Paradise’s finale writer on solving the murder mystery and what’s in store for season 2

The team behind Hulu’s post-apocalyptic mystery series Paradise vowed to answer season 1’s most burning questions by the finale and, blessedly, the writers delivered. After a devastating episode exploring the events that pushed humankind underground, episode 8, “The Man Who Kept the Secrets,” unravels the mystery of President Cal Bradford’s assassination and propels Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) toward the recently greenlighted season 2.

[Ed. note: The following contains massive spoilers for Paradise season 1 finale and a few hints for season 2.]

“The Man Who Kept the Secrets” opens in flashback to chronicle the construction of Sinatra’s “Paradise” bunker. Like the covert lab build from Better Call Saul on a billion-dollar scale, Sinatra and her Euro architect employ an unknowing crew to construct a “recycling facility” in the middle of the Colorado mountains. When the site’s project manager (Ian Merrigan) discovers that the minerals in the excavation site are poisoning his crew, his flag results in his immediate termination — and the revelation of a greater conspiracy than simple corporate retaliation. The blue-collar worker’s quest for truth leads to an attempted assassination, a stint behind bars, a prison breakout, the murder of two American refugees, the infiltration of the completed Paradise bunker, and finally, the successful assassination of President Bradford.

“Trent the librarian” did it!

Like so much of Paradise, the season 1 finale is both another pulpy hour of twist-laden fun and a grounded sci-fi story with meat on the bone, boasting a downright harrowing performance from Merrigan. And with season 2 officially in the works, there’s also plenty to wonder about after the credits roll. So Polygon jumped on the phone with “The Man Who Kept the Secrets” writer Nadra Widatalla to talk about how it all came together, and what’s next for the series.

Polygon: Episode 8, as promised, reveals President Bradford’s killer — and it’s someone we’ve seen before! How did you land on “Trent the librarian” as the culprit? Was it clear when Dan Fogelman delivered the pilot script to the room or was it part of cracking the season?

Nadra Widatalla: I think you wind up with the guy who did it after trying to, in your head, make it seem like everyone else did it too. So we went through so many iterations of: What if this person’s a killer? What if this person’s the killer? And if I recall correctly, [Paradise creator Dan Fogelman] didn’t know who the killer was. I love that. Give me an open playing field! 

But I do remember the day that, I believe it was Gina Lucita Monreal, one of the upper levels on our show, came in and pitched: What if the killer was the same guy that tried to assassinate the president? And we were all like, “Yep, yes.” We didn’t know how we were going to make that work, but that was cool. And it laid in so thematically — of course this person who tried to kill him finished the job. Then it was more so creating a backstory for this person, how he became the librarian, all of that we’ve crafted as a room together. But I think what the show did really well is that everyone had motive and reason to want to do this. 

The show isn’t really about who killed the president, it’s about everything else, too. It’s about the lives of these people that survive the end of the world and how they continue to live and move on and cope. And Xavier being at the center of that story, our anchor, it’s about loss, it’s about grief, it’s about joy and beyond. And for me it’s like we do that the entire season, but then to satisfy those watching, we will definitely answer who killed them. 

How did this guy go from librarian in the bunker to the previous assassin to the foreman of the bunker?

It sparked from our conversations on what we wanted this show to say. What do we want to be saying about our world? Do we want to just show a depiction of what Paradise is without talking about the costs of what it takes to get there and who are the people that are left behind? And it’s like, we’ve shown you Paradise. Now let’s show you what it cost, what it took to get here, the Black and brown people that built this city. […] That was very important to me. 

One of our first thoughts was that we knew that this assassin, when he tried to kill Cal in the pilot, would be sent to prison. I remember one of the first few pitches was like, how in LA they use prisoners for firefighting work, we were like, OK, could he have been someone who was like a firefighter, had to go out and fight fires or go out and build this thing? Timing-wise that didn’t work out, but we wanted to evoke this same kind of thing. How can this person have been a part of building this city that they weren’t allowed in?

The opening of this episode is its own gut punch, in that the foreman is a white man leading a team of mostly Black and brown people, people who have immigrated here to work, and are clearly being exploited to the point of death. The foreman wants to kill the president to fight back against this system his friends are stuck in, but in a way, he’s still privileged to do that — his closest friend will die before the apocalypse even rolls around. So I am extra struck by the reveal because we’ve been watching our hero, Xavier, a Black man serving under a white president, navigate these strange circumstances, and it feels like the identity of the killer had to be very specific?

