Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
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AISHA HARRIS: In the drama series Paradise, Sterling K. Brown is a Secret Service agent caught up in a web of intrigue after the president of the United States is assassinated with no suspect in sight.
GLEN WELDON: The president is played by James Marsden because of course, he is. But at the end of the first episode, we learn the show is about way more than the murder of the head of state. I'm Glen Weldon.
HARRIS: And I'm Aisha Harris. And today we're talking about Paradise on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.
HARRIS: Joining us today is Ronald Young, Jr. He's the host of Pop Culture Debate Club from Lemonada and the BBC. Welcome back, Ronald.
RONALD YOUNG, JR.: Hello, Aisha. Hello, Glen.
HARRIS: It's great to have you here. I feel like this conversation is going to be at least as fun as watching this weird, [CHUCKLING] kind of silly show. Paradise was created by Dan Fogelman, who created the hit show This Is Us, which also starred Sterling K. Brown. And it also had a big reveal in its first episode, so that's kind of his thing. Brown plays no-nonsense Secret Service Agent Xavier Collins. He's serving under President Cal Bradford, played by James Marsden, until he finds Bradford dead on his bedroom floor one morning from an apparent head trauma. Who's responsible? Collins is obviously going to investigate. But we learn this is happening in a literal doomsday situation. They've all been living in a bunker for a few years, following a catastrophic environmental event that wiped out most of the world's population. A select few were able to escape to the bunker, which was designed by tech billionaire Samantha Sinatra Redmond. She's played by Julianne Nicholson. And there's a not so small chance that the president's murder is connected to the decisions he made in those crucial moments during the natural disaster. Paradise is streaming on Hulu. So, Ronald, I'm going to start with you. Did this show have enough Sterling K. Brown being very stoic and moody and all that stuff? Like, how do you feel about this?
YOUNG,: I really liked it. And I really like Sterling K. Brown's performance. It's a show that, like, I think in the beginning, I was like, what am I watching? What's going on here? I haven't seen Sterling K. Brown in this. But by the time I get to episode seven, I remember thinking out loud, I want to see Sterling K. Brown in more roles like this. Like, I like the emotion. I like what he brings to it. And I was just sitting there. I'm like, for instance, what if I saw Sterling K. Brown in the Christopher Nolan film Tenet, instead of John David Washington?
HARRIS: Ooh.
YOUNG,: I would have bought it. It would have been pretty incredible. You know what I mean?
HARRIS: Yes.
YOUNG,: So most of my enthusiasm for this show comes from the fact that any time it starts to get too silly around the edges, all of a sudden they cut to Sterling K. Brown, and I'm like, no, I'm in, I'm in. Which reminds me kind of, like, of Hijack on Apple TV--
WELDON: Sure.
YOUNG,: --where it's the same thing, where it's like, this is starting to get silly. And then all of a sudden, it'll be Idris Elba. You'd be like, you know what? I'm in. Keep going. So that's kind of how I feel about it. I just-- I really like it, and I'm excited to see what happens in the finale.
HARRIS: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought up Hijack because I had that in the back of my mind while watching this. And they all star some of our greatest Black male actors.
YOUNG,: Yes.
HARRIS: So I feel like there's an emerging trend happening here.
WELDON: Cool.
YOUNG,: Yes.
WELDON: Bring it on.
HARRIS: Glen, how do you feel about this?
WELDON: I liked it. I mean, Sterling K. Brown, best posture on television, I think. This guy just makes you want to stand up straighter. I think the show itself kind of improves as it goes. I mean, I was very worried in the beginning because of the reliance on flashbacks-- which, you know, This Is Us did, too. But I remember souring on Lost as soon as I realized that the show's priorities in mind weren't exactly lining up because I wanted answers about what the hell's happening on the island, and the show wanted to waste an episode telling me that Kate had a bad relationship with her mom. That does characterizing work ostensibly.
YOUNG,: Great summation of Lost.
