Birth and death scenes can be 'melodramatic.' How 'Paradise' made them shattering instead

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Set us as preferred Shailene Woodley left a heartrending mark on the second season of “Paradise.” Her plucky Annie Clay dominates the first episode, “Graceland,” riding out a worldwide apocalypse in Elvis’ mansion.Apprehensive yet eager for human connection, she poignantly can’t find the courage to leave her refuge with a lover who passes through.Woodley’s Emmy nomination for guest actress in a drama series is technically for that hour.

Deserved, no question.But it’s her other major appearance, a few episodes later, that raised the high bar Dan Fogelman’s dystopian drama already set.“A Holy Charge” teams Annie with Sterling K.

Brown’s Xavier Collins, the sci-fi series’ lead character.Wary, pregnant Annie joins the optimistic Secret Service agent’s quest to find his lost wife.

But her journey ends in an abandoned diner, where she dies in childbirth after charging this stranger she has come to trust with the holy task of protecting her infant daughter.No stranger herself to powerful performances — she was previously Emmy-nominated for her supporting role as a sexual assault survivor in “Big Little Lies” — Woodley strove to capture Annie’s final moments as honestly and intuitively as possible.“It’s a fine line between being melodramatic and being truthful” in birth and death scenes, the Southern California native tells The Envelope.“I try to be honest and authentic and raw and feral and committed in a moment, so that there’s an invitation of experience versus a force-feeding of something that I hope the audience should feel.”Ken Olin, the “thirtysomething” star-turned-director who helmed many a baby-filled episode of Fogelman’s earlier series, “This Is Us,” marvels at how Woodley delivers devastating emotions beyond anything he thought he captured on set.“It’s lik...