Paradise “A Holy Charge”

I saw that Shailiene Woodley won an Emmy for her work in this season.  That’s cool.  I like seeing her in things.  And then this episode happened.

Yeah, things don’t end well for Annie.  Her general distrust and fear of, oh, everybody, prevented her from going with babydaddy Link after he left to go kill someone or something in the bunker.  What is that about?  Beats me.  Xavier seems to be having psychic dreams too, and that is…not the sort of thing I signed up for.  There’s a somewhat outrageous concept at play here, but the series has always been grounded in something that seems scientifically possible.  Psychic dreams don’t really do that.

Oh the other hand, there’s also flashbacks to bring back characters who died in season one, and Cal Bradford is the sort of character I don’t mind seeing more of.

However, the big thing here is Annie distrusts people, so when she goes into premature labor while on the road with Xavier to go to Atlanta to find Teri, she doesn’t want him to go for help.  He does anyway.  He even finds help.  People are, deep down, good folks here.  Annie couldn’t trust, and a midwife and some other survivors staying at a farm brought her the care she needed to deliver a healthy baby.

Unfortunately, she died of complications of the birth.

Well…I really do like seeing Shailene Woodley in things, but it looks like I won’t be seeing more of her now.  Yeah, there may be flashbacks and the like, and she did a good job with the stuff she had, but she was a potentially interesting character, moreso than Link or anyone else Xavier has met on the outside.  She was a survivor of a near-extinction level event.  Why not show more of her readjusting to people?  I mean, the cause of her death is really plausible, but yeah, it kinda reminds me that I am not really sure what’s going on here.

See, this was the show where season one wanted to know who murdered the president.  That’s a solid through-line mystery.  Plus, the bunker was  a space worth exploring.  So, what now?  What is the point of all this?  Link isn’t interesting enough to wonder what he’s up to.  Xavier can revel at the outside world, but where is this season going?  I would think, by the halfway point, I would have some idea.  Nope.  Not a one.

That’s not necessarily a problem, but I’ll have to wait and see.