Are Paradise's (SPOILER) And Dylan The Same Person, And Was This Sinatra's Plan With Alex All Along?

Major spoilers below for the penultimate episode of Paradise Season 2, so be warned if you haven’t yet streamed it via Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription.

From the start, Paradise has been a giant guessing game, with plenty of mysteries and theories for audiences to sort through, and Season 2 really upped the ante with its “Who is Alex?” secret. Now, with just one episode left to set up what will presumably be the third and final season, Paradise dropped what might be its dooziest reveal yet, on top of putting a variety of major characters in danger, and it all seemingly turned my most promising theories about this show upside down.

Without much time to spare, let’s talk out Sinatra’s big plans for Alex, her big meeting with Link, and the fate of Paradise’s most chilling character.

Is Link An Alt-Universe Version Of Sinatra's Late Son Dylan?

Paradise has clearly been building up to a massive reveal for Link, but I can't honestly say that I've been expecting that reveal to tie him so directly to the story of Sinatra and her husband's late son Dylan. Not even when she and Tim start talking about him and everything gets all sad. I thought Link might be a conduit that would lead Sinatra back to a reality where Dylan was still alive, and I guess that's technically what this could be, even if it's not how I thought it would be presented.

Sinatra seemingly viewed Link as a formidable adversary right up until the point when Geiger called out to him using the character's birthname of "Dylan," which sent Sinatra into a glazed-eyes dream mode. She's almost definitely already bought into the whole shebang, regardless of any unforeseen consequences.

But does it even make sense for these two distinct characters to be the same person? If Link is an alt-version of Dylan, how did he work with Henry Miller to help create the current state of Alex? Was he always in "our" timeline, or was he pulled into ours from his own long ago? He doesn't seem to have memories of growing up with Sinatra, so to speak, so was that characers's childhood pointedly different, or did he not actually have one? I don't know that I can feel comfortable answering this one for "real," as it were. Either scenario sets up too many add-on questions to know anything for sure.

What Is Alex, And What Is Sinatra's Purpose For It?

Arguably the biggest Paradise question being asked in recent weeks, at least beyond "Will Xavier and Teri reunite lovingly?" revolves entirely around the mysterious "Alex" that's been referenced and threatened. But what are we even talking about when Alex comes up?

Though Sinatra calls Alex a "her" when speaking to Link, and though it appears to be named after the late wife of scientist Henry Miller, it's extremely doubtful that anyone is actually talking about a human female here. Instead, I'm pretty sure Alex is some kind of artificial intelligence supercomputer that's been tasked with figuring out how to save the planet and/or humanity's reign on it.

Certain theories have suggested time travel is involved, while others have pointed to a variety of alternate timelines being key to this mystery. But I have to think Alex's goal isn't quite so fancy, even if none of my explanations properly explain how Alex could have sent those foreboding emails back in 1997. (I'm hoping they're not actually related, even as ridiculous as that seems.)

I've been thinking Alex is working from a risk-assessment and survival-likelihood algorithm that essentially lays out every possible future from one second to the next, and figures out the "best" path to take so that civilization can be rebuilt. If Alex decides that certain people will likely one day become a threat that stands in the way, then steps are taken to make sure those people are nullified.

But hold up now. After Sinatra gets the bug in her head that Link and Dylan are the same, she seemingly goes back to rekindle her and Tim's romance after saying this specific phrase: "It worked." I don't think she was specifying that the meeting with Link and the other outsiders went successfully, or else she would have worded that very differently.

So was that meant to indicate that the entire point of Alex was a means to bring her dead child back, with the fate of the world merely a secondary focus?

Is Jane Already Dead For Real After Getting Her Own Confusing Episode?

The episode “Jane” didn’t dig into the backstory of Nicole Brydon Bloom’s villainous Jane Driscoll in the ways I expected, or would have preferred even. I’m still not sure what the foreshadowy 1997 messages were about, nor how killing Jane as a baby would have stopped any natural disaster from occurring decades later. (Although it’s theoretically possible that there’s a parallel universe where Baby Jane died and no super-volcanic eruptions happened.)

We mainly learned that her mother held on to the idea of Jane being an albatross around her neck, and wasn’t a personable parent in the slightest. Also, that Jane had extensive training to be a badass, and was psychotic enough to cut a man’s penis off to secure her friend a rightful promotion. Nothing we couldn’t have already assumed previously, but still. I thought it was more of an introductory look at Jane’s upbringing, meant to be continued later. But then she went and got herself possibly killed by Torabi.

Jane has been as chilling and unpredictable as any threat in Paradise across Season 2, so it doesn’t sit right with me that Dan Fogelman & Co. would take her out of the equation in such a way. I mean, good on Torabi for saving herself, but what was the point in learning more about this pathological killer the episode before she gets offed?

Considering we don’t actually see anyone pronounce Jane dead, on top of everything above, I don’t think she’s joined the choir invisible just yet. This architect of chaos still has more destruction to bring about, I’m sure of it. Unless, like, there’s an alt-universe Jane out there who also wasn't killed as a baby, and will step up in her stead. But if this show starts doing that with everyone, I’m going to need to nap until the final episode.

Paradise will deliver the (hopefully) answer-filled Season 2 finale on Hulu on Monday, March 30, so get ready to start compiling theory lists for where Season 3 will take this story.