The first three episodes of Season 2 of Paradise arrive with ambition, but not quite with momentum. After the claustrophobic intrigue of Season 1, which balanced political thriller tension with post-apocalyptic reveals, the new season widens its lens almost immediately. That expansion is promising in theory. In execution, at least across this opening trio, it’s uneven.
Episode one pivots hard away from the bunker and into a standalone survival story centered on Annie, played by Shailene Woodley, a former Graceland tour guide who rides out the apocalypse inside Elvis Presley’s mansion. It’s a character-forward hour, heavy on mood and backstory. There’s something compelling about the image of civilization collapsing outside velvet ropes and gift shops, but the episode leans so fully into Annie’s isolation that it feels detached from the larger narrative. Woodley gives a grounded, restrained performance, and Thomas Doherty’s Link adds a flicker of chemistry and tension, yet the hour plays more like a spinoff pilot than a season premiere. When Xavier finally enters the frame in the closing stretch, it feels less like a cliffhanger and more like a reminder of the show we temporarily left behind.
The second episode recenters on Xavier, portrayed by Sterling K. Brown, and with him returns some of the emotional gravity that made the first season work. Brown remains the show’s anchor; even when the plotting meanders, his performance doesn’t. Much of the hour toggles between his present-day survival after a crash landing and flashbacks to his early relationship with Teri. The flashbacks are tender but familiar, and the survival beats involving injury, scarcity, and wary encounters check predictable post-apocalyptic boxes. It’s competently executed but rarely surprising. The world outside the bunker is harsher, yes, but it’s not yet more interesting.
By episode three, the action finally shifts back to the underground community of Paradise itself, and the show regains some of its former bite. Power struggles simmer, younger residents push back against authority, and Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond, played by Julianne Nicholson, maneuvers with chilly pragmatism. This is where the series feels most confident, in moral gray zones, in political brinkmanship, in the uneasy social experiment that the bunker represents. The episode hints at larger mysteries involving secret projects and possibly stranger sci-fi elements to come, but it mostly functions as table-setting.
Taken together, these three episodes feel like a soft reset rather than a propulsion forward. The decision to open with a side character and a geographically distant storyline is bold, but it slows the season’s initial drive. Thematically, the show seems interested in contrasting isolation above ground with control below it, but that contrast hasn’t yet crystallized into a gripping central question.
None of this makes Season 2 a misfire. The production values remain strong, the performances committed, and the tonal seriousness intact. But the premiere trio lacks urgency. There’s a sense that the writers are carefully repositioning pieces on a larger chessboard, trusting that patience will pay off later. It might. For now, the opening stretch of Season 2 feels uneven rather than thrilling, competent television that hasn’t quite rediscovered the spark that made its first season so compelling.
New episodes of Paradise drop Monday on Hulu/Disney+.
