Hulu Paradise (1 Viewer)

[Joe Wong]

Excellent episode!

Tense, gripping, and with many surprises.

Spoiler

The quick snippet of the giant wave approaching the female reporter on the roof was eye-opening! I thought I had seen impressive tidal waves before, but this was something else!

Much of this foundation/back story reminds me of Emmerich’s 2012, though that film was more interested in the spectacle, of course.

And my earlier speculation about nuclear war wasn’t far off!

 

[Sean Bryan]

So it was indeed a pending natural disaster that was the predicted cause of the end of the world. Although Sinatra said their modeling predicted that this would also lead to global thermonuclear war. The super volcano, tsunami and sea level rise would leave the plant devastated for decades (maybe centuries) but it would be possible for survivors to endure and rebuild humanity eventually. But throw global thermonuclear war on top of that and I can see how the predictions were basically the long term end of almost everything.

Since President Bradford seemingly was able to avert the worst of the human nuclear element, the implications for humanity’s potential for survival are significant.

 

[NeilO]

Good satisfying finale that wouldn't be terrible if we didn't get more, but I am glad we are getting more.

Spoiler: Some points we learned

1. While the murderer was not in anyone's list of potential suspects we had seen him. I doubt anyone watching connected the person who tried to kill the president in the flashback with the librarian. There was just no reason to compare the two. His back story does explain what he said when he tried to do it. So, that was all logical.

2. The mix tape CD was just a mix tape, though it did reveal that Bradford was doing something else in the library.

3. That knowledge plus the numbers on the cigarette gave Xavier what he needed. It was a dewey decimal number 812.092. Biographies of people associated with a subject are classified with the subject plus notation 092.

4. Jane is a lunatic, but there is logic behind her actions. Her love of the Wii saved Presley.

5. Next season will have Xavier looking for his wife.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Good satisfying finale that wouldn't be terrible if we didn't get more, but I am glad we are getting more.

Yes, that was my first takeaway as well. When they made this first season, they didn't know that it would be the hit it has become. So they responsibly told a complete story with a beginning, middle, and satisfying conclusion, while planting a seed for where the next season would go. I wish more shows would take this approach.

Spoiler: Some points we learned

1. While the murderer was not in anyone's list of potential suspects we had seen him. I doubt anyone watching connected the person who tried to kill the president in the flashback with the librarian. There was just no reason to compare the two. His back story does explain what he said when he tried to do it. So, that was all logical.

Definitely. The solution to the mystery wasn't intuitive, and it didn't really obey the usual rules of a whodunnit, but it was solvable ahead of the finale if you were paying close enough attention.

And I appreciated how the pieces fit together:

Spoiler: 1x08 Season Finale

It's to the writers' credit that they didn't forget about the people who actually did the physical labor to make Sinatra's underground city possible. The cold open did a nice job of humanizing them.

At the same time, I can understand why the decision that was made was made. All the predictive models pointed to nuclear annihilation on top of total ecological disaster. There was a very real possibility that Paradise would be the sole remaining outpost of the human species. Sacrificing miners to black lung for profits is unconscionable. Sacrificing miners to black lung to ensure the survival of the human species is arguably morally justifiable.

And there's something poetic about the fact that what doomed Cal wasn't his noble efforts to expose the truth about what was going on above. Instead, it was the sheer entitled carelessness with which he conducted himself. He was a privileged rich boy who didn't know any better than to act like a privileged rich boy. And it's the sheer indignation that was triggered seeing him strolling into the library in his bathrobe to make a mixed tape that ultimately did him in.

Spoiler

2. The mix tape CD was just a mix tape, though it did reveal that Bradford was doing something else in the library.

I think what happened was very intentional, right from Cal making a show of hiding the CD on his last night alive. He knew that either Collins or Robinson would listen to it, follow up on the lead that he'd included in it, and he trusted that either of them would then make sure it got to his son.

Spoiler

3. That knowledge plus the numbers on the cigarette gave Xavier what he needed. It was a dewey decimal number 812.092. Biographies of people associated with a subject are classified with the subject plus notation 092.

That's an interesting observation, and shows that that aspect of the mystery also played fair with the audience.

Spoiler

4. Jane is a lunatic, but there is logic behind her actions. Her love of the Wii saved Presley.

Jane is pretty much a textbook psychopath:

Spoiler: 1x08 Season Finale

1. A ruthless and self-centered willingness to exploit others: Her willingness to kill the man she's been dating for months at the drop of the hat is indicative of that, as is her willingness to kill a close family friend to get her hands on a toy she likes.
2. The ability to charm and influence others: Her ability to ingratiate herself with both Pace and Collins is evidence of that. "Successful" psychopaths become very adept at imitating the traits and behaviors that other people respond to.
3. A distinct lack of emotion, guilt, or regard for others' feelings: People to Jane are more or less the same as objects. They can be useful or not, they can even be fun or entertaining, but she has no emotional attachment to them. The parts of the brain that enable empathy are simply not developed enough in psychopaths.
4. Difficulty in planning ahead and considering the consequences of one's actions: While Jane has been pretty meticulous about preserving her cover, she also hasn't hesitated to take big swings for even small or short term benefit.
5. An eagerness for risk-seeking behaviors, as well as a lack of the fear that normally goes with them: Jane doesn't fear Sinatra, because she doesn't really fear anything. Fear requires a greater awareness of consequences than comes naturally to psychopaths.
6. Inability to take responsibility for one's actions, instead blaming others or rationalizing one's behavior: Jane didn't feel bad for killing Pace because Pace told Sinatra to send her best after him, and Jane was just the chickens coming home to roost. She didn't feel bad for crippling Sinatra, because Sinatra didn't immediately agree to give her the Wii. She wouldn't have felt bad regardless, of course, but these are the easy rationalizations that popped into her mind in the moment.

