The Paradise Season 2 Recaps

Previously, on The Paradise: Moray and Denise are still having relationship drama ostensibly becaue Moray kissed Katherine, but there’s also the fact that he looks like a homeless person and can’t deal with Denise’s dreams of professional success. Weston’s basically started keeping Katherine a prisoner in her own home and is threatening to send her off to Europe alone and keep her away from Flora forever. Clara gets a new boyfriend when a super talented high-end photographer arrives at the store, and The Paradise sets up another uber-pointless store stunt wherein people have to wander through a haunted house in order to buy a highly anticipated final issue of a magazine serial, though it’s not clear if they can see in the dark enough to buy anything else.

Well, we’ve made it to the Season 2 finale, guys. Thanks for sticking it out with me. What sort of insanity can we expect in this, the last ever episode of The Paradise? I don’t even want to hazard a guess.

Previously, on The Paradise:   Moray is still moping that he doesn’t have The Paradise back yet, and because Denise is apparently figuring out that she can have her own career without him. Tom Weston is busily employing a variety of tactics to punish his wife for not telling him her father meant his pocket watch to go to her husband in his will by alternately not talking to her, stalking her while she sleeps, buying guns and generally lurking about her in a threatening manner. Denise finds a potential new investor for Moray, but he’s petty about it, and ends up kissing Katherine, because he feels bad for how the “make her husband jealous” plan has basically ruined her life. However, despite the fact that the story leads you to think something exciting will legit happen here, nothing does, as Moray again declares his love for Denise, which he has so admirably demonstrated by talking down to her, being jealous of her success, and lying to her. Ugh. Shut up, Moray.

Another week, another episode to critique. Will Moray be less annoying? Will Denise find her spine? Will Katherine stop being the universe's punching bag? Let's find out.

Previously, on The Paradise: The long-awaited Paradise Expansion begins as the store opens its new Food Hall. Moray is all kinds of jealous and pouty because he’s afraid if the it expands too much he won’t be able to afford to buy back The Paradise when the Westons inexplicably decide to sell it back to him for reasons that are yet to be determined. Anyway, he starts his Flirt with Katherine plan, which is first, a jerk move and second, just very poorly thought out, though it does make Weston angry. He retaliates by constantly praising and promoting Denise at work, which makes Moray really jealous or something because he assumes she should be spending all her time helping him figure out how to get his store that was legally purchased by someone else back. He even wants Denise to say no to a store-sponsored trip to Paris.

Confession time: This season is a struggle. Mostly because I can’t find a character to really latch on to/root for. I feel like it should be Denise, but why is she being such a dishrag when it comes to her boyfriend? Why has Katherine lost most of her fire and drive? Why is Clara a complete pod person now? What is even happening?

Previously, on The Paradise: Denise begins her new life as Head of Ladies’ Wear, but runs into issues when Moray doesn’t like her idea for a department Tea Party and Susie starts yelling at the daughter of the store’s current owner. Denise, being Denise, works everything out in the end, but not before she gets grumpy and jealous about Moray’s new plan to flirt with Katherine until she sells The Paradise back to him. Weston is super psyched about expanding the store, and Moray is bitter about it because it’ll just make it harder for him to buy. There are also subplots featuring Myrtle’s desire to get out of the kitchen, Susie’s heretofore unseen alcoholic mother, and Weston’s dark past as a soldier in India, but they’re super boring and no one cares.

Who even knows what to expect from this episode, am I right?

Previously, on The Paradise: Interviews begin to find the new Miss Audrey and Clara and Denise make the final round along with two randoms we’ve never met. Denise and Moray have had multiple fights over her desire to have this position, and it basically boils down to Moray not understanding Denise’s dreams and Denise believing that he thinks her incapable of doing the job in question. Once Denise helps Weston throw a super successful musical revue for the staff, it’s obvious she’s got the gig though. In other news, Weston remains the creepiest, because in one episode he: threatens his wife with apparent bodily harm, calls his daughter an idiot, threatens to send said daughter to boarding school because of said alleged idiocy, disparages all The Paradise employees and lights his daughter’s doll on fire. What a catch!

Anyway. We’re halfway through Season 2 now, though whether that makes you sad or relieved is largely up to you. Nowhere to go but up, yeah? Onward.

Previously, on The Paradise: Moray’s obnoxiously French lady friend Clemence arrives at The Paradise to sell fireworks, drive the men crazy and teach the shopgirls about girl power. Flush with the glow of feminism, Miss Audrey debates whether to give up her job to marry Edmund, while Denise gets jealous of Clemence’s friendship with Moray. Until she finds out that their new French friend generally prefers the ladies, or at least she does until we need a super boring subplot that involves Tom Weston stalking her, Katherine Weston trying to sanction an affair between the two of them in her home, and Clemence suddenly becoming obsessed with Dudley because he’s super nice, I guess. And, to top it all off, Jonas – who totally killed a guy that one time – returns just in time to save the apparently married Dudley from drunkenly cheating on his wife with Clemence, and that’s enough of a good turn from the store to overlook the whole murder thing and take him back. Yikes, what an episode.

Nowhere to go but up, yeah? Onward.

Previously, on The Paradise: The show jumps forward a year from the Season 1 finale to find Moray exiled for some unknown reason in France and Denise still employed at The Paradise, along with new people you don’t care about. Moray is summoned home by Katherine, who now has a new husband Tom Weston with some form of PTSD and a ten-year stepdaughter named Flora. New guy Nathaniel is being bribed to sabotage the store’s success with the inadvertent help of his idiot girlfriend, a new shopgirl named Susie. Katherine makes several friendly overtures toward Denise and Moray, but they’re determined to do whatever they have to do to reclaim The Paradise from the woman whose family bought it entirely legally. Or they will be once they can manage to stop kissing. Oh, and Audrey’s asked Denise’s Uncle Edmund to marry her.

What’s in store for us this week? It seems unsafe to even hazard a guess.

Last season, on The Paradise: Country girl Denise arrives in an unnamed, purportedly cosmopolitan town that somehow only seems to have one street where stores are located. She starts working in a posh department store called The Paradise and falls in love with its charismatic, exceptionally close-talking owner John Moray, who is of course, involved with the posh and snotty Katherine, for reasons that are never made clear except that she has a lot of money and keeps harassing him about getting married.

There a several other colorful secondary characters, including Moray’s enthusiastic BFF Dudley, Miss Audrey who runs ladies’ wear, and Denise’s roommates: ditzy Pauline and jealous Clara. Anyway, Denise proves herself an exceptional and creative businesswoman, Moray is into that, they fall in love. Unfortunately, Moray is engaged to Katherine by the time he realizes his feelings, which leads to him leaving his betrothed at the altar, even though her father has bought out all the leases to the town’s one street of shops, including The Paradise, and can now take the store away from him. Dun dun dun…

What will happen in Season 2? Time to find out.