While investigating the murder of President Cal and untangling the web of lies that the tyrannical Sinatra had woven, Xavier found out that his wife, Teri, is still alive and out there somewhere on the surface. Hence, Xavier took all the bare necessities, boarded a plane, and left the titular underground facility with the intention of finding Teri and reuniting her with her children, James and Presley. Did episode 1 of Paradise Season 2 show us what he has been up to since then? Umm… nope. The clock is turned back several decades so that we can follow a child named Annie, who is on her umpteenth tour of Graceland, Elvis’ house, so that she can report to her ailing mother, who is a hardcore fan of Elvis, about all the changes that have been made to the program.
One day, Annie finds out that her mother has passed away in her sleep, but she doesn’t cry about it or anything. She channels her sadness into her education so that she can become a doctor who is capable of helping people not suffer the same fate as her mother. Annie proves to be more talented than the rest of her classmates, but the trauma of her mother’s death begins to surface during her classes, thereby prompting her to drop out of med school. She is spotted crying in front of Graceland by one of its security personnel, Gayle, who helps Annie out by getting her the job of the Elvis tour guide. Since Annie knows everything there is to know about Elvis and Graceland, she fits in like a glove and even forms a sweet bond with Gayle. Things seem to be going fine, but then doomsday arrives. While everyone runs home, Annie and Gayle seek shelter in Graceland. What happens next? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Gayle Dies
While hunkering down in Graceland, Annie and Gayle collect all the essential items from all over the house and take it down to the basement. Annie frees the horses in the ranch and even takes Elvis’ gun just in case she needs it in the future. While she’s doing all this, Cal triggers the EMP device to neutralize all the world’s nuclear missiles and since that causes everything to go dark, Gayle takes a tumble down the stairs and badly injures her legs. Over the next few days, Annie tries her best to fix Gayle up and keep her comfortable. But the plummeting temperatures一probably caused by the ash cloud that’s formed from all the volcanic eruptions blocking out the sun一and the lack of resources don’t help their case. And 45 days after the apocalyptic event, Gayle passes away. When Annie was just a child, she had to take care of her mother, and it’s evident that she feels she didn’t do enough to keep her alive. That guilt drove her to try to become a doctor. When she failed at that, she must’ve thought that she had failed her mother once again. Gayle saved Annie from doing something drastic when she hit rock bottom, and the job of a Graceland tour guide was so unproblematic that it seemed like Annie would find some peace and stability. Then the planet went up in flames and Annie found herself dealing with death yet again. Gayle felt that once she would be gone, there’d be no one to motivate her to keep living. Hence, Gayle used her last breaths to tell Annie that she and her mother are proud of everything that Annie has done. Thankfully, those words do fuel the fire inside Annie’s heart, and she continues to survive.
Annie Has Some Visitors
After nearly 2 years, Annie notices that the ash cloud has dissipated, and the sun is back. She commemorates this moment by doing something that had become a rarity: growing a plant. That plant signifies rebirth, hope, and the second chance that humanity has gotten to treat the planet properly. However, Annie’s optimism soon turns into anxiety as she spots a bunch of men barging into Graceland. Expecting the worst, Annie arms herself with Elvis’ gun and hides in one of the bedrooms. A guy named Link drags her out, and although she acts aggressively, Link seems friendly. He asks her about Elvis’ cars; not just because they are fans of the superstar, but also since they need the car’s parts for their mission. While Link’s crew head towards the garage, Link tries to form a bond with Annie. Unfortunately, Annie is so paranoid that she sees Link’s gesture as some form of trickery; hence, she knocks him out and runs away to hide in the basement for two whole days. I know that this might seem like an overreaction, but put yourself in her shoes for a second and think about what men do to women even when a society is governed by rules and regulations. Now think about what they could do when an apocalypse has erased all such rules and regulations. Yeah, Annie’s actions don’t seem so irrational now, do they? That said, when Annie sees that these men haven’t tried to barge into her room and drag her out again, she understands that they mean well. Hence, she emerges out of her room and joins the men for breakfast. This is where Annie and the audience are introduced to Geiger, Urkel, Chef, Big Papi, and Gator.
