‘Paradise’ Finale Unmasks the President’s Killer to Tee Up Season 2
[Editor’s note: The follow article contains spoilers for “Paradise” Season 1, including the finale.]
This might be controversial: the best mysteries can’t be solved.
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Maybe it’s the job — consuming and analyzing too many TV shows to count and not really having the time or vantage point to play detective — but I’ve realized that I don’t theorize and try to get ahead of shows the way I used to. Even when I did (during the heyday of “Lost”), I derived as much (if not more) enjoyment from seeing how a show, book, or movie would ultimately answer burning questions, instead of placing too much weight on whether it lined up with my guesswork.
Sometimes being surprised — whether that’s tinged with joy, anger, disappointment, or another feeling — is more emotionally satisfying than just being right.
When Dan Fogelman told IndieWire in January that he didn’t think fans would really be able to predict the larger arc of “Paradise,” he was mostly right. Season 1 had plenty of satisfying, if predictable turns: the people living in a bubble, the double agent, the rebellion of Episodes 6 and 7, and the sinister nature of Sinatra/Samantha (Julianne Nicholson). By the season finale, it’s easy enough to understand why someone would kill Cal (James Marsden), especially after the reveal that it’s someone from the outside world.
But to my point about unsolvable mysteries: no one could have predicted this exact arc, because a good 85 percent of it wasn’t revealed until the finale — and that’s why it works. You could suspect Trent the librarian (Ian Merrigan), Maggie from the diner (Michelle Meredith), Cal’s unseen assassin from the past, or the literal Dewey Decimal system, but ultimately it’s up to the show to put those pieces together and present them.
The episode opens with another flashback — not Cal or Samantha or Xavier (Sterling K. Brown), but an unknown man (or is he?!) working as project manager on the construction site that will eventually become their haven from environmental catastrophe and nuclear war. He’s critical to “Paradise” and to saving the 25,000 people who end up living there — even if he and his crew were never going to make it (a crew composed largely of Black and brown workers, which is just something fun for you to unpack at home). After he’s fired from the job for flagging a fatal safety issue, the man goes rogue and turns out to be the person who shot at President Bradford in a previous flashback.
This is such a “Paradise” cold open, and sets the tone for the rest of the episode, which is ludicrous, cheesy, heartfelt, surprising, and obvious — all at once. Every adjective I use about “Paradise” is respectful, even if the wider connotation of the word isn’t.
Trent the Librarian, which I assume is his full Christian name, was never a suspect within the show (credit to the eagle-eyed viewers who spotted construction hats in the library, though); he lurks in plain sight like any whodunnit culprit, but “Paradise” doesn’t isn’t performative about his screen time. Trent and Maggie are pillars of their community, given no special treatment by the showrunner POV (unlike Amy Pietz as Marsha, who was my parents’ prime suspect).
That said, if a man who was working on the Colorado construction then ended up trying to assassinate the President while screaming “The world deserves to know!,” there is simply no way that anyone in the loop on Versailles wouldn’t have flagged it as a major threat from the jump. That man was believed dead by the time Cal was murdered, so it makes sense that his name didn’t come up then (his real name), and I’ll chalk it up to negligence and the trauma and chaos of The Day that his name or face wasn’t on some kind of watchlist (that also goes for the person who let him through security; like, you had one job).
How did Trent and Maggie go two years without getting caught? Did no one vet everyone the moment they got inside? I’m not siding with Sinatra & co. here, but maybe we should have lost incompetence in the apocalypse.
One thing the show does account for is why Trent didn’t do anything for two years; he got comfortable! This is arguably lazy and simple, but can any of us say we wouldn’t do the same? A supervolcano caused a tsunami that flooded the world and led to nuclear war. Let the man organize books and eat cheese fries! The world of “Paradise” would ideally consist of just that, but capitalist billionaires had to bring guns with them so it will probably never know peace. Do I sound like Trent right now…?
Xavier finds Cal’s CD, where the message recorded for his son leads to the library — and the realization that the numbers on Cal’s cigarette are a Dewey Decimal classification. The audience was led to believe it was the serial number for a plane in the hangar — again, “Paradise” preserves the mystery by obscuring it almost entirely. Dewey Decimal numbers are six digits, but so are plenty of other things, and there was no reason to think Cal was referencing that more than anything else. The library has been a consistent piece of the “Paradise” setting from the start, along with Cal’s (and Trent’s) presence there.
He finds Cal’s notes, including instructions on how to leave the community. Trent plans to use them, though his plans beyond murdering the president are more than a little half-baked; he’s quickly caught by Xavier and Robinson and escapes them by jumping from the top of the dome and plummeting to his death.
After the relentless action of Episode 7, the “Paradise” finale is almost relaxing — but fulfills Fogelman’s promise to answer all of the show’s major Season 1 questions while setting Xavier on a plane to the outside world and Season 2. With Sinatra down, Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom) is still at large and incognito, and Jeremy (Charlie Evans) is dipping his toes into leading the people.
Is this a future President Bradford? Only if his society lasts long enough.
Further Transmissions
Gabriela (Sarah Shahi) saying she’s getting “frat house drunk” with white wine in a glass, girl, what frats did you go to?
Her scene with Robinson (Krys Marshall) is nothing amazing, but Shahi and Marshall have strong chemistry that I hope we explore in Season 2.
Sid Khosla could add music to probably anything and suddenly I’ll be in tears. Good shit bhaiyya.
Seriously, sad piano cover of “Another Day in Paradise” while we relive Cal’s last hours?? Objectively cheesy, but also HURTING MY FEELINGS.
Jane wanting the Wii and shooting Samantha for it is simultaneously so dumb and wild. Really? The Wii? But also that is absolutely the kind of insane leap a psychopath would make! I have no choice but to respect it.
Brown praised costar Marsden in a conversation with IndieWire, saying, “If he wasn’t dead, God, I wish we could do it again.” Watching poor Cal bleed out in his bedroom this episode, I really felt that.
In the same interview, Brown revealed that the writers room has already convened for Season 2, with at least three episodes drafted. Take it from the executive producer himself: “The shit slaps.”
“Paradise” Season 1 is now streaming on Hulu.
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