Paradise season 2’s ending left us with more questions than it answered, and honestly, as a viewer, I find that a bit irritating. We still don’t know the truth about the sudden nosebleeds and headaches that multiple characters experienced throughout the second season. However, the finale dropped numerous hints centered around the AI-controlled quantum supercomputer, aka Alex, that might help us understand what this machine is actually capable of. We all know that Link, aka Dylan, had been trying to destroy Alex from the very beginning of season 2, and as the finale revealed, it was he who created it (or at least the prototype version of it). So what changed in between now and then? Did he eventually realize that his brainchild will doom humanity? And what role is Xavier going to play in the larger scheme of things? Well, the finale answered none of these questions, but I have a few theories that might help you understand the ending of season 2 better. So without further ado, let’s jump straight into it.
Spoiler Alert
Alex Is Manipulating The Events
In the finale, Henry Miller, one of the minds behind Project Alex, pointed out that their creation had been manipulating time and coming up with solutions they hadn’t even asked for. In simple words, he suggested the possibility that Alex had gone rogue and had been working on its own. This was the reason he deemed the machine dangerous and wanted to shut down the project immediately. But Sinatra, who had become obsessed with saving the world from an impending natural disaster, couldn’t see the danger that lay ahead. She was focused on finding a way to avert the upcoming catastrophe, which she knew was going to make the planet uninhabitable for humanity. And therefore, in order to stop Henry from pulling the plug on his creation, she hired an assassin, Billy, to steal his brainchild so she could develop Alex on her own.
The ending of season 2 revealed that Sinatra had kept Alex in a different bunker, near Denver airport, around 100 miles away from the Colorado bunker. And it was her scientist, Dr. Chase, who had been looking over Alex in Sinatra’s absence. When Sinatra visited this second bunker in the final episode, Dr. Chase raised a concern that Alex had already started communicating with him and making predictions, even though they hadn’t activated the machine yet. Well, that was what Henry Miller tried to warn them about before she had him killed. And it wasn’t just predictions; I believe Alex had also been traveling through time to manipulate the past in order to create a suitable future. It’s possible that Alex may have already started solving the climate crisis, something Sinatra wanted the machine to do. The concern: they never asked the machine to do it, so it’s kind of an awkward situation here because it seems like Alex has become the master of humanity’s fate. Alex’s rogue behavior further explains why it sent a message to Don, a computer repair guy, on 29th May 1997. It’s likely Alex wanted Jane to turn into a psychopath, which was why Alex planted those ideas in her mother’s head through Don, who informed Jane’s mother that her daughter would grow up to become a cold-blooded killer. It’s possible that Alex might have done the same thing with Link (or Dylan) and fed him ideas on how to create a prototype for a quantum supercomputer, which led to its creation. And if Alex had already manipulated so many events to create a suitable outcome, who’s stopping us from believing that it might have convinced Sinatra that Link was her son, making her believe in the machine’s powers and influencing her decision to sacrifice herself for the survival of the residents?
Sinatra and A Few Others Died In The Finale
In season 2’s ending, Sinatra made the decision to stay back at Paradise, because she was the only one who had the authorization to override the settings and initiate a full lockdown to contain the damage that would be caused by a nuclear explosion. Well, she could have given the codes to Xavier, but she didn’t, because Alex had already convinced her that Xavier, aka X, had a role to play in the upcoming events. So it was Sinatra who had to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect humanity from the impending catastrophe. After the bunker was completely locked down, Sinatra visited the location where she had set up a rocking horse, as it was her son Dylan’s last wish to see a heaven full of horses. In a way, Sinatra’s Paradise was an image of the heaven her late son wanted to be in, and by building the bunker, she kept Dylan’s memory alive. It’s obvious that Sinatra had always been fond of this place. Though she always knew that, in five years or so, the power supply would go out and they would have to evacuate the bunker. I am just trying to tell you that the bunker’s destruction wasn’t the reason she stayed back, even though she was emotionally attached to it. However, it’s quite interesting that Sinatra decided to burn this place to the ground shortly after she found out that her son, Dylan, was alive. She believed that Alex had brought him back. How? We still don’t know. So, what I am trying to say is that she didn’t need this heaven anymore, because her son was no longer dead, right? But it wasn’t just Sinatra who went down with the bunker. In the finale, Paradise’s chief engineer, Anders, died in an explosion, while Link’s mentor and close friend, Geiger, met his tragic end while trying to stop a reactor meltdown. Well, that’s all the bodies I can count, but if you can spot any more dead bodies, do let me know in the comments below.
