So we probably won’t get every burning question answered in next week’s season finale; there’s a whole other season to get through after this. But we’re hoping most of season two’s biggest enigmas will find some clarity.
In case you’re not caught up through episode seven, “The Final Countdown,” spoilers ahead.
Who or what is Alex?
The mysterious “Alex” has been a thread all season. At Graceland, we learned the people led by Link (Thomas Doherty) were planning to find the bunker and “kill Alex” as part of their plan to “restart the world.” It soon became clear that this would be the driving mystery of season two, in the same way that “Who killed President Cal Bradford?” propelled season one.
In episode three, we got a flashback to the pre-apocalypse days, when the bunker was still being constructed. Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) was hired by Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) to kill Henry Miller (Patrick Fischler), an inventor who refused to sell or otherwise peacefully hand over his very mysterious technology.
In the flashback, we saw Henry tenderly caring for his ailing wife—whose name is Alex—and euthanizing her just before Billy shoots him dead. We see that Henry’s protégé, a brilliant kid who helped create his technology, is Link, still in his fresh-faced, college-kid era.
Throughout the rest of the season, we got a few nuggets of “Alex” here and there, but nothing so involved as what happened in that flashback. We’re also made privy to a longer conversation between Sinatra and the doomsday-predicting scientist first glimpsed in season one, in which he warns her about “Venus syndrome.” Basically, after the supervolcano erupts, the tsunami waters will recede and the ash cloud will dissipate. It will appear that nature is healing. But the damage to the atmosphere will be lasting, and the greenhouse effect will eventually intensify to irreversible, uninhabitable levels.
We also all heard him scoff at Sinatra’s willingness to throw her money around to solve the problem—because the one thing she really needs is more time. And you can’t buy time.
Or can you?
Based mostly on episode three, including Henry’s very loaded remarks to Billy (“Do you think that things happen for a reason, or are they just random?”), it seems likely that Sinatra’s “Alex” has something to do with time travel or possibly a multiverse.
The fact that in episode seven, we hear Sinatra call Alex “her” and the last shot sees her traveling to some undisclosed, hidden area of the bunker and greeting whoever/whatever’s being kept there with a cheerful “Hi, Alex”—well, it just makes it all the more intriguing.
Is Link really Sinatra’s son, Dylan?
A key part of Sinatra’s character is that years before the apocalypse (what Paradise calls “the Day”), her young son Dylan died of a rare but unspecified illness. In “The Final Countdown,” we learn that Link—who is a tech genius and natural-born leader, just like Sinatra—is really named Dylan.
He’s also 26 (the same age Dylan would have been if he’d lived), and he has the exact same birthday, May 16, as Sinatra’s son.
This revelation causes something to shift in Sinatra—she’s suddenly much happier and lighter than before—and she tells her husband, “I think it worked,” after her meeting with Link. A meeting, it must be noted, that saw Link compare himself and Sinatra to Luke and Vader—a fraught parent-child relationship, if there ever was one.
Is Sinatra somehow Link’s mom, even though her Dylan died years earlier? How is that possible?
What is Xavier’s connection to Link—and why all the nosebleeds?
Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) has had strange visions of Link, whom he’s never met but recognizes when he spots his photo on an old student ID. Xavier describes these visions as being like memories of things that haven’t happened yet.
Then, there are the nosebleeds. Xavier gets one when he’s flying the plane away from the bunker, then Link gets one when he’s trying to get Annie (Shailene Woodley) to come with him to the bunker—right after his survivalist buddy mentions “Alex.” We also see that Henry hands Billy a tissue in anticipation of Billy’s nosebleed. The nosebleed happens after Billy has shot Henry—just as he’s encountering Link on his way out.
In “The Final Countdown,” Link and Sinatra both wipe their noses when it gets heated after their summit. (At the meeting, Link had brought up Alex and was swiftly dismissed by Sinatra.) Is this some sort of Stranger Things-style shorthand for “freaky psychic stuff is happening,” or what?
What will happen with the bunker’s system collapse?
We have a feeling Xavier’s daughter Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and Sinatra’s daughter Hadley (Kate Godfrey), newly minted teenage adventure buddies, will make it out of that stuck elevator. As tangential as they’ve been to the plot thus far, they’re too important to the show’s main characters.
But we’re a bit concerned about the other 25,000-odd people (and one dog) who call the bunker home. Thanks to the events of “The Final Countdown,” they’re now facing a total system failure thanks to the coincidentally launched decisions to sabotage the oxygen supply (thereby forcing the exterior bunker doors to open) and enact a total lockdown (as a way to prevent Link and company from invading).
That concern excludes the bratty Jeremy Bradford (Charlie Evans), who—to quote a very correct Agent Robinson (Krys Marshall)—is nothing like his father. He can rot down there. But everyone else who’s deep underground with, presumably, a dwindling air supply, a possible radiation leak, and who knows what else… yikes.
Is Jane really dead?
At the end of “The Final Countdown,” Agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom) is in bad shape, bleeding out in Gabi’s shower. But can we trust that Paradise‘s petite yet terrifying resident psychopath is actually gone for good?
Speaking of Jane, we’d also love to know more about “AlexQ” (ahem), who sent those “a killer will be born” warning messages regarding Jane’s arrival in the world to that random computer repair guy back in 1997. Was that AI or something even more weird and complicated?
The Paradise season two finale arrives March 30 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.