Paradise’s Biggest Season 2 Finale Twist (To Me) Was A Quick Moment Nobody Ever Talked About

Major spoilers below for Paradise’s Season 2 finale, so be warned if you haven’t yet watched “Exodus” via Hulu subscription or Disney+ subscription.

Welp, plenty of Paradise viewers no doubt went into this second-season conclusion thinking it’d be a doozy, and the episode did not disappoint on that front. We watched as the full Collins family reunited for the first time since before the super-volcanic eruption, and as Sinatra made what appeared to be the ultimate sacrifice, so confident that her actions would lead to an “everything’s fine now” existence. (I desperately need an endless supply of whatever biological mood-bosters Sinatra was running on.)

Throughout all of the reveals and theory-worthy elements that drew focus and were discussed throughout “Exodus,” the biggest twist in my eyes was a moment that featured zero dialogue and was never properly mentioned by any of the characters. Let’s put on Robinson’s blood-soaked sleeveless T-shirt and dive into this algorithmic mayhem, shall we?

Nearly Everything About Dylan And Alex Left Me Confused

The episode’s flashback opening showed us Thomas Doherty’s character Dylan (formerly known mostly as Link) helping Patrick Fischler’s scientist Henry Miller develop what would become the most powerful computer imaginable. We didn’t need to see a ton of that process to understand the connection there between the two geniuses, and that Dylan was as sweet and caring with Henry’s dying wife Alex as could be. It’s clear they agreed when it came time to name the thing.

In the end, after all was said and done, I still wasn’t — am still not — fully on board with the adult Dylan we’ve been watching being the grown-up iteration of Sinatra’s son. It seems too paradoxical to me that the character is largely responsible for creating the technological device that makes his existence possible. I may just need to take a little more time to consider the timeline physics of it all. I certainly believed in Julianne Nicholson’s performance, and that Sinatra was 100% convinced, but I needed another connect-the-narrative-dots sequence to really drive that home.

It would have helped if Sinatra had reacted to Xavier’s news about Dylan having a child with Annie, since it would presumably be huge for her to learn that she’s a quasi-grandmother, especially so soon after first meeting Dylan and arriving at her grand theory. But she barely reacts when Xavier brings the baby up, which just makes me all the more suspicious that her assumptions are correct.

My Biggest Surprise Of The Episode: Jane Is Still Alive! Probably!

I thought it was mighty suspect when, early in the episode, Sarah Stahi's Torabi is just sitting on her bed, with Jane's corpse still laid out in her shower, before she gets the text about all the bunker catastrophes. It only became clear later on, of course, that this was something of a Chekov's Pseudo-Corpse In The Shower.

Later, after the "Exodus" protocol was put into effect and the many thousands of bunker residents evacuated the area, the episode jumps back into Torabi's apartment for just a few brief and unassuming seconds. At first, it almost seems like we're just watching a random location in the midst of the ongoing destruction throughout Paradise being showcased. But it's not random at all.

Rather, that shot very directly revealed to fans that Torabi never fully confirmed that she'd killed Jane, as Nicole Brydon Bloom's villainous character was no longer in there! She gone!

Granted, the absence of Jane's corpse is not undeniable proof of Jane's survival, since she not only would have needed to make her way to the street without passing out from blood loss, but she then would have needed to evacuate the area along with everyone else without others learning about her stab wound. She probably wouldn't have needed to disguise herself, since Torabi didn't tell anyone about their not-so-lethal confrontation until Sinatra returned to the control room.

But as far as I could tell, no other moments throughout the rest of the finale showed us where Jane went, or even that she for sure made it outside the giant steel doors before Sinatra shut them. I was waiting for a quick shot of Jane from behind, possibly watching Torabi in a threatening manner as she talked with Xavier and Teri. Or perhaps a shot of her lying on the side of a road, where one or more unsuspecting characters picks her up and promises to bring her back to health.

I really, really, really wanted this episode to provide a better explanation behind the 1997 email that referenced Jane's birth, and whether that was somehow Alex's doing, and why Jane was seemingly the lynchpin that Alex knew would be best eliminated. I can't wait for Season 3 for those answers!

I'm also kind of annoyed with how easily I believed Bloom talking about her would-be death scene where Torabi gets the upper hand, and how she was initially against the idea that Jane would be so easy to kill, but that she understood the idea that the character's overconfidence was to be her downfall, without considering how Torabi might react to an attempt on her life. I guess it's possible that Bloom wasn't told about that finale scene, but that would just be cruel.

How does everyone else think Jane's return will play out in Season 3? Will she pop up out of nowhere hellbent on revenge? Or will we learn that she never actually made it out of the bunker, and that she's now all irradiated and mutated from the nuclear meltdown? Or, third option, will her alternate-timeline iteration be revealed as the prime version, and that her stabbed and injured body has been retconned by time? Probably the first option.

With a third and likely final season already in development, Paradise is hopefully set to deliver answers for its grander mysteries with that last batch of episodes, futher setting it apart from frequent comparison fodder Lost. Just beware if any Season 3 locations are revealed to be named "Limbo" and/or "Purgatory."