Link Talks About His Team’s Plan
The men and Annie have a brief discussion about the reason why things went sideways for Earth (Urkel’s theory about the all-powerful EMP is actually correct), how many people have died, how things are returning to normalcy, and what Link and his crew’s mission entails: deactivating all the nuclear power plants before they go into meltdown. Well, the men do most of the talking, and Annie just kinda listens. And she isn’t actually just listening; she is reading all these men to check if they are actually the good guys, or just pretending to be. Eventually, Annie understands that Link and his friends are not threats, and hence, she warms up to them. Annie even notices that Link has an injury on his hand. Since she has medical knowledge, she offers to help him out one day. In doing so, she interrupts a conversation between Link and Geiger about the titular underground facility and a woman they’ve been looking for. It’s unclear how they know about the place or who this woman is that they are looking for (maybe it’s one of their relatives, or perhaps they are talking about Sinatra). Maybe we’ll find out more about it in the upcoming episodes. For now, the focus remains on Annie and her budding romance with Link as she fixes his hand up and puts a splint around it. Adding to this overall positivity, one of the horses that Annie had freed from the ranch returns home. Later on, Annie and Link are seen having conversation about falling satellites looking like shooting stars, Link’s love for telescopes, how the nerds have outlasted the popular kids, and the plan to head West and “restart the world.”
Annie And Link Have One Last Dinner Together
When Link says that they’ll be in St. Louis in the upcoming week, Annie gets confused, because Missouri isn’t exactly “West.” That’s what prompts Link to bring up the topic of “bad pockets.” So, apparently, since the world is still in the process of healing, there are certain areas where the weather conditions are horrific. Hence, if you take the direct route all the time, you’ll run into these sticky areas where you’ll die. Link probably senses that, eventually, Annie is going to venture in search of greener pastures in case Graceland turns into one of those “bad pockets” or if Annie feels like exploring the world on her own. And he doesn’t want her to die doing so. He really wants her to come away with him and his team, but he feels that he needs to win over Annie just a little more before breaking out the big question. That’s why he asks her out to dinner. It’s not exclusive or anything, because the whole team is present at the table too. They eat and start talking about something specific they miss about the pre-apocalypse life. Initially, Annie is hesitant about sharing such an intimate detail about herself, but after a while, she opens up and confesses that she misses doing those Elvis tours the most.
Annie And Link Part Ways
Since Annie has an audience who would like to know about the King, she gets to relive the thing that she cherishes so much by giving Link and his team a tour of Graceland. After that, she even gets intimate with Link, because both of them have been so lonely and they are clearly attracted to each other. But the vibe of the scene isn’t loaded with lust; it’s pretty sentimental, because they have both endured so much and they are finally getting to heal each other through love. The following day, Link finally reveals how he and his team plan to “restart the world”: they are going to get into the underground bunker in Colorado and use its resources to accelerate the planet’s journey to normalcy. And, of course, Link wants Annie to come with them to Colorado. However, she rejects the proposal by shutting herself off from the world again. Since the crew is on a strict timeline to get to the bunker and kill someone called Alex (no clue who that is), Geiger doesn’t allow Link to waste anymore time, and they hit the road. By the way, it seems like Link is suffering from some kind of ailment, or maybe Annie has actually given Link a serious injury when she struck him on the head the first time they met. Well, I suppose we’ll know more about it later.
Annie Finds Xavier
After Link and his team’s departure from Graceland, Annie goes back to living life all by herself. She finds out that she’s pregnant. She tends to her plants. Then, in the ending of Paradise Season episode 1, she spots a plane crashing a few miles away from Graceland. Hence, she takes her gun and some basic amenities and reaches the crash site on her horse. While investigating wreckage, she obviously finds Xavier. No, he’s not dead; and there can be a variety of reasons why his plane has crashed. Xavier has eyesight problems and he might have hit something while flying too close to the surface. It’s possible that the plane, which had been lying there in the hangar without any maintenance, malfunctioned and crashed. Or it’s possible that it just ran out of fuel, prompting Xavier to perform an emergency landing. Whatever the case may be, it’s evident that Xavier is going to join hands with Annie to find Teri (while also bonding over their love for Elvis Presley). That said, with Link and his crew going to the underground facility, a ticking time bomb element has been added to the plot because Xavier has to return to his family before Link and his team do so as to protect his family and friends there from a violent altercation with these insurgents.
