Spoiler alert: The following article contains spoilers for Paradise Season 2, Episode 4, “A Holy Charge.”
Shailene Woodley‘s Annie entered the desolate world of Hulu‘s Paradise lost and alone, and though she burned bright and fast, she certainly did not depart it the way viewers first encountered her. In the fourth episode of the Dan Fogelman-created post-apocalyptic drama’s second season, Annie and Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) opt to journey to Atlanta to find the latter’s wife, Teri, after which they plan to head over to Colorado and the underground bunker.
But Annie’s background as a medical student reveals latent complications in her pregnancy, as her daily recordings of high blood pressure indicate preeclampsia.
“She knew that this baby might come early,” Brown tells Deadline in an interview, “but she didn’t want to get left behind or be considered something that slowed him down, so she didn’t tell him, and he doesn’t look at her as a burden. He looks at her as like, ‘Well, what do we do? How do we make you safe? How do we get this child into the world?’ And so they have to expand their comfort zone again in terms of getting help to make sure that life continues.”
When it becomes clear Xavier is out of his depth in delivering the baby, he enlists the support of the people the duo had passed earlier on the street, who were riding by in a deconstructed Chevrolet truck retrofitted into a horse-drawn carriage. Annie’s vehemently against the idea, worried the family will bring more harm than good.
However, Annie’s proven wrong with a flurry of activity, as a community of knowledgable, empathic volunteers quickly surrounds her. And though the baby is successfully delivered, Annie denies receiving further care and her preeclampsia causes her to bleed out.
“I think it’s really up through that and up through her expiring, her death, her passing, that she recognizes that this man was willing to risk things to make sure that we could survive, and she asks him to take her child, because there is a boldness of spirit that exists in Xavier that she sees that she wants her child to have access to as well and to be reunited with her father,” Brown explains, “and she says it has to be you, like, ‘Will you do this thing for me?’ It’s such a gorgeous arc. Like, it happens really fast, but it feels really full and really sad, like I grieve it when she goes away because you saw that these people were going to be a part of each other’s lives forever.”
Though the group offers to take Annie’s daughter off Xavier’s hands, he refuses, knowing he must deliver on the promise of ensuring she meets her father, Thomas Doherty’s Link. A final letter from Annie reveals a grander wish: for Xavier to teach her child not to fear humanity and connection as she did.
Woodley says of Annie’s arc: “I knew it was coming. I didn’t know exactly the details of how it would unfold, but I think it’s the greatest joy a human can experience, bringing a child into the world, and then obviously, the greatest pain a human can experience, knowing you’re leaving the world. And I was very supported by the crew and by the cast and by our director in that moment, but it was definitely a ride, and I contemplated a lot on how to just be as honest and truthful to the moment as possible, and what that would look like.”