Sterling K. Brown’s ‘Paradise’ Is a Twisty Thriller That Still Puts Feelings First: TV Review
The writer and producer Dan Fogelman has a CV that spans genres, from a script credit on Pixar’s 2006 movie “Cars” to creating the musical fantasy series “Galavant.” But Fogelman is best known for “This Is Us,” the NBC hit that spent six seasons applying a twisty structure to a sentimental family drama. This unorthodox formula won a large and loyal audience, but to this critic, it was always a mismatch — hiding pertinent information in the name of cheap surprise.
With his latest series, the Hulu thriller “Paradise,” Fogelman pivots to a register where OMG-inducing water cooler moments feel much more at home. “Paradise” still retains elements of the “This Is Us” ethos, beginning with star Sterling K. Brown. After breaking out as adult adoptee Randall Pearson, Brown now plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent plunged into a world of secrets and conspiracy after the murder of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden). It’s a deserved star turn for Brown, a recent Oscar nominee (for “American Fiction”) who gets to pair his signature warmth with full-on action heroism. (Yes, he has several shirtless scenes.) Reflecting Brown’s behind-the-scenes role as an executive producer, Collins feels custom-fit; his feelings about race, for instance, are addressed in nuanced yet candid ways.
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But Bradford doesn’t die in the White House, or even in Washington, D.C. He and Collins both reside in the town of Paradise, a mysterious, utopian community of 25,000 that looks a great deal like Southern California — where the series was shot — yet feels … different. Everyone uses high-tech wristbands as wallets and keys. There are no guns, even for law enforcement officers like Xavier. Broad canals lined with single-family homes don’t resemble any suburb we recognize.
The precise nature of Paradise the town, which I am forbidden from disclosing, is the first of many unveilings that punctuate “Paradise” the show. Though only the first three episodes will be released as a binge, with the remainder meted out weekly, the steady beat of shoes dropping makes for a propulsive, addicting watch. (“Paradise” may be the kind of show where the very premise is deemed a spoiler, but I was so delighted and genuinely surprised by the premiere’s final moments I’m happy to honor the embargo — viewers deserve this treat.) In true Fogelman fashion, though, “Paradise” can seem oddly unconcerned with the details of its eponymous social experiment, at least compared with the residents’ personal histories and emotional lives. “Paradise” rarely feels like a sci-fi show, even if that’s what it technically is. The result is a strange hybrid, if a fairly effective one.
“Paradise” toggles between the present-tense search for Bradford’s killer and flashbacks that illuminate who characters were before they came to this seeming utopia. Collins is a widower left to raise two kids as a single father; Bradford is a smooth-talking nepo baby play-acting at leadership, and their resentment-laden bromance provides the volatile core of the show. In projects like “Westworld” and “Jury Duty,” Marsden has spent much of his middle career toying with the assumed vapidity that comes with his Ken doll looks, experience he brings to bear on the subtly insecure Bradford.
The citizens of Paradise may have a crisis on their hands, but they’re also navigating grief, romance, aging parents and other quotidian concerns. Bradford’s political patron Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson), nicknamed “Sinatra,” is a tech billionaire with a disconcerting level of influence over Paradise and its affairs, but she’s also a wife and mother fiercely protective of her family. (A scene where she goes to the grocery store with her kids strains credulity — would someone like that really do their own shopping? — yet indicates the show’s domestic priorities.) Xavier’s fellow agents Billy (Jon Beavers) and Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom) seem more worried about covering up their workplace flirtation than figuring out who killed their boss.
The strength of the central performances does a lot to sell this counterintuitive emphasis on the intimate — especially odd given that Fogelman is the rare producer with enough power to get a high-concept premise greenlit with no preexisting IP to back it up. Nicholson was quietly devastating as a bereaved mother in “Mare of Easttown” and wonderfully understated in last year’s acclaimed indie film “Janet Planet”; it’s fun to watch her play hard-edged, progressing from subtly menacing to borderline maniacal as the story unfolds. You can feel Nicholson, Brown and Marsden’s absence in a subplot centered on two teenagers, where the acting can’t quite convince the viewer youthful angst is worth our time in such extreme circumstances.
As the eight-episode season goes on, “Paradise” has no choice other than to up the stakes and urgency. Critics were not provided with the finale, but headed into that last chapter, the series has acquired enough narrative momentum to propel this viewer’s interest through the conclusion and into a presumed second season. (There are enough loose ends left hanging that it’s clear “Paradise” was conceived as a multipart affair.) In that sprint to the finish, one ceases to note how much less deliberate “Paradise” is about establishing its alternate reality as comparable works of speculative fiction like Apple’s “Silo.” This is a show more about people than the collective action taken to found an enclave like Paradise, and once those people spring into motion, we’re eager to follow them.
The first episode of “Paradise” is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+, with the second and third episodes premiering Jan. 28 and remaining episodes streaming weekly on Tuesdays.
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