‘Paradise’ Season 2 Ending Explained – We’re Still None the Wiser, But That’s Fine

I suppose it’s only right that the Season 2 finale of Paradise is full of biblical allusions, not least of which being that Episode 8 is titled “Exodus”. But this feels like a legitimately big deal. You can always tell. We don’t have much in the way of proper event television these days, and what Hulu has done with this show – including, annoyingly, not letting press see the ending ahead of time, meaning that I’ve had to watch it live and make shorthand notes like an idiot – has felt appropriately exciting and momentous.

We enter this finale, for instance, with several massive questions about the nature of a predictive quantum AI that might be determining reality and bringing people back from the dead, against the backdrop of an imminent nuclear meltdown in a state-of-the-art bunker providing the only meaningful refuge in a climate-ravaged apocalypse. That’s quite serious! The fact that Xavier and Teri trying to save their kids feels like a bit of a second-string subplot just goes to show how much is going on here.

And, naturally, that means a lot for us to break down, including the nature of “Alex” – which remains a big vague – and the fate of the bunker, not to mention whether Link is really Sinatra’s dead son – also a little vague – and who goes down with the ship. Onward!

Alex Is Predicting the Future – Sort Of

In classic Paradise fashion, things kick off with an explanatory flashback shedding some more light on the nature of “Alex”, which has been the big overarching conundrum of the season. It also shows us how Link met Henry Miller, which is nice. Back in the day, he was a Caltech professor, and Link was a frustrated Will Hunting-style super-genius who had built a quantum AI in his spare time and become increasingly irritated that nobody was putting any of these big ideas into practice.

So, Link and Henry, with a blank check from Sinatra to grease the wheels, did just that. They built a quantum AI-powered supercomputer with the intention of solving the climate crisis. And they did it, arguably too well, since not only did “Alex” work, it started getting away ahead of itself, causing anomalous repeating events and changes as it tried to manipulate time.

Even back then, it was obvious that the project was dangerous, since it was solving impossible equations before they had been asked. It should have been shut down. That obviously didn’t happen. Alex hasn’t properly spooled up yet, but even in its nascent state, it’s making eerie predictions, including Sinatra’s arrival – via that funny little Willy Wonka train she arrived on last week – and, worryingly, her imminent demise. It also spews out some access codes and a username meant to implement them. More on this in a bit.

What is Exodus?

The namesake of Paradise Season 2, Episode 8 is a bunker-wide evacuation protocol to get everyone out in the event of a critical emergency, such as, you know, the whole place melting down. And that’s now happening thanks to the bad timing of the lockdown, combined with Jeremy and Robinson’s oxygen tank sabotage. This is also the moment that Xavier and Teri arrive back with the train group. Typical.

Exodus is triggered by Gabi, since Sinatra isn’t there and all the other government higher-ups are dead (thanks to Sinatra and Jane, who Gabi really did kill, in what is kind of an unceremonious end to such a nutcase villain, at least until it isn’t). As everyone in the bunker makes their way out, Link’s group makes their way in to try and shut down Alex and stop the meltdown, and Xavier and Teri try to get the kids out of there before the place blows up.

There’s quite a lot going on at once here, but it’s mostly just straightforward death-defying action stuff, so I’ll give you a cliff’s-notes version. With Link’s help, Xavier is able to save Presley and Hadley from an elevator; Jeremy finally softens on Robinson and goes back to save her when she tries to sacrifice herself to make sure he escapes; and Link’s ironically-named pal Geiger dies.

Sinatra Goes Down with the Ship

In the midst of all this, Sinatra has instructed Alex to be cut off from the bunker. The core of Alex is located 100 miles away from the main Colorado bunker – again, more on this in a minute – so Link’s mission to shut the computer down from inside is a no-go. Instead, priorities shift to making sure everyone escapes the bunker and, perhaps more importantly, ensuring that the imminent meltdown doesn’t spew radiation out of the doors like a cannon.

During this time, Sinatra tells Link that he’s her son, even though she can’t really explain it – he probably knows enough about how Alex works to get the gist – and Xavier, who recognises Link from a combination of his ID card and their nosebleed-inducing shared visions, tells him about Annie’s baby. His baby.

This gets everyone on the same page. The mission is to reinitiate the lockdown protocol and close the bunker doors once everyone is outside, since they’re designed to withstand a nuclear blast from without, which means they can also sustain one from within. But that means Sinatra remaining behind in the control tower, essentially going down with the ship. Before doing so, she gives Xavier the codes that Alex coughed up, having identified him as “User X” after hearing Link refer to him as “X” a bit earlier.

Everyone except Sinatra, who roams through the mega-city she built, as she has wistful flashbacks to Dylan – check out the inert fake ducks and the sky now blaring with directional arrows to help everyone evacuate – makes it out alive. This includes, presumably, Jane, since she is no longer in Gabi’s shower when we catch a glimpse of it. Sinatra meets her end in the collapsing bunker, having more or less done what she set out to do.

A New Mission – And A New Bunker

You knew that Paradise Season 2 wasn’t going to end without a major cliffhanger, so here it is. While the survivors are camped outside and we get a few nice moments between Xavier, Teri, and the kids, not to mention Link naming Annie’s baby Annie, Xavier has a brief flashback to his final moments with Sinatra outside the control room door.

When Sinatra handed him the access codes, she told him about a second bunker hidden underneath the Denver airport, which is where Alex is housed. Xavier’s new job is to travel there, get in, and shut Alex down. When he asks why she thinks he’d go to all this trouble, she says that she believes he already has.

It seems like Alex got a bit too ahead of itself and created two timelines, with a bit of bleeding between the two – hence the anomalies and the nosebleeds and such. For now, it’s a little unclear to what extent these two timelines overlap – and which of the two we’re even in – but that seems to be the direction things are heading in. I guess I’ll see you in Season 3.