It may be an espionage thriller, but no one’s gonna mistake Paradise for Michael Clayton or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy anytime soon. Information about the assassination of President Cal Bradford and the compromising positions of virtually everyone involved in the case isn’t unearthed or deduced — it’s delivered in great gobs of personal exposition, the confessor standing face to face with the interrogator. The casework seems to amount to a series authority figures asking people “Did you do it?” and backing down when the person says “No.” I’ve seen more compelling detective work in episodes of DuckTales.
Okay, so creating a thrilling murder mystery is not Paradise’s strong suit. What it relies on instead is using the strength of its cast to turbo-charge its tearjerking tales of their pasts. Even when the material is kind of underbaked, simply involving Sterling K. Brown means you’ll get something edible.
Take his character Xavier Collins’s falling out with his father, an aging airline pilot played by the formidable Glynn Turman. Revealed to Dr. Torabi in bits and pieces during their long, weird afternoon together (more on that in a moment), it seems to center at first on the fact that poor eyesight prevented Xavier from following in his father’s flight path. But Dad seems just as proud of his son’s Secret Service work as Xavier is of his father’s pioneering career; both of them are trying to do Xavier’s grandfather, a Tuskeegee Airman, proud. (This episode was filmed before the Trump administration ripped that page out of the history books.)
The real issue is that Xavier’s father is hiding his Parkinson’s disease, hoping that between medication and increased vigilance by his crew, he can continue flying deep into his golden years. Shocked by this rare display of unethical behavior by his old man, Xavier files his retirement papers for him, ending both his career and any closeness they may have had.
This is all extremely network television (perjoratively) — a nice simple conflict that shows you how the hero must sacrifice even those closest to him to remain heroic, featuring two actors who elevate the material to their own high levels as much as they can. But there’s only so much you can do with a storyline this shopworn.
What happens next comes from so far out of the blue that it almost makes you forget the pilot business entirely. After spending the day with Dr. Torabi, spilling his guts at the quaint grocery store and greasy-spoon diner she herself helped design as part of her work as Sinatra’s in-house psychologist, the two fall into a passionate kiss. They make their way into his house. She kneels…and pats him down for a wire. She invites him into the shower with her…and whispers midway through their business that before he died, Bradford told her to seek Xavier out, because his buddy, Agent Billy Pace, is dangerous.
And sure enough, we end with Billy, who — having already lied about switching off the security cameras to play Wii Tennis with his partner Jane, when at the very least they were having sex — is now lurking outside the Collins house with a gun on the passenger seat of his SUV.
Look, I’m not so churlish as to complain about a (sort of) sex scene between Sterling K. Brown and Sarah Shahi. The hookup itself is hot, and I actually enjoyed how all her most direct and provocative moves are actually attempts to evade surveillance. Sex that kills two birds with one stone in that kind of way makes for interesting storytelling.
But when you compare and contrast Xavier and his dad with Xavier and Torabi, you see how much actor chemistry matters. Simply put, there just isn’t that much going on in the ether between Brown and Shahi during their scenes together — the spark that enlivens Brown’s work with Turman isn’t igniting. It makes even their therapeutic conversations feel forced, let alone their sexual encounter. This may be down to Torabi being written like a sort of psychologist robot, one who barely breaks even as she recounts being the decision-maker for who lives and who dies.
It seems clear by now that Paradise is going to keep a pretty even pro vs. con tally. On the pro side this week you can also add that funny bullshit Wii Tennis cover story (I certainly didn’t see that coming), and the repeated emphasis on how uncanny-valley and creepy this suburban nowheresville really is. (Skeleton Crew, another science-fiction show about suburbs under a science-fiction dome of protection, never understood the inherent unpleasantness of the visual.) I also liked seeing professional tough guys Robinson and Sinatra nearly simultaneously puke after attending the autopsy of Bradford, about whom both of them seem to have cared a great deal. (Robinson especially, for obvious reasons.) And I enjoyed Billy’s attempt to explain why there’s a non-working fireplace in the presidential residence: “We’re in a cave, and fire is elemental to who we are? I dunno, some bullshit.”
On the con side, there’s the corniness of the pilot story, the stiffness of the Torabi/Collins romance, the weakness of the investigative elements, and my god, the breathy ominous covers of the pop hits of yesteryear. I wouldn’t have believed someone would try to turn “I Think We’re Alone Now” into some kind of gothic sound cathedral until I heard it with my own two ears. Honestly, at this point I look forward to hearing what sonic craziness this show will unleash by the end of each episode. Like the residents of Paradise themselves, who accept fake insect sounds and chemically enhanced cashew cheese in order to stay sane, you take your pleasures where you can get them.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