Spoiler

5. Next season will have Xavier looking for his wife.

I would guess that the second season will be bifurcated, much like the second season of "Silo" was.

 

[David Weicker]

Good satisfying finale that wouldn't be terrible if we didn't get more, but I am glad we are getting more.

Spoiler: Some points we learned

1. While the murderer was not in anyone's list of potential suspects we had seen him. I doubt anyone watching connected the person who tried to kill the president in the flashback with the librarian. There was just no reason to compare the two. His back story does explain what he said when he tried to do it. So, that was all logical

After the quality of the prior episodes, I was a little let down by the finale. Last week was so perfect.

Spoiler

As for the killer’s identity,
I didn’t think it was “logical”

The flashback showed a reason for him to be mad at Sinatra (or the scientist). But Cal wasn’t explicitly referenced. So why did he try to kill the President, rather than Sinatra. He saw her at the site, and it seemed to be common knowledge that she was ‘important’ in the town.

 

[Joe Wong]

Agree with many of the previous comments.

Mostly satisfying season finale. Provided a conclusion to the main mystery. Agree with @Adam Lenhardt that it could have been solvable, but illogical or difficult to connect the dots. For me (a fan of Agatha Christie, etc.) there were plenty of misdirects (a staple of whodunnits), but the “clues” weren’t strong or memorable enough to make me conclude or figure it out. For example, they had to give a backstory in the final episode to provide the motive. Which is pretty late! I understand it’s not meant to be a true whodunnit, so it likely wasn’t meant for the audience to try to solve it.

Spoiler

Jane’s turn against Sinatra was based on a pretty weak reason (access to the Wii), I thought. I was thinking there was something more to the Wii angle. Or that she had a change of heart towards Xavier. But if it showed that Jane was a little psychopathic, then that makes sense.

Looking forward to S2, with Xavier’s search for his wife in a post-apocalyptic world. Intriguing, as I love post-apocalyptic settings. I’m guessing it will switch between Paradise (if there’s a story there) and up top. At the very least, update us on what’s happening in Paradise even if the main focus is up top.

I love how the premise or genre for this series is a mix of many, in that the 2nd season will likely have a different trajectory to the 1st. In other words, I’ll be disappointed if they kick off S2 with the murder of a VIP!

It would have been tough to top the tension in episode 7, but they wrapped up this season reasonably well.

 

[NeilO]

Article in Deadline from June 12

The Partnership: Dan Fogelman And Sterling K. Brown Talk Shailene Woodley’s “Very Interesting Profession” & More For ‘Paradise’ Season 2

The Partnership: Dan Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown on 'Paradise'; details of Shailene Woodley's "very interesting profession" in Season 2

deadline.com

I thought I read this earlier, but it does explicitly say that Dan Fogelman has a "three-season plan for the show."

Regarding progress on season 2: "I’m literally finishing the finale right now of Season 2, writing. I also just got the first episodes of the edits and it’s so good. I’m so excited. ... We shoot two at a time, so we’re finishing three and four this week and we start shooting five and six already next week. So, we’re pretty much at the halfway mark."

Lots of interesting things mentioned interviewing both Fogelman and Sterling K Brown.

 

[DaveF]

I forgot to comment on Paradise earlier. We watched back in March, I think. I was hearing about it on podcasts. But had the good luck to go into the show knowing nothing about it except there was a big twist at the end of the first episode.

Paradise was like peak broadcast TV. When we routinely had shows like Designated Survivor and Revolution that were trying for the big, arc-defined show, with significant budgets for the time. Not as intense and high concept as an Andor or Handmaid’s Tale. More like The Diplomat: just good fun TV in the middle zone of really good but not “prestige” and being all the better for it.

And what a cast. Sterling Brown is great in everything I’ve seen him in. Juliette Nichols is new to me, but now I also see her appearing against type in Hacks, and I’ll keep an eye out for her in the future. And James Marsden, who I feel is underrated over the past many years.

Good concept, good execution. Looking forward to more.

 

[Joe Wong]

I forgot to comment on Paradise earlier. We watched back in March, I think. I was hearing about it on podcasts. But had the good luck to go into the show knowing nothing about it except there was a big twist at the end of the first episode.

Paradise was like peak broadcast TV. When we routinely had shows like Designated Survivor and Revolution that were trying for the big, arc-defined show, with significant budgets for the time. Not as intense and high concept as an Andor or Handmaid’s Tale. More like The Diplomat: just good fun TV in the middle zone of really good but not “prestige” and being all the better for it.

And what a cast. Sterling Brown is great in everything I’ve seen him in. Juliette Nichols is new to me, but now I also see her appearing against type in Hacks, and I’ll keep an eye out for her in the future. And James Marsden, who I feel is underrated over the past many years.

Good concept, good execution. Looking forward to more.

Nicholson is also prominent in Mare of Easttown, which I thought was a great and compelling show as well.

 

[DaveF]

Nicholson is also prominent in Mare of Easttown, which I thought was a great and compelling show as well.

I had that my list for years but never got to watching it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I had that my list for years but never got to watching it.

Pretty bleak at times, but I really enjoyed it.