"Paradise."

The new Hulu series gets the Two Episode Test.

Welcome to either the best use of the Two Episode Test or maybe the worst. I guess we’ll find out.

I would like to blame “Disclaimer” — the last Two Episode Test, way back in October of 2024 — for putting me off this once heavily used feature (“Disclaimer” also being the last time I broke my promise about not eviscerating and eating the bones of really bad series and choosing to ignore them instead), but the truth is that I’m just trying different things and using the old standards when necessary.

Oh, it’s necessary with “Paradise.”

The star-packed conceptual series on Hulu from “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman is both interesting and rare. That’s because in the first episode “Paradise” is one thing and then in the second episode it’s completely another.

This kind of trickery/cleverness isn’t novel, but you have to have the kind of gravitas that Fogelman has to get a streamer or studio to bite on the idea of a major twist that potentially splits your audience in half after two episodes.

Let’s explore how this gambit plays out.