Note: This story contains spoilers from “Paradise” Season 2, Episode 8.
Not too long after the emotional reunion between Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier and Enuka Okuma’s Teri in “Paradise,” the parents make it their next priority to find their way back to their children, even as the manufactured town Xavier once called home collapses.
In the “Paradise” Season 2 finale, Xavier and Teri make it into the underground bunker to find their kids, though the scene is filled with chaos with Paradise under an evacuation order. It’s amid the chaos that Teri sees James (Percy Daggs IV), paving the way for another emotional reunion for the family that Brown recalls naturally falling into.
“Actors are asked to do the strangest thing, where you have to make believe and pretend as something is real … but I do have real world experience to draw on, that I have a wife and two kids that I love dearly,” Brown told TheWrap. “I haven’t been separated from them for three years, but I can imagine what it would be like if I was and I got a chance to pull them all back together again.”
The reunion, however, is filled with a sense of uncertainty as a growing community from the surface — led by Thomas Doherty’s Link — confronts the bunker’s leadership as Paradise’s infrastructure begins to falter, leading Gabriela (Sarah Shahi) to make the call to evacuate. “Everything is in flux,” Brown said. “While we’re being reunited, we’re also figuring out, what do we do next? It’s comforting … that they get a chance to be together, but now they got to keep moving.”
With Teri and James together, the next step for Xavier is to find their daughter, Presley (Aliyah Mastin) — a mission that brings him face-to-face with Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), who is also desperate to rescue her daughter, who happens to be trapped in an elevator with Presley amid the evacuation.
Though it was once Sinatra who once held the cards against Xavier — including the information that his wife is still alive — Brown notes the dynamic between the pair is “fundamentally different” by this point, explaining that “Sinatra is in a whole other place, and I don’t think it’s a place that Xavier anticipates when he first sees her.”
“He has a gun drawn ready to bust the cap — he almost did it once before he might do it again, but she is in a different place, and they both need each other,” Brown said. “Both of their children are in danger, and she wants to be of service … She’s not just seeking out something for herself or to bolster her own power, but she wants to make sure that they get their kids together.”
It’s during their mission that Xavier crosses paths with Link, who helps rescue Xavier and Sinatra’s daughters, but, once they’re safe, confronts Sinatra for taking Alex and tells him to take him there at gunpoint. It’s then that Xavier steps in and reveals to Link that he knew Annie and has his baby, though there seems to be another layer to their connection as well.
“That’s such an interesting and special relationship, because these are two people who don’t know each other, but have both seen each other in their dreams, and so they’re trying to figure out heads or tails of what does that mean,” Brown said, noting that maybe Xavier believes he’s recognized Link from the picture Annie gave him that has infiltrated his dreams. “There’s this sense of knowing while not knowing at the same time.”
By the time Xavier steps in to interrupt the confrontation, however, he’s simply trying to minimize the damage, with Brown explaining, “There’s been enough death, there’s been enough suffering. Can we all just see if we can get out of here and do what is necessary to survive?”
During the pressurized moment, Brown notes Xavier and Link don’t have time to decipher what they mean to each other, but what Xavier does know is that he has Link’s daughter in safe keeping. “Before we take out any more life, why don’t we go ahead and introduce ourselves to the life that has come through,” he explained.
After Xavier and Sinatra’s daughters get to safety with their spouses and Link — whom Sinatra has just revealed is her son — Xavier’s perception of Sinatra changes once again when she makes the “ultimate sacrifice” to shut down Paradise by sacrificing herself. “Maybe it’ll also make our audience see her in a different light — she did a lot of bad things during Season 1,” Brown said. “We’ll see if she can redeem herself in the eyes of our public.”
Before making that sacrifice, the final moments of the finale reveal that Sinatra gives Xavier the key to access Alex, telling him “you are User X” and giving him instructions to get to the other bunker to “save the world,” though Brown notes Xavier understands “very little” about the task.
All will be revealed in “Paradise” Season 3, which has already been greenlit by Hulu and stands as the final installment “as structured,” according to Brown.
“Disney told me not to talk too much about season three, but it’s freaking awesome,” Brown said. “I’ve had the season pitched out to me. I think it is gorgeous in its scope and in its execution.”
During the time of the interview in February, Brown revealed he had read the first two scripts of Season 3, and explained that each season stands as its own distinct installment, “You have to watch one in order to understand two, but one can stand alone and two can stand alone, and three will have a similar sort of feeling,” Brown said.
“Paradise” Season 2 releases new episodes Mondays on Hulu.
