Are you up to speed on Paradise? In my humble opinion, it’s one of the best Hulu shows available on the streaming platform, a riveting murder mystery with a massive hook that has apocalyptic implications for the planet, and deeper ties for the characters that need to be explored. People initially tuned in to Paradise because it marked a reunion of sorts for actor Sterling K. Brown and his This Is Us mastermind, Dan Fogelman. But the thing that has hooked me, and I assume most audience members, are the characters that are being introduced in each episode. They are so expertly written, and so dense in personality, that even though I’m intrigued by the main mystery, I watch because I care where these characters are going.
So far, Paradise has rolled out four of its planned eight episodes for Season 1, and I’m annoyed that my favorite character – Agent Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) – met his unfortunate end at the conclusion of Episode 4. Similar to This Is Us, Paradise utilizes flashbacks to leap around its established timeline, so I bet we see Billy again. This concept also allowed the audience to get to know the father of Sterling K. Brown’s complicated Agent Xavier Collins. Collins was assigned to the Presidential beat for the Secret Service, but failed to protect President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) in the pilot episode. We have seen Collins make some very difficult decisions over the course of Paradise’s first four episodes, suggesting that he’s uncompromising. That trait is spelled out in the relationship scenes between Xavier and his dad. But as Brown told us, they also hit home for other reasons.
We were lucky enough to interview Sterling K. Brown and James Marsden for a Paradise press day, and I mentioned the Xavier scenes with his father as prime examples of the rich characterization happening in the first half of the season. Brown was appreciative, and then went on to explain:
First of all, I had the privilege of being able to hire one of my acting heroes, Mr. Glynn Turman, to play my father. And it was absolutely awesome to be with him on set, right? I can say that much. And also those father-son scenes do a little something for me on a tangible level because I lost my dad when I was 10 years old. So being able to play out the fantasy of what an adult relationship looks like with a parent is something that actually brings me a tremendous amount of joy.
I had no idea that Sterling K. Brown lost his father at that pivotal age. He has proven himself to be such an interesting actor, so the fact that he can draw on past trauma does hint at an ability to connect with genuine emotion. It shows up in almost all of his finest roles. I felt privileged that Brown chose to share that truth in our conversation, because it made me understand the man more, and also the character. Go back and watch the scenes from Paradise Episode 3 to see how Xavier’s relationship with his father, a pilot, resonates now that you have this new information.
But those scenes also went the extra mile to establish, early in this season, the kind of man that Xavier Collins is, as Brown went on to explain:
The complications of that relationship – these two men, who are incredibly driven, who are incredibly… at the height of what they do, but take different turns in terms of how they approach certain aspects of their career. Xavier is unwilling to cut corners. Even if it means that he has to throw his father under the bus, to a certain extent. And it tells us a very strong thing about why this man, and how he will function in the world of Paradise, is important. Because he’s not going to just look the other way. He’s going to do what he thinks is the right thing, regardless of the personal consequences to him as an individual.
I’ve been lucky enough to see the bulk of the Paradise Season 1, and I can tell you that the moral fortitude of Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier Collins is very important to the unfurling of the central mystery that audiences want to learn about. But in addition to the murder of the President, as well as the murder of Agent Billy Pace, the show also needs to explore what happened on the Earth’s surface that drove the surviving population into a hollowed-out mountain range, where they now live in paradise.
Paradise Episode 5 will drop on Hulu on Tuesday, February 11. It all builds to the season finale, scheduled for March 4.
