Sterling K. Brown’s wildly ambitious Hulu thriller has us hooked, even before the big twist

Watching Hulu’s new thriller Paradise is a bit like eating a hot fudge sundae served on top of a chocolate cake: it’s a little messy and almost too much at times… but it’s hard to deny that it’s also pretty darn delicious.

Sterling K. Brown joins forces with This is us creator Dan Fogelman for an intricately crafted, compellingly told puzzle-box mystery packed with twists… including a big one that changes everything. The pieces of the puzzle don’t always fit together perfectly, and there’s always the fear that a show like this will fall apart before it lifts. (We’ve been burned before.) But based on the first three episodes I’ve seen — premiering this Tuesday on Hulu — it’s solid enough to keep us on board, at least long enough to see where it’s at way there.

Brown stars as Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent who lives in an upscale neighborhood so pristine it almost seems too good to be true. He protects a former US president, the bold Cal Bradford, played by James Marsden. But as the pilot opens, Collins finds Cal dead, and we’re left to puzzle over who did it and why. Now, that would be plenty of history for most TV shows to chew on, but apparently not enough for this one: The pilot ends with an absolutely gut-wrenching twist that both narrows the playing field and opens up exciting new narrative avenues.

The mystery starts right away, with unexplained wounds, mysterious numbers and cryptic messages for us to decipher. (Fogelman loved to keep us guessing and theorizing This is usand he’s back in his mad-scientist lab here.) As for the big twist, it’s so big that we have to admire Fogelman’s willingness to swing for the fences here. But will we get answers? Or will we just get excited like so many shows have done to us in the past? Fortunately, Paradise manages to create real tension even before the big twist hits, with several layers of conspiracies and cover-ups.

In the first instance, Paradise feels like a harsh pivot away from the heartbreaking family drama This is usand doesn’t seem to have anywhere near the same level of emotional weight. But a series of flashbacks (another Fogelman staple) provide the backstory we need to connect with these characters, filling in those blanks as the murder mystery chugs right along in the present. The cast also helps add emotional depth. Marsden is slyly charming as Cal, a good-time guy with shades of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and Emmy winner Julianne Nicholson (Jump off Easttown) is outstanding as an enigmatic tech billionaire who wields a strange influence over everyone in her circle.

For those of us who know Brown well from his days as this is us’ Randall Pearson, Collins is similar in many ways: a capable guy who does everything by the book and keeps his emotions inside. Collins is hard to read at first, but Paradise giving Brown some chances later to open up and show us what’s behind his tough exterior.

This is a wildly ambitious concoction that Fogelman has made here, and we can see the seams at times: every episode mechanically ends on a cliffhanger like clockwork – in what seems to be a firm dictate of the streaming overlords these days – and the soundtrack relies a little too heavily on moody covers of retro pop hits. Still, it’s exciting to see a show shoot for the stars like this and be willing to land on its face… and so far, we’re really not sure which way it will end up.

TVLINE BOTTOM LINE: Hulu is wildly ambitious Paradise may be biting off more than it can chew, but it’s an entertaining thriller with serious emotional weight.

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