Yahoo Lifestyle Paradise Offers Almost All the Answers We’re Seeking in Season 1 Finale — Read Recap, Grade the Episode
There’s no wait-until-Season-2 hijinks in Paradise’s satisfying Season 1 finale: The Hulu drama continues the momentum of last week’s episode, which divulged exactly what happened to drive the apocalypse survivors underground, with an hour that shows us who killed President Cal Bradford and precisely how it was done. And then, at the end? We get a solid setup for the show’s already-ordered sophomore run.
Read on for the highlