Diksha Sundriyal
Hulu’s mystery thriller series, ‘Paradise,’ stars Sterling K. Brown as Xavier Collins, a member of the President of the United States’ protection detail who finds himself embroiled in a murder mystery. On the surface, the show appears as a generic murder investigation with pretty high stakes. However, by the end of the first episode, it becomes clear that it is anything but usual, and the stakes are much, much higher than expected. The first three episodes present the basic elements necessary to lay the ground for what is supposed to be an investigation with many twists and turns in tow. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Victim and the Setting of Paradise are Its Major Twist
‘Paradise’ begins on what seems like an idyllic day in a community. Single father Xavier Collins begins his morning run and stops by his employer’s house, which is revealed to be the house of the President, Cal Bradford. He talks with Billy, his junior, who was on night duty, and it seems everything is fine. But a couple of hours later, when Xavier knocks at the President’s door, and there is no reply, he enters to find the man lying on the floor with blood all around him. It is clear that he is dead, and there is no understating of how problematic the situation is. What makes it worse is that the murderer has stolen something from the President’s safe.
Quick on his feet, Xavier locks down the place for half an hour to get a sense of the situation. He discovers that Billy, who was supposed to stay up all night and be vigilant, took a power nap of about an hour and a half. Around the same time, the cameras in the house were disabled, which means that anyone could have gotten in and out of the place and murdered Cal. The situation is made even worse when Xavier discovers that he himself was the last person to see Cal alive, which means he would be a natural suspect for the crime.
As the investigation begins, several other things come to light, but there is one interesting thing to note here. The murder does not take place at the White House. There is a mention of an election that Cal believes he has lost, which means he would be out of office soon. But still, things look and feel a lot different from usual. The reason behind this is revealed at the end of Episode 1 when we discover that the events of the show are not taking place in the White House, Washington D.C, or America as we know it. It is happening in a community called Paradise, which exists underground, created meticulously in the heart of a mountain, and that is all that remains of the world.
Paradise Takes Place in a Post-Apocalyptic Setting
Once we discover that Paradise is a haven where humanity, or what remains of it, is living, the situation begs the question of what happened to the rest of the world. For this, we go into a flashback where we follow the story of a woman named Samantha Redmond. In Paradise, she is the most powerful person who runs everything even if she is not technically the President. Back when the world was still alright, she worked on a tech startup, which she sold for billions. Over a decade or so, she became one of the richest people in the world. Even with all this success, her life wasn’t without tragedy.
Samantha had two children. Her son, Dylan, was diagnosed with a terminal disease, and despite her best efforts, she couldn’t do anything to save him. The grief of losing her child almost broke her. She barely made it out of it, which is why she became even more adamant about saving her second child, her daughter. One day, Samantha attended a lecture by a climate scientist who revealed that the world was on the brink of collapse. It turns out that the catastrophe caused by climate change isn’t something far away. He predicted the occurrence of a tsunami that would raze the whole world, causing everything to die at once.
Determined to save her daughter from such a fate, Samantha decided to do something about it. The scientist told her that the only way to survive this was to form a city deep underground where the effects of the tsunami would not be felt. To any other person, this would have seemed like an impossible thing, but Samantha poured all her heart and money into building the place. She brought together a team of the best minds in all fields in the country and built Paradise from the ground up.
Cal Bradford’s Murder Pokes Several Holes in the Idyllic Nature of Paradise
While the task of building Paradise was humungous in itself, what was more important was to figure out who could be brought to live there. There are billions of people in the world, millions in America, but Paradise could only hold twenty five thousand people. Now, Samantha, her family, her friends, and other people who invested in Paradise would obviously go there, but that still left the question of thousands of others. Not only were these people to be chosen meticulously, but they also had to be made aware of the crisis that was about to destroy the world. Xavier Collins was found worthy of boarding the ark after he saved the President by taking a bullet for him. The exact circumstances surrounding the origins of Paradise are yet to be revealed, along with all the conflicts that are generated from the decision to leave the rest of humanity behind.
Still, the first three episodes give us enough hints to show that Cal Bradford was not loved by the people in Paradise. His marriage had already dissolved, with his wife waiting for his term to be over so she could officially leave him. He had already lost the election, which meant that he would be reduced to nothing once he left office. At the same time, he also received hate from Xavier, whom he respected more than any other person on his security detail. It turns out that when the tsunami came, Xavier was able to come to Paradise with his children, but his wife was not with them. She was in a different city at the time, and it seems that Cal may have shown some lapse in keeping his promise to Xavier, which is why she was left behind and perished with the rest of the world. Xavier blames Cal for what happened, which is why when he discovers the man is dead, a part of him is happy while also being horrified.
Xavier’s Investigation Leads Him to Unexpected Places
Considering that he was the last person to see Cal alive and took half an hour to report the President’s murder, Xavier is the first one to be questioned about it. A polygraph clears him of the suspicion where he admits that he had some hate for the President, but that doesn’t mean he wanted to kill him. The investigation also brings in Gabriella Tarabi, who served as the therapist of Cal, Samantha, and even Xavier at one point. It also turns out that she was the one Samantha put in charge of choosing the people who would be allowed to live by entering Paradise. She was integral in creating an idyllic setting that wouldn’t just help people survive physically but also mentally and psychologically.
Gabriella is also one of the people who believe that Xavier had nothing to do with the murder. Having been the President’s therapist, she was privy to his innermost thoughts. She tells Xavier that Cal told her that if something ever happened to him, she should entrust Xavier with getting to the bottom of the mystery. She also reveals that Cal told her that Billy, from his security detail, was a dangerous man and could not be trusted. Or so she says.
The suspicion towards Billy is built up from the first episode where he and Jane, another person on the security detail at night, seem to harbor a secret. It later turns out that they were the ones who disabled the cameras because they used to play video games and indulge in other things available at the President’s house. At first, it seems that their worst crime is their negligence and gross incompetence. But there is still a lot more to be uncovered, which means that Billy and Jane remain one of the prime suspects. But for Xavier, there is someone else who is higher on the list of possible culprits.
He believes that Samantha is harboring a secret that must come to light, even if it means that he will have to bring her down once and for all. He thinks that she may have something to do with Cal’s death, and considering that she is the one leading the cover-up so that the general public of Paradise remains unaware of the murder, his suspicions grow stronger. There is also the part about the secret message he finds in Cal’s cigarette. The number 812092 is written on it, and Cal has yet to figure out what it means. The audience is told that it refers to a flight number. However, what exactly it means remains to be seen.
Read More: Where is Hulu’s Paradise Filmed?
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