Paradise Recap: A Complicated Man – Vulture

Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.You know what, Paradise? You can go to hell (compliment). You’re out here making us love a character and then just straight up killing him off? Cal Bradford was bad enough — at least we already knew he was dead before it was revealed that he may not be the ding-dong he was made out to be. At least we could set our expectations. But Billy Pace?! You’re gonna reveal that Billy is a more compelling character than we ever imagined and then you’re going to brutally murder that dude? Honestly, well played. Our sweet Billy!Okay, fine, Billy Pace was, in fact, a cold-blooded killer, but he was starting over in the mountain! And he wore a suit the first time he met Xavier’s kids! And he said Xavier’s family was the only thing that mattered to him! Now he’s dead. Dead!! And in a cruel twist, he’s killed because — for the first time in his life — he doesn’t follow the one rule he has always lived by: Do not hesitate. Always take your shot. Billy, no!!Billy’s life, which we watch in a series of flashbacks throughout the episode, was bleak for a very long time. He was raised by a physically and emotionally abusive uncle who repeatedly told him he was worthless. It’s his uncle who instilled that “Do not hesitate” lesson in young Billy, in reference to not fucking up their hunting trip by hesitating to take his shot. Billy hears him and in turn uses that lesson when his uncle tries to force him to shoot his own dog. Instead, Billy shoots his uncle. He never hesitates again — not when a bigger kid in juvenile detention tries to mess with him, not when he is initiated into an ultravicious mercenary group. Billy is always violent first, with abandon.But things change in surprising ways for Billy once he’s in the mountain bunker. Mostly: He meets Xavier. The world ends in the entrance hangar; Billy’s already on shift when Xavier, Presley, and James come through. It’s chaos, and Xavier has just watched the entrance guard delete Teri’s profile when he tells him that his wife missed the plane there. I mean, how horrifying. We don’t know what happened just yet that made Teri miss her ride to the bunker, just that Xavier blames Cal and that he was talking to her on the phone while he was on a plane and there was a bright-white light before an explosion. But to then have to watch her literally get deleted from existence with a key swipe? It’s not really surprising that a hurting, lonely Xavier would be open to a friendship with his closest Secret Service partner. Especially because Billy seems surprisingly emotionally intelligent for a man with his past.At this point, are you asking yourself how in the hell a murderer who worked as a hired killer for many years became a Secret Service agent? And not just any Secret Service agent but one of the few selected to live in this postapocalyptic society? Good. Those are exactly the questions you should be asking.We meet up with Xavier and Billy several times over the first few months in the mountain, usually at the bar run by the Donnellys. (He’s a bartender and she’s a renowned atmospheric scientist, if you want to get a feel for the types of people chosen for the 25,000 bunker slots.) Two months in and Xavier is mostly just sad about how normal things are beginning to feel. Billy understands why — because Xavier lost someone; because none of this is normal — but he admits that the world as it was before “started kicking the shit out of” him at a young age, and he kicked it right back. This new world, this is like a real shot at a do-over for him. He never had any of this, not even grabbing a drink with a friend, back in the world before. He likes this new normal; he’s grateful for it. That’s when Xavier decides it’s time to introduce Billy to the kids. Down there, they all need all the family they can get. He’s Uncle Billy from that point on, and he couldn’t be more excited for the job promotion.At month three, it’s Billy who suggests to the president that people are so depressed and having such a hard time moving on because there is that nagging voice in their heads wondering if it is possible that people survived up there. Cal flat out says “no” — their communication tech is all fried out there, and any signs of even remotely viable life have been limited at best. It’s gone, he says. But for the first time since the day it happened, Xavier has a real conversation with Cal and reiterates what Billy says: If there is a chance that “somebody’s somebody” is up there, people need to know. And so Cal sends a team of four scientists, including Susan Donnelly, up to the surface. They never return.In the present timeline, Xavier and Billy are much more out of sync. Even though Xavier doesn’t think the message Cal passed along through Gabriela warning him about Billy makes much sense, he can’t ignore it. And after Billy lies to him about his whereabouts and then Xavier gets a look at Billy’s heavily redacted personnel file, he starts to question if he ever really knew the guy at all.They finally meet up at the big annual carnival. (Yes, it’s weird to have this carnival right after the president has died, before he’s even buried, even if the billionaires running the place have told everyone that Cal died of natural causes; multiple people note this.) Their conversation gets heated. Billy tries to warn Xavier to back off pulling at threads regarding Cal’s murder because Sinatra is not someone you want to mess with. But Xavier can’t hear it. He asks Billy point-blank if he