Paradise (season two) ★★★★
Phil Collins’ Another Day in Paradise serves as a recurring musical motif in this entertaining and occasionally inspired series about secrets and lies in an underground bunker community that might be humanity’s last gasp. It’s an apt choice. A mid-tempo earworm with a jaunty melody masking a melancholy tale of homelessness and disregard, it’s a pop parable about inequity. And so, in a sense, is Paradise.
For the uninitiated: an environmental catastrophe (massive volcanic eruption in Antarctica) rapidly followed by a man-made one (nuclear war) has wiped out civilisation as we know it. The 25,000 lucky (and hand-picked) survivors in this bunker just need to ride things out long enough to ensure the species survives.
In its second season, the show is split between the bunker and the outside world, where Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), the taciturn Secret Service agent who failed to prevent President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) from being assassinated, has ventured. He’s convinced that his wife, Teri (Enuka Okuma), somehow survived despite not making it to the bunker three years ago and believes she is out there, along with who knows how many others.
But if he does find her, and she’s not alone, what then? That’s the nightmare scenario Sam Redmond (Julianne Nicholson), the tech billionaire whose money financed this refuge, has always feared and planned against.
The bunker is a perfectly preserved slice of Everytown, USA. There’s no sunlight, but a bank of small nuclear power plants ensures there’s energy enough to grow fruit and vegetables, recycle water and waste, and to keep this self-sustaining world running. Introduce a whole bunch more mouths to feed, though, and the equation goes out of whack.
The have and have-not dichotomy troubled the late president, who may have been chosen for his telegenic qualities but was not as vacuous as he seemed. They definitely trouble Sam’s personal shrink, Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), as does the increasing evidence that sweet-faced agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom) might be a complete psychopath. And they definitely get up the nose of Link (Thomas Doherty), the leader of the outsiders who finally make their way to the Colorado bunker and demand entry.
As sci-fi goes, Paradise is pretty lo-fi, way more The Truman Show than Silo. There’s little to suggest it’s anything other than our world, or any time but now. I suspect that’s deliberate; without distractions, the ethical dilemmas hit closer to home.
Collusion between big money (tech, mining and oil) and politicians mean a few get to determine the fates of the many. Hoarding of incalculable resources by the privileged means a far greater number on the outside do it tough. The disregard of science and warnings of impending collapse by the very people who might have been able to do more than build a bolthole played their part in this catastrophe.
There’s a terrific breakout storyline (akin to the famous episode of The Last of Us) in which Shaelene Woodley stars as a former tour guide who has survived the apocalypse by holing up in the basement at Graceland. But for the most part, Paradise peddles its palatable and familiar mix of political intrigue, crime procedural and survival drama while subtly urging us, like the Phil Collins songs, to think twice about the real cost of doing nothing.
Paradise (season two) premieres on February 23 on Disney+.
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