Diksha Sundriyal
Hulu’s ‘Paradise’ begins with the murder of President Cal Bradford but soon evolves beyond a simple murder mystery into a dystopian political thriller. Over the course of eight episodes, the series unveils one shocking twist after another, giving the audience a lot to mull over. One of the better things about the show is how it incorporates flashbacks to tell the story over two timelines, moving across a decade to leave one breadcrumb after another for the viewers. In the finale, all these little hints hiding in plain sight come into view and give a fuller picture of the events that have passed, but also of the ones to come. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Cal Bradford’s Murderer was Hiding in Plain Sight
The major mystery of the season is the identity of Cal Bradford’s murder. As the truth about Paradise and the people running it comes to light, several suspects emerge, most suspicious of whom is Samantha, aka Sinatra. However, in the penultimate episode, she reveals that she had no hand in Cal’s death and the culprit is someone from the outside because the prints on the crime scene don’t match anyone in Paradise. This leads Xavier Collins to two possibilities. The first one is that someone breached the door to Paradise, came in, committed the murder, and slipped away without being detected. Or, it is someone who was in Paradise before the others arrived and has stayed undetected so far.
Xavier believes that he and the other agents, including Agent Robinson, missed something at the crime scene. However, Robinson points to the fact that if there is a discrepancy in records, clues will emerge from the accounts of arrival day. While Xavier goes off to do his own thing, Robinson finds Gabriela. Together, they scour through the anomalies that occurred on the day of the arrival. Robinson asks her to look for anything that could have set off the system. It could be something as simple as a damaged wristband; anything that has been flagged must be looked into.
At first, Gabriela sees it as a futile exercise, considering that the number would be in the thousands. But eventually, she notices something weird. It points her toward the waitress, Maggie. Her records suggest that she is allergic to nuts. However, Gabriela sees Maggie eat stuff with nuts in it without any hitch. This shows that Maggie is not who they think she is. A quick chat with her reveals that her real name is not Maggie. She took the identity when a man offered to take her into Paradise with him. This man turns out to be the librarian, Trent, whose real name is Eli.
Why Did Trent the Librarian Kill Cal? Is He Dead?
It turns out that Eli was one of the people who worked on Paradise. During construction, he befriended a man named Adam and came to care about him immensely. One day, Eli discovered that the tunnel had toxic gas inside, which meant that the workers going in there could die. When he raised the concern with the architect, he was fired and told to shut up. The architect warned him that something catastrophic was coming and no one could stop it. This led Eli to talk to the cops, the reporters, and anyone who would listen to him. Even tried to assassinate Cal, who was saved by Xavier taking the bullet for him.
Eli was sent to prison, where he remained for the next few years. Eventually, the day of the catastrophe arrived, and a brawl broke out in the prison he was in. Luckily, the prison was in Colorado, which meant that Eli had the opportunity to enter Paradise. He found his shot when he came across a man named Trent and his wife, Maggie. He took them into the desert, shot them in the head, and took their identity. Thus, he became Trent. While on his way to Paradise, he found a woman crying in the car. He took pity on her and gave her Maggie’s ID so both of them could enter Paradise.
Eli’s primary purpose was to kill Cal, whom he held responsible for keeping the truth from the public and killing the people who were not selected for Paradise. However, when he came to Paradise, he got comfortable with his new life. It wasn’t until Cal Bradford showed up in the library with the intent of making a mix-tape for his son that Eli was jolted into the awareness of his situation. This is when he decides to finish what he started, and sure enough, he kills Cal that night. The next step in his plan was to go back to the surface, find survivors, and bring them back to Paradise. But there was a huge problem. He couldn’t figure out how to leave. That is until Xavier finds Cal’s notes, and Eli steals them from him. In the end, Xavier and Robinson follow Eli, but before he can leave Paradise or they can capture him, he decides to end his own life.
Does Samatha Die? Why does Jane Shoot Her?
With the case of Cal’s murder closed, Xavier goes to Samantha, aka Sinatra, and asks her to give his daughter back. Instead of giving him Presley, she tells him that his daughter is dead. It is quite a monstrous thing on her part, as she had no reason to have the girl killed. Still, she felt cornered and decided to do away with Xavier and his family. She has Jane kidnap Presley and even asks her to “take care” of the girl. In return, Jane asks for Cal’s video games, but Samantha refuses them and even calls Jane insane. This turns out to be a huge mistake because when Xavier has Samantha at gunpoint, asking about his daughter’s whereabouts, Jane shows up and shoots Samantha in the throat.