I think everything you just said is totally right, and I think the best shows are about those things without making it be about them. Xavier being a Black man, this show being about a nuclear Black family, the perspective and viewpoint at the end of the world. But at no point were we hammering over the head that that’s what you’re watching. And I think that’s what makes the best TV. The symbolism is there; it’s very intentional that yes, these people that built this city resemble the people that built this place that we live in. And what I love about the season is that we picked and chose when to do that, and it did in an impactful way in the end. I’m thinking about the monologue that [Trent the librarian] gives before he jumps is the thesis of the show. It’s not something that we needed to repeat every episode or even say at all. 

Did the exploration of race and class through this lens drive where Xavier winds up? Does it affect his choices as he navigates all the intrigue and plot?

I feel a lot of similarities to him as a character. Even in that conversation with Cal, and [Xavier] basically asks, So did you choose me to be on detail because I’m Black? And he’s like, No, but it helps that you are. And him in his response being like, I don’t think that’s the progressive image you think it is. I, as a Black man, have to take a bullet for you as a white president. 

I do think that, as a Black person who may have more privilege than the next, or maybe put in a position of power, it’s like reckoning with what that means for me, for my identity, for my culture, for my people. It’s something that I have to grapple with every day while also realizing that like Xavier, I have a job to do. And does that job come first? 

While there’s a lot going on in the finale, we also get a few hearty twists. The waitress was complicit! We also get some quirky resolution for Jane, the assassin. Is there more to her story or did she just really, really want to play Wii?

It’s an interesting character, and I think we intentionally leave her in a place that leaves a lot of room to play around in future seasons. When we meet her, and especially in that conversation with Billy when they’re being drilled by Sinatra, we think that she’s just this innocent, really ditzy girl. But then realize that maybe this woman is far more intelligent than what we think. Or, let’s flip that on its head — maybe she isn’t far more intelligent than we think. Maybe she just wants to play Wii. All of those things can be true at the same time. But also we haven’t seen Jane’s backstory. So all that stuff is left for us to play around with in the future if we want to. 

Writing for the younger cast seems fun. Xavier’s daughter Presley and Cal’s son Jeremy have seen some shit — and the latter seems to be rising up as a leader in Paradise. Sounds like there’s future potential there, too.

I think, thematically, it’s like the young people in the world today. Do we do things the same? Do we do what our parents did or do we use this as a chance to do things differently? And I think it’s a beacon of hope for us. So I really love that we gave that arc for Jeremy and we leave room for these kids to really grow into who they want to be in this world. 

In the finale, Sinatra is bleeding out, but alive. Xavier is set to fly out to find his wife, Teri, who he hopes is still alive in Atlanta, which may have averted nuclear crisis. Does Atlanta seem, thematically, like a key location for next season?

I don’t want to give anything away, but I think we wanted to make sure that we weren’t definitively saying whether or not she’s alive or she isn’t. And so making sure that along with episode 7 […] if we said that she was in a place that was completely destroyed, like Denver when the nuke went off, we wanted to make sure that she was in a place that we could play around whether or not something happened to her or not. 

I know the team is writing season 2 as we speak, so I know not to pry too far, but let’s talk about the next chapter of this story in terms of the finale: How does episode 8 propel us into the future of where you all want to go?

To your point earlier, I think what’s really great about season 1 is that it answers the questions it asked, but it also asks new questions. And so we’re going into season 2 posing new questions, but it’s bigger and it’s more exciting. It’s not what people are expecting, but it will answer the questions that people have. What is out there? Is Terri alive, and what happened to her? What happened if she isn’t? All those questions people are asking now that he’s on a plane and he’s headed out will be answered. It just may or may not be what people are expecting.

Does Paradise have a format? Are pageturner-y mysteries and the carving out of backstory through flashbacks part of what makes the show, even in a new season that might veer from expectations?

Yeah, I think the Fogelman format serves it. It’s amazing because you’re able to tap into character first and foremost. And this idea that flashbacks inform what characters do in the present works really well for us. You really connect with a character. Everyone was so devastated when Billy died because that worked so effectively. So the twists, the turns, the mystery, all that stuff I feel like are things that we’re thinking about heading into season 2. It’s the ethos of our show. So as a writer, I’m really excited to continue to provide that for people that are watching.