Drama
The Faithful: Women of the Bible
Fox’s ‘The Faithful’ explores stories from the Bible through the eyes of biblical matriarchs, highlighting these women’s incredible faith.
For 15 years, it was Xavier Collins’ job to watch his surroundings, to observe and analyze everyone in the vicinity, neutralizing any potential threats. And to keep his mouth shut about what he saw and heard.
He was an agent for the Secret Service, and he did a good job. But then the world ended, the president Xavier had sworn to protect was murdered (though not on Xavier’s watch) and Xavier’s career path took some turns he did not expect.
A couple of years ago, before everything came crashing down, Xavier was cleared by the president, Cal Bradford, to receive some top-secret information. The world is going to end, he was told. The Yellowstone Caldera (a supervolcano in Wyoming) is going to erupt and wipe out every living thing on the planet. It’s
inevitable. And the only hope humanity has is to dig the biggest hole it can and get in.
Dig they did, deep within the mountains of Colorado. Inside, they built a city, Paradise, capable of withstanding the calamity that was coming but only capable of housing 25,000 citizens. Xavier was going to be one of those citizens—along with his wife and two children—serving as Cal’s head of security.
Things didn’t go quite as planned.
Xavier’s wife, Teri, was out of state when the evacuation orders came. Xavier helped get his kids and the president into the bunker. But Teri never made it to her plane for Paradise.
Xavier mourned the loss of his wife (and the rest of humanity). However, after Cal gets killed, Xavier receives information that Teri just might be alive. All he has to do is leave the bunker—and the investigation into Cal’s murder—and go find her.
But the world outside is a different place. When the Caldera erupted, it caused tsunamis and blotted out the sun with an ashen cloud. But “only” two-thirds of the world’s population were killed—not everyone, as previously predicted. Some people died from the aforementioned natural disasters. Others perished in the chaos that followed. But many are still fighting for survival, trying to find and build communities even after societal order collapsed.
Societal order in Paradise isn’t much better. And in the midst of the chaos come questions: Just who killed the president? And why? What will happen to Paradise now that Cal is gone? What are Paradise’s leaders—particularly Samantha Redmond, its creator—keeping secret?
Xavier’s asking all those questions and more. Will he be able to put a stop to whatever nefarious plots are afoot? Will he be able to keep his children safe? Will he be able to save his wife?
The world may have ended. But the challenges facing Xavier and others in the aftermath may be just as daunting.
Hulu’s Paradise is a sort of dystopian murder mystery. Each episode unveils more clues, keeping viewers engaged as they try to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, that means we also encounter a lot of harsh content.
Language is pretty rough, with multiple uses of the f-word and s-word, not to mention abuses of Jesus’ name. Some sex scenes show lots of movement and skin, including a man’s bare rear, though strategically placed limbs and camera angles hide other critical anatomy. Some extramarital affairs also take place.
And, being a murder mystery, violence is also prominent in the story. When Xavier discovers Cal’s body, it’s surrounded by a pool of blood. Flashbacks show us how Xavier got shot saving Cal’s life. More bodies drop as the series continues. And bit by bit, we begin to see the horrible disaster that wiped humanity from the face of the earth.
We also face some unique spiritual challenges in Paradise. When the city was still being built, a psychiatrist was hired to choose the 25,000 who would live there. She handled it the best she could, but it’s clear that playing God in this way weighed heavily on her. And in Season 2, she’s still trying to correct the mistakes she made.
In Season 1, a child on his deathbed asks his mother if he’s going to heaven. She answers yes, telling him that heaven will be whatever he wants it to be. He says he hopes it will be a lot like Earth, just with more mechanical horses, like the kind you see outside grocery stores. In response to this, his mother (the lead architect of Paradise) designed Paradise to reflect his image of heaven. She tried to make the underground city resemble a real one on the surface, only with more of the kiddie rides he requested. However, that’s seemingly where her spiritual aspirations ended, since many of the actions she’s taken (and continues to take as Season 2 opens) feel self-serving or sociopathic at best.
The storyline here has far greater stakes than your typical whodunnit. But the amount of content takes it to an even greater level of concern for would-be viewers. And certainly, nobody who watches this series will think it’s paradise.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
As Season 2 opens, we’re given a glimpse of what happened to the people outside the Paradise bunker. When the Yellowstone Caldera erupts, a young woman named Annie takes refuge in Graceland, the historical home of Elvis Presley (and Annie’s place of work). As she fights for survival, others show up to offer her hope.
