Paradise: Shailene Woodley explains the start of season 2

A very successful first episode in Elvis’ house, a love story like a suspended moment in the Apocalypse… but who is Alex?

Season 1 of Paradise took everyone by surprise, in 2025. An apocalyptic drama coupled with a deep thriller that never stopped releasing juicy revelations. A pure television pleasure from Dan Fogelman – already author of This is Us – which Shailene Woodley sums up as follows:

“He’s truly a genius at storytelling and he created this vast, complex world. Every episode of season 1 was gut-wrenching! The whole part about Sinatra, his story, was both daring and moving. Jane’s character was also enough to piss you off! In short, we’re always on the lookout and Dan continues to take us by surprise with twists that we didn’t see coming…”

The actress from Divergent and Big Little Lies saw the first season as a simple spectator, but arrives on the devastated Earth in the cast of season 2. Shailene Woodley plays Annie, heroine of the first episode entirely centered on this medical student, tourist guide at Graceland, who will find refuge in the immense house of Elvis Presley, at the moment when the Earth is falling into the Apocalypse.

Spoiler alert!

All of episode 1 takes place in the King’s residence and Shailene Woodley is in all the shots. Alone. Facing herself. She tells Première:

“We filmed a lot of things, but not everything could fit into this one episode. In fact, what I particularly liked was what we managed to do with Annie, with few words. The directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa placed a lot of emphasis on the silences, her calm, a form of immobility which allows us to understand the character. Of course, when you stay alone for so long, the whole question is how not to go crazy. How did Annie manage not to lose her How did she manage not to succumb to total psychosis? These are the kinds of elements that she had to study. And I think she ended up finding a form of wonder in this solitude. She doesn’t want to be a victim, but we all love Elvis, right?”

Until the day when a band of survivors finally arrive on the scene. A small group in which there is Link, played by Thomas Doherty (crossed in Tell Me Lies). Between Annie and Link, it’s love at first sight: “Obviously, Link didn’t expect to run into Annie here,” Doherty explains.

“The beautiful thing is that their relationship has no really possible happy ending. They know that. In this world, it will be very complicated. Thus a form of very pure, profoundly beautiful love is born between them.”

A timeless romance like a breather in the middle of the tumult of the end of the world, which is reminiscent of the famous episode 4 of The Last of Us, in which Bill and Frank (Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman) shared a moving moment suspended in the apocalypse. And even if Shailene Woodley admits to not having watched the HBO series and not being able to make the comparison, she admits that there is in this episode the idea that “love or any sincere human connection has this ability to make you forget the storm that is brewing outside. It’s as if they were in a soothing parenthesis, sheltered in the eye of the storm that rumbles around them. Link and Annie find in their story a moment of happiness in the midst of chaos.”

A fleeting moment because Link already has to leave. His mission calls him: to go find Alex in the bunker in Colorado. To kill him…

Who is Alex in season 2 of Paradise?

So who is this mysterious individual who seems to obsess Link and who Sinatra has kept secret from the start?

“I can’t say anything about Alex…” Thomas Doherty obviously answers us. “And I don’t want to reveal anything so as not to spoil the surprise. But I can still promise you that you will find out who Alex is at the end of the day and you will not be disappointed!” To be continued…

Season 2 of Paradise will continue every Monday in France on Disney+.