WELDON: It's not why I'm watching the show, right? Backstory isn't story. There's a reason it's called backstory.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: So you sit there and you think, well, there's going to be a Sinatra episode. That's the billionaire played by Julianne Nicholson. There's going to be an Agent Billy episode. There's going to be-- I mean, it's coming down the pike. Next season, we're going to get a Gerald McRaney episode. He plays the father of the president. But now I'm going to contradict myself because that last episode you mentioned, Ron, is my favorite, episode seven, which the flashback to the day everything goes pear-shaped.
YOUNG,: Yes.
WELDON: Easily the strongest episode of the series-- one of the strongest episodes on TV I've seen in a while.
YOUNG,: Yes!
WELDON: And I want to get your takes on this, though. I think the show made a mistake by withholding it for so long because I would have invested so much harder in this show a lot earlier. That episode makes some really gnarly choices. And they're not there to add, like, extraneous detail but to surprise and contradict what we think we know. I think I know why they put it that late in the season, because there's something else happening in the main plot that's also tense.
HARRIS: Yeah.
WELDON: So they wanted to kind of parallel them, I guess. But-- I don't know-- I think people might have opted out of the show before it got to the good stuff. What do you guys think?
YOUNG,: I get why they did it. And I feel like if they did it any other way, if they put that episode first, I don't know if I love the rest of it as much.
WELDON: Right.
YOUNG,: But I feel like that episode feels like a reward for going through kind of, like, the ups and downs and little bits of silliness of plot that they're kind of, like, doling out to you little bit by bit, because there's stuff that they reveal over the course of time, and then they kind of get to this big part where everything we learned about Cal, President Cal, played by James Marsden, everything we've learned about Sterling K. Brown's character-- who-- I don't know-- as far as I'm concerned, his name is Sterling K. Brown in the show. But everything we've learned about Sterling K. Brown, or Xavier Collins, everything we've learned about him all comes to a head in these interactions. And they've been planting these little seeds, and it's rewarded in seven. I think if they give that to us too early, we'd probably be sitting here talking about how it's unearned that it happened this early in the series. You know what I mean?
HARRIS: Yeah, I don't know. I think I kind of feel as though it didn't need to be the first episode. But I would have liked it, I think, a little bit, maybe in the first three or four episodes placed there.
YOUNG,: Yeah, maybe four.
HARRIS: Yeah, I do think the first several episodes do too much of the-- I mean, granted, no one episode is, you know, other than that seventh episode, is, like, focused on a very particular moment. Even when they're focusing on a specific character, they're still flashing back and jumping around in time a lot--
YOUNG,: Yeah.
HARRIS: --which was one of my quibbles with this show, is there's just so much hopping around. There's usually not any sort of marker, necessarily, to distinguish easily or quickly. The entire show has this similar kind of, like, ethereal glow that I feel like a lot of, like, prime time-type shows tend to have-- This Is Us. Again, like, it has that glow. And even when they're flashing back to the past and to the very not recent past, like in 1997, at one point, it flashes back, it still kind of looks like the same. It's just James Marsden looks a little bit younger.
YOUNG,: Yep.
HARRIS: One of the things that I've noticed with a lot of TV now, and movie storytelling as well, is that there's always just this withholding, withholding, withholding. And sometimes, like, mystery is fine, but also just give it to me straight. Let's talk a little bit about the world building here because we learn at the end of the first episode that they're living in this bunker. And then, slowly, we kind of learn about what life has been like in this bunker. We learned that, like, they all have these, like, government wrist Fitbits, whatever, that, like, they're basically tracking them. We learned that there's no animals, or at least there's no-- we're not eating animals anymore. There's all these other things. So, like, how does that worldbuilding work for you when we think about other examples of dystopias-- or, I mean, this is presented as a sort of utopia, in a way. But like, when we think of the end of the world, the end of the Earth, like, does this feel unique and novel to you? I mean, it did to me a little bit.
