When Paradise Season 1 came out, I didn’t know what the buzz was like, but when the penultimate episode dropped, I witnessed the internet collectively lose its mind. It was genuinely one of the best episodes I had ever seen. It’s so good that you can just show it to someone without revealing what show it’s from and get them invested in the series. Even if you divorce it from the rest of the narrative, The Day functioned as a great short film too. Can I say the same about Paradise Season 2? No, not exactly, because it depends on a lot of the things that have been shown in the previous 6 episodes, and it not only has to set the stage for the finale but the next season (or seasons) too. But I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel hyped by the time the credits rolled, because the implications of what’s about to happen to next week are just too insane for me to be chill about it. So, without any further ado, allow me to theorize what we might get to witness in the finale of Paradise Season 2.
Spoiler Alert
Project Alex
Paradise Season 2’s biggest secret is Alex. There are only a couple of things we know about it so far. For starters, we saw that Alex was the sick wife of Henry, a professor who was an expert in quantum entanglement and was the CEO of Vestige Quantum, which was forcibly bought out by Sinatra. Alex was euthanized by Henry, right before Billy killed Henry. Alex and Henry were like Link’s parents. Hence, it was confusing why Alex was in the bunker in Colorado and Link wanted to kill her. We learned that Alex was integral to Sinatra’s side project, and it was heavily insinuated that “Alex” wasn’t actually a person, but a machine. So, I am certain that the finale will finally clear the air regarding the connection between the human Alex and the program named Alex. If it’s a program, why’s it named Alex? Well, given how Sinatra has repeatedly said that she’s not a monster, there’s a running theory that she named the program “Alex” to honor both Henry and Alex’s work. Sinatra might not be a monster, but I doubt that she’s sentimental like that, especially when it comes to someone other than her family. I think it’s Henry who created that program and named it Alex; Sinatra just inherited it after purchasing Vestige Quantum. What does this program do though? Not much, but it’s been touted as the ultimate failsafe when the Earth heats up rapidly and evaporates everything on its surface (as well as underground, I assume), thereby making the continuation of life on the planet impossible.
So, what can this program do to save the denizens of the bunker from such a fate? Well, there are 3 options: time travel, space travel, or multiverse travel. I don’t think it’s time travel, because that’s just too complicated to deal with. Dark did it and I think nobody should try time travel after that. Going interstellar is kinda bland, and searching for another habitable planet is pretty much impossible. That said, going to an Earth that exists in an alternate universe seems like the only viable choice in this case; and I think this Alex program has cracked it. I don’t know if the finale is going to actually show the characters venturing into the multiverse, but I feel that there’s going to be a solid indication that, in this show, the multiverse exists. I mean, Link (whose real name is Dylan) being the same age that Dylan would have been if he hadn’t died is a massive hint that Link is from somewhere in the multiverse. But in case folks haven’t caught that, yeah, the finale is probably going to show that Project Alex is about surfing the multiverse to get to a version of Earth that hasn’t gone up or won’t go up in flames.
A Multiversal Exodus
The final episode of Paradise Season 2 is titled Exodus, which is probably a reference to the Book of Exodus, where we learned about the myth of prophet Moses leading the enslaved Jewish people out of Egypt (you know, the parting of the Red Sea and whatnot), which was ravaged by the Ten Plagues sent by God. Or it could be just a reference to any exodus which happens when a place is rendered uninhabitable due to natural or man-made causes. Given how the creator of the show is Jewish, the name of the show is Paradise, the name of the bunker is Paradise, and we had a scene in a church with Xavier and Annie, I bet it’s the former (if that’s the case, it’s kinda troubling given the current geopolitical climate and repercussions of said geopolitical climate on the environment). But I digress. The people of Paradise have 2 options: dying due to lack of oxygen or being saved by Link and his crew when he breaks into the bunker to get Alex. However, they have a secret third option that Sinatra and a handful of other people probably know about: multiversal travel via Project Alex. I am not sure if we are going to actually see Sinatra take the denizens of the bunker (which includes Hadley, Presley, Jeremy, Robinson, and Anders) into the multiverse; but I think it’ll be used as a cliffhanger.
Now, if this is actually a multiverse-related story, I think we’ll learn why so many people are getting nosebleeds. This much has been somewhat established that Link is Dylan from a universe where he didn’t die of a mystery disease and lived to become a fully-grown adult. Why did he travel from his universe to this one? I don’t know. Maybe that world was dying and he came to this one to keep it habitable, and he failed. Now, he’s either trying to go back to his world or he’s trying to keep this one from becoming a hellscape. Either way, much like Into the Spider-Verse, the molecules of his body are not adjusting with this universe and the glitch is manifesting in the form of nosebleeds. That somewhat explains his nosebleed; what about the others? I feel that Link triggers nosebleeds in all those people whose alt-universe selves came in touch with him in his universe, i.e. Billy and Sinatra. What about Xavier though? He wasn’t in Link’s vicinity even once. He was close to Link and Annie’s baby, who’s a multiversal anomaly. But during the plane crash, there was no baby or Link. Hence, I think that while flying through that hail storm near Graceland, Xavier flew through a wormhole that was accidentally created there by Sinatra turning on some multiversal portal through Project Alex, and landed in an alternate universe. The events of the universe he’s currently in are too similar for him or Teri to notice the differences. The visions (which might be the memories of alt-universe Xavier bleeding into the mind of Prime Xavier) are a major indicator. Eventually, there’ll be a clearer hint that Xavier is not home, I suppose.
Jane Is The Multiverse Killer
I think it’s safe to say that Jane’s death was the most underwhelming aspect of the penultimate episode of Paradise Season 2, right? We got a whole episode dedicated to her, where we were shown that Alex (the human, some rudimentary version of the program, an advanced version of the program from another universe, or an alt-universe version of the human that didn’t die of Huntington’s Disease) sent a message to a random computer guy and tried to get him to stop Jane from becoming a killer. Yeah, sure, she killed Billy, Baines, and some other people as well. But that’s the body count of any regular killer. All the billionaires who contributed to the ecological disaster that led to the apocalypse are more dangerous than Jane by a mile. So, why was it so important to stop Jane from becoming a killer? Well, I have a feeling that Jane is not dead. The version of Jane that we’ve been following so far is gone. But I think there are several other Janes all over the multiverse and their existence is a threat to all of existence. I suppose there are a handful of Janes that could have prevented the super-evil Janes from forming some kind of a nexus to end the multiverse.
The Jane that we were following was one of the “good” Janes; that’s why Alex tried to prevent her from becoming truly evil. However, Gabriela went ahead and straight-up killed her. So, now we have to deal with all the Janes in the multiverse who are truly soulless. By the way, the existence of other Janes in the multiverse means that there are more Billys. Yes, I do think that there will be alt-universe versions of Billy (especially after the Billy we know suffered a nosebleed) who are locked in an eternal battle with all the alt-universe versions of Jane; it’s like a tragic multiversal love story. So, if there are alt-universe versions of Xavier, Sinatra, Dylan, Jane, and Billy, can we expect the finale to reveal an alt-universe version of Cal? Especially because he’s such a good person? Nope. I think his death is like a canon event. My man has to die no matter where he is in the multiverse. Some time in the future, we might get a subplot where Robinson or Jeremy will go on a mission to save some version of Cal from dying. But for now, I think the spotlight will be on Jane and her evil alt-universe iterations. Anyway, those are just my expectations from the finale. If you have any theories you want to share with us before episode 8 of Paradise hits our small screens, the comments section is open for you.