The shot is brutal, but it is not fatal. Jane still needs Samantha, who will be of no use to her if she dies. She has hurt the billionaire just enough to land her in the hospital for a while, but not so long that she never comes back. This act also gives Jane dominance over her employer, showing just how insane she can be if she is not given what she wants. Eventually, Jane gets her video games, and we see her playing them in the final scene while Samantha is in the hospital, recuperating. Meanwhile, in her absence, the order falls apart, and a power vacuum is created. The billionaires are seen fighting each other, and eventually, the President tries to calm down the situation. However, it is clear that someone else will have to rise to the occasion to take Samantha’s place.
As for Xavier, he is reunited with his daughter. When Jane shoots Samantha, she tells Xavier that she had Presley all this time. She doesn’t reveal that Samantha was the one who ordered her to keep Presley with her. Neither does she tell the man that she is ready to kill his daughter in exchange for video games. Instead, she chooses not to burn her bridges with Xavier and becomes even more of a trusted ally to him by safely delivering his daughter to him. This will come back to bite Xavier at a critical moment, but for now, he is grateful to Jane for keeping his daughter safe.
What did Cal Put in the CD for Jeremy? Why do People Gather Around Jeremy?
When Cal Bradford found out that there were survivors on the surface and the truth was being kept from the people of Paradise, he knew that there were only a handful of people he could trust with this information. He wanted to tell the public the truth, but he knew that Sinatra and other billionaires would do whatever it took to shut him up. In the event that he couldn’t speak up anymore, he wanted to leave an alternative for others to find. The first two people he thought about during this were Jeremy and Xavier. So, he leaves the hints for both of them.
Xavier finds Cal’s cigarette with a mysterious six-digit number on it. However, he cannot understand its meaning until he finds the CD Cal left for his son. When Xavier listens to it, he discovers that Cal made the mix tape in the library, which is what leads him to realize that the six digits are actually the location of a book in the library. He later passes on the CD to Jeremy, for whom it serves as the last connection to his father. In it, Cal apologizes to Jeremy for his follies while also showing him that he wasn’t all bad and actually tried to do the right thing. Apart from this, he leaves a lot of songs for Jeremy, giving him something to hold on to in his time of grief. However, the music is not the only thing that Jeremy will carry on for his father.
In the penultimate episode, Jeremy finds Cal’s tablet from Presley, who had it all this time. They open the tablet through Kane’s credentials and find out everything that Sinatra and the billionaires had been hiding. Realizing that this is what his father died for, Jeremy decides to bring the truth to the people. Even when Xavier gives up on his fight against Samantha, and everything seemingly returns to normal, Jeremy keeps speaking to the public and develops a loyal following. It is this group that gathers around him in the final scene, proving that he has become a leader in his own right and will continue to challenge the status quo established by Sinatra and her group.
Where does Xavier Go?
When Xavier came to Paradise with his children, he arrived with heartbreak over his wife’s death. The last time he talked to her was right before the nuclear missile touched down in Atlanta, which is where she was at the time. Or at least, so he thought. It is much later that he discovers that Cal Bradford pulled the switch that would neutralize all nuclear devices, giving the remaining people on the surface a chance to survive. One of those survivors turns out to be Xavier’s wife, Teri, and Sinatra brings this revelation to him.
Later, he finds Cal’s notes that show him exactly how to go back to the surface and find the survivors, who are expected to be around thirty-five million in number. At first, Xavier is hesitant to leave his children, but then Robinson convinces him that this isn’t simply about his wife but all the people who are out there fighting to survive. Moreover, it is about Cal’s last wish and his desire to save the rest of the people. So, Xavier must go back there and find whatever he can and save whomever he can, whether that includes his wife or not.
When Xavier tells his children about the plan, they seem to agree with Robinson’s words. So, he agrees to leave the security and Paradise and go into a world that is nothing like he remembers. Meanwhile, he leaves his kids in the hands of Robinson and, weirdly, even Jane, but that’s because he doesn’t know the whole truth yet. In the last scene, we see him piloting the plane, following the instructions from Cal’s notes, remembering his wife before the doors open, leading him into the unknown.
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