murdered Cal. Billy can’t believe Xavier would even think he would do something like that. He’s hurt. “I took you in! I let you around my kids!” Xavier yells. And that really breaks the guy: “Your kids are my fucking world, man!” It feels impossible to be so attached to Billy already that this moment could be so heartbreaking, but thanks to Scott Weinger, who wrote the episode, and Jon Beavers, who is so great in this role, it is the most heartbreaking.But it’s not just this blowup that upsets Billy — he’s been off all day. He’s haunted by one memory of being hidden out in the snow with his sniper rifle, and eventually it’s revealed that this memory isn’t from the before times. We learn that those four scientists didn’t die from the inhospitable postapocalyptic world up on the surface. Nope, Billy was sent up to the surface, too, with orders to make sure none of the scientists made it back alive. But right before he kills Susan, she begs him to stop and tells him that everything they thought about the surface was wrong and that the air is breathable. It’s true: He can breathe without his mask. Even if he does look out over a ravaged city below him, there could be survivors.This seems very bad! Someone is out there ordering the murders of scientists and keeping the truth about the conditions on the surface from, at the very least, the general bunker population, but honestly we have no idea yet who knows what. But you can probably guess who wields this kind of power at the moment — perhaps someone with a penchant for pulling out their hair and weaponizing their grief?The suspicion is confirmed when Billy bursts into Samantha’s office and demands that she leave Xavier Collins and his family alone. Beavers and Julianne Nicholson are great in this scene, one of the best yet of the series. Billy is spiraling, so angry that Samantha is preventing him from truly starting over and having a normal life down here, with an ice-cold Samantha reminding him that the only reason he’s here at all is to be her hired gun. Echoing his uncle, she callously tells him that he is a killer and that’s the only thing about him that offers any value to her and to this new society. Even more chilling, however, is how seamlessly Samantha can go from “I’m not a monster — I’m a mom” to copping to murder and government conspiracy in the name of what she believes is the greater good. While it’s objectively awesome that Billy calls her out for letting other people do her dirty work and has no time for the big “My son died, so I’m allowed to be like this” speech she starts winding up, it also signs his death warrant. He tells her again to leave Xavier alone or there will be consequences, and she basically laughs a Don’t you know who I am? in his face. She brought more than one killer into the mountain as an insurance policy — she isn’t an idiot. “You’re gonna send somebody for me?” he barks back. “You better make sure it’s the biggest motherfucker you got.” An incredible exit line, but I did immediately go, Oh no, this man is going to die.If you didn’t think Billy’s standoff with Samantha was a loud enough signal that his death was imminent, surely the moment he pulls Xavier aside to tell him that Samantha is a vicious killer but he’s going to hold off on the details until tomorrow so he can be “Uncle Billy” to the Collins family for one last night set off a few alarms. Never wait to divulge important and sensitive information when you already have a target on your back, dude! And Billy “Don’t Hesitate” Pace seems as if he’d be the last person to take a night off before taking action. Alas, he tells the Collins family he loves them and he’ll see Xavier tomorrow and then he heads home.There, he finds his sweet girlfriend, Jane, waiting for him at the table and then promptly learns that — surprise! — Jane is, in fact, the “biggest motherfucker” Samantha’s got, another hired killer on the billionaires’ payroll who poisons Billy’s beer and watches him suffocate on his dining-room floor.• They slide this line in without making much of it, but it seems like it could be important: Billy tells Presley that she won’t be able to come over for those secret video-game nights at the president’s house with Billy and Jane anymore. Was Presley there the night Cal died? Did she see anything we should know about?• Wow, Xavier has exactly zero game! Gabriela is very clear their hookup was casual, but he’s so awkward in all of their interactions. I never would’ve guessed a guy with a butt that good would have no chill, but here we are.• Ugh, Billy really did love Xavier’s kids. He pushes Presley to tell Jeremy she has feelings for him with a story about how scared he was to tell Jane he had feelings for her but that you have to go for it. Don’t hesitate, remember? It was very sweet, endearing at the time. You know, until we learn Jane is a psychopath.• The mystery of Cal’s murder and whatever other shady shit Samantha’s orchestrating in the mountain is compelling, but the timeline I’m currently most interested in is the one following the early days of this bunker city. I want all the logistics on getting this place off the ground. Now we know there are two football fields’ worth of alcohol stockpiled in the bar’s basement. And enough carnival-game prizes for an annual event? Copious well-tailored women’s pantsuits? I am fascinated.By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.Things you buy through our links may earn Vox Media a commission.

Source: http://www.vulture.com/article/paradise-recap-episode-4-agent-billy-pace.html