'Paradise' Season 2 Finale Explained & What Episode 8 "Exodus" Means for Season 3 [SPOILER]
Chaos, collapse, reunions, and the truth about Alex's identity
Paradise Season 2 Episode 8, “Exodus,” delivers a finale packed with chaos, revelations, and just enough confusion to leave us questioning everything heading into Season 3.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Monday, March 30, hailed in a chaotic finale from start to finish as Paradise Season 2 Episode 8, “Exodus,” launches viewers right back into a reactor meltdown.
Across the episode, tensions and panic are high as Gabrielle, on the heels of killing Jane, initiates the Exodus protocol of mass evacuation in order to save as many lives as possible. In the mayhem, Presley and Hadley are trapped in an elevator, Robinson is hurt from the initial reactor blast, Link and the team are blasting their way inside, and Sinatra is on a train ride back from her visit with Alex.
So, who is Alex?
The opening of the episode answers this question quickly. Alex is the AI computer built from Dylan’s application of his theoretical sciences that can predict future catastrophic events based on past data. We learn that Sinatra found out about his experiments and offered him a price for the technology and the machine (flashbacks of Billy seeking him out). However, we learn that Henry may not have sold this technology with Dylan’s consent. The details are a little hazy (we’ll get back to that).
But what we do learn is that Alex doesn’t just compute prompts. She began to make predictions on events and scenarios that were never entered into her core, and she could also predict life and death expectancy of individuals, not just natural disasters. When Henry sees the magnitude of this type of power, his wanting to pull the plug results in his execution.
Hence, Dylan looking for Alex.
Related Coverage
Where the Finale Stumbles Despite High Stakes
Multiple questions were answered in the finale but there are still a few knocking at the front of our brains that seem to take the finale from an epic climax to something that kind of just…fizzles.
While the explosions were plenty and the stakes high for the lives of everyone living inside the bunker, the episode still felt like a rush to tie loose ends from Season 1 while ignoring some elements of the current Season in an attempt to frame Season 3 for the audience.
Using Cal in flashbacks to explain the future downfall of Sinatra’s bunker was an excellent decision to keep Season 1’s events in conversation. After all, we came into the series under the veil of false protection only to find that everything in their current existence was a lie. And while we received the well-earned reunion of the Collins family, everything in between felt muddled and contrived.
Gabrielle’s off-handed admission of killing Jane was the first eye squint. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t the most pressing issue at hand, but it was thrown out casually as if her presence and murders weren’t set up to be significant, all for her storyline to fall flat. The character was far more interesting and integral to so many chess pieces get her death failed to live up to the magnitude of her elusive yet dominating presence.
Sinatra barely reacted. Yes, she’s cold, but Jane’s death should have warranted something other than “go save yourself.”
The second eye squint came during the scene where Xavier and Dylan finally come face-to-face and we see the visions they’ve been having that’s been causing altered brain patterns and nosebleeds. This moment was structured within the season as a huge clue, only to be met with “what’s going on?” “I don’t know,” then glossed over for the sake of Xavier urging everyone to put aside their differences and leave.
Because this framework wobbled during this pivotal moment, it made the reveal of Annie and Dylan’s daughter not as emotionally impactful as it should have been. It was rushed (albeit the entire bunker is caving in on itself) and the emotional pause the scene needed just failed to actually trap the audience within the gravity of the admission, especially after the powerful performance Shailene Woodley delivered with the character.
I get it. You may be thinking “well, everything had to happen fast. The entire place was imploding.”
Yes.
That is true.
But with the amount of character deaths and near deaths, the gasp and jaw-dropping reactions those moments deserved just weren’t there.
The final head scratch moment that solidified my overall thoughts about “Exodus” was Sinatra openly revealing to Dylan that he was her son. She’s been depressed for years because of this major loss, yet the moment that should have brought out more emotion from her was met with quiet resolve—as if he’d simply come home from an extended overseas trip rather than come back to life.
If any reunion was to be given the time to settle—and the moment for the audience to stop breathing—this was it. Instead, Sinatra simply succumbed to her fate, leaving Dylan with a potential truth that even he cannot comprehend.
What This Means for Season 3
Now—getting back to Henry using Dylan’s technology with or without his consent—this leads to these moments being potential crumbs and a peak into what Season 3 may bring.
What will be the fallout of Hadley and her dad learning her Dylan is alive? Sinatra believes this to be true—and it very well may be—but it hasn’t been confirmed at all.
Did Sinatra’s Dylan die and Link is some alternate version? Because why would he not recognize his own mother once he confronted her the first time?
If Link is an alternate Dylan, who built this AI that reset the timeline prior to Sinatra acquiring the technology of Alex?
Did Henry use Dylan to build Alex but sold it without his knowledge which is why Dylan wants it back?
And lastly, is Xavier now set up to be the new president?
Final Thoughts
Given that each season explores different avenues of science fiction, Season 3 may very well be set up to lean deeper into the multi-dimensional existence by taking us back in time, before The Event ever occurred, in order to lead to a finale where Xavier and Dylan actually figure out to stop every disaster and death from happening in the first place.
If you haven’t watched the finale of Paradise, head on over to Hulu now.