‘Paradise’ Star Enuka Okuma Delves Into Teri’s Emotional Family Reunion & What’s Ahead

Paradise‘s second season may be over, but the future looks bright for Enuka Okuma‘s Teri, who reunited with her family in the Hulu drama’s mind-blowing finale episode, “Exodus.” Fair warning: There are spoilers for the Paradise Season 2 finale ahead!

The installment saw Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) and Teri arrive at the titular bunker in time to reunite with their children amid a meltdown underground. While Teri was confronted with the reality of so many lost years with her daughter, Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and son James (Percy Daggs IV), she was also under the pressure of making sure her kids were safely rescued from the bunker as inhabitants scrambled to exit.

Ultimately, Teri got the family reunion she’d been hoping for as Xavier managed to escape the bunker’s destruction at the end of the episode, but she’s still unaware of the task Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) had given him in her final moments, which involves saving the world. Below, Okuma opens up about Teri’s journey in the Season 2 finale, including that hilarious interaction with Dr. Torabi (Sarah Shahi), and what she envisions for the Collins family as we look ahead to Season 3.

Disney / Ser Baffo

How do you feel now that the Season 2 finale has been released, and what are you excited to explore in a third season? 

Enuka Okuma: The biggest thing I feel at this moment is relief that it’s out, and I don’t have to keep these secrets anymore, but I’m very excited about what could happen with Season 3, and Season 2 is a wild ride. It was really fun.

What was it like approaching that emotionally charged reunion between Teri and her children in the finale?

Reuniting with each of the kids was its own moment that I wanted to do justice to just as much as I wanted to do justice to the reunion with Xavier. Xavier and Teri had more time, but the kids… it was just all so wild and so hectic. And the best advice was just to play the situation, and there are so many emotions going on, tears, joy, anger, sadness at the loss of having missed so much with them. But also, the bunker was exploding, so there wasn’t a lot of time to dive in, but just as the character, it felt really great to finally have them all be together.

Teri finally enters the Paradise bunker in this episode. How does it compare with the version of the bunker she’d envisioned in her mind?

Walking into that world is beyond because it’s so much better than even the world she remembers. It’s so pristine, it’s so picture perfect, and I found the moment almost comical, which is like, there’s a sun, there’s a lake, and everybody’s running, they’re going in the opposite direction. I love that it was in there, though, because that would be the reaction compared to what she was living with in a dirty old bunker.

Disney / Anne Marie Fox

When Teri walks through the home that her kids had been living in with Xavier for the past few years. What’s going through her mind as she observes the height markings on the wall?

I think the biggest thing is just that she’s missed so much. Walking into the space, it’s sort of like the gamut of emotions, as in comparing what she was living to seeing what they were living. We actually filmed a little bit more that was cut for time, Presley’s hair scarf is left on the table, and our director, Hanelle [M. Culpepper], put the camera on and just said you do what you think Teri would do, and I picked up the scarf, and I smelled her hair products. I smelled my daughter, and that’s what takes me to the wall. But there was just not enough time. I saw a picture of them as well and welled up, but we couldn’t luxuriate in that moment. I had that moment as the actor, so when I get to that wall, it’s a confirmation of how much time that I’ve missed.

Do you think there’s any resentment from Teri over the fact that Xavier hadn’t told her about the bunker before she went to Atlanta?

I think in those three years that she spent, she definitely went through all the possible scenarios of how things could have been different, and I think to survive, to land at the place of, I need to get back to them, they’re out there, I know they’re out there because I knew he was going somewhere, I need to get back to them. I think the anger and the resentment was a fleeting moment. I think survival was on her brain, and just to be with them together again is all she wanted.

Xavier ultimately reunites with Teri and their kids in the finale’s final moments. What do you hope to see for them as we look ahead to Season 3?

I really hope the Collins family gets to stay together. After so much loss and so much time without each other, I really hope that as the season moves forward, there’s some way that this family can operate as a unit. Again, who knows? It’s a Fogelman show, so I have no idea. You just have no idea where it’s going to go, but that is what I’d love to see because it’s been 2 seasons, but 3 years in the show of just not being together, and family is what grounds her.

Disney / Ser Baffo

Presley shares a kiss with her boyfriend, Jeremy, in front of Teri and Xavier. Does that further illustrate to her the passage of time? How does Teri feel about seeing her daughter in that light?

She gets a kick out of it. She is so thrilled with the fact that it’s Cal’s son as well, because, you know, obviously, the families have known each other, and what I enjoyed playing it was how Xavier was very parental about the situation. I’m just so happy to see my daughter happy, you know? That was the biggest thing for her.

Sinatra gives Xavier a disc and tasks him with the mission of saving the world with the supercomputer Alex. Where do you think Teri stands regarding that mission, and did she know Sinatra before the bunker?

I assume that’ll be something that comes up in Season 3 because there’s been no time to break down any of that in Season 2, so she has no idea about whatever’s going on with Xavier and Sinatra and this key card or whatever it is. Teri has no information whatsoever.

Xavier acknowledges the nosebleeds he’s been getting, and we know there’s danger of another weather event on the horizon. Would you like to see Teri get involved with trying to solve these problems through her scientific knowledge? 

Well, Teri, as we saw in Season 2, she’s gonna use her scientific brain to figure stuff out, and I would only imagine that that would be the case in the future, too. I have no idea what’s gonna happen, but I feel like that is her superpower, is that brain of hers and the need to figure things out,  to find answers. So, I’m assuming that will play a part in her future, but who knows.

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Are there any characters you’d like to see Teri cross paths with in Season 3? 

All of them, honestly. They’re all such great characters, but I will highlight that I loved the moment at the fireplace when Doctor Torabi says hi to Xavier. It was such a perfect, perfect little comical moment that I just really enjoyed. Sarah and I had so much fun. The blooper reel would have revealed a lot of that, but we had so much fun because, you know, he thought [Teri] was dead, but Teri has no idea [Xavier and Doctor Torabi had a fling]. And what I enjoyed was just that woman’s sense of something’s going on, and she walks right over to meet this beautiful woman that her husband is talking to. I enjoyed that interaction.

Paradise, Hulu