Paradise tends to pick needle drops that are on the nose. The covers of ’80s songs are equally delightful and obvious, hitting us over the head with each hour’s themes. Season two’s penultimate episode, named after Europe’s 1986 track, fits into this agenda. (The lyrics are “We’re leavin’ together / But still it’s farewell / And maybe we’ll come back / To Earth, who can tell?” I mean, come on.) Who else but President Cal (James Marsden) croons it in the flashbacks, and the cover blasts during the closing montage when Sam “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) faces whatever or whoever Alex might be. More importantly, Paradise sets off a ticking clock on the bunker’s survival. With a potential nuclear meltdown inside, will everyone be forced to bid goodbye to the underground city’s comforts and start over above ground?
The ending of “The Final Countdown” doesn’t bode well for the bunker. But can Paradise really be the same without the setting that made it appealing in the first place? It’s hard to say how much of Link’s (Thomas Doherty) impending invasion—if it happens—will impact everything as well. And by everything, I mean the fact that the oxygen tanks have been busted and that the board, in Sinatra’s absence, has initiated a total lockdown so the doors can’t open. So thousands of people are trapped there with air running out. But before all this madness goes down, this hour delivers plenty of emotional moments, a loopy sci-fi reveal, and at least one ridiculous attack that makes the buildup to the finale even more exciting.
Let’s start with the craziest freaking twist of all. To follow up on their decision to negotiate, Sinatra and Link meet at the bunker’s gates, where a slice of apple pie and snarky remarks are exchanged. When the two sit down to talk in a conference room on Air Force One, Link reveals his true purpose. He doesn’t want a nuclear reactor, medicines, weapons, or shelter. What he wants is “Alex.” Sinatra entertains him until this point, but as soon as she hears that word out of his mouth, she shuts down the conversation and all but kicks Link and his men out. Link takes the time here to call her out by saying she and other evil billionaires were partly responsible for Earth’s destruction because they had “bribed, stolen, killed, and squeezed every last drop of the planet.” Hell yeah, Link. Paradise has tried to portray the corrupt, unpredictable Sinatra in a somewhat empathetic light by noting that her grief was her true motivator. This season, it feels like she does have a heart, but it’s a relief that she continues to be called out for the damage and death that she has caused.
His words hit harder when Paradise reveals that—dun dun dun—Link is Sinatra’s dead son. Huh? It took me a minute to process this. So here are the facts we learn: Link’s real name is Dylan, he’s 26, and his birthday is on May 16. Sinatra’s son, who died as a kid long before the supervolcano eruption, had the same name and birthday. If he had lived, he would’ve been the same age now. In fact, trying to save him is a surefire reason Sinatra wants to turn back time (it’s the one resource she can’t buy, or so we think). As soon as Sinatra realizes Link’s identity, she gets a nosebleed. She rushes back to her spouse, Tim (Tuc Watkins), and claims, “It worked.” Did “Alex” somehow change Link/Dylan’s fate? Or is he Dylan from another timeline, which would explain why he’s unfamiliar with some big pop-culture references, as he told Annie in episode one? And how did he manage to study quantum physics under Henry (Patrick Fischler) all those years ago if he’s not from this universe? Paradise‘s time-travel stuff is confusing at the moment, so we’ll let all this brew until definitive answers roll out.
Instead, let’s focus on what the show wants to say with these shenanigans. Underneath the heady sci-fi and time travel ideas, Paradise is about the sacrifices people are willing to make for their loved ones, no matter the cost or circumstances. Sinatra was happy to fund the construction of an entire city below a Colorado mountain if it meant that at least 25,000 people could live safely, but she abandoned who knows how many folks in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s a choice that Cal grappled with in season one upon learning that Earth was habitable again. Annie (Shailene Woodley) was scared to leave her safe space but was willing to venture out of Graceland with Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) if it meant her baby could meet Link because she knew she was likely going to die. What do you do when life hands you the unthinkable? How do you move on? Sinatra wasn’t able to, and it’s why she’s trying to change the past, present, and future. In Xavier’s case, he sacrificed the possibility of rescuing his wife for the sake of his kids on The Day, so he rushed them to the plane and tearfully bid goodbye to Teri (Enuka Okuma) on the phone.
