‘Paradise’ Season 2 review: Great things lie beyond the bunker

In its first season, Heaven established a winning formula combining serious storytelling just bordering on complete cheese with absolutely ridiculous twists and turns.

To see this formula at its best, look no further than “The Day,” HeavenThe apocalyptic flashback episode of. I lost my mind when I learned that the end of the world was due to an unholy combination of volcano and tsunami (with a few earthquakes and the threat of nuclear war on the side). But I also spent the entire episode in an anxious dance, worrying about Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins’ (Sterling K. Brown) futile attempts to get his wife, Dr. Teri Rogers-Collins (Enuka Okuma), to safety.

“The Day”, like the rest of Heavenis a perfect emotional rollercoaster that shifts and zooms between total investment and bewildered disbelief. This duality is also present in Heaven Season 2, which expands its world and takes much bigger genre turns, even if it lacks a mystery as cohesive as “Who killed Cal Bradford (James Marsden)?”

Heaven Season 2 goes beyond the bunker.

Shailene Woodley in “Paradise”.
Credit: Disney/Ser Baffo

Heaven The first big twist of Season 2 opens with an episode with almost no connection to Season 1. Instead of immediately joining Xavier on his quest to find Teri in Atlanta, we find Annie (Shailene Woodley), a medical student turned tour guide at Graceland. When the apocalypse strikes during a shift, she weathers the calamity in the middle of Elvis Presley’s business.

His loneliness is shattered when a group of survivors, including charming leader Link (Thomas Doherty), arrive at the mansion. The ensuing encounter, although wary at first, develops into something tender and sweet. The episode’s hope is a far cry from the bleakness of other post-apocalyptic media. Creator Dan Fogelman subverts audience expectations of the genre time and again throughout the season. Yes, there are occasional human threats. But more often than not, the humans who survived outside the bunker are willing to help each other. Like Annie, their isolation and paranoia often prevent them from taking the first step.

Soon, Annie and Link’s episode 1 vignette begins to fit into HeavenThis is the biggest headache. Link and his crew are on their way to Paradise’s bunker, where, unbeknownst to them, chaos reigns. Cal’s death has left a power vacuum, Xavier’s rebellion has sparked clandestine acts of resistance, and Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) has another mysterious plan up her sleeve.

I don’t know where Heaven is headed, but I love the ride.

Julianne Nicholson and Sarah Shahi in ‘Paradise’.
Credit: Disney/Ser Baffo

Sinatra’s new project is the mystery at the heart of Heaven Season 2, and with all the intentional vagueness surrounding it, lacks a lot of the human weight and political intrigue of Cal’s murder.

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However, if Fogelman is heading where I think he leaves, then Heaven is gearing up for a sci-fi twist that could be even wilder than what the bunker in Episode 1 of the series reveals. This revelation came almost out of nowhere HeavenThe first installment of, while season 2 spends many episodes unveiling its big reveal, sometimes to the point of fury. The jury is still out on whether season 2 will successfully land on this front. After all, Season 1’s best twist was almost entirely due to the surprise factor.

But even if the twist ends up not touching, much of it Heaven Season 2 still does it. Brown remains stunning, whether he’s struggling in his new surroundings or flirting with Teri in a flashback episode. Xavier’s compassion becomes a sort of superpower in the new world outside the bunker, reinforcing Fogelman’s more optimistic view of life after the collapse of society. Sometimes Xavier can feel caricatured well, and some of the episodic flashbacks seem like just one little too emotionally on-the-nose, but then again, that almost cheesy earnestness is part of HeavenThe call. Combine that with the bananas that Fogelman and his team cook, and you’ll have a heavenly good time.

The first three episodes of Heaven Season 2 premieres February 23 on Hulu.