Pick of the Week: Paradise
Dan Fogelman is back! From the mastermind that brought us This is Us (and my personal favorite Crazy, Stupid, Love), Fogelman’s most recent creation has a similar familial bent but set in a whole new world…literally. Paradise, which began airing at the end of January, is a political thriller about a Secret Service agent trying to solve the murder of his beloved president and incidentally uncovers a greater conspiracy. Sounds typical enough. Wrong! The end of the pilot episode reveals that this community we’re following, this “America,” is not quite part of the world as we know it. Because the world has ended.
In the very near future, Earth is ravaged by what I’m guessing is nuclear war (it’s intentionally ambiguous) and a small cohort of American politicians and billionaires construct a safe haven deep underground in hopes of retaining a semblance of normalcy. This safe haven—essentially an elaborate bunker that eerily resembles small town America—is called Paradise. It looks exactly like any community you or I might live in, except the sky is a network of LED lights, currency is obsolete, and there is no escaping.
Paradise is a cave (Platonic undertones are more like overtones).
But what I find so fun about this show is that the end-of-the-world of it all isn’t really the main point. We meet these characters, get to know this community, after life in Paradise has firmly been established. The big boo-hoo of nuclear war is in the rearview, and it’s something we only see in occasional flashbacks. Yes, the how and why of Paradise is part of that larger, rapidly unfolding conspiracy; but, as is Dan Fogelman’s speciality, we are mostly following a set of intertwined characters through their day to day lives.
Our main character is Xavier Collins, the stoic and gentle Secret Service agent assigned to the president, played by the indomitable Sterling K. Brown. Collins is a widower with two young children and his world turns upside down—again—after he finds the president (James Marsden) dead one morning. The more he digs into his boss’s death, the more it becomes clear something is amuck. He forms a team of trusted Secret Service agents to fight the powers that be AKA the board of billionaires that run Paradise. One in particular, the ringleader nicknamed “Sinatra” (Julianne Nicholson), seems like she might be behind it all.
I can only assume Fogelman and Sterling K. Brown are best friends after working together on This is Us, because Paradise definitely feels like a vehicle for Brown to shine. But the whole cast, truly, is incredible—even the kids. And James Marsden steals every scene he’s in. Though he’s playing another pretty boy with a heart of gold, that is absolutely his sweet spot. If I was his agent, he’d have a bigger career but, alas, I am not.
Paradise is sharp, thrilling, and thought-provoking. It’s an intriguing mix of the crime/conspiracy plotline so popular in prestige TV these days and the dystopian world-building I grew up loving in shows like The 100 and Almost Human. To top it all off, its end-of-the-world-billionaire-takeover is thinly veiled social commentary that feels more relevant than ever. I’m surprised at its timing—the show was already written, greenlit, and filmed long before Trump’s reelection…
Just six episodes into the first season, might I recommend Paradise to you all. It has the feel of a network drama like This is Us, so it’s *somewhat* family-friendly. The only people I can think of who will definitely not like this show are Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Everyone else, have at it.
Find it on Hulu on Monday nights at 9PM.