Who (Or What) Is Alex On ‘Paradise’? Unpacking ‘Paradise’ Season 2’s Big Mystery

A new season of Paradise means new jaw-dropping twists to tease and new mysteries to solve!

In Season 1 of Dan Fogelman’s hit Hulu thriller, some of the biggest reveals were the bunker, what exactly went down on “The Day,” and who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden). But three episodes into Season 2, we already have a running list of new burning questions, including — but definitely not limited to — “Who is Alex? What is Sinatra’s mystery project? What’s the deal with all the nosebleeds? And, uh, is Paradise Season 2 tackling time travel?!”

Paradise Season 2, Episode 1 – 3 spoilers ahead.

As noted in Decider’s full Season 2 review, at the end of the seven episodes provided to critics, Paradise Season 2’s biggest twist still isn’t fully understood, so we’ve got a long ways to go until we get the answers we crave!

Until then, here’s what we know about Alex, Sinatra’s side project, Xavier’s memories, the nosebleeds, and the signs that point to some Lost-style time travel.

Who Is Alex On Paradise? Or What Is Alex On Paradise?!

As noted in Decider’s Link (Thomas Doherty) explainer, at the end of Paradise Episode 1, the new Season 2 character begs his Graceland crush Annie (Shailene Woodley) to accompany him and his group on their quest to find the rumored Colorado billionaire bunker. As he’s begging Annie to leave with him through a locked door, Link’s pal Geiger (Michael McGrady) reminds him, “This is not the time to be catching feelings. We gotta get to the bunker, get inside, and kill Alex.” HUH?!

Since there’s no major Season 1 character who went by that name, viewers will understandably be asking, “Who’s Alex?!” While we don’t get any new Alex insight in the second episode, Episode 3 not only reveals that Sinatra has a side project called “Alex,”but a flashback to the pre-bunker world introduces viewers to a PERSON named Alex!

The flashback showed the first time Sinatra sought Billy’s (Jon Beavers) services outside of the bunker. She hired him to convince a university professor (Patrick Fischler) to sign papers and sell her his company, Vestige Quantum. If he refused to sign, Billy had the green light to kill him. We learned that professor taught a course on “Advanced Wave Functions, Superposition, and Quantum Entanglement” and there was a brilliant young man in his class who understood everything so vividly that he made him a partner in his business. He called the boy — who we later learn is Link — the closest thing he had to a son, but before he revealed why he and his wife never had kids, he stopped himself.

Photo: Disney/Ser Baffo

When the professor refused to sign his company to Sinatra, Billy showed up at his house to finish the job. Before he pulled the trigger, however, we learned why the professor and his wife never had kids. When Billy entered the professor’s house, the man’s wife (Gwen Holloway) was lying unresponsive in a hospital bed with Huntington’s disease. Since the professor knew he was about to die, he filled a syringe, walked over to his wife, and pushed the solution into her IV. As her breathing slowed, he kissed her forehead and said, “I’ll see you soon my love. Goodbye, Alex.” (AHH! *Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme*)

From the looks of the scene, the professor’s wife was named Alex. But on Paradise, that seems a little too simple to be the same Alex in the bunker! Considering the woman died alongside her husband, the “Alex” that Link is heading to the bunker to kill likely isn’t the same person, and perhaps not even a person at all! When Link was explaining the bunker to Annie in Season 2’s premiere, he said, “There’s something there, something nobody knows about. Something so dangerous, if I tried to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand…” So could Alex be Sinatra’s name for the technology she swiped from the professor? Or a machine of some sort?

What Is Alex, Sinatra’s Mysterious Side Project, On Paradise?

Back in the bunker, Episode 3 showed a group of community members — including Gabriela (Sarah Shahi) — learning that Sinatra was siphoning a large amount of power off from the bunker’s supply to power her own secret side project. Though Sinatra kept her cards close to the vest, after Gabriela bugged her home office, she heard a conversation between Sinatra and her home caregiver, Carmen.

“How was Alex?” Sinatra asked.

“Alex is well. The power problem has been resolved,” Carmen reported.

“Yes, I’ve made sure of that. Any estimate? Any other messages?” Sinatra questioned.

“She’s getting closer,” Carmen explained.

Does that conversation give us a clearer idea of who or what Alex is or what Sinatra’s hiding? Not really! But based on everything we’ve learned in Season 2’s three-episode premiere, we have a feeling that Sinatra’s side project is tied to some impending Lost-style time travel/multiverse/causality loop-type twist. Here’s why…

Photo: Disney/Ser Baffo

Is Paradise Season 2 Tackling Time Travel? The Multiverse? Or Causality Loops? Stay Tuned!

Throughout Paradise Season 2’s first three episodes, we get several major hints that some sort of time manipulation is taking place — and no, we’re not just talking about Dan Fogelman’s frequent flashback storytelling. In Episode 3, the disaster-prepping scientist Dr. Louge (Geoffrey Arend) tells Sinatra in a flashback, “There’s only one thing that can fix this, and it’s the one thing even you can’t buy…time.” While his words are true in the context of their end of the world conversation, they could also be Paradise giving viewers a little foreshadow-y wink about what’s to come…

The next clue Paradise Season 2 is toying with time? In Episode 2 Xavier starts having visions, or memories, of Link, who — to our knowledge — he’s never met. Then, in Episode 3, Billy sits at the bar alongside Fischler’s character and experiences a serious case of déjà vu. When Billy notes he doesn’t get a chance to “do this much” (meaning, shoot the shit at a bar with a pal) the professors jokes, “No bars in your town?” It’s another variation of the interaction Billy and Xavier shared at the bunker bar in Season 1 — but if that happened in the future, how did Billy recognize a sense of familiarity?

That brings us to the class that the professor teaches: “Advanced Wave Functions, Superposition, and Quantum Entanglement.” Can I break those terms down to you in detail like a brilliant physicist? Absolutely not! But essentially, quantum entanglement is the idea that ” When two particles, such as a pair of photons or electrons, become entangled, they remain connected even when separated by vast distances.”

As Mashable notes, “In quantum mechanics, superposition means that systems can exist in multiple states at once — at least, until we observe them. The Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment is the classic example of this. Let’s say you put a cat in a box along with a Geiger counter, a minuscule amount of radioactive substance, and a mechanism that will shatter a vial of poison should the radioactive atoms decay. If you leave this box alone and have no knowledge of whether the atoms have decayed or not, then the cat is theoretically both alive and fatally poisoned until you open the box.” And don’t even get me started on the fact that Link introduced his friend Geiger as someone who’s “great at counting” in Episode 1!

Towards the end of Episode 3, the professor’s entire speech to Billy was giving time travel causality loop. He’s not only sharing information that he knows will inform the future, but he’s also predicting the future by handing Billy a tissue before his nose bleeds!

What’s With All The Nose Bleeds In Paradise?

Speaking of nosebleeds, in addition to Billy, we saw both Xavier and Link get bloody noses and experience light-flared disorientation of some sort, which could be a sign of temporal displacement, a time travel-y term that signifies when someone is unstuck in time. We saw this on Lost!

So is Sinatra working on traveling back in time to prevent the end of the world? And why is Link so motivated to kill her side project? We’re only three episodes deep in Paradise Season 2, so there are still a lot of questions we can’t possibly answer yet! All we can do is buckle up for what’s sure to be another wild ride.

Stay tuned for more Paradise Season 2 coverage on Decider.