IT’S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!
Is that song going to be stuck in anyone else’s head for the rest of the day?
With only one episode left, Paradise threw a lot of things at the wall, and many stuck. Yet, even so, we’re heading into the finale with a lot to cover, and I’m unsure how to feel about it.
After a shaky start, Paradise Season 2 found its groove, and it’s been banger after banger every week. Yet, being at the end, with so many unanswered questions, leaves me feeling both excited about what’s next and frustrated by the unknown.
Yes, we are getting a Paradise Season 3, so there will likely be a cliffhanger or certain things that will be addressed later. But I’m impatient, and I want my answers now!
It’s lowkey wild that it took the entire season for all the storylines to merge at the bunker, but we’ve finally reached that point.
Xavier completed his mission to get Teri, and now they’re sitting pretty on a train with two children and absolutely no idea what they’re walking into when they return to Colorado.
Xavier and Teri’s reunion felt a bit anticlimactic. But then again, I also don’t know what I was expecting either.
It just felt like for two people who had been ripped apart for so many years, they were, of course, happy to see each other, but where were the primal screams of happiness and the overwhelming sense of relief and joy?
That may not be fair, though, because of the very real crap show they were in the middle of, and the work that still needed to be done.
I never want to see Gary again!
There may be Gary apologists out there, and on the one hand, I do understand that he was a broken and lonely man who finally got everything that he ever wanted via the end of the world, but his utter selfishness was just something I could not get past.
He masked so much of what he did behind his love for Teri and the notion that he would have done anything to protect her. But his actions increasingly became less about Teri and what was best for her, and more about his own fears and what was best for him.
That’s not love. That’s not friendship. That’s not anything that Teri needed to be a part of anymore.
It was such a quick moment, but I loved Xavier being unapologetically ready to kill Gary, when Xavier was the one lecturing Annie about the power of humanity and people during Paradise Season 2 Episode 4.
The second Gary lied to him, it was a wrap on him. And the only reason he didn’t die was because of Teri stepping in.
Their post office goodbye made me so nervous. It’s not as if Xavier wouldn’t have shot him dead in the forehead if things got the slightest bit out of hand, but Gary was desperate.
And you know what they say about desperate people.
There is so much Xavier and Teri need to discuss, and I’m curious when exactly he’s going to tell Teri that he’s not going to be welcomed back into that bunker with open arms when they arrive.
Though, will the bunker even exist in the same way once he gets there?
The bunker storylines were so damn anxiety-inducing this week because everything is truly on this precipice in there. The walls aren’t physically crumbling, but damn if they aren’t figuratively a pile of rubble right now.
We know that Link and company were there to destroy Alex, but even if you knew he wasn’t going to come right and say that when he sat down with Samantha, it was still such an intriguing meeting.
Even though life in that bunker has been a dumpster fire at times, at the end of the day, Samantha still gets what Samantha wants. And no one has been able to stop that thus far.
Yet, here sat Link across from her with a shit-eating grin, and it was so obvious that he could read her like a book.
We know that Link had a connection to Henry, but Henry was also killed by Billy, seemingly before they had a chance to debrief on Samantha and her desire to control his product.
So, how does he know so much about everything? Did Henry leave him information somehow?
Calling Samantha evil is easy, but Link knows a lot about the bunker, and he didn’t find that out by accident.
He wasn’t intimidated by Samantha, nor was he trying to really swindle her in any way. When she pressed him about what he really wanted, he was honest, not beating around the bush or trying to act like he wasn’t there to destroy everything she’d so carefully built.
It wasn’t until Link was leaving that he slipped, if only for a second, and could you blame him? When you’re around that kind of smugness for an extended period of time, it’s bound to rub off on you.
Now, obviously, the second biggest revelation of the hour was the reveal that Link’s real name is Dylan, and if that doesn’t just fit into my time-traveling theory, then I don’t know what else will.
Many people, myself included, wondered why Link’s ID, the one he gave to Annie during Paradise Season 2 Episode 1, didn’t have a name on it, and we’ve finally gotten our answer to that.
Link is Dylan. Dylan is Link. BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
If Link is Samantha’s Dylan, are there multiple timelines? How can Dylan be dead and alive in the same one?
My time travel knowledge starts and ends with Back to the Future, so I will continue to not pretend I understand how any of this works, but Samantha’s complete shift after learning Link’s real name and his birthday leads me to believe that’s her son or some version of him.
And the nosebleed thing, which we’ve seen from Xavier, Samantha, Link, and Billy (please correct me if there are others!), leads me to believe that all of these people have time-traveled at some point.
Or they’re connected somehow and will now have to do time-bending or realm-jumping to save the planet again.
Guys, what am I even talking about?
I probably need to stop theorizing and let it play out in the finale, but my jaw was on the floor when I heard Link’s name was Dylan, as well as when Samantha went somewhere deep in the pits of that place to awaken Alex.
Has Samantha seen into the future? I want to say yes, but also that can’t be true, or she would have already known about Dylan.
My head hurts, y’all! This show always does that to me.
And if Samantha talking to Alex and Dylan, maybe being alive, wasn’t enough, Anders, Jeremy, and Robinson were trying to open all the doors to the bunker at the same time that the advisory board took it upon themselves to put the bunker on total lockdown.
Oh, and Gabby killed Jane! I think.
How many times have you watched a show, and it looks like someone has just been killed, but then you cut to the next hour, and they’ve miraculously survived?
Gabby was paranoid as hell, but her whole job is to read people. She read Jane like a book and knew she was coming for her.
That place without Jane seems odd, and it also puts Samantha at a disadvantage because there is absolutely no one else down there who will do her bidding without pushing back.
The bunker has been on the verge of collapse all season long, but we’re fully there now.
The flashbacks can be heavy-handed, sure, but I’ll always take more Cal. His long-winded speech didn’t just fit the moment but also served as a broader commentary on life, doubling as a reminder about power, control, and inevitability.
Because in the end, that’s what Paradise keeps circling back to: no dynasty will last forever.
Samantha helped create this, for lack of a better word, paradise where humanity is not only enduring but pushing forward. But sooner or later, her luck was bound to run out.
Everyone takes a loss eventually, and this bunker looks like it’s about to take its biggest one yet.
Thinking Twice About These Paradise Details
- Jeremy has no reason to be so nasty to Robinson when Robinson is the reason their silly plan has worked this far.
- Presley and Hadley chose the worst possible moment to try to rebel.
- I have a feeling that Xavier is not going to tell Teri anything during that long-ass train ride. She’s going to come to that bunker blind.
- Was anyone else thinking that apple pie was going to be poisoned? Or was it just me?
- If Alex can bend time, change things, or do anything to fix the past, please let it bring Annie back!
There is only one episode left, and I am not ready to say goodbye to this season!
Drop all your predictions down below, and feel free to explain time travel to me if you feel so inclined!
You can watch Paradise on Mondays at 12:00 a.m. ET (available Sundays at 9:00 p.m. PT) on Hulu.
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