Paradise – The Final Countdown review S2 E7

The Final Countdown was an explosive penultimate episode of Paradise’s second season that will likely leave fans eager to master time themselves to get to the season finale.

Six years ago, Anders took Sam and Cal on a tour through Paradise. As he sizes up everything as Anders breaks it down in terms he can understand, Cal notes an ideal time to song drop The Final Countdown. Cal’s incessant pop culture references probably should be an annoying quirky but James Marsden makes it earnestly endearing.

The Final Countdown has a lot of subplots to juggle due to the pacing of certain episodes. I still argue the Jane-focused episode last week felt ill-timed considering how many more important developments were playing out.

Chief among them, the reunion of Teri and Xavier albeit in the final seconds. We get the full reunion here before Rya Kihlstedt’s train conductor wants a chat with Xavier.

Gary somehow managed to get a note to Ruth for Teri saying he’s got Bean and to please come home. On the trek back to the post office, Xavier updates her on Presley, James and Cal. He deflects when Teri says she’s sorry to hear about Cal. It feels like Xavier is going to have to actually deal with his conflicted feelings regarding Cal especially now that he knows how he actually saved Teri and the rest of the country.

The Final Countdown pulls an interesting twist with Xavier aiming his sniper rifle at Gary while Teri goes to talk to him. It felt like something ominous was about to happen specifically when Gary mentioned the advice of never letting a drowning man get hold of you. Gary says he’s drowning and it sure seemed like for all of her trust, Gary was going to do something that left him and possibly Teri dead.

That’s lazy show writing. For Paradise there’s a stronger, more emotional payoff. Cameron Britton and Enuka Okuma handled this scene beautifully as Teri offers grace and forgiveness and Xavier doesn’t offer a bullet between his eyes. There’s no cheap shock value sound effect of Gary killing himself when Teri and Bean walk off. There’s just the irony that Gary killed the one friend who would’ve stayed by his side in Ennis.

MORE:

• War Machine review (2026)
• Shelter review (2026)
• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms – In the Name of the Mother review S1 E5
• G.I. Joe Classified Series Retro Snow Serpent review

Xavier mentions they’ve got one more stop to make. Easily the biggest misstep this episode was not getting to see Teri’s reaction when she learned of Hope, which I’m still claiming for Cal for the name of Annie’s baby.

Gabriela is having nightmares about Jane killing her. Maybe next time don’t tell the psycho assassin you know what she did last summer. Jane loves the idea of watching her squirm and offers her a ride to the leadership council meeting.

Sinatra is planning for the meeting so she can inform the council of her plan for the discussion with Link. Her husband, Tim, suggests a suit prompting a rare vulnerable moment from Sinatra where she’s Sam again for a moment. He says Dylan would have been 26 this year. Sam thinks he’s healed from losing their son, but she remains in fact very much broken. She snaps back into Sinatra mode as she chooses a different suit almost as if to spite Tim.

The leadership council wants nothing to do with Link and his entourage with one member of the billionaire’s club suggesting they just do a lockdown. Sinatra isn’t on board with that since it would drain power. She’s got no interest in messing with her special project. While Jane is enjoying playing with her food, Gabriela makes a convincing argument why Sinatra shouldn’t have her go out with her to meet Link.

Further testing her luck, Gabriela confronts Sinatra about her concern with Jane. Sinatra all but confirms that Jane does everything per her orders, which Gabriela properly connects the dots to Baines’ assassination. Why not go for broke? Gabriela also wants to know about Alex, but Sinatra quickly shoots her down telling her not to say that name again. The reference to Alex was enough for Sinatra to issue a kill order on Gabriela to Jane.

What Jane didn’t count on was Gabriela actually being ready for her. Jane wasn’t ready for a knife to the back and slipping into her shower presumably killing her. This doesn’t seem to jive with the message “Alex” sent to the Circuit City employee about delivering a message to Jane at the right time.

Sinatra probably wouldn’t be so smug if she knew those meddling kids were about to mess up her carefully laid plans. Hadley and Presley go into her files thanks to Sinatra always using the same password — Dylan’s birthday. Hadley gives them access to go to the basement to see if they can figure out what happened to Jeremy and the other prisoners.

Jeremy, Nicole and Anders are in the bowels of Paradise in Jeremy’s plan to force the bunker’s main doors open. “We know it’s safe out there. I’m giving them that choice.” That feels like a very rationale Cal take from Jeremy.

Link and his crew that met Annie enter the bunker. Sinatra isn’t thrilled with Link’s posturing or his insistence on their conversation taking place on Air Force One. He banters for a bit before making his request — a nuclear reactor to restart the world. Sinatra doesn’t buy it and wants to know if he’s really after weapons, medicine or shelter. With the small talk out of the way, Link makes his actual request: he’s here for Alex.

That prompts a quick end to the discussion and Sinatra dismisses Link and company from the bunker. Link gets heated and Geiger has to calm him down by using his actual name…Dylan. Sinatra immediately wants to know his birthday and Link/Dylan says the same date that happens to be her son’s birthday. There was clearly a reason why Link/Dylan’s student ID mysteriously didn’t have his name on it. That doesn’t fade in 10 years.

Link’s nose is bleeding and after she grabbed his arm, Sinatra’s nose starts bleeding as well. The Link/Dylan reveal was a shocker, but time travel was very heavily teased in Another Day in Paradise. Billy acting funny when he heard Miller’s joke, which clearly made him recall a joke from Xavier that hadn’t happened yet and Miller recognizing Billy would need the tissue to wipe his nose once it started bleeding. Most importantly, Miller pleading with Billy not to kill Link. “Alex” warned of a female killer, but is it possible the message got messed up and Billy was the killer that needed to hear the message?

Sinatra returns to Tim genuinely happy for the first time in years. “It worked. I think it worked.” Poor Tim has no idea what she’s referring to but won’t protest her trying to get into bed.

As the tour winds down, Anders, Cal and Sinatra all actually bond over The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (get it on Blu-Ray on Amazon) in an unexpectedly great highlight in The Final Countdown.

Cal ditches the boozy president shtick long enough to warn Sam that empires don’t fall for lack of preparation or contingency plans. They fall off their high horse because they explode from within. It proves prophetic as The Final Countdown shows the various ways Sinatra’s threads are unraveling.

Jeremy, Nicole and Anders start breaking the control room to trigger the door just as the billionaire council agree to set up a full lockdown. And Hadley and Presley just to happen to be in the elevator when the system failure begins. These command conflicts have started the final countdown to an imminent meltdown.

Xavier, Teri, Bean and the baby are on the train heading to Colorado when his nose randomly starts to bleed. I’m sure that’s nothing. Sinatra takes a special railroad speeder and gets to another unique control panel. With a beaming smile she says hello to Alex.

There are so many questions, but that’s all that gets answered this episode. The Final Countdown delivers another mind-blowing penultimate episode for Paradise. Next week’s season finale has a lot of ground to cover, but it should prove to be a very memorable season finale.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Hulu

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.