YOUNG,: I think in the fact that they're-- like, they're leaning more on political thriller, I think, more than they are on dystopian future. Like, dystopian future is the setting for this political thriller, which is what I'm excited about because, I mean, I went from watching this to watching that new show, Zero Day, on Netflix starring Robert de Niro, which is another political thriller. And I remember, in my mind, my mind easily connecting these two universes seamlessly in a very, like, easy way, because it was really about power, politics, and who has authority to do what thing here. So I feel like for me, most of the things about it that are very dystopian fade to the background until they mention it as a part of the plot, which I think, I mean, that was really working for me.
WELDON: Yeah, we do get some scenes set outside the bunker in the actual real world. And the question is, you know, is anybody still alive? What is it like out there? I don't care.
YOUNG,: Yeah.
WELDON: I think what the show has going for it, as close as it comes to Last of Us, Walking Dead territory, it kind of misses me, I think. I mean, there's a reason that they filmed this on the Warner's backlot, you know, the Stars Hollow set. That's what he's running through at the beginning. That's the appeal here. That's what makes this show different, is this creepy small town setting that can't possibly exist. And yet they're going out of their way to make us try to believe that it does.
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. It's funny because I think for me, what I like most about the show-- I think I was a little less high on this overall than you both. I think the fact that it leans on political thriller is absolutely right, Ronald. And I think for me-- it's interesting because Fogelman, the creator, has talked about how he was drawing from, like, older political thrillers, Crimson Tide, Man on Fire, like--
YOUNG,: Denzel Washington, Denzel Washington.
HARRIS: Yes.
WELDON: Yep.
HARRIS: Denzel Washington, Denzel Washington. And I guess, there's the pluses and minuses of this for me. We're living in a very tense time. We're living in a time where everything is political, and all these institutions are crumbling. And when I'm looking at this, like, sort of disaster show, where everything literally crumbles in the most horrific way possible, and the fact that there's no sense of, like, whether or not the James Marsden president is a Republican or a Democrat-- there's hints at here and there, but it doesn't feel real. It feels like everything is very, very, just like the blandest possible version of politics. Do I want an escape? Yes, but I also kind of feel like it's a missed opportunity to at least kind of delve into more than just having Julianne Nicholson-- who is great here, by the way-- as this, like-- again, feeling like real life in some ways-- billionaire tech person.
WELDON: Who was given unchecked political power? Yeah.
HARRIS: Yes. But I guess I just wanted a little bit more of, like, the tensions that really arise when the world is falling apart and how the world doesn't necessarily sort itself out. Am I wishing for something that I shouldn't be wishing for here? I don't know.
YOUNG,: Two things. One, I think I watched this and did feel like I was escaping, which was good. I think you mentioned something about the bland, kind of, political-- you know, not basically choosing a side. Are these Republicans, Democrats, progressives, independents? What are we talking about here? And I think part of that is because their hands are a little bit tied right now. Because by choosing a side that is the, air quote, "good guy" or "bad guy," you are now, like, tying your plot to something else. And now we can no longer pay attention to like the story that's in front of us, but we're also thinking in the background where this politically aligns with our own personal beliefs and what's going on in the world, which is, like, tough for creators right now because they are sending still a message about somebody like the character Samantha Redmond, played by Julianne Nicholson. But they're not necessarily politically aligning themselves one way or another, as much as they're saying, this thing is bad, you know what I mean? But that's, like, just tough to do as a creator right now.
HARRIS: I want to clarify. I don't need them to say this is bad or that, like-- or, like, have one side be the good guy or the bad guy. But like, even Scandal, the show--
YOUNG,: Yeah.
HARRIS: --deeply flawed in so many ways.
WELDON: Deeply silly, yeah.
HARRIS: And deeply silly. Even that show, like, Fitz Grant, the president for much of the show, like, he was a Republican. They planted that stake in the ground. And I feel as though it's a little bit mealy-mouthed to not do that here, considering the time. I don't know. Glen, I'm curious.
WELDON: I don't feel that way. I feel that there is something off with the kind of alchemical mixture of the show. And that's, you know-- he might want to go on back to something like Crimson Tide, but this is still Dan Fogelman. This is the This Is Us guy.
HARRIS: I know.
WELDON: And--
HARRIS: I know. [CHUCKLES]
WELDON: --I would like the show to seem a little less like it's always going to be lunging for my heartstrings the way that This Is Us did. There's always a moment in every episode where the music swells, and it targets your tear ducts. And it just feels repetitive, right? I mean, this show does have soapy elements. The family drama stuff misses me. The stuff with the daughter misses me.
YOUNG,: Yeah, I don't care.
WELDON: But the soapiest thing about it is the way the show seemed to be structured around monologues, right, which makes it seem kind of unbalanced. Instead of two characters in a scene being, more or less, at the same emotional place, there are lots and lots of scenes where one character is having their moment, you know, their Emmy clip, while the other character just kind of sits and watches it happen.
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CAL BRADFORD: Agent Collins I went from being one of the richest men in the world to a one-term, now two-term, president almost overnight. I drink whiskey in the middle of the Oval Office. And I'm upfront about telling a potential new lead agent that part of the reason he's appealing to me is the color of his skin. I did not get here by doing things by the book.
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WELDON: I'm sure the actors love it, but it does make it feel off to me.
HARRIS: I will say, one of my favorite things about this show-- we've mentioned the silliness. And again, like, I think that's what keeps this from-- me from being like, oh, I can't do this. Like, there's a scene in episode six where the Sterling K. Brown character is sitting in a diner waiting for--
YOUNG,: Yes.
HARRIS: --the doctor who he's having-- he's been intimate with. Her name is Gabriela, and she's played by Sarah Shahi. And he's just sitting in a diner. He's done something very drastic. And he's dramatically eating a steak. And we learn that it's, like, not a real steak. It's a plant-based steak because, like, once the world ended, they stopped eating real meat, which leads Xavier to give this very dramatic speech about how everyone who fled to this underground bunker are like cows being led to the slaughter.
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STERLING K BROWN: (As Xavier Collins) All that muscle, all that heft, and they just surrendered. And it makes you wonder if that's what she did to us-- let us down here, corralled us, and sent us to slaughter.
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HARRIS: It's great. It's like, Sterling K. Brown is giving, like, the performance of his life. And then he gets up, wipes his steak knife, cuts his government Fitbit watch tracker off his wrist, and then says, regarding the Redmond tech billionaire, he's like, tell your girl I'm coming for her. And then, like, two scenes later, this happens.
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SPEAKER 1: He said he was coming for you. Who the hell talks like that? Then he hacks off his band with a knife. [BLEEP] is he doing? I mean, besides dramatically eating.
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HARRIS: Those little moments, like, it reminds me of the movie Cellular. I don't know if you remember this movie, but it's the crazy movie where Chris Evans gets a phone call from a kidnapped stranger and then spends the movie trying to save her and her son. And at one point he goes to the school, and he's like, what's your kid's name? Because he's, like, trying to get her kid out of school. And she's like, Ricky Martin. And he's like, you named your child Ricky Martin? And it's just like, the script just keeps going. They don't dwell on it. But like, that is what, I think, worked for me is the mono-- I liked the monologuing because it felt like a '90s political thriller in that way. Yeah.
YOUNG,: Yeah. I want to say, I wanted to kind of go back to your comments on the performance by Julianne Nicholson as Samantha Redman. Do not like her performance at all, and I think it's because it reads "let me speak to the manager" over and over and over again. Like, it reads just, like, sitting in a chair, saying these pithy lines. And I remember at one point, especially in episode seven, I was yelling at the TV, you have no real leverage!
WELDON: Yeah. I see what you're saying, Ronald, but I like Julianne Nicholson, and I like her here. I was just grateful that they explained the bad wig. She's wearing a terrible wig, a distractingly terrible, noticeable wig. And eventually, they do explain why. And so that kind of put me at ease. James Marsden, guys, like, he is in his element here. He is a smarm machine. He is locked in.
HARRIS: I had to look because I was like, of course, he's playing the president. And I had to look and see, like, has he played the president? He has.
WELDON: JFK in The Butler, yes.
HARRIS: Yes, he's played JFK. So I was like, of course. He's the guy you want to have a beard. Like, at one point, he literally says, like, I don't know where Syria is, but the people like me. And I'm like, OK, of course.
[LAUGHTER]
HARRIS: And then, of course, Sterling K. Brown's character, Xavier Collins, is like-- he tells him exactly where Syria is. And it's like, of course. Like, this is the deepest it gets with its, like, talking about race and politics, is, like, of course, the Black upstanding Secret Service agent knows way more than his dumb, kind of oafish boss. I like Marsden here. Like, again, not realistic to what a president really is, or should be anyway, but fun. And he's having fun.
WELDON: Yeah. And Sterling K. Brown, like, give him his props here because that role is so stoic and such a straight arrow that he could come off as a bore. He could come off as a cipher, right?
HARRIS: He does that.
WELDON: And he kind of does. [CHUCKLES] I'll admit that. He does sometimes. But, I mean, he has the emotional weight to kind of pull James Marsden in, right, and ground him a little bit. And if he buys this pretty silly premise, you buy it, too. I mean, I think he's doing a lot of the work to kind of desilify the show.
YOUNG,: I think the other thing is, like, again-- and we get to episodes five, six, and seven-- you really start to think about all of the things we've learned about these characters, all of the things that may be one note or silly about their performance that all, like, kind of come to a head later on, like, when you find out what President Cal Bradford, what was happening to him at the time that he's murdered. You know what I mean? You find out what he was thinking, what he was discovering. And I feel like without the range of James Marsden, you, like, really don't get the opportunity to really see him all of a sudden turn around, even though he's having a bourbon, and say, look, something serious is going on, and I need to talk to you about it if he's, like, too folksy. But the fact that he could turn around and be folksy is also good. And I think that plays so well when him and Xavier Collins, played by, again, Sterling K. Brown-- I don't why I keep going back and forth between their names. I want to just call him Sterling K. Brown so bad. But they have this conversation in episode seven when they're, like, going back and forth at each other, and it's very, very tense in a way that I'm just like, yes, I love this. This is what I want. And I feel like both of them, like I said, clocked in to do that, no matter how silly it gets in the margins at other times. That part was enough for me to say, yeah, I'll watch the season finale. I'll watch season two. Keep pumping them out.
HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. None of us have seen the final episode, so we don't know how this ship or this bunker is going to land.
[LAUGHTER]
HARRIS: It could complicate our current feelings about it. But season two has already been confirmed, and Fogelman has said he kind of has a plan laid out for how season two and a potential season three could work. So I'm very curious to see, you know, what that might entail. Glen, I'm just curious. Like, you mentioned this earlier, but kind of, like, what is, to you, the main draw, besides not the mystery?
WELDON: Oh, I'm here for the mystery. Yeah, I'm here for--
HARRIS: Oh, you are? OK.
WELDON: --who killed the president. Yeah, I mean, that's it. I mean, I like the setting. It's kind of fascinating how they set up the mystery because this is probably the most observed, surveilled person on the-- in the bunker. And yet somehow this happens, and they have to come to jump through a lot of hoops to explain how and why that could happen. But yeah, I'm here for the mystery. I want to know whodunnit.
HARRIS: Oh, well, Paradise is-- it's not paradise. But they--
YOUNG,: [LAUGHS]
HARRIS: --that's what they call it. And we want to know what you think about it. Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Ronald Young, Jr., Glen Weldon, thanks so much for being here.
WELDON: Thank you.
YOUNG,: Thanks for having me.
HARRIS: And this episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and Lennon Sherburne and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all tomorrow.
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