Paradise Season 2, Episode 1 Review – “Graceland”

After following up one of the best episodes of TV in 2025 (and perhaps the best depiction of a world-ending event happening in real-time), Paradise‘s buzzy first season ended with an incredible head-scratcher of a season finale, an hour of plot twists and mind-numbing choices that nonetheless ended on an intriguing, world-expanding proposition of season two. But even that potential came with its own risk; once Paradise left the bunker to explore the world above the dystopian, billionaire-infested community, what would be left of its moralistic (though mostly undercooked) explorations of class and power?

The answer remains an enormous variable, even after Paradise‘s interminably long season two premiere, “Graceland”, which refuses to answer any of these questions about the aftermath of “The Man Who Kept the Secrets”. Instead, Paradise‘s first episode in a year shifts its attention to telling an origin story for Shailene Woodley’s Annie (formerly Mary-Beth), who spends her wanton years before and after society’s collapse at Graceland (allowing a natural avenue into more of the same languid, occasionally laughable covers of season one, only this time to “Unchained Melody” and “Can’t Stop (Falling In Love With You”). As with any Fogelman creation, Mary-Beth is a person defined by her personal tragedy; the death of her sick mother as a teenager, leading her into a medical career she couldn’t handle (because her first patient gave her sepia-toned flashbacks of her sick mom, of course), then into a job as tour guide to Graceland until the end of the world arrived on the deceased King’s doorstep.

The first twenty minutes of “Graceland” are predictably terrific; though it follows a very predictable path (“Annie” gets marooned inside the Graceland museum basement with security guard Gail, whose injuries during the world-ending event lead to her eventual death), it is a quietly effective little tone poem, leaning heavily on Woodley’s muted performance and stark black title cards depicting the passage of time to drown Annie in peaceful, almost maddening silence. When that silence is eventually broken nearly three years later (yes, it takes three years before someone thinks to break down the Graceland gates, which is hilarious – that place would’ve been looted four hours after phones went out) by a group of travelers and potential looters, Paradise briefly flirts with The Last of Us as it teases a potential world of dangerous, armed men traversing around the Mississippi River, teasing the audience with the same kind of malignant human brutality that defines HBO’s post-apocalyptic adaptation.

But this is Paradise, not The Last of Us: the group turns out to be friendly, only trying to salvage parts from Elvis’s old vehicles in their attempts to make their way to Colorado, and find any technology that might still work after the (only rumored to them) EMP blast that went off during the end of the world (by Redmond, in her attempt to save the surface world her and her friends were planning to abandon). One of those members is a young man named Link (Tell Me Lies‘s Thomas Doherty), who slowly tries to chip away at the defenses, both physical and emotional, that Annie’s been building, foundations that we saw form long before nearly 70% of the American population (by their estimates) died.

And although this again follows a very obvious plot path – particularly the end, where Link and Annie hook up the night before his group departs for Colorado, leaving her to eventually discover she’s pregnant – it’s nonetheless compelling to watch a post-apocalyptic story built on hope and positivity, rather than the relentless assault of awfulness that defines so many other takes on these survivalist stories. There’s a kindness and grace to Link rarely offered characters of his ilk, the pain he carries from the choices he made providing a background to the character, rather than being his single point of definition as an entity on the series.

However, it all takes a bit too long to get to its ending, where a very-pregnant and alone Annie hears a plane crash, and finally leaves her home on a horse (which… she let loose when things went to shit, but somehow managed to bring back, even though she’s presumably never left the premises? … Ok?), only to discover our boy Xavier Collins lying unconscious somewhere in the woods. For what is obviously a temporary indulgence, “Graceland” takes its sweet time getting through its largely rote strokes of plot for 58 minutes, until it finally puts her on a horse and pushes Paradise back into its plots of political intrigue, class divides, and the saccharine human emotions one would expect from the creator of Parenthood and This Is Us (Fogelman co-writes the season premiere, alongside Eric Wen).

So where does Paradise go from here, after a fairly successful opening premiere that has almost nothing to do with the eight episodes preceding it? The answers, of course, lie in “Mayday” and beyond (which probably explains why Hulu is dropping three episodes to kick off the second season, since this is really just a one-note tone piece for a character nobody’s been invested in); what is seen in “Graceland” may look entirely different, but it certainly feels like the same series at its heart, with its flashbacks, overlapping dialogue, bursts of emotion – and of course, those goddamn awful, laughably blunt covers that are the M.O. of Paradise‘s soundtrack. Perhaps the biggest question is whether anything inside the bunker will even matter anymore once Annie and Xavier begin their adventure back towards Colorado – squint hard enough, and “Graceland” almost feels like an episode dreading having to answer that question, which is certainly a strange note for a show returning to TV with multiple Emmy nominations under its belt.

Grade: B-

Other thoughts/observations:

• Paradise coverage? At Processed Media? You heard it – despite my general disdain for Paradise‘s disappointing cascade of reveals, and my concern that a Marsden-less second season may send this show fully off the rails, I am here to cover the eight-episode first season throughout the spring. Which means I’ve also got some thoughts on “Mayday” and “Another Day in Paradise” coming his week!