WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Paradise City, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon Prime Video‘s newest series Paradise City features frontman Johnny Faust as his rock band, The Relentless, makes a dramatic return to the limelight after a controversial time away from music. The series is a spin-off of the 2017 movie American Satan, which documents The Relentless’ original sudden rise to fame. In the film, the band makes a deal with Mr. Capricorn, the Devil personified, to become famous, but not everything works out for the best. Even though their band is successful, Johnny ends up in prison multiple times, is dumped by his girlfriend, Gretchen, and nearly dies from an overdose. He survives but walks away from the band and disappears from the music industry.
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Now, in Paradise City, the band is getting back together. However, returning to the spotlight comes with added pressure and temptation. The demonic reasons behind the band’s original success soon come back to haunt The Relentless and, especially, Johnny. The Devil returns to tempt him in the disguise of a young woman with a new scheme. As the series starts, Johnny has gotten clean and cut ties to anything demonic. However, that does not stop the Devil from trying to corrupt him. So, Capricorn resolves to tempt the women around Johnny as a way to ruin his life.
Gretchen
At the end of American Satan, Johnny gets back together with Gretchen, and she is instrumental in him getting clean from drugs and demonic practices. As Paradise City picks up, they are still together and doing well. Johnny has even decided that he wants to propose to her, making it clear that if their relationship is compromised for any reason, he will lose himself again. This was Capricorn’s ultimate scheme throughout the series — to drive a wedge between Johnny and Gretchen so that Johnny falls back into darkness.
The Devil directly tempts Gretchen. She plays the part of a substitute teacher at the school where Gretchen works and repeatedly tries to undermine her relationship with Johnny. Using reverse psychology, Capricorn tries to convince Gretchen that being in the spotlight and being in a relationship with a rockstar are not ideal ways to live her life. However, that is not the only way Capricorn tempts Johnny’s fiancé. She also works hard to make Gretchen jealous of the other women in Johnny’s life because if she can make Gretchen leave Johnny, she can ruin the young man’s life for good.
Vivian Thomas
While Johnny was on tour during American Satan, he had a one-night stand with a teen fan — Vivian Thomas — while one of his bandmates had sex with her mother. They later learned that Vivian’s father committed suicide after learning about the event. Although Johnny never saw her again after that night, he is haunted by what he did to Vivian’s family and her life. As The Relentless reemerge from their musical hiatus, Johnny does a television interview and expresses his shame for the incident as a way to confess his past sins.
One night, Johnny sees Vivian and a baby girl at a distance. He soon learns that baby Faith is his child from the one-night stand, and since Vivian cannot afford the child, she wants to give Faith to Johnny. Vivian is a sweet girl and only wants the best for her daughter. Vivian’s mother, however, wants to take advantage of the situation. With the approval of Capricorn, the mother decides to blackmail Johnny. If she is not handsomely paid for her silence, she will ruin his life by spreading the news about Faith to Gretchen and the world. If Gretchen were to find out that Johnny has a child, she might not want to marry him.
Lilly Mayflower
While Gretchen and Johnny were separated during American Satan, Johnny turned to drugs and allowed himself to be seduced by Lilly Mayflower, one of his bandmates. He was in a hard place, and the pressures of the spotlight caused him to fall into trouble. However, he has moved on from the incident.
Capricorn, on the other hand, sees Lilly as yet another way to fuel tension between Johnny and Gretchen. Taking on multiple disguises, she builds tension between them to the point that Johnny resolves to kick her out of the band. Naturally, Lilly, does not like that and decides to ruin his life with Gretchen. After their last performance together, Johnny finds himself in Lilly’s hotel room after Capricorn gives him the wrong keys. There, Lilly invites Johnny to give in to temptation and dance with his old demons.
Paradise City is streaming now on Amazon’s Prime Video. It starts Andy Biersack, Ben Bruce, James Cassells, Booboo Stewart, Bella Thorne, Mark Boone Junior, Drea de Matteo, Rhys Coiro, Amanda Steele, Olivia Culpo and Cameron Boyce.
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