Whatever happened to baby Jane?
No, I’m not just naming Joan Crawford movies. I’m wondering what in the world is going on with Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom) in Paradise Season 2. Specifically, what was the deal with episode 6’s cold open, focused on Jane’s birth?
The episode, fittingly titled “Jane,” flashes back to May 29, 1997, when Circuit City employee Don (Francois Battiste) receives a strange email from someone named AlexQ.
“A KILLER WILL BE BORN ON JUNE 6 AT 12:01,” the message reads. “SHE CAN BE STOPPED WHEN IT MATTERS IF YOU DELIVER A MESSAGE TO HER.”
AlexQ continues to send Don these messages over email, instant messenger, phone, and pager. Instead of ignoring them as bizarre messages, Don takes them seriously and heads over to the hospital in June. There, he accosts newborn Jane and her mother (Laura Campbell) on their way out, ranting that baby Jane will be a killer, and that he has a message that will stop her. (Side question: Did Don just ask every mother leaving the hospital about their baby’s birth time? Or was he lucky on the first try?)
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Do we ever find out what the message is? Unfortunately not. Don is too busy yelling that he has a message to actually deliver it. Nor do we see what the message is on any of the many, many emails and texts Don receives. Very tricky, Paradise! Still, the whole message debacle feeds into some of the biggest questions of the season.
Paradise has to be doing time travel, right?
Ever since the first batch of Season 2 episodes, I’ve been convinced that Paradise is pulling some time travel or multiversal shenanigans. Episode 6 basically confirms this, because how else would someone be able to tell Don Jane’s exact birth date and time? How else would they know she would grow up to be a killer? And how else would they have figured out how to stop her?
It feels like something large will play out with Jane in the continuing episodes, and that whoever is present for that will somehow be able to message Don in the past.
Paradise Season 2, I ask again, who is Alex?
Who might that someone be? Based on the username, it will be someone by the name of AlexQ, which brings us right back to the biggest question of Season 2: Who in the world is Alex? So far, the only Alex we’ve met is the deceased wife (Gwen Holloway) of professor and Vestige Quantum owner Henry Miller (Patrick Fischler). However, in 1997, Alex would still be alive, so she would be able to send Don the information about Jane. (If so, maybe the Q in her username stands for Quantum?) Of course, the biggest question after that remains: How did she get the Jane intel in the first place?
Alex is also the name of someone (or something?) tied to the top-secret project Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) is working on. Maybe Sinatra, feeling threatened by Jane, sent the message back in time to stop Jane from eventually killing her?
While we’re on the subject of worrying about who Alex is, we also need to ask, who is Don? I refuse to believe that Alex (whoever they are) would demand that just anyone tell a newborn baby that she’s a killer. Don has to be linked to this scheme in some broader way, but it seems like Paradise will keep us begging for answers for at least another episode.
Paradise is now streaming on Hulu, with new episodes every Monday.
