Paradise (season 1)

In Season 1 of Hulu’s Paradise, Secret Service agent Xavier Collins investigates a high-profile murder, delving into a complex web of deception where nothing is quite as it seems. As he unravels secrets and navigates political intrigue, Xavier’s pursuit of truth hints at a reality far stranger than expected. The season unfolds with suspense, drama, and mysteries that hint at a deeper conspiracy.

Paradise Review (season 1)

As thrillers go, Paradise is a tad less than the sum of its parts. While its performers are pretty strong and benefit from having a limited number of directors, and therefore a more cohesive overall feel, not to mention crisp and natural dialogue, the most interesting twist is revealed early in the first episode, and is underutilized as more than a way to contain the action.

                   

From there, it’s a fairly standard story of a conspirator versus a truth-seeking hero, with a limited number of reveals that aren’t telegraphed and a narrative that’s stretched three episodes too long. Regrettably, there are few characters to love and a villain who, while loathsome, lacks menace or much presence.

Supposing you can stomach the frequent, socio-politically motivated, momentum-busting interruptions. In that case, it’s a program that will mostly entertain, but it’s unlikely to keep you from playing around on your phone while watching.

WOKE ELEMENT

What’s Not Woke

• The main character is a loyal man of uncompromising principles, and despite modern conventions, he’s also competent and capable, even in the face of an onslaught of “strong, independent” women.

Hen House

•  One of the repeated illusion-busting leftist elements is the show’s women. Admittedly, this program does a better job than most.
  • There isn’t a single male character who doesn’t have a female superior in the show’s community.
  • All of the women are the best, the smartest, the richest, etc. Even the head of the Secret Service is, of course, a black woman. There have only ever been two female Directors of the Secret Service in history. Neither lasted for more than a year, and both were white.
    • It’s noteworthy that the male lead is repeatedly shown to be more skilled at his job than she is.
  • The primary female character regularly emasculates the men around her.
    • “If you gentlemen will pour yourselves a drink or tug on your d###s or whatever you have to do to calm down.” You see, men are emotional and need to be slapped down so that the women can talk.
    • “I want to see what it looks like when you have balls.”
    • “Just read it, Henry. We didn’t pick you to have thoughts.”
    • This kind of thing happens several times throughout the season, although it only occurs once or twice in any given episode, and it doesn’t happen in every episode. It’s important to note that we aren’t necessarily supposed to like her. The problem is that none of the men ever fight back, suggesting that the showrunners think that she’s in the right.
• Because the lead character’s wife must be a strong, independent woman, we are repeatedly told by her husband that she refuses to listen to his request that she stay close to home. Never mind that the President of the United States has strongly and personally suggested it himself, and tried to convey the importance of this to her husband with repeated suggestions that he, the lead, try to change her mind.
  • It costs her dearly, but the tone of the show suggests that we should appreciate this character trait.

