Paradise Timeline: What Led to the End of the World… and What Happened Next

Spoilers observe for Paradise by means of the tip of Season 1. Paradise Season 2 will debut on February 23.

Paradise, the wildest post-apocalypse sequence on TV, is again on Hulu for a second season this week. Starring Sterling Ok. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, and James Marsden, the Dan Fogelman-created sequence was an enormous hit in Season 1, and it seems prefer it will not let up within the second season both. But even with a short-for-streaming hole between seasons (a 12 months as a substitute of the now default two- to three-year hiatus), you is perhaps a little confused concerning the timeline as you leap into Season 2…

…And that is as a result of the timeline is complicated. Like different flashback exhibits corresponding to Lost – or extra to the purpose of the entire Fogelman of all of it, This Is Us – whereas there’s loads of motion taking place within the “present,” there’s additionally lots of leaping again into completely different factors prior to now. So with that in thoughts, significantly given some plot factors arising in Season 2 (no spoilers right here), you are in all probability going to wish to test and recheck the timeline of Paradise to be sure you know who was the place, when.

While we can’t hit each single plot level from the primary season, we’re going to break down main occasions – and a few seemingly minor ones that will have ramifications because the sequence strikes ahead. So let’s get into it, beginning again in… the ’90s?

Paradise Timeline

1997

Actually, earlier than we even clarify why we’re in 1997, aka the 12 months Titanic took over the field workplaceit is also vital to notice that this timeline goes to ditch the dates fairly quickly. The purpose for that? Most of Paradise takes place within the “present day,” all centered across the earlier than and after of a future (for us, the viewers) occasion that is known as “The Day.” Again, we’ll get there in a second, however for the second we’re beginning with an actual 12 months, when Bill Clinton began his second time period as President.

We received this particular 12 months in Season 1, Episode 5, “In the Palaces of Crowned Kings,” when future President Cal Bradford (Marsden) advised his dad that he desires to be a trainer. Instead, the overwhelming father Kane (Gerald McRaney) forces him into politics, kicking off a sequence of occasions that results in Cal’s homicide at the start of Season 1.

19 BTD

At this level, given the TV present does not present years, we have got to determine a time scale of our personal. So we’ll use Before The Day (BTD) and After The Day (ATD). For instance, 19 years previous BTD, the billionaire Samantha Redmond, later identified by her codename “Sinatra,” meets her husband, Tim (Tuc Watkins), in a bar after promoting her tech startup.

(We’ll additionally word that lots of these dates are approximate, and a few of it does not fairly add up. We’re flying barely by the seat of our pants right here, though in the end it does result in the right order of occasions, even when issues is perhaps off by a 12 months or so.)

16 BTD

For instance! Sinatra’s daughter Hadley (Kate Godfrey) is born in about 16 BTD. We know this as a result of she’s about 16 years previous once we meet her on the present in – you guessed it – the current day. However, she appears to be a lot youthful than this once we see her in flashbacks throughout Season 1, Episode 2, “Sinatra.” She additionally has an older brother, Dylan (Peter Gorbis) who was born earlier than her, however we do not know when. Gotta find it irresistible!

13 BTD

While exterior a retailer driving a horse (not an actual one), Dylan collapses and is identified with some kind of unspecified Child Sickness. They proceed to get him therapy over the subsequent 12 months and a half, however…

11 BTD

Dylan dies. Before he does, he tells his mother he desires to see heaven and he desires it to be stuffed with horses, which units her off on a journey to, as Belinda Carlisle would possibly saymake heaven a spot on Earth. Although she does not fairly get there with the entire “full of horses” factor.

Just earlier than this, Sinatra meets Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), a therapist who helps Sinatra along with her grief and turns into pal, aiding Sinatra as she builds her plan to avoid wasting the world. There’s not a lot it’s worthwhile to fear about with this by way of the overarching plot, although Torabi and Sinatra’s friendship timeline does get introduced up lots on the present.

10BTD

Sinatra attends a world finance summit the place she sneaks right into a lecture by Dr. Louge (Geoffrey Arend), who’s much less involved about finance and extra involved concerning the finish of the world. Basically, he thinks the world has 10 years till there is a world disaster brought on by an excellent volcano, and he’s weirdly spot-on because it seems. Sinatra, nonetheless distracted concerning the dying of Dylan, hooks proper into this and begins to place all his time and assets into developing a plan to climate the tip of the world.

Also at this finance summit? Cal Bradford, who’s now a US Senator and effectively on his technique to his future as President.

9 BTD

Moving quickly on her plan, Sinatra recruits Anders (Erik Svedberg-Zelman), a brilliant architect who she wants to design an underground bunker in the mountains in Colorado, where she plans to build Dylan’s heaven on Earth – and save as many people as she can, of course. By this point, she’s already begun hollowing out the mountain, and Anders agrees to help.

Then, in a good chunk of the Season 1 finale, “The Man Who Kept the Secrets,” we see them building and hollowing out the mountain more, under the partial direction of Trent (Ian Merrigan), a construction project manager. Trent discovers his workers are getting sick thanks to arsenopyrite residue, but given the accelerated construction schedule instead of waiting until it becomes non-toxic, Trent is fired. More on him later.

7 BTD

Cal is elected President for the first time. Yay, Cal!

3 BTD

Cal is elected the second time, and meets his new Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Brown). While the free-wheeling President and locked-up Collins seem at odds at first, in December of this year Cal is almost assassinated by a man posing as a cameraman who brought a 3D-printed gun to the lawn of the White House. That man? Trent, who shoots Xavier instead accidentally. Trent knows about the bunker, of course, and wants to expose it to the world. Instead, Cal survives, Xavier survives, Trent is sent to jail, and the world is none the wiser.

On the other hand, due to saving his life, Cal tells Xavier all about the Colorado project, bringing him into the loop and promising to save his wife and kids when the time comes.

THE DAY

The time comes. As detailed in the devastating seventh episode of Season 1, a super-volcano erupts, sending a massive tsunami around the world and destroying nearly all of human civilization. A lot goes down this episode, but the short version is the tsunami is just the beginning of the destruction that includes an ash cloud covering the Earth. And Cal ends up activating an EMP to stop nukes that have been launched worldwide from adding “nuclear armageddon” to the listing of horrors.

Also value noting, whereas Xavier’s daughter Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and son James (Percy Daggs IV) – in addition to Xavier – make it onto a aircraft headed to Colorado, Xavier’s spouse Teri Rogers-Collins (Enuka Okuma) is caught exterior Atlanta because the bombs drop and the tsunami hits. Xavier believes she’s useless, however as we discover out within the Season 1 finale, she, together with different folks on the surface, have in some way survived.

Meanwhile, everybody else is locked in Sinatra’s suburban bunker, referred to as – get this – Paradise. And within the course of, Cal’s presidency is prolonged to a 3rd time period.

6 MONTHS ATD

As detailed in Season 1, Episode 4, “Agent Billy Pace,” six months into their new life in Paradise, Cal approved an exploratory mission to the surface. And that four-person mission found that life had certainly survived, thanks partially to Cal efficiently stopping the nukes along with his EMP. However, Sinatra had different plans and despatched a mercenary, who was posing as a secret service agent, Billy Pace (Jon Beavers), out to kill them. The of us in Paradise thought they died from exterior publicity; they didn’t.

Some time after that, Cal discovers the reality concerning the exploratory mission and that the surface is protected(ish), confronts Sinatra… and is shut down. However, he begins developing an elaborate plan to disclose the reality that includes a mixtape to his son and different bizarre little clues and stuff.

3 ATD

Trent – ​​keep in mind him? – managed to interrupt out of jail and sneak into Paradise posing because the group’s librarian. While he truly lived (and loved) his new life, three years in Cal walks into the library and Trent will get pissed once more. He will get in his previous development uniform, sneaks into Cal’s home, and conks him on the top with development gear, killing him (he truly has to hit him twice, however that is neither right here nor there).

This kicks off the occasions of Season 1, which all happen over a sequence of some days, ending with, in no explicit order: Xavier leaving the bunker by way of aircraft to go discover his spouse, Sinatra shot however alive, and Paradise in chaos as lots of the residents – because of a revolt led by Xavier – know issues usually are not what they appear.

Got all of it? Good. Now you are prepared for much more timeline wackiness on Paradise Season 2. Strap in, as a result of it is gonna be a wild journey.