At last, the couple properly reunites in the present day in Atlanta, but barely has the time to catch up aside from a few hugs and kisses. It’s all thanks to Gary (Cameron Britton), who kidnaps poor Bean and takes him to the post office, leaving a note for Teri asking her to “come home.” Here’s where Paradise continues to subvert expectations by emphasizing the goodness of people. Teri, who still holds onto hope after everything they had to go through, goes back to talk to him as Xavier keeps watch from a nearby rooftop (with his hand on the trigger of his trusted rifle, of course). However, Teri talks Gary down after letting him rage out over losing his so-called family. “The worst years in history were the best years of my life,” Gary tells her, before essentially asking Xavier to shoot him because that would be easier than sacrificing Teri and Bean. And that’s when Teri gives him a tight hug and a monologue about how he still has the chance to start over, and that she’ll always remind Bean of Gary as the man who saved them. Just like that, with no bloodshed, Teri and Xavier return to the train with Bean in tow as Gary looks on. Actually, they make a pit stop so Xavier can take Annie’s baby, who still doesn’t have a name. The fact that Xavier and Teri now have two other kids to take care of is so This Is Us.
Back in the bunker, Nicole (Krys Marshall), Jeremy (Charlie Evans), and architect/scientist Anders (Erik Svedberg-Zelman) have unintentionally wreaked havoc after breaking out of the prison. They run around until they reach the oxygen tanks. Jeremy claims he wants to open up the bunker because it’s what Cal would’ve wanted, and Nicole supports him because she loved his dad. Jeremy wants to give people the option to decide if they want to live inside or outside. Just when they start letting the oxygen out (wild choice!), a lockdown protocol defeats their purpose, causing all the lights to go out, trapping Presley and Hadley in an elevator. During this time, Sinatra hops aboard a secret train of her own, gets off, and walks through the same tunnels that Link and Xavier saw in their visions. Then she enters a room that glows and says hi to Alex. So, um, this Alex is definitely a time-travel machine or a portal that sends messages, right? Please, Paradise, answer this next week. And it’s a good thing that Xavier and Teri, along with the rest of Link’s crew, are already on their way to Colorado for what I can only hope will be a satisfying season-two closer. Until then, let me listen to Cal’s advice and tap into this playlist.
Stray observations
- • Speaking of Paradise‘s music, composer Siddharth Khosla knocks it out of the park with an epic orchestral score.
- • In hindsight, Link telling Sinatra that she’s the Darth Vader to his Luke was a huge sign.
- • My favorite part of Teri and Xavier’s reunion is when he braces to tell her who their daughter is dating, only for Teri to catch on and say she’s guessing he’s white.
- • The flashbacks center on Sinatra and Anders giving Cal a tour of the bunker’s mechanisms before the apocalypse. Anders claims the systems are modeled after the International Space Station. It’s pretty cool to get the technical details out of Paradise, which is why I don’t want the bunker to go away.
- • The ridiculous Jane/Torabi subplot goes like this: Torabi, after defying Jane openly, is fearful that she’s going to be killed. (Well, duh). And when Jane tries to shoot Torabi in her bathroom, she gets stabbed instead and starts bleeding out. We don’t know if she’s dead yet, but after last week’s backstory, this would be a very silly way for Jane to die.
- • “Can’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble when today’s got trouble to spare.”
- • Tim to Sinatra in one of the show’s funniest lines: “You graduated all by yourself to the Theranos turtleneck era.”
- • “Empires don’t fall due to a lack of preparation, but [they fall because they’re] high on their horses.”
- • Happy season-three renewal, everybody.
Saloni Gajjar is The A.V. Club‘s TV critic.
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