Jasmine Crockett

•  The prologue of (I think) the sixth episode is a flashback that introduces us to the male lead’s wife for the first time. It is one of the most insufferable, off-putting, and unneeded scenes in TV history, and the worst character introduction of all time. You’re supposed to love her by the end, but I was glad she was dead. It was at this time that, if the seventh episode weren’t so terrific and the eighth didn’t end as strongly as it did, I would have been telling you to run in the other direction from this program. As it is, IF you watch Paradise, do yourself a favor and skip past any flashback of Xavier Collin’s wife. The show will be immeasurably better if you do.
  • The two have been called in to talk with the principal of their children’s exclusive and posh private school about their daughter’s recent behavior. Apparently, she was the lead in a class project, a position that she used to publicly embarrass and shame a white boy who ended up vomiting in front of the class.
  • The first thing the wife does in the scene is instruct the slightly overweight, middle-aged white principal on the correct way to address her, which is not to use “Mrs.” and her husband’s last name, but both her title, “Doctor” (PhD, not MD, of course), and her hyphenated last name. It couldn’t be more pretentious, arrogant, or off-putting, yet the show would have us cheering her on. It’s noteworthy that this level of private school only hires those with advanced degrees and impeccable credentials to lead. To put it into perspective, the private school attended by the Obama children is headed by a man with decades of experience and a doctorate in philosophy.
  • Once the meeting begins, which includes the cartoonishly WASP-y rich and white parents of the victim, she immediately corrects the principal again (it’s the first thing that she says in the meeting), this time on the correct pronunciation of her daughter’s project title. He is a kind, patient, and accommodating person, but we’re supposed to root for her rudeness again.
  • Next, she insults the intelligence of the victim and then launches a verbal assault on the parents. It’s at this time that she starts channeling Jasmine Crockett, and the ghetto leaks into her voice, and her neck begins to swivel. Yes, she becomes a stereotypical sassy black woman talking down to Whitey. It’s gross.
  • When the meeting is over and she and her husband are walking to their car, she proudly laughs and congratulates herself on her behavior. Even though he was the calm voice of reason throughout, he smiles proudly at her.
    • We finally find out that the boy was a bully and “deserved” some payback, but after her behavior, there’s no reason to trust her on this. Furthermore, they don’t tell us what he did to deserve it, except for a single incident that they vaguely reference, but by this time, she’s shown herself to be so loathsome that who cares?

The Root of All Evil

• Lip service to class warfare occasionally rears its head every couple of episodes.
  • Of course, a cabal of evil billionaires runs the society and determines who lives and who dies.
    • James Marsden’s character’s father is a wealthy and mean-spirited oil magnate who controls every aspect of his son’s life.
  • There’s a line about how this cloistered society mimicks the American Dream because it provides  “bloated houses for the privileged few” and has guns.

Movin’ On Up

• The main character is a black man. Although the show treats it as incidental most of the time, it also shoehorns in some unnecessary backstory about his father, who was a Tuskegee Airman, etc. There’s a lot of clunky exposition to inform us of how far the family has come. It should be a testament to how far America has come in such a short time, but instead, it comes across as obligatory racial politics. It has no relevance to the overall story.

In The Ghetto

• The lead’s wife was a big Elvis fan, going so far as to demand that their daughter be named Presley. When her father-in-law finds out about the name, he asks his son, “Are you sure she’s one of us?” Because, I guess that the writers, which includes at least one black person, think that black people are a monolith who can only like BET-approved music.

Sigh

• This is a big spoiler but only a minor infraction, so you might want to avoid it, if you plan on watching the program. I promise that this element is only worth an eye-roll at most.
  Spoiler

  There’s a brief flashback scene that takes place at a symposium on manmade global climate change. However, we find out in a later episode that Global Warming is the catalyst that sets the entire show’s premise into motion.

She’s Strong. She’s Black. She’s a Child.

• The eldest daughter of the lead character walks a fine line between respect and disrespect towards her father, as she gently reproves him in more than one scene. Worse is his deference to her. However, it’s softened by a layer of complexity that demanded she mature rapidly and take on the role of the household’s matriarch and surrogate mother to her much younger brother.
  • However, it’s noteworthy that where she’s mature and capable, her little brother is nerdy and timid.

Monroe Ficus

• There’s a neighbor character who appears briefly only once or twice, but is clearly gay. It’s not over the top at all. He doesn’t float around on affectations, but he’s a neat, single middle-aged man with a long-haired chiuhaua that he dotes over. Again, his sexual preference isn’t stated, so I didn’t take points off.
• Two male characters exist only in flashbacks, and it’s unclear if they are romantically involved. For most of their shared screentime, it appears that they are just extremely close platonic friends, but there are hints that it may have been more. Still, the level of ambiguity is such that I didn’t take any points off for it.

You Heard the Man, Stimpy. Get Him A Glass of Meat

• Spoiler

  These folks spent trillions of dollars on this futuristic world, but they can’t 3d print meat? We can do that now. It seems unlikely and almost certainly an excuse to promote veganism.

  • I couldn’t find any evidence to corroborate it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the show’s creator was a vegan or vegetarian.