Jane Escaped The Bunker
In the finale, after everyone had already evacuated the bunker and Xavier was running towards the exit door, the screen cuts to Dr. Gabriela Torabi’s house, focusing on her bathroom. Surprisingly, we don’t see Jane’s dead body here. In the previous episode, Gabriela had stabbed Jane and left her to bleed out in the shower, so Jane’s absence suggests that she isn’t dead, and might have escaped the bunker with the rest of the residents. I am not sure where she is right now, but the way Alex turned her into a cold-blooded killer, I guess Jane will have an important role to play in the upcoming events. The important question is, with Sinatra gone, whose side is she going to take? Will she try to kill Link or Xavier or anyone who dares to destroy the machine? Well, we will find out.
Link And Xavier Will Have A New Mission
At the end of the finale, everyone’s reunited with their loved ones. Teri finally met her children, James and Presley, from whom she had been separated ever since the volcanic eruption that brought the entire world to a standstill. In the camp outside the bunker, Gabriela greeted Teri, and the way Xavier got a bit uncomfortable in her presence suggests that Xavier’s steamy bath with Gabriela might create issues in his and Teri’s perfect relationship. But moving forward to some happy reunions, Link finally met his newborn daughter, whom he named after her late mother, that is, Annie. And I know many of you out there believe that baby Annie and teenager Bean are anomalies (because he hadn’t aged at all), but I think it’s too early to say anything on that front. As of now, the only confusion we have is about the sudden nosebleeds that Xavier and Link have been experiencing, and my theory is that it has something to do with Alex, which brings me to their next mission, that is, to find Alex and destroy it.
Till her last breath, Sinatra believed that Alex would stop the impending doom and save humanity, but what if Alex is not the savior it’s supposed to be? As I see it, it’s a machine that’s fiddling with the past and playing with the human psyche, robbing us of our autonomy to make decisions for ourselves. I am not saying we did a very good job, because we actually destroyed the whole planet by exploiting its resources, but as humans, we have always learned from our mistakes, and Alex is taking away the very thing that makes us human. The machine is turning us into slaves and manipulating us to carry out its instructions. In short, it’s potentially the greatest threat the human race has ever faced. This is the whole reason why Link wants to destroy the machine, because before his death, Henry Miller might have made Link realize how Alex tricked him into creating it. So far, Link seems to be the guy who has a clear conscience, and if he already knows what Alex is capable of, then he may want to save the world from his creation. I think the wide shot of the Blue Mustang, aka Blucifer, outside the Denver airport is a great reminder of how a man’s creation caused his own demise. So it’s likely that if Alex knows what Links’s really up to, then it will try to get him killed, but that’s where Xavier comes in. He won’t let a machine destroy the planet on which his family lives, and therefore will join forces with Link to shut down the machine before it can do more damage than it already has. Needless to say, that won’t be easy.
The Mobius Strip Theory
As mentioned earlier, Paradise hasn’t yet explained the exact reason behind the sudden nosebleeds and the shared hallucination that Xavier and Link have been experiencing since the very beginning of this season. However, it’s evident that both these incidents are somehow connected to Alex. If you take a look at the card that Sinatra handed over to Xavier (on Alex’s orders), then you would notice a Mobius strip printed on it. The figure suggests that the show doesn’t consider time to be a flat line. Instead, time is built like a Mobius strip (a closed curved circle). That means if you change the past, then you won’t create a grandfather paradox. In layman’s terms, it points at the creation of a parallel reality. For example, in one timeline, Billy shot Link, and in another, he didn’t. Every event has two different outcomes, represented by the inside and outside of the Mobius strip. And I believe it’s the existence of this Mobius strip that has made time travel possible for Alex, as it has been able to travel back in time to even before it was created. Alex has been processing the cause and effect of both outcomes and twisting the timeline to create a suitable future, and this can explain why Xavier and Link are having visions of the near future, because Alex has been constantly toying with their present, as it believes these two are the key to solving the crisis. There are also some coordinates marked on this strip on the card, which likely are the key events that will decide the fate of the world. However, what these events are will ultimately be revealed in the next season.
And last but not least, the show called Xavier “X,” which I guess refers to the variable “x” in a mathematical equation. Since the very beginning of season 2, I have a running theory that the Xavier we are following in this season isn’t the one we met in season 1. It’s likely that this Xavier is from the parallel reality (as the original X died in a plane crash), just like Sinatra’s son, Dylan, and together, and it’s likely their “link” which will decide the fate of humanity. Well, these are my theories based on the ending of Paradise season 2, but if you have anything else to share, please do drop a comment below.
