Warning: The following contains spoilers forParadiseSeason 1
Hulu’s new sci-fi conspiracy thriller seriesParadiseis off to a strong start after its three-episode premiere last week, currently holding strong as thenumber one series on the platform. Created byThis is Ushelmer Dan Fogelman, the series combines his knack for grounded human drama with a wild sci-fi conceit, and its first three episodes have set up a compelling central mystery to explore over its five remaining installments.
For those who haven’t taken the leap,Paradisestars Fogelman’sThis is UscollaboratorSterling K. Brownas Special Agent Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent charged with guarding President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) during and after his time in office. But when Bradford is found dead in his room, Xavier is the last person to have seen him alive, making him a prime suspect in the murder. Complicating matters is the fact thatParadisetakes place primarilyafter a global catastrophehas forced the survivors into an underground city overseen by a wealthy and inscrutable tech mogul named Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson). Xavier quickly realizes that there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and resolves to get to the bottom of it.
Paradisewastes little time plunging viewers into its paranoid world, and has already offered plenty to ponder as new episodes are released. Here are just a few of the most burning questions.
What’s on the Tablet?
Early on,Paradiseintroduces an intriguing object in the form ofa tablet that contains some pretty important information, so much so that it’s kept in a locked box when not in use. After Xavier is found to be trustworthy, he’s let in on some top-secret info, namely that the planet is soon to be faced with an extinction-level event, and Cal is the one who’s going to have to shepherd the nation through its final days.
It’s not clear what knowledge is on the tablet, but it’s obviously very sensitive intel that powerful people want to get their hands on. After his death, it’s discovered that the tablet has also gone missing from Cal’s safe, and there are really only a few people who would know its location or how to access it.Whatever is on that tablet, it’s looking pretty central toParadise’soverall plan.
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What Do the Numbers Mean?
While examining the murder scene, Xavier finds a blood-stained pack of cigarettes that Cal had been smoking from the night of his death. Some of the last wordsCal said to him were “what’s in here probably will kill me,“and it seems he might have been referring to something other than his unhealthy habit. In the pack,Xavier finds a cigarette with a series of numbers written on it: 812092. He cautiously asks around if the numbers mean anything to anyone, but so far hasn’t found many answers.
A clue comes in the second episode, when Xavier’s daughter Presley (Aliyah Mastin) is taken to an old airplane hangar by her beau, Cal’s son Jeremy (Charlie Evans). As they look at the remnants of the planes that brought the survivors to the city, the camera briefly lingers onthe tail of one of the planes, which is stamped with a different set of numbers. It’s looking pretty likely that there might be another plane in that hangar with the numbers Xavier is looking for, and it will probably contain some answers, or maybe just more questions.
How Did They Choose Who Would Survive?
Only 25,000 people live in the underground city that givesParadiseits setting, and in episode three, viewers learn that psychologist Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), Samantha’s former therapist turned colleague, was the one tasked with deciding who those people would be.This seems like a monumental and terrible task, choosing just 25,000 survivors out of a population of over 300 million (that is, if only the US population was eligible). It begs the question of just how she decided who would live and who would die.
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Given that Dr. Torabi had information on the survivors, it seems unlikely that it was just a lottery system or some other kind of randomized selection. It also seems unlikely that Samantha would have allowed this, since she clearly wants to have control over the entire underground ecosystem, including its residents.Perhaps they were chosen for their possible utility to the new community, or their ability to accept their new circumstances with a minimum of fuss. Whatever the reason, hopefully the series will provide some clarity sometime soon.
Why Can’t Billy Be Trusted?
At the beginning of the season,Special Agent Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) seems like one of Xavier’s closest confidantes, a fellow agent that he trusts enough to loop into his investigation of Cal’s murder. The bond between them seems so close, in fact, that Billy even looks after Xavier’s kids when he’s unavailable, making them breakfast and ensuring they get to school.
But in episode three’s cliffhanger ending, this is revealed to be all a ruse. As Xavier and Gabriela engage in a steamy shower tryst,Gabriela changes the mood by saying that Cal instructed her to find Xavier if anything happened to him, and to warn him that Billy can’t be trusted. In the episode’s closing moments, the scene cuts to Billy sitting in a car outside Xavier’s house, looking in at his kids through the window, gun in hand. It seems that Billy must be a mole, or a double agent working for whoever was really responsible for Cal’s death. It’s unlikely that any harm would come to Xavier’s kids at this point, but it adds a compelling wrinkle to his relationship with Billy, as he now must continue his investigation without Billy finding out.
This is just a sampling of the mysteries thatParadiseis laying out in its first season, andthose who are already hookedwill likely be waiting with bated breath for new episodes to provide some answers.
