There's A Paradise Theory Making The Rounds, And I Really Hope It's Wrong

There are some major spoilers ahead for Paradise, so if you aren’t caught up, fire up your Hulu subscription and come back when you’re ready to get into theories about the show.

Paradise Season 2 is off to a banger of a start, and after dropping three episodes to kick it off, we got a fourth jaw-dropping and tragic episode this week. I loved the way we were introduced to Annie (Shailene Woodley) in the first episode, so her death hit hard. Now we’re on the road with Xavier (Sterling K. Brown), looking for his wife Teri in Atlanta, while Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) is facing a revolt (and a possible invasion) back in the bunker in Colorado. I’m all in on this so far, but I’ve also made the mistake of reading some online discourse, and a new theory is emerging that I can’t get behind: time travel.

Paradise has become a show, like Lost, a couple of decades ago, that inspires a ton of online chatter. Showrunner/creator Dan Fogelman showed in the very first episode that we shouldn’t trust what we see is all it seems when we learned about the bunker. There have been twists and turns throughout, but all of those have been grounded in some sort of reality. We can quibble about how realistic some of the science is, but there hasn’t been anything too over the top “out there” like time travel.

Who (Or What) Is Alex?

Introducing the idea of time travel would be a major plot twist, but why do so many fans seem to think this twist is coming? Well, it seems to come down to the mysterious “Alex,” Sinatra’s secret project, and some nose bleeds. Alex is a name we’ve heard three times now. The first time came when Link (Thomas Doherty) was about to leave Graceland, and Geiger (Michael McGrady) tells him that they had to leave for Colorado to “kill Alex.”

The second mention of Alex happened when Billy Pace (Jon Beavers), in a flashback, killed Henry Miller (Patrick Fischler), a quantum physicist whose company was desired by Sinatra before “The Day” for as-yet unknown reasons. Miller, just before Pace kills him, euthanized his sick wife, named Alex. We also learn that Link is Miller’s protege and co-owner of the company Sinatra is trying acquire for their technology (whatever that tech is).

At the end of Episode 3, we again hear the name Alex in a conversation between Sinatra and her maid (or who we think is her maid), Carmen (Maria-Elena Laas). As Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi) listens in on the bug she planted, Sintra asks Carmen about “Alex,” and is informed that Alex is improving. We still don’t know who or what Alex is or what she/he/they/it have to do with anything, but could it be a time travel project or some kind of multiverse thing? Ugh. I hope not.

The Nosebleeds And The Visions

At different points, both Billy Pace and Xavier experience headaches, visions, and nosebleeds that some fans speculate are due to time travel. When Billy shot Miller, he did so after Miller had handed him a tissue, seemingly anticipating the nosebleed. Later, while Xavier is piloting the plane through a storm, he also experiences one. Link also experienced them while staying at Graceland with Annie. Something is definitely up.

In addition to the nosebleeds, Link and Xavier seemed to be connected somehow. In the third episode, as Xavier is recovering at Graceland, he has a vision of Link and him together. Later, in Episode 4, Link also sees the vision while sleeping ahead of their final trek to Colorado. It doesn’t seem like the two previously knew each other, but does that mean that they are time-traveling? Or that they do know each other in an alternate universe? Again, I hope not.

Throughout all of this, we also learn that Sinatra has been syphoning off power from the bunker’s grid for a secret project that some fans say is why she was so interested in Link and Miller’s research and their company. She’s working on whatever they were working on and it requires a tremendous amount of electricity. Introducing a company involved in quantum physics also introduces the sci-fi trope of time travel or some kind of multiverse situation using “science.” I’m not down with either.

I’m Not A Fan Of Time Travel Plots

I get it, the one thing billionaires like Sinatra can’t buy is more time. And she certainly has reasons for having a desire to travel back in time, or sideways into another universe. Not just to save the world from the disaster, but also to save her deceased son, whom we learned all about last season, and is the motivating factor in many of her decisions thus far. It will undoubtably make things very messy, plotwise.

For starters, time travel always gets confusing to me. It always introduces plot holes, no matter how it’s presented. It stresses me out as I try to keep all the threads going in my brain. I simply don’t like movies and shows about time travel, and I really hope these are all red herrings. As for the multiverse theory… well… call it my MCU fatigue, but I hate that idea, too. I hate that in the MCU’s multiverse, nothing is real, nothing is forever, and the stakes are therefore meaningless. Either or both of these tropes ruin things very quickly for me.

Paradise is easily one of my favorite shows on the 2026 TV schedule, and I love that it’s been fairly straightforward, while keeping me on my toes as I watch. However, if there is a new twist introduced that invites a complete rewrite of everything we’ve seen so far and basically allows for anything to change with a hand wave, I’ll be very annoyed, to say the least. The world that the show has constructed so far, like the bunker Sinatra constructed, is solid, but precarious. Don’t let it all fall apart, or I'm going to get headaches and nosebleeds!