Paradise Season 2 Finale Changes Everything With A Wild Sci-Fi Twist

Spoilers for the "Paradise" season 2 finale to follow.

"Paradise" season 2 has been a wild ride. After we learned who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) and how the world ended in season 1, the Hulu series shifted gears and has since gone full sci-fi in its sophomore season.

Indeed, after much speculation, the season 2 finale has confirmed "Paradise" is actually a time-travel show ... kind of. No, there aren't any time travelers (that we know of), but the series is playing around with time. It's all connected to Alex, i.e. the secret project overseen by sinister billionaire Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), who's been pulling the strings of nearly every character and subplot since "Paradise" began. This is also related to the weird visions Link (Thomas Doherty) and Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) have been having of one another prior to their first actual meeting in the season 2 finale, along with characters getting strange nosebleeds.

Turns out, Alex is a super advanced quantum computer that was created by Link and which Sinatra intends to use to prevent Earth's atmosphere from becoming Venus-like and killing everyone in a few years. Of course, this Alex reveal changes everything about the series. More specifically, it suggests that season 3 (which had already been ordered prior to the season 2 finale) will delve deep into sci-fi territory by telling a story about quantum computing, free will, and existentialism in the vein of Alex Garland's excellent miniseries "Devs."

So far, though, all we really know is that Alex has been manipulating time in the show's universe. As such, what I wrote earlier about Sinatra pulling the strings of nearly every character and subplot on "Paradise" wasn't entirely accurate. It's really been Alex all along.

This reveal recalls "Lost" season 5. As Henry Miller (Patrick Fischler, who played the Dharma worker Phil on "Lost," appropriately) notes in the "Paradise" season 2 finale, Alex is "starting to manipulate time." That means it's answering questions before they're even asked and is predicting events. This also means that cause and effect are irrelevant to Alex. It can simply rewrite the past as long as it's activated some time in the future.

Let's circle back to those nosebleeds. They've so far happened at pivotal moments, like when Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) decided not to kill Link or Xavier crash landed near Annie (Shailene Woodley). This cannot be a coincidence, so what if these are optimal outcome points or anchor points in time for Alex?

Likewise, "Paradise" has been full of coincidences that've pushed its plot forward. Take Cal's murder. He was killed by Trent (Ian Merrigan), the former bunker construction manager who managed to make his way to the bunker thanks to a string of seemingly random incidents. Had he not been there to kill Cal in season 1, the bunker's "Simpsons"-style meltdown in season 2 would've never happened. 

The point being, it's likely Alex has been slowly manipulating events on "Paradise" leading up to the season 2 finale. As such, mysterious events like the messages sent to the past about Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom) growing up to become a killer weren't meant to stop her. Instead, they were meant to ensure that Jane would be around to assist Sinatra in the future.

For now, however, we don't know how deep "Paradise" will go down the time travel rabbit hole. But one thing is for sure: Season 3 just got a whole lot more interesting.