There’s something alluring about a good bodyguard story. The relationship between security officers willing to take a bullet and the important people they protect is a gold mine for a thrilling tale of dedication, be it a love story like 1992’s The Bodyguard (or Netflix’s Bodyguard), or more action-oriented like White House Down or Olympus Has Fallen.
But you can only watch the President be saved so many times before it gets old. Enter Paradise, Hulu’s shocking political thriller that took a sharp sci-fi twist at the end of its first episode — and likely has a lot more still up its sleeve.
Paradise begins by following Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), a meticulous Secret Service agent who looks after his two kids at home and guards President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) when he’s on the clock. It isn’t long, though, before Collins discovers Bradford dead.
We soon jump back to when Collins started working with the President and the close relationship the two men developed, which involved them preparing for an ominous “extinction-level event.” When we return to the present day, we see Xavier in front of a sign that says, “DAWN DELAYED TWO HOURS FOR MAITENANCE.” Xavier, the President, and thousands of lucky Americans have been living deep underground in a replica small town called Paradise, where they’re riding out the end of the world.
Each episode then focuses on a different character, like billionaire-turned-political-advisor Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson), who we see exploring the feasibility of building Paradise in flashbacks, or her therapist Dr. Torabi (Sarah Shahi), who designed Paradise to be psychologically soothing. But as we unpack the mystery of what led the country to retreat underground in the first place, there’s a bigger mystery at hand: who murdered the President. The two problems appear closely connected, and Xavier is at the center of it all.
Paradise is written by This is Us’ Dan Fogelman, so while it’s a mystery box akin to Silo and Severance, it also has the heart and family drama he’s known for. Samantha’s determination to create Paradise is motivated by the loss of her son, for example, and Xavier has come to resent the President because his wife never made it to Paradise.
There’s still half a season left to learn Paradise’s secrets, but every episode so far has peeled back another layer of a vast and deep conspiracy. This isn’t your average political thriller, because nothing is at it seems in Paradise, but it sure is fun to try to figure it all out.
