Enuka Okuma lived to see another day in Paradise. But there was a point she thought she wouldn't.
The penultimate episode of Season 2 delivered the long-awaited reunion between Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and his wife, Teri (Okuma). It's the moment fans have been waiting for since Xavier left the bunker at the end of Season 1 to find her.
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In last week's episode, Xavier looked up and saw his wife after Gary set off the bomb, and this week, the couple finally came together. However, when Okuma read the script for Episode 7, she thought the reunion was going to be short-lived as her character went to get Bean back from Gary, while Xavier watched from a roof, armed with a gun.
"I thought, 'This is it. This is where she goes.' Because in my mind, I'm like, 'That's actually great storytelling. They finally get together, only for him to lose her again,'" Okuma told Parade in an exclusive interview.
Enuka Okuma plays Teri in Hulu's ParadiseDisney/Anne Marie Fox)
"It would have been great, but very dark storytelling if that were the case," Okuma added. "They've built up the unexpected so much that it could have gone that way. And what a fantastic amount of tension for the audience to be feeling when she goes back in there, because it is possible that you might never see her again."
Thankfully for fans, that wasn't the case.
According to Okuma, there were discussions in the writers' room about having Xavier and Teri reunite earlier in the season or at the very end. Ultimately, she thinks the timing was perfect. "I heard they were dabbling in doing it earlier, which I don't think would have been right. I think it happened exactly when it was supposed to," she said.
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As a huge fan of Paradise herself, Okuma felt the weight of Xavier and Teri's emotional reunion, which the season had been building towards. "I was just really hard on myself because I wanted to get the moment just right," the actress shared. "I know how much the fans have been wanting it. So I was just really nervous about portraying it, and in the end, I love how it all came out."
All of her worries went away as soon as "action" was called.
Enuka Okuma described her Paradise co-star Sterling K. Brown as being "so real"Disney/Ser Baffo
While Okuma and Brown ran lines together, the pair wanted to keep the husband and wife reunion raw in the moment. With their first reunion after the bomb, there "was a lot of physical rehearsal, but it was quick," she recalled, adding: "There wasn't much time to explore, which is why I'm so glad that the writers created that second scene [in the tent] to really stop and give them a moment, and give the audience a moment to absorb as they drink in each other, we're drinking in this moment with them. As I was reading the script, I was so glad there was another moment, and that was shot like a week later."
Prior to shooting the tent scene, Okuma remembered being deep in her own head when Brown asked what she was thinking. "And I was like, 'Well, I'm thinking what it would be like to have lost my husband and my family and to finally see my husband again.' And he kind of went, 'Okay, as you were,'" Okuma laughed.
Having the This Is Us star as a scene partner has been "the best thing ever" for Okuma. "He's just so real," she gushed.
Related: Sterling K. Brown Finds Power in ‘Difficult Conversations’—They’ve Led Him to Paradise and Beyond (Exclusive)
The Rookie Blue alum first met Brown at her audition for Paradise, created by This Is Us' Dan Fogelman. Okuma was nervous to do her chemistry read with the Emmy winner, whom she admired.
"I arrived in the building, and I knew that he [Brown] and the casting director were on the other side of that door, and I was nervously trying to calm myself down. And he comes out before my audition time, and we meet. And he looks me in the eye, and I said, 'I'm nervous,' and he said, 'Don't worry, I got you,'" Okuma revealed. "From that moment, I just knew I can do my best, and that was his intention. And he took all of my fears, all of my nerves away, and I had a great audition because of him, I truly believe. And that kind of care and that kind of presence is just always there with Sterling."
Enuka Okuma had no idea where Paradise was going when she auditioned for the role of TeriEnuka Okuma
Her character has come a long way since the flashbacks in Season 1. From the beginning, Okuma knew the part would be bigger, but didn't know how Teri's arc was going to unfold. "I didn't know that she would be alive, though," Okuma laughed. "Because with a Dan Fogelman show and all the flashbacks, there's nothing guaranteed. And all I was was in a flashback in Season 1, so I just thought maybe Teri was all in the past."
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"I had no idea where the show was going. When I auditioned, it was that scene in the principal's office," she continued. "So that's what I thought it was all going to be about, was debriefing with my husband at the White House in a political thriller. I had no idea I was in a sci-fi about the end of the world."
Paradise debuted in January 2025, and, per Disney, has been streamed globally for nearly 12 billion minutes. The Hulu series was renewed for a third season two weeks before the Season 2 finale, which airs March 30. The day Paradise's Season 3 renewal was announced, Fogelman teased Okuma about what's to come. "He's just like, 'You have no clue where it's going,'" she told Parade. "And I believe it. I believe it."
Paradise streams on Hulu.
Related: 'Paradise' Renewed for Season 3 on Hulu — But Is This the End?
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