The Influence of The Leftovers on Paradise Season 2
Paradise embraces new characters, locations, and even genres in its second season, almost becoming a different show. That show being The Leftovers.
Paradise is no longer the same show it was in its first season. It’s a bold move to mix up an acclaimed show so dramatically; to shift locations, characters, and even genre to an extent. And it paid off, mostly. But halfway through the season it suddenly struck me that I’d seen this playbook before, and the similarities kept appearing all the way to the finale. Paradise season 2 is startlingly similar to The Leftovers season 2.
I don’t think the two shows are too comparable in terms of quality. Paradise is a fun show struggling to escape some network TV trappings while The Leftovers is one of my all time favourites, becoming a masterpiece in its second and third seasons. But there are definitely parallels. And it’s fun to see The Leftovers begin to influence other shows after taking on so many influences itself, from Twin Peaks to The Sopranos.
The second season premiere feels like a new show entirely. There are new characters in a new location that we become attached to quite quickly. Then, once everything new has been established, the protagonist of the first season appears at the end of the premiere, linking the stories. The second episode then shows events from his perspective, more explicitly connecting to the first season, before ending at the very same place as the first episode ends, now with new context. So, which show am I talking about? Both.
Another huge connection between Paradise and The Leftovers is that both shows embrace genre trappings in their second seasons. Both series begin with one big sci-fi or supernatural event and then play things straight for the rest of the first season. It’s just an inciting incident to explore some very human drama, whether an apocalyptic event or the unexplained disappearance of 2% of the world’s population. The shows explore the toll on those left behind. Until the second seasons add another, seemingly unrelated genre twist.
It’s the kind of thing so outside the show’s original DNA that it could backfire and tank the show, or succeed and open up new fantastic avenues. With The Leftovers, that’s Kevin’s trip to an afterlife/purgatory/alternate dimension, while Paradise embraces time travel/manipulation. The Leftovers went even further into this realm in its third season, and given how the second season of Paradise ends, I imagine that show will too. Things are about to get weird.
Paradise has embraced the same structure as The Leftovers, telling its story in a very novelistic way. In a streaming landscape of formless, indistinguishable episodes, it was a joy to have another show like this. Each episode of The Leftovers, especially in seasons 2 and 3, would focus on a different character, often in a different location, and tell its own little story that would link and build the wider season arc. Paradise does the same, with clear character-focused chapters, like the premiere with Annie or episode 5 being ‘The Mailman’.
The season is at its worst when it doesn’t fully commit to this format. ‘Jane’ is by far the weakest instalment of either season. It has some poor dialogue and unbelievable plotting (remarkable to say in a season with time manipulation and other wild things the show manages to make us believe) but beyond that it should be an episode focused on Jane, but it’s like the writers realised she’s the weakest, silliest character in the show and edited in some Xavier scenes that belonged in the preceding episode.
Both shows feature a paradise in a battered world. It might be a bit of a stretch to call The Leftovers post-apocalyptic but some of the characters in the series would argue it is. Paradise has the Bunker, the titular paradise untouched by destruction. The Leftovers has Jarden (named after the original, biblical paradise), also known as ‘Miracle’, the only town with zero departures. The lucky denizens of each have to wear wristbands to prove they belong. And the second seasons of each series feature others trying to force their way in. A ragtag caravan stationed outside, eventually breaching the sanctuaries.
Once the walls are down, the season finales also have similarities. While paradise descends into chaos, everybody running the opposite way, Xavier charges in, just wanting to get to his home and see his family. Just like Kevin does at the end of the second season. And earlier in the season, Xavier finds himself charged with caring for a baby that isn’t his, representing new family, new hope, a better future as he reunites with Teri, just as Kevin and Nora are delivered a baby, a fresh start, in their hour of need.
It remains to be seen how much of an influence The Leftovers will have on the third season of Paradise but I imagine it’ll be much less than the second, unless it is willing to go to some of the same surrealist, absurdist places in its final episodes. And let’s get one thing perfectly clear: The Leftovers might feature a couple of slowed-down dramatic versions of songs, like Lo-Fang’s cover of You’re The One That I Want or that piano version of Where Is My Mind that was everywhere for a couple of years, but let’s not lay the blame it for Paradise’s penchant for awful, cringey music choices.
