'Paradise' Season 2: What's the Deal with the Mailman, Gary?

I cannot believe I wrote an entire piece just one week ago about how Dan Fogelman has created a dystopian drama where bad people aren’t necessarily around every corner, about how there is good in the world, and that humanity should be trusted. That was the whole lesson of last week’s episode: Annie learned to trust Link, and Xavier trusted the randos to help Annie deliver her baby, and Annie trusted Xavier to take care of her baby and find the baby’s father after she died. It was a heartbreakingly beautiful episode about humanity’s inherent goodness.

And Gary went and ruined it. Goddamnit, Gary. It’s always the mailman, isn’t it?

Gary is the man Xavier met at the end of last week’s episode, who said that Xavier’s wife, Teri, was his best friend over the last three years — and that she was gone. If you’re looking for The Walking Dead analogs, Gary is the Eugene. A sweet, simple man, or so it seemed.

Pre-volcano, Gary was a lonely mailman who met another guy named Ennis online. They were conspiracy guys, but their conspiracy came to fruition. Before the volcano erupted, Gary and Ennis hatched a plan to build a bunker, fill it with supplies, and recruit the people necessary to wait out the apocalypse for three to five years until the planet became habitable again. Nice foresight.

It worked, too — except Gary developed a soft spot for a neglected little kid named Bean and decided to bring him into the bunker as well. Only before they made it there, Xavier’s wife, Teri, encountered Bean and didn’t quite trust a lonely-looking man to take a child to an underground bunker. So Gary invited her, too. Teri was right not to trust Gary.

This little community lived together — happily enough, given the circumstances. Gary did once try to kiss Teri, but she quickly put the kibosh on it. That’s not the kind of relationship she wanted. Gary agreed they could just be friends. Or “partners.”

And that was just fine. Until the world opened up again, and people from that community began to scatter. Teri and Bean, however, stayed with Gary. But then Gary and his best friend Ennis — who up to this point seemed like the one we should be watching — found out that a working train was coming through, one that could take Teri to Colorado, and that Teri would likely take Bean with her. And Gary, it turns out, is not a sweet man. He shot and killed his best friend to keep Teri from finding out. Because Gary didn’t want to be a lonely mailman again.

In the present, Xavier doesn’t know any of this. He didn’t immediately trust Gary either, but over the course of the episode, Gary seemed to earn it — as Xavier worked to build a bomb to rescue Teri from what is apparently a hostile group that Gary invented. Teri and Bean were not abducted by outsiders. They are almost certainly being held by Gary. Because Gary is a son of a bitch.

And that’s where we are. Xavier and Gary are headed off to rescue Teri from … well, who knows? More likely, Gary is going to try to kill Xavier before he can reach his wife. I hate Gary.

The question is: Does Xavier really trust Gary? Xavier is a man who notices things, and there were a few details that didn’t quite add up.

That cover of the Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones,” by the way, comes from Freedom Fry.