One of the nice things about the symbiosis of the entertainment conglomerates is that sometimes streaming shows make their way over to linear outlets. Case in point: ABC has given Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building a primetime slot (after of course tweaking the language for FCC regs) during its various hiatuses. It’s about to dip into Hulu again when it adds the just-wrapped suspense drama, Paradise, to the rotation in April.
I’m glad linear audiences will get to see it (after a one-off sneak peek of the pilot) because series creator Dan Fogelman made his name with linear hit This Is Us over on NBC. And, as with OMITB, which he also produces, Paradise was, by design, written to peel back its mystery week by week.
I came to the series not knowing anything about it, which I think worked in my favor. I follow my Julianne Nicholson (Eyewitness and an Emmy-winning turn in Mare of Easttown) on IG and she teased the series, so I kept an eye out for it but avoided all the promos. Then there was a tease about a massive rug pull at the end of the pilot, which is a) a disservice to the creative team and b) usually a surefire way for me to not watch your show. But I did anyway.
Without tipping my hand too much, because it really is worth the watch to enjoy the unraveling as the creative team intended, I’ll set it up for you and leave you to your own devices whether you binge it on Hulu or, if that’s not on your dance card, you set the DVR for it when it comes to ABC in April.
The premise is the shocking murder of an imperfect president saddled with an impossible task who does the best he can when his presidency aligns with an ELE (and I will never not hear Tea Leoni saying that to Morgan Freeman. IYKYK), or extinction-level event. But we don’t learn about that until episode two.
In the premiere, our POV is US Secret Service agent and single dad Xavier Collins (This Is Us Emmy winner Sterling K. Brown), who lives in an idyllic suburb and has an easy, playful rapport with his team and his kids, Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and James (Percy Daggs IV). A perfect life, but he doesn’t sleep. We find out why that is soon enough.
When Xavier discovers President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) bludgeoned to death in his bedroom amid a houseful of agents, he’s thrust into the machinery that affords them all this mirage of the titular paradise. At the head of that machine is Nicholson, who plays Sinatra. A tech billionaire and visionary, the town of Paradise is her doing, and rather than let Bradford’s death be its undoing, she starts moving Xavier and other residents on her chess board to maintain the lie and protect her secrets.
Among those residents is her personal psychiatrist, Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), Xavier’s boss, Robinson (Krys Marshall), and two of Xavier’s agents, Billy Pace (a standout, and new-to-me Jon Beavers) and Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom). There’s also Cal’s son, Jeremy (Charlie Evans), and dad, Kane (Gerald McRaney).
In line with Fogelman’s specialty device of playing with the past and present, most of those characters get an episode to dial back to who they were in the before times, and what led them here. The relationship between Xavier and Cal anchors the series, and the rift left unrepaired by Cal’s death becomes Xavier’s catalyst to find out what happened to the man he at one time loved like a brother.
And once all eyes are on him, he has to figure out who he can trust. Is it Robinson? Is it Torabi? Brown and Marsden are excellent together and apart. Xavier is a man always in control until he isn’t, and Cal is a man who allowed his life to be built for him until he decided to be the architect of tearing it down.
Nicholson and Shahi are the other anchors, with their uneven friendship established when Sinatra was near catatonic with grief and Torabi helped her find her way back. Assigned a very important role in return, Torabi eventually realizes, maybe too late, that Sinatra is no longer the fragile, frail woman she saved and in doing so, she may be just as culpable for her monstrous choices. “Monster” gets thrown around a lot until the moniker finally fits.
I liked the series a lot. It has a terrific, deep ensemble, and balances the mystery with the political (but not too political, because nobody needs that right now) with the emotional beats of giving select characters their origin story. There’s also a running thread of 90s music as a character unto itself, with alternative and original versions of Cal’s Gen X tastes sprinkled throughout.
Given the construct that I won’t spoil, the stakes are high throughout, and not everyone is guaranteed to make it to the finale. When we get the Very Big flashback episode, it’s a taut hour, but it’s also tempered by the fact that in the present timeline, we already know the who, but not the how. Or that might just be me.
The series was recently renewed for Season 2, and the first eight episodes do close the book on the murder while setting up a new mission and raising the stakes as Xavier picks up the mantle left by Cal. I’m glad we’ll get to see them again.
Paradise Season 1 is streaming now on Hulu and will begin airing weekly on ABC at 10 pm/9c on Monday, April 7th.
Here’s a sneak peek.
Photos and video courtesy of Hulu.
