‘Paradise’ Episode 1 Ending Explained: Big Premiere Twist Revealed

Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from the series premiere of Hulu’s “Paradise,” now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

Fool us once, shame on Dan Fogelman. Fool us twice, shame on us.

After the now-famous twist at the end of the 2016 pilot episode of NBC’s family drama “This Is Us,” it’s hard to remember a time when the world didn’t know the show wasn’t about separate people in different circumstances who all living in the Modern day, but a time-stretched show about a family over decades. Now, the “This Is Us” creator has debuted his new series, Hulu’s “Paradise,” and caught everyone off guard again with an even bigger surprise: a show that at first blushes for a political conspiracy drama is actually a thriller that is set inside a giant Bunker in a seemingly post-apocalyptic world.

“He gets you, because in a script that’s 52 pages, the first 49 pages are like, ‘Oh yeah, I feel the story. This is really cool. I love it,'” “Paradise” star Sterling K. Brown says of the start of Fogelman’s “This Is Us,” in which he starred for six seasons as Randall Pearson. “You already love it. And then you come to my man smoking a cigarette in the hospital,” says Brown, who was the audience’s clue that a timeline takes place in the ’80s.

Now for “Paradise,” which follows Brown’s Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent charged with protecting former President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), who is killed at the top of the premiere and because of his stormy relationship with Xavier before his death , leaving Xavier as the prime suspect in Cal’s murder. When the episode ends with Xavier running, the audience’s attention is diverted from the mystery that A giant dome inside a cave.

“In the original version of the script, there were these sprinklers that you see Xavier running through this whole thing at the beginning,” Brown says during an interview with a Black Cover Story. “There are sprinklers on, etc., and then forward to the end and get close and the sprinklers release dye because you have to color the grass. The ends are a part that is maintained from beginning to end. And then you realize that, ‘Oh, this is the fucking ‘Truman Show’? Like, are you kidding me? These people are in a bunker? ‘ Your mind just goes, ‘Boom! You got me again! ‘ And you don’t expect that, do you?

“Next time I read something now. I know I’m just waiting for the twist. But it was amazing and it just made me want to lean in. “

If all that wasn’t shocking enough, Fogelman & Co. took things a step further by dropping the premiere episode of “Paradise” two days early on Hulu and Disney+ ahead of the planned debut of its first three episodes on Hulu that January. 28.

Here, “Paradise” creator Fogelman talks Black About the big twist and where things are headed through the rest of the eight-episode first season.

“This Is Us” was filled with questions, some of which were not answered until the end of the show. How long are we waiting to find out the story behind Cal’s murder and what got everyone into this bunker?

What I can say about this show – which is exciting for me coming off six years of “this is us” – is any question about a mystery or something that provokes a question is answered during the first season of the tv show. So in terms of Xavier’s feelings toward Cal at the beginning of this pilot, there are two mysteries in the show: there’s the mystery of exactly what happened to Cal that killed him, and why? A murder mystery, right? But then there are the deeper questions in the show of what is the conspiracy? What in the world has happened? Does it have anything to do with what murder? And both of these are answered.

As for Sterling’s reaction to Cal’s body and to Cal in general in the pilot, it all has to do with the larger mystery. I’ve seen everything from people coming out of the pilot saying, “He’s mad at Cal because Cal killed his wife! ‘ And things like that. And you have to have different theories and wonder, I don’t know that people completely gets it, but it will definitely be answered during the season.

By the end of episode 7, you will have answers to all the questions about the world’s great picture mystery. I don’t think there are any more looming questions after that. But you will have a lot of questions about the murder, about Xavier’s wife – and those answers will all come in the eighth episode.

There are many ways you could have revealed the true nature of the city of paradise. How did you decide on this setup for the end of the premiere?

I’ve done things with twists before, so your first step is me screening ad nauseam for people, and while I don’t care what people think and want feedback, that’s for later screenings. My first batch of screenings, when I have the rare smart people who have fresh eyes and are just TV watchers, is: Where are you confused and following the twist? It starts with a schematic and rendering and drawing, and I screen it for people and go, “Do you follow that?” And they all go, “Oh my God, what happened?” That’s the confusion I want. That is, do you understand the story I intend to tell?

So then you take it to the next level, you start saying, “What does it look like? And to Looks? ” And then I even draw one out of every 10 people right now, has a reaction to the shape of the sun. That’s the process.

One of the key moments that points to Xavier as a suspect in Cal’s death in the premiere is their last private conversation in a flashback, particularly the line, “I’ll forgive you when I can sleep again, and I’ll sleep again when you’re death. ” Why go so hard with his potential guilt right off the bat?

It was a hugely controversial line. I shot different alts of it if it was too much. And we all just really liked it. Sterling, when we shot that line, he said, “Oh, it hits different, doesn’t it?” Yah, it does! We had one that was like “Will I ever forgive you for what you did? No, but I will never forgive myself.” So it was softer, softer.

You’ve said you have a three-season plan for “Paradise.” The show has yet to be renewed, so where are you in terms of planning for a second season?

We have almost the whole season broken and almost written now. The fundamental problem in streaming is these shows that people tune in and then go off the air for two and a half years. And so my goal is to have this thing back on TV at least within a year.

This interview has been edited and condensed.