After the volcano explodes, panic ensues as people see the news on TV and social media. Annie immediately starts collecting supplies (including a gun), ordering her colleague Gayle to do the same. Through a telescope, they see a river flooding their city. The two women lock themselves inside Elvis’ home as an ash cloud surges across the sky, choking anyone who inhales it. A few days after the incident, Annie and Gayle see survivors through their telescope. There’s a fire in the distance. A nearby chemical plant explodes, sending out a shockwave. The few people still alive scrounge for supplies, shooting and beating each other for resources. Elsewhere, a plane crashes, but the pilot survives. A man gets a nosebleed after experiencing headache-like symptoms.
Gayle falls down some stairs, breaking her leg. Annie resets the bone and splints the leg, but Gayle falls ill from infection. Blood seeps through the stitches as Annie changes Gayle’s bandages. The two women almost freeze to death, since lighting a fire would draw too much attention. Gayle eventually succumbs to her sickness, and Annie buries her body near Elvis’ own grave.
Flashbacks show a teenage Annie taking care of her mom, who suffers from a debilitating mental illness, we’re told. She reminds her mom to take her medication. The woman smokes a cigarette. Later, Annie returns home to find her mom has passed away.
Men show up at Graceland with guns. Annie hides under a bed, but a guy called Link finds her and drags her out. He doesn’t harm her, but he doesn’t let her run off, either—and he takes away her gun. Annie spits in his face, twice. When Link isn’t looking, Annie hits him over the head with a blunt object and takes back her gun before hiding in the basement. Link and his companions decide to let her be, but they don’t leave Graceland.
When Xavier discovers the president has been murdered, he delays calling it in, knowing that he’ll be pulled off the investigation due to tensions between the two. But as he searches for clues, he begins to suspect far greater repercussions than just burying a friend.
We learn that Cal and his wife are separated but still married for political reasons. (He has drawn devil’s horns on her head in a picture of their family.) And we hear he is sleeping with one of his female security agents. We see a man in his underwear as he changes clothes. Two men make crude jokes about genital size. Elsewhere, a woman makes a similar crude reference.
A dead man lies face down in a pool of his own blood. In the past, we see an assassin try to shoot the president. Xavier spots the man and throws himself on top of Cal, taking the bullet and saving Cal’s life while other agents tackle the shooter to the ground. Later, we see Xavier bandaged in the hospital. And some time after that, we see he has a scar from the wound.
We’re briefly told that the world ended due to some natural disaster, and that the only people who survived were those in the bunker city of Paradise. Xavier clearly blames Cal for this calamity, as well as the death of his wife, though we don’t know why.
In a flashback, Cal asks Xavier if he would like an alcoholic beverage. Xavier declines, and Cal approves, informing Xavier it was a test to see if he would drink on the job. Cal then pours himself a drink, even though he’s also technically working.
Cal drinks and smokes cigarettes frequently. Xavier often reminds Cal that the cigarettes are bad for his health.
A guy crudely complains that he needs to use the bathroom. Later, we see his exposed thighs as he sits on the toilet.
Flashbacks show us that Cal wasn’t the most serious president—though he did appear to be sincere. He notes that when he leaves office, he wants to buy the biggest mansion he can and fill it with booze and prized art. He says he fired his former head of security because the man was “boring and old,” and he hopes Xavier will be more entertaining. He also admits that hiring Xavier, who is Black, will help his political standings—though that’s not the reason he picked Xavier, he says.
A guy makes a sexist joke. The president had a strained relationship with his son because of his and his wife’s separation. Xavier and his children are close. His teenage daughter helps him keep the household running, but she worries about her dad, knowing he doesn’t sleep much at night. Someone secretly removes evidence from a crime scene. It’s revealed a member of Cal’s security team was sleeping on the job when Cal was murdered.
There are four uses of the f-word and seven of the s-word. We also hear “a–,” “a–hole,” “d–n,” “d–k” and “h—.” God’s name is abused once, paired with “d–mit,” and Jesus’s name is abused four times as well.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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