TL;DR – While it had a strong start, I think I am starting to miss the focus of the first season, as we have another new start for characters.

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

Paradise Review –

This season of Paradise has been an interesting one because it does feel like we have had multiple starts. Everyone is about to make a journey, about to make a big change, about to find their wife. But nothing tangible ever coalesces, and I am not sure today’s episode will change anything.

So, to set the scene, in the before times, we are introduced to Gary (Cameron Britton), a mailman in Atlanta, Georgia, who is not very confident, but in his heart, he thinks he is a good man. He is quite lonely, with his only friends being on the computer. He has heard of this conspiracy theory of a volcano in Antarctica. Still, we know that this is not a conspiracy, and his turning the bunker in his mail office into a survival zone might just be the one thing that keeps a handful alive during the dark days of winter. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

Another False Start

The strength and weakness of this episode is the reworking of the same time from a different perspective. The best episode of the first season was when we got to see what went down on that day. Then there was earlier this season when we got to go through it again in Graceland. So, in isolation, seeing how this group got together, survived the bombs, floods, and carnage could be quite interesting. But here it did feel like we were treading over old ground in a season that has felt like it is spinning its wheels a touch. For example, we are five episodes in, and we have been in Paradise only once. It’s not quite as egregious as the second season of Fallout, but it is a touch grating.

I will say that I did like everything that happened up until they got into the bunker. The chatting about what your zombie apocalypse plan is felt like a real conversation that I have had with my friends. I am taking over my local Bunnings, though I had a friend once, dead-eyed, who looked me in the face and suggested a dog-food factory. But I digress. You also needed to show at least for a bit how Teri (Enuka Okuma) survived everything. It was, unfortunately, just diminishing returns the more we dwelt on it.  

The Mailman

Another of the frustrations from this episode is that you had a good hook, with Gary, the titular mailman, ending up being a real creep, or, in the best-case scenario, someone who is unable to regulate his emotions about people leaving after suffering the trauma of his life. While there was something there that you could have gotten your hooks into, I didn’t feel like the incel bait-and-switch ending hit as hard as it should have. It also starts to impact Xavier’s reasoning that he was so trusting in Gary that at no point did he enquire about the train at the main trading post in the area. It just didn’t quite land for me.     

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Paradise? It’s not a bad episode, I am not sure its placement in the season and the focus did it any favours. Maybe I will look at it more fondly when we have the whole season, and you can see where it fits. I am just not sure right now that it worked as well as it could have. 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 – Liza Johnson
Written by – Katie French
Created by – Dan Fogelman
Production/Distribution Companies – 20^th Century Television, Hulu, Star & Disney+
Starring – Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Krys Marshall, Enuka Okuma, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs IV, & Charlie Evans
With – Andy McQueen, Mike Greenberg, Geoffrey Arend, Jojo T. Gibbs, Rya Kihlstedt, Connie Shi, & Cameron Britton
And – Benjamin Mackey, Karley Rothenberg, Alejandro Patiño, Steven M. Gagnon, Anthony Nanakornpanom, Adam William Zastrow, Anthony LaVigne, & Greta Sesheta