Paradise Didn't Need to Treat Its Premise Like a Twist

[Warning: The following contains spoilers for the first three episodes of Paradise. Read at your own risk!]

When you heard that Dan Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown were staging a little This Is Us reunion with the new drama series Paradise, which Fogelman created and Brown stars in, you probably assumed this new series would have some familiar elements: endearing and layered characters, emotions just sitting on the surface waiting to wallop you everywhere you turn, flashbacks, a whole lot of schmaltz, monologues, stunning examples of Brown's otherworldly control over his tear ducts. Guess what, friend? You're right on all accounts. It's not that Paradise, which has now premiered its first three episodes on Hulu, is a carbon copy of the NBC tear-jerker. If you're a fan of one, you won't necessarily be a fan of the other. But the hallmarks of Fogelman's work are evident even within a sci-fi thriller like Paradise. And yes, of course that means Paradise comes with a healthy serving of dramatic twists — starting with the premise.

Like This Is Us, Paradise saves the reveal of what the show is really about for the final few minutes of its pilot. (Stop reading here if you want to watch without being spoiled!) Unlike what early promos would have you believe, Paradise isn't just a straightforward political thriller about lead Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Brown) trying to wade through government conspiracies to solve the mystery of who murdered President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) in his own bedroom. No, this is a thriller about lead Secret Service agent Xavier Collins trying to wade through government conspiracies to solve the mystery of who murdered President Cal Bradford in his own bedroom… while they are all living in a giant cave under a mountain in Colorado after a massive shift in the Antarctic shelf sends a tsunami across the globe, plunging most of it under water in one catastrophic, apocalyptic event. 

This reveal — that we are actually watching a post-apocalyptic thriller — is fine? It's not the most inventive of premises, and, like This Is Us' "they're all related; it's just different timelines" reveal, it doesn't actually do the show much of a service to keep it under wraps. It's not that it's bad; it's just… why not lead with that? Why not market that the premise is loud and a little ridiculous and get people excited for a post-apocalyptic thriller for which you really have to suspend your disbelief but also that's the fun part?

The twist of the post-apocalyptic setting and the show's basic premise aren't even where Paradise shines. In fact, there are many other dramatic reveals throughout the season (I've seen seven of Paradise's eight episodes) that are much more interesting than this one. None of them are particularly surprising — 25,000 U.S. citizens (yes, many of them from the 1%, of course) were picked to live in a suburban idyll of a bunker while the world outside went to sh--; I think you can guess what some of those other reveals might be — but they do continue to open up the story in compelling ways. But Paradise sells itself short by relying on this reveal in the pilot. It's a better show than reports of a gimmicky twist might have you believe, and that's because it has populated its Colorado mountain bunker with such compelling characters, portrayed by a pretty stellar cast, to boot. 

Paradise is a character-first sci-fi thriller. Much like the show's setting, our main cast of characters have layers they slowly reveal throughout the season; no one is as they seem on the surface. There is of course Xavier Collins, our protagonist, played by one of the most magnetic actors around, Sterling K. Brown. Xavier excels at his job, which means he takes it seriously almost to a fault — he's a quiet, calm observer. He's also grieving the loss of his wife and nursing what seems like a deep betrayal by the president, keeping a lot of pain stuffed down inside. (The details of Teri's death, which, yes, does take place on the day the world ends, are another mystery laced throughout the season.) And yet Paradise lets us know right away that there is so much more to Xavier, thanks to his breakfast interactions with his two kids or flashbacks to the before times. His arc, as he learns more about their circumstances in the bunker, is a highlight of the season. The way Brown is able to slowly let Xavier open up the more he discovers is reason enough to watch this show. 

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But it's not just Brown who's really bringing his A game. Julianne Nicholson, as tech billionaire Samantha Redmond, who is really pulling all the strings, easily makes the villain of our story feel like a full-fledged human being. Episode 2 dives into her backstory and how she was motivated by the death of her young son to begin the Colorado bunker project. When we learn why "Paradise" looks like a bland suburb out of a movie, à la Pleasantville, it might move you to tears, and yet Sam is very much the most terrifying person you'll meet in the present-day timeline. (She repeatedly informs people that she isn't a monster, which, another character points out, usually signals that you are, in fact, a monster.) Nicholson is believable and compelling playing all shades of Sam, and it's a real testament to her performance that even while Sam is morally bankrupt in the present, you can still catch glimpses of who she used to be. Marsden, as president and victim — Cal Bradford is murdered in the first episode but figures into lots of flashbacks, some his own and some belonging to other characters — also handles the contradictions within his character with aplomb. Cal can be an ass, but he's endearing, and when he eventually pulls off some hero moves, you totally buy them. Krys Marshall, as Agent Robinson, the head of security who was having a secret affair with the president, also does a lot with a character who's holding a lot close to the vest, despite being given much less than most of her co-stars. 

Still, the most surprising and compelling turn belongs to Jon Beavers' Agent Billy Pace, another Secret Service agent, who is Xavier's unlikely best friend and has quite a dark past. His story gets explored in Episode 4, one of the best of the bunch. It's honestly a shame that the series premieres with the first three episodes — the show picks up from four and doesn't quit. Billy Pace, and Beavers' performance, is an example of how good this show can be when everything it's trying to do is working together: His storyline features an interesting, layered character, a reveal that sets the story in a new direction, and genuinely emotional moments that contain just the right amount of cheese. 

As for the mysteries within Paradise, well, they are for sure a slow burn. For a show that presents such large-scale questions and mysteries — Who killed President Bradford and why? What really happened the day everything changed? And some other questions I can't even ask without spoiling things — it's certainly in no hurry to solve them. The first three episodes, especially, lack the urgency you'd think would be inherent in a sci-fi thriller. If you're on the fence after watching the first three episodes, I'd suggest watching Episode 4 before you call it quits. The series feels like a freight train slowly setting off, then picking up speed until it becomes an unstoppable force. Again, I haven't seen the finale, but if it's anything like the episode before it, it should be exciting. (Or it could run right off the rails; who's to say?) But because of its deep bench of interesting characters, this sluggish start never really feels like Paradise is being withholding to stall for time and force dramatic reveals. Rather, like this bunker "paradise" itself (which, too, has elements both bland and compelling), this slow-burn mystery feels meticulously planned. 

New episodes of Paradise premiere Tuesdays on Hulu.