The first 2 episodes of Paradise Season 2 focused on Annie and Xavier. Annie was a survivor of the apocalypse who had taken shelter in Graceland. She met a group that was on its way to the underground facility in Colorado, and she fell in love with its leader, Link. Annie got the offer to accompany them on their mission, but she rejected it. 9 months later, it was revealed that Annie was pregnant with Link’s baby. Coincidentally, that’s when Xavier crash-landed his plane somewhere near Graceland. While flying, Xavier experienced headaches and nosebleeds (which was something that Link was suffering from too), and then he ran into a hailstorm; before Xavier could understand what was happening, he found himself stuck in a tree. He was rescued by a group of kids, whose leader was Daniel, but since they were scavengers, they took all his stuff and ran away. Annie then found Xavier and brought him to Graceland. When Xavier regained some of his strength, he told her that he came from an underground facility in Colorado, which was home to his kids and several other survivors, and he was on his way to Atlanta to reunite with his wife, Teri. However, Annie said that Xavier needed to take her to Colorado so she could meet Link again, and then he’d be free to search for Teri. Did episode 3 of Paradise Season 2 show us whether Xavier followed Annie’s orders? Nope. Instead, we followed Sinatra and got some hints about her diabolical survival strategy. So, let’s talk about it.
Spoiler Alert
The Apocalypse Will Enter Its Second Act
Much like the first 2 episodes and the entirety of Season 1, the third episode of Paradise Season 2 takes the nonlinear storytelling approach to shed some light on Sinatra and the lives that have been “touched” by her. So, 9 years before she got shot in the neck by Jane, Sinatra had a sit-down with Louge, the scientist who gave that whole presentation about how the whole world was about to come to an end that actually prompted her to start work on that underground facility. And what he said to Sinatra legitimately sent a chill down my spine. Apparently, the apocalyptic and the “return to normalcy” phases that we have witnessed so far are part of the “first act” of this whole process. After the planet would achieve some sort of stability, the trapped greenhouse gases would cause the temperature to go through the roof so dramatically that the air would thicken, oceans would evaporate, and the pressure would be so insurmountable that anything on the surface would be flattened. Hence, Earth would become like Venus, which means that the underground facility will not only have to be prepared for the initial 2-3 years, but also the nightmarish insanity that’ll follow. Now, Sinatra began working on the Colorado Project way before Cal became president. I suppose the plan was to have the bunker completely ready by the time he stepped foot in the Oval Office, but Sinatra was experiencing some hiccups. The ever-optimistic Cal seemingly didn’t understand that Sinatra’s “side project” was more important than getting the bunker functional, but his dad, Kane, realized how serious it was. So, after learning that Sinatra had done everything she could to convince this developer, Henry Miller, to be a part of this plan, he advised her to discard the straightforward approach and take an alternative, more violent route. Sinatra wasn’t very comfortable with what Kane was suggesting, but since she was desperate, she accepted Kane’s helping hand.
Billy killed Henry
Thanks to Kane, Sinatra met Billy, who was working as a mercenary-for-hire back in the day. She tasked Billy with getting to Henry and convincing him to sell his company, Vestige Quantum, to her so that she could get started on her “side project.” If Henry didn’t budge, Billy had the green light to kill him. Billy approached Henry at a bar; they had a lengthy chat about “Advanced Wave Functions, Superposition, and Quantum Entanglement,” and Henry said that while most of his students didn’t exactly get what he taught, there was only one kid who did, later revealed to be Link. Henry confessed that he saw Link as his son because he and his wife didn’t have biological offspring. After listening to all that, Billy pulled out the documents that he wanted Henry to sign so that Sinatra could have the rights to Vestige Quantum and its products. Billy made it clear that if he didn’t sign on the dotted line, he’d be compelled to pull out his gun. For a second, it seemed like Henry had caved, but when Billy looked at the papers after Henry had left the bar, he saw that Henry had written his house address instead of his signature. Left with no other option, Billy showed up at Henry’s house, only to find out that Henry’s wife, Alex, was suffering from Huntington’s disease, and Henry had been looking after her for the past few decades. Henry knew that Billy was going to kill him anyway, but he wanted to go home first so that he could send his wife into the afterlife before he died. Furthermore, he needed to put forth a request to Billy to leave Link alone, because he had nothing to do with Henry’s work or his company. After killing Henry, Billy encountered Link, and he let him live.
The Curious Case of Alex
Now, I have to point out a few things. Firstly, Alex is Henry’s wife, but in the previous episode, Geiger told Link that they needed to get into the bunker in Colorado to kill Alex. So, are there two Alexes, and are they different people or one and the same? If the Alex that Link is after is the same Alex who was Henry’s wife, then how’s that possible? Did Henry actually kill Alex, or did he just make it seem like he had killed Alex so that she could go about her plan once Billy had left the scene? If Link is out to kill Alex, I am guessing she has betrayed him in some way, or she’s doing something that goes against Henry’s teachings? Secondly, how did Henry anticipate that Billy would get a nosebleed and a headache? We saw Xavier experiencing something similar and peeking into the future. So, is the show going fully sci-fi and introducing soothsaying superpowers in certain people? The topic of quantum entanglement has been brought up. Therefore, there’s a possibility that something supernatural is happening. Thirdly, how are superpowers going to help them fight the apocalypse? I don’t know much about Zelda, but is Link, the character in the game, some kind of a “chosen one” archetype? That’d explain why Henry said that Link was integral to some grand scheme. Again, how’s this grand scheme going to work if the Earth is about to implode? Can Link reverse time? Can he transport humanity to some quantum realm? I suppose we’ll learn more about that later. Since Billy’s current job was done, he met with Sinatra to let her know that Henry was dead and Vestige Quantum belonged to her. Billy told her that, in the future, if she needed his services, she would need to give him a name, a photograph, and utter the phrase “They need a breath mint.”
Baines Wants Summer in Paradise
Sinatra finally regains consciousness in the hospital in Paradise, and the nurse informs her that she has been in this comatose state for the past 5 months. In that time, quite a few developments have occurred. Baines is the president, police activity has increased a lot, Jeremy and his friends are using the power of graffiti to rebel against these fascists, and Nicole has been tasked with looking after James and Presley while also chauffeuring for Jane. Yeah, before Xavier went to the surface, he took the blame for shooting Sinatra, and he told Nicole to keep a low profile until he returned to Paradise with Teri. In the eyes of the public, Nicole was a part of the rebellion staged by Xavier, while Jane was a goody-two-shoes who was doing her job. Hence, Jane got promoted onto Baines’ security team, and, on Jane’s recommendation, Nicole was demoted to the position of Jane’s assistant, which was apparently better than the job of changing the batteries of the fake ducks in the ponds. Anyway, Jane and Nicole head to the meeting at Baines’ office, which is where all the dignitaries, including Gabriela and Anders, are present. Baines is aware of the fact that the public’s confidence in him isn’t at an all-time high, and his brilliant solution to that problem is allowing the people to experience summer.
Anders Gets Arrested
Since Baines’ summer program involves using up more of the facility’s already finite resources, his advisors, well, advise against that decision. Moreover, given how a large portion of the power generated by the modular nuclear reactors is being used to keep Sinatra’s “side project” alive, which is far more important than Baines’ summer vacation program, it won’t be wise to jeopardize that just so Baines’ approval ratings can go up a bit. Now, Baines has suffered a lot of humiliation at the hands of Sinatra, which is why he keeps harping on about sidelining her project and focusing on making Paradise more summery. That causes Anders to explode, and he tells Baines that if he increases the temperature, the underground facility is going to become a pressure cooker, and everyone is going to die. Baines is an idiot, and instead of listening to what Anders is saying, he has him arrested and sent to the prison where all of his critics are being held captive. Later on, we see Jeremy getting himself arrested and joining Anders in that prison, with the intention of working on a plan to destroy Paradise. With all that out of the way, Baines orders Jane to bring in Sinatra for questioning.
Baines Is Dead
Jane interrupts an emotional moment between Sinatra, Hadley, and Tim to firstly make sure that Sinatra is still maintaining the lie that it was Xavier who shot him, not Jane, and then she proceeds to take her to the interrogation room. There, she is reunited with Gabriela, and once Sinatra has been hooked up to the polygraph machine, Gabriela, on Baines’ orders, repeatedly asks him to reveal the details of her side project. Sinatra feigns ignorance, and that causes Baines to have a meltdown. Once Baines realizes that he is not getting anything out of Sinatra, he orders security to send her home and station some police officers outside her house so that she thinks twice before doing anything shifty. Unfortunately, the naive Baines is unaware of the fact that Sinatra has already put out a kill order with his name on it by telling Jane that Baines needs a “breath mint,” which is a code word that Billy devised so that Sinatra could convey that she wanted somebody dead without actually saying phrases like “kill” or “assassinate.” With Billy gone, Jane is now Sinatra’s secret weapon. While nobody else senses that something’s off about Jane, Nicole’s Spidey-Senses begin tingling, and she decides to dedicate some time to looking into Jane’s past; lo and behold, she sees that all her files are redacted and her statement regarding Billy’s “death by suicide” is incredibly fishy. Unfortunately, since Nicole is so busy looking into Jane’s past that she fails to notice what she’s doing presently. Yeah, Jane accompanies Baines on his midnight jogging routine and slits his throat with her knife. When Nicole arrives at the crime scene, Jane knocks her out, puts the knife in Nicole’s hand, and makes it look like Nicole is a part of the graffiti rebels and she has killed the president on their behalf.
Sinatra’s Secret Project May Involve Realm Jumping
It’s interesting how Sinatra is the orchestrator of Baines’ death, and yet she is just chilling at home with her family, like she’s some poor deer who has been caged or something; it’s sickening. Thankfully, Gabriela sees through Sinatra’s charade, and in the ending of Paradise Season 2, episode 3, she gives Sinatra a framed picture of the both of them, which has a concealed mic in it, so that she can listen to everything she’s saying. This might give Gabriela some kind of upper hand, but there’s a possibility that Sinatra already knows about the mic and she’s going to use it to give Gabriela false information regarding her side project. Now, what is this side project all about? It could be some kind of device that can protect the facility from the impending high-pressure and high-temperature phase of the apocalypse that’s about to happen. If that is truly its purpose, I don’t know why Link and his team intend to use it to “restart the world.” The world is as good as dead; there won’t be anything left to restart in the upcoming months. Which makes me think that this secret project isn’t just about protecting the facility from the next stage of the apocalypse; it’s about transporting the facility to an alternate realm. I know that sounds like a stretch, but all the talk about quantum entanglement, the nosebleeds, and Xavier’s visions of the future could mean that Paradise is going to go fully sci-fi. What are your theories on Sinatra’s secret project? Let me know in the comments section below.
