineered by Sinatra just so she could create and run Paradise.

 

[Josh Dial]

I’m also wondering if there’s one more stinger regarding the end of the world. And whether it was due to humans (nuclear war?) or similar, and whether it was engineered by Sinatra just so she could create and run Paradise.

The tablet referenced a super volcano incident (as did the title of last week's episode), so there's at least two disasters. Perhaps the nukes were launched to hasten the super volcano event and, as you say, lead to Paradise sooner than later.

 

[NeilO]

‘Paradise’ Renewed for Season 2 at Hulu

The twisty drama from Dan Fogelman releases its season finale March 4, followed by a first season run on ABC.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

...
has been renewed for a second season by the streamer ahead of its season one finale.

Paradise released its sixth of eight episodes this week; the finale releases March 4. Following the finale, Paradise will get a full first season run on ABC beginning starting April 7 at 10 p.m.

I have read that some people think the creators have said they have a 3-season plan.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I’m also wondering if there’s one more stinger regarding the end of the world. And whether it was due to humans (nuclear war?) or similar, and whether it was engineered by Sinatra just so she could create and run Paradise.

I paused and read everything I could when there were brief glimpses of info on the tablet. It seems to focus on the impending danger of not just a single super volcano eruption, but a global shift in climate causing melting glaciers and the collapsing of ice shelves that allow previously unknown volcanoes to become active. I got the sense that there was a sort of “perfect storm” that was brewing due to these factors that could result in a chain of global volcanic eruptions (including super volcanoes) rapid sea level increases and tsunamis. But that just from a glimpse of a page or two of risk analyses on the tablet. And there may have been other external factors such as nuclear detonations for some yet to be revealed reason that contributed to the disaster. But since this was something that people with certain info seemingly saw coming quite a few years in advance I feel like the majority of it has to have been a natural disaster.

I’m really loving the show.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The tablet referenced a super volcano incident (as did the title of last week's episode), so there's at least two disasters.

Good eye.

We learn that the disaster is a massive supervolcano under Antarctica. The ice shelf had kept the volcano dormant, like a cork in a bottle of wine. But as global warming melted the ice shelf, the pressure from the ice shelf melted, "loosening the cork."

They thought they would have plenty of warning, as much as ten days, much like we're supposed to if the supervolcano under Yellowstone is going to erupt. But the best laid plans of mice and men, and all of that...

The depiction of the final day was completely riveting. You can feel the energy shift as things start to unravel and I really appreciated the way the tension ratcheted up and up and up.

I also came away from this episode really impressed by Cal. There were two decisive moments, probably the two most important of his presidency, when he had to choose between doing what was smart and doing what was right. And both times, he prioritized the needs of the many over the needs of the few. His unscripted address made the evacuation to the bunker far riskier and more dangerous, but it meant that everybody else got some choice in how they spent their final minutes. His decision to fire off the EMPs rather than America's nuclear arsenal greatly increased the danger to Air Force One on the remaining journey, and introduced new vulnerabilities to the bunker even once it was locked down. But he was willing to risk the twenty to thirty thousand people in the bunker, himself and his family included, if it mean the survivors up on the surface would have a chance.

I don't know that there are very many real world leaders who would have made that moral calculus. But Sinatra was wrong; Cal had plenty of balls. And his last acts as the true leader of the free world, before he became Sinatra's figurehead in the bunker, proved him to be the right person steering the ship.

The reveal that nuclear armageddon was largely averted after the first several nukes went off raises all sorts of interesting questions, including: When America's leadership retreated into the bunker, did any of its rival world powers persevere on the surface? While all of the coastal cities are clearly gone, Atlanta seemingly survived. So that would suggest that the destructive wave was limited to within around 200 miles of the coastline.

We know that the second plane with Congress and the Supreme Court crashed, and I believe the third plane carrying the joint chiefs had mechanical issues and was forced to set down in St. Louis. Is it possible they were able to reestablish some sort of military hierarchy? Or was that one of the places where the nukes hit before the EMPs wiped them out?

The reveal that Cal's killer came from outside the bunker means that the entire season-long mystery was essentially a MacGuffin. We probably haven't met the killer yet, or at least hadn't until this episode. There are any number of people inside the White House that weren't included in Versailles that would have plenty of motive if they managed to survive.

 

[NeilO]

Here's an interview with Sterling K. Brown about the series and what we just watched. He does say we will find out who did it next episode. This should be a "gift" article.

https://wapo.st/41htOwE

Yes, what a riveting episode. The finale is sure to be intense.

 

[TonyD]

This show is incredible.


People who understand these things better then me can explain why after that super volcano all the countries launched their nukes?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

People who understand these things better then me can explain why after that super volcano all the countries launched their nukes?

Russia (which has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world) and China (which has the third largest nuclear arsenal after Russia and the United States) realized that the disaster would vastly destabilize the global order, and that the ensuing ash cloud would result in a years-long winter in which nothing would grow outside. In those circumstances, resources are power, and both China and Russia wanted to ensure that they'd be best positioned to consolidate those resources in the aftermath of the initial devastation.

China would seem to have the advantage at first glance since it has ten times the population of Russia and an economy that is nearly nine times larger. But Russia benefits from being both further from the eruption than China and have a far greater percentage of its population inland, while roughly 60 percent of China's population lives along the coast.

Once the nukes started flying between Russia and China, all of the other nuclear powers had to figure that they'd best wipe out Russia and China before Russia and/or China wiped them out. The only thing preventing such an outcome previously was the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction. But the supervolcano had changed the calculus.