Paradise… is that even a place in this world? As the series by the same name takes you into its labyrinths, you actually realise it isn’t the same earth we are living in right now. Yet, it opens like a regular murder mystery. US President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) has been brutally killed in his own house. Like us, you could end up wondering; why isn’t he living in the White House? Well, well, the mystery begins to deepen at many levels. As Special Agent Xavier Collins discovers his body in the sprawling mansion, things begin to unpeel like layers of onion.

Sterling K Brown reunites with This is Us creator Dan Fogelman on a new series, Paradise, that follows a Secret Service agent looking into the murder of someone he was assigned to protect. But like Fogelman’s previous works, the narrative is more layered than it seems. Paradise mixes a few genres to give viewers a thriller with an intriguing twist. Xavier Collins (Brown) is one of President Cal Bradford’s (James Marsden) lead agents. So when the unthinkable occurs, the level-headed man approaches with a clear focus as someone who would always do the right thing. Amidst high-level government officials and a few billionaires lies a conspiracy that continues to astonish the deeper we fall into it. The eight-episode series has a massive reveal at the end of the first episode, forcing viewers to rethink everything about what has been shown to them so far. That is usually the modus operandi of Fogelman and his usual collaborators, directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. In Paradise, the show slowly unveils each character and scenario in a leisurely manner.