Paradise Kills [Spoiler] In Explosive Season 2 Finale — Read Recap

Both Paradise and the woman who brought it into being are no longer in existence by the end of the Season 2 finale.

Yep, Episode 8 closes with Sinatra inside her beloved bunker as it implodes. How'd we get here? And how'd everyone else get out? 

Read on for the highlights of "Exodus."

In a flashback to nine years ago, we watch Henry Miller meet Link when the kid pipes up during one of Henry's quantum physics classes at the California Institute of Technology. Link grouses that everything he's heard in every class is so theoretical. "Why not just build the thing?" he wonders. Prof. Miller is irked by the young upstart... until he walks to the front of the class with a device in hand. It's an all-to-all platform that he announces is "the first AI-controlled quantum computer that's ever been built," and he created it. Jaw agape, Henry instantly dismisses class.

Henry and Link become partners, though Henry says he'll be the face of their enterprise, because Link is so young. They work from the Millers' home; Henry's wife, Alex, whom you'll recall has rapidly progressing Huntington's Disease, rests in the bedroom adjacent to where they work. Eventually, they name their project Alex — for Miller's wife — and present it to Sinatra and her science advisor, Dr. Chase (played by Simon Templeman, "The Neighbors"). Sinatra is using her tech gazillions to seed scientists in hopes of developing the fastest computer possible, "to solve the climate crisis before it becomes a catastrophe," she says. Then she hands Miller a blank check — literally — and it's off to the AI races!

Which is why it's confusing when, during Sinatra's next visit to Miller's lab, he tells her they have to shut Alex down. She's surprised: Didn't he report it was making great progress? It is, he says, but it's also "trying to manipulate time." She scoffs, but he's deadly serious. Dr. Chase wonders if Henry has noticed any "anomalies," and Henry doesn't know. But he's spooked because Alex just solved a problem that should've taken eons to solve — and "we hadn't asked the question yet."

In the present, we pick up where the previous episode left off: with Sinatra addressing Alex the AI. Chase is down there with her. "I think I saw one of the anomalies today," she says — referring to Link aka Maybe Dylan — but he says that's unlikely, because they haven't even activated Alex yet. That said, Alex has started to communicate and predict... including Sinatra's current visit. And it spit out a message for her to mark the occasion.

The message is a bunch of numbers followed by USER: X. No one knows what it means, but Chase posits that Alex is "referencing the person meant to activate it." Oh, and the AI also has predicted that Sinatra will be dead by the end of the day.

The train carrying Xavier, Teri, Bean, and the baby to Colorado arrives at its destination, but not before Xavier has another dream/vision of walking behind Link in a long hallway. When everyone exits the train, Xavier is surprised to see a pseudo-military operation: tanks, etc. He wants to run in solo and get the kids, but Teri won't allow it; the woman in charge of the train says she'll keep an eye on Bean and the baby while they go.

Meanwhile, inside Paradise, everyone is freaking out, and Sinatra is nowhere to be found. Dr. Torabi arrives at the control tower, still covered in Jane's blood, right around the time Link arrives outside the bunker doors. His men shoot out the cameras. Torabi orders the doors opened, but the dude who put Paradise on lockdown says she doesn't have the authority to do so. "Sinatra isn't here, and all of our presidents are currently dead," she shoots back. They open the doors, and Link's army begins to roll in. As the trucks and tanks slowly make their way past the planes and machinery near the entrance, Xavier and Teri go on foot in hopes of reaching their kids sooner.

Below the bunker, the cooling towers blow. The fiery blast tosses Anders like a rag doll, killing him. This development pushes Torabi to invoke Exodus protocol: Everyone's gotta get out of the bunker, now. An announcement starts playing in the dome. Signs point the population toward the exits.

In the stopped elevator, Presley and Hadley hear the announcement that there's been a reactor emergency. In the bowels of the bunker, Robinson and Jeremy regain consciousness and realize that a nuclear meltdown is imminent. With both of them sustaining injuries — Robinson, in particular, has a nasty gut wound — they try to limp to safety. When Robinson collapses, she orders Jeremy to go on without her. "I loved your father. I never told him that," she says urgently. "He loved you. This is what has to happen... you have to become the man he saw in you." Then she points her gun at him to make him go, telling him: "I'm not going to let you die in this place with me." Though he doesn't want to, he leaves... and later comes back with two men, who help carry her to safety. (Side note: Aw, yay. I thought she was definitely a goner.)

Everyone is running through the streets, panicked, when Sinatra surfaces. At the control tower, she backs up Torabi's decision, which surprises the doc. "What's on your shirt?" she wonders, looking at Sweeney Torabi's bloody shirt. Torabi flatly states that she killed Jane because "she was going to kill me." Sinatra's like, "Cool." Then she sends everyone out of the tower, telling them to get to safety, and calls Dr. Chase. She instructs him to disconnect Alex from everything else: "You're almost 100 miles away. You'll be fine. Alex needs to be protected at all costs."

Meanwhile, Teri and Xavier get lucky and find James in the streets — I love how he recognizes his mom's voice right away, even before he sees her — and there's a brief-but-sweet family reunion before Xavier breaks away to go find Presley. He busts into the tower, gun drawn, and demands that Sinatra help him find his daughter. She does with a few keystrokes. "Oh God, no," she says as they realize that Hadley and Presley are trapped near the reactors. She'll have to go with him to allow him access to that level — her bracelet won't work if it's cut off — and he doesn't have time to say no. "You slow me down for even a second, I'll cut your arm off to use that thing," he threatens. She nods, thanks him, and they go.

On the way down, it's clear that Sinatra is a little undone. "I saw my dead son today, I think," she shares. She apologizes for the way things went the last time they saw each other (which, you'll recall, was when he nearly shot her for implying that she was willing to kill his kid). She also says she's glad Xavier is alive, because "I think you might have been the one truly decent person down here." They get to the elevator; when her bracelet won't open the doors, she and Xavier pry them open manually from the outside.

Problem is, things are going sideways, fast. Presley can hear and see her father, but then a cable snaps, and the car falls a floor lower.

Now is a good time to check in with Link and his men. Link wants to make a beeline for Alex, but Geiger reminds him that dealing with the meltdown is the first oder of business. Otherwise, everyone inside and outside the bunker dies. So they descend into the Paradise underworld, where they find Anders' body and imminent coolant failure. Geiger runs into the machinery room and is trying to manually turn a valve when something near him blows. He's knocked down and hurt badly, and he dies in a distraught Link's arms.

Soon after the others get Link to leave their friend behind, they run into Xavier and Sinatra trying to perform their elevator rescue. The guys hold the elevator door open while Xavier hops down into the car and helps Hadley, and then Presley to (relative) safety. Another explosion makes the situation even more tenuous, but Xavier Spider-Mans his way onto the roof of the car, then jumps to the floor where everyone's waiting just as the carriage crashes to the bottom of the shaft.

Once the girls are out of the immediate area, Link pulls a gun on Sinatra, which seems to trigger Xavier's deja vu. Link wants to know where Alex is; Sinatra tells him the AI is already working. "You're my son. It's complicated, but you are," she says. He wants nothing to do with that notion. As he gets closer with the gun, Xavier puts himself between Link and Sinatra, and that's when things get super weird.

Everything goes double-fuzzy. Xavier and Link's noses start to bleed. Completely unsure of anything except the fact that they're all way too close to something about to go boom, Xavier starts babbling about how he knew Annie, she's dead, Link is a dad, and they have to leave NOW. When he pulls out the student ID Annie gave him, that changes Link's mind. They all run to the truck where the teens and Link's men are waiting.

Xavier and Sinatra get out of the truck once they're back on the town level, and Hadley doesn't understand where her mom is going. "To make things right," Sinatra says tearily. Then she touches Link's face and says she'll see him soon. As Link is asking Xavier where his baby is, Sinatra realizes that the "X" in Alex's message is likely everyone's favorite Secret Service agent. (Side note: I know we're under all kinds of duress here, but still — she's one of the brightest minds in a generation, and this possibility didn't occur to her earlier?)

Both Tim and Hadley Redmond have made it outside, as have all of the Collins, save Xavier. Instead, he's about to get locked out of the tower when Sinatra decides it's her fate to be the person who has to stay behind to activate the doors closing — which will contain the nuclear explosion that's about to happen. "Agent Collins, it's been a pleasure," she tells him. Then she goes into the tower control room and locks the door so he can't get in. Realizing time is of the essence, he takes off at a full sprint through the now-empty town as the sky — well, the panels from the dome's screen — literally falls around him.

Sinatra initiates full lockdown, then strolls through the town square, imagining that a younger Dylan takes her hand and walks with her. Meanwhile, everyone else makes it out... including Jane, we are led to believe, given that her body is no longer in Torabi's shower. Eventually, everyone outside hears a massive boom and watches as the mountain implodes: Paradise, lost.

But where is Xavier? Of COURSE HE SURVIVED. He walks into the survivors' camp that night, Jeremy right behind him. After the Collins family's happy reunion, Presley runs to her boyfriend and kisses him a LOT. "OK, that's enough," Xavier says after a moment has passed. (Ha!)

Later on, Xavier introduces Torabi to Teri, calling her his "therapist" and giving the doc the strongest "BE COOL" look known to man. Presley and James Bond with the baby, whom Link names Annie. And as the episode comes to a close, we get a flashback to Sinatra's last conversation with Xavier outside the tower control room.

"I need you to listen to me. About 100 miles from here, there's a second bunker, deep underneath the Denver airport," she says. "It houses a quantum computer that can stop all of this. In fact, it already has stopped all of this. You just need to get there. You have to follow its instructions and get there. It's a lot of weight to put on your shoulders, but I believe you can carry it. It's a lot to ask, but I'm asking. Go save the world, Agent Collins." NO PRESSURE.

He wonders why she thinks he'll do anything she says. "I believe you already have," she answers.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of the finale? Grade it — as well as Season 2 as a whole — via the polls below, then hit the comments and tell us all of your thoughts!