My uncle was an Elvis guy. Right before he passed, the long and winding road of his life of sixty-plus years took him from the Philippines to Graceland. He wanted to walk where the King once roamed. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was his song. It’s a quintessential big-hearted pop ballad, wherein all semblance of what’s corny and trite floats away in the acceptance that what you’re feeling is the only feeling that matters in the universe.
Paradise‘s stunner of a fourth episode, “A Holy Charge,” keeps up the second season’s momentum with a devastating loss that cuts short what could have been a beautiful friendship.
After getting off on the wrong foot, Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) and Annie (Shailene Woodley) patch things up, literally and figuratively, before agreeing to help each other find their respective people. While Link (Thomas Doherty) is headed towards Colorado, Xavier’s wife Teri (Enuka Okuma, absent from this episode) was heard via radio transmission out of Atlanta, her last known whereabouts. It’s not exactly a detour between the two.
Still, Xavier’s paternal instincts endear him to a very pregnant Annie. And anyway, Annie’s medical skills might be useful on the road. So the two decide to venture together. But Paradise doesn’t have time for a season-long road trip. Their journey together is cut tragically short, but Paradise knows how to go out with a bang.
Take My Hand. Take My Whole Life, Too.
Waking up in Graceland, Xavier is tended to by Annie, whose medical skills would have served her well on The Pitt had the world not ended. They butt heads at first over where their destination should be. But Annie’s recommendation of two weeks of healing from stitches gives them enough time to come to a friendly agreement.
Parallel to the A plot is a flashback to five months into the bunker. A woman is about to deliver the first baby in the bunker, which Cal (James Marsden, still making appearances in season 2) earnestly wants to make a huge deal. And damn if he doesn’t make a fine president throughout the whole thing; Marsden’s Bradford is reaching Jed Bartlett levels of TV presidents we wished existed, never mind his drinking problems and infidelities.
Anyway, “A Holy Charge” is equal parts The West Wing, Grey’s Anatomy, and The Last of Us this week, with its alternating storylines painting a picture about placing trust that most people may, in fact, be decent. On the road, Xavier and Annie come across a small group of settlers whose piercing glare is shorthand for “stay away.” While Annie believes the world is populated with only bad people, Xavier is keen to have more faith. (An interesting outlook, given that he was robbed by kids before meeting Annie.) Their ideas on what the world is really like come to a head when Annie’s water breaks, and she goes into labor in a deserted diner.
After several minutes of suspense, even leaving us worried that the show comes back from commercial break with Xavier zip-tied in a basement while Annie delivers her baby, Xavier and the settlers return to help her through the miracle of life. Unfortunately, the heavens giveth and the heavens taketh away. After birthing a baby girl, the bleeding doesn’t stop. The gifted would-be doctor tells Xavier (and these new friends) that her pregnancy would have complications. “I knew. I knew,” a breathless Shailene Woodley pants, as the show slowly cues up another slow cover of Elvis, this time “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” Reminiscent of Ellie’s mom in The Last of Us, Annie dies in Xavier’s arms, under the rays of a setting sun peeking through the window as a baby cries out for her mother.
Though Xavier’s faith in other people was rewarded this time, Paradise reminds us that the new world is full of danger, despair, and difficulty. The sudden loss of Annie, whom I really thought would be a major character all season long (and I know I’m not the only one), reinforces what Billy’s death in season 1 told us. No one is safe in Paradise. But everyone is trying to make the world better. Even Samantha (Julianne Nicholson), who spends this week reminding us that, past her cold and venomous exterior, she’s still a grieving mother.
Annie’s parting words are read aloud in a handwritten letter to her daughter, who I’m guessing will be named Hope (which Cal wanted for baby Calvin in the bunker). “There are good people in this world,” says Annie as the camera closes in on Xavier’s face, his guardianship instincts (which I talked about last week) now in full gear as he looks over Annie’s baby. But while Xavier makes his way to Atlanta (and learns he missed Teri by a hair), Link and his people march up to the bunker. Yeah, the Love Actually signs are cute and funny. But given the recent violence inside the bunker—and more bubbling from within—this could be the beginning of the end. As Elvis sang, some things are meant to be.
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