[This story contains major spoilers from episode six of season two of Paradise, “Jane.”]
Paradise‘s latest episode largely focused on the Hulu hit’s most elusive character, Jane, played by Nicole Brydon Bloom. So it was even more of a surprise when the episode ended with the much-awaited reunion viewers have been longing for — setting up a major cliffhanger for next week.
The sixth episode of season two, titled “Jane,” ended with Sterling K. Brown‘s starring agent Xavier finally laying eyes on Terri (Enuka Okuma), the wife he has been searching for since leaving the bunker at the end of season one. After the near-apocalyptic event that set up the series, Xavier had believed that Terri, the mother of his two children, had died. He was informed by Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) at the end of season one that Terri, however, was among those who had survived in the last three years since “The Day” of the catastrophic event — and that the world above was more inhabitable than they had been told while living in the underground bunker, called Paradise, that had saved his and his children’s lives.
“We talked a lot about when their reunion should happen,” executive producer and writer John Hoberg tells The Hollywood Reporter about where they decided to place Xavier and Terri’s big moment in the eight-episode second season — while planning all along for the series to go for three seasons (a renewal was made official on Tuesday.)
“There definitely was the idea, ‘What if it happens in the last episode?’ And that felt like it was way too long. We even talked about doing it earlier to surprise you like, wow, they found each other in episode four,” Hoberg continues. “A lot of the debate was about, ‘How do we make this surprising, fun, dramatic and have it all come together in this holy-shit kind of moment?’ A huge thing we try to do is not frustrate the audience. We, the writers, were feeling like we wanted to see them together. So when we all start feeling that, it’s like, okay, it’s time to reveal.”
Terri (Enuka Okuma) as she runs towards husband Xavier in episode six of season two, “Jane.”
Disney/Gilles Mingasson
Since its inception, Paradise creator Dan Fogelman and his team have promised to give answers for every question raised. Season one answered the biggest looming questions at the time, before raising new areas to explore with season two. Brown praises that style of storytelling, and cites the Xavier-Terri reunion as an example of why the Hulu hit is resonating with viewers week after week.
“When one door closes, many others open up. I think you have to give some sense of closure to a loop in order to open up something else,” Brown tells THR. “If you have too many [loops] open for too long, then eventually it’ll feel like [the writers] don’t know where they’re going. There is a musculature in [Dan’s] writing and an assuredness of structure where he’s like, ‘I do know where I’m going. I’m going to give you satisfaction — and I’m going to piss you off at the same time.’”
Indeed, even though their reunion has finally arrived, viewers won’t find out how it plays out until next week’s penultimate episode. The scene ended this week’s episode on a major cliffhanger — as Xavier has just thrown a bomb into the area where Terri has been supposedly taken, only to see her running, seemingly of her own free will, towards him as his eyes register that he perhaps has been misdirected by the friend of Terri’s who brought him there.
“She comes through the smoke and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, she’s alive,’” says Hoberg. “Xavier was going in there thinking she’s being held captive. He’s been betrayed by Gary [played by Cameron Britton], ao we don’t know: Are these good guys or bad guys? Someone just tried to blow him up. They’re with trains and they are heavily armed people. How are they going to respond to Xavier blowing something up right near them? Who is Terri with and where are they going?”
However the rest of the story plays out, Brown leaves viewers with a sense of hope.
“I hope there’s a sense of relief that the audience feels in getting a chance to see these two people find one another again, because that’s what it was [filming the scene],” he says. “It was like relief. Like, ‘You’re here. I didn’t know if you were going to be here. So many things kept me from getting to you. I made it to you. I love you.’”
Paradise releases new season two episodes Mondays on Hulu. Read THR’s season coverage.