TL;DR – They take a gamble with this first episode of the new season, but I think they pulled it off.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Paradise Review –

Last year, there was one TV series that caught me off guard, because I was completely surprised that we were actually in a post-apocalyptic world. Season One of Paradise had its foibles, but it was also an electric romp all the way to the end. But that season was very self-contained, and I wonder if the show has the strength to branch out? Well, that is what we will start looking at today.  

So, to set the scene, Annie (Shailene Woodley) has not had the best of lives, looking after mother in trouble, who died young, bouncing out of medical school, and ending up as a tour guide at Graceland, which turned out to be a bunker when the world fell apart. But tragedy is everywhere in a world where summer never came, ash blots out the sky, and the simple things now kill. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Annie Has a Gun

When you come off a big season finale, there is a want to pick that story up as quickly as possible. But today’s episode of Paradise takes a different and much more risky approach by jumping back in time to the day of the disaster and introducing us to a new character. I say that this is risky, but there are series up in the zeitgeist of television, like Lost in its second season, that could not pull that off. But, I think they did it. It helped that the end of the episode tied directly into last year’s season finale.

However, I also feel that Shailene Woodley has the power to pull off the episode all on her own, and she did. We see that she has medical training and good common sense when the trauma of her mother’s death is not overwhelming her. But more importantly, she has compassion, being there for her friend who was slowly dying from an infection, going out to rescue someone whose plane had crashed, even if that means going into Arkansas. I found this to be a compelling narrative that held your attention throughout.

Also, it does help that the show picked a fascinating place to create a bunker. I mean, the actual Graceland is not as isolated as they depict it here, given it is the middle of suburbia today, but I can let that slide. Using Elvis as the thematic dressing in a world falling apart had a real resonance to the story. It was also interesting to see that by the time the tsunami reached the northern hemisphere, it was only inundating coastal areas, but it still had enough power to make its way up the Mississippi River. I’m interested to see more about this fallen world trying to rebuild.        

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Paradise? Yes, we do. It was a gamble, but the first episode brought me right back into this world. Also, if this didn’t do it for you, they dropped the first three episodes of the season, so you can skip right back into the story you want at the end. Have you seen Paradise yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Paradise
Directed by – Glenn Ficarra & John Requa
Written by – Dan Fogelman & Eric Wen
Created by – Dan Fogelman
Production/Distribution Companies – 20^th Century Television, Hulu, Star & Disney+
Starring – Sterling K. Brown
With – Shailene Woodley, Thomas Doherty, Michael McGrady, Ramon Cham Jr., Angel Laketa Moore, Betsy Moore, Jerry Hauck, & Alora Brooke Johnson
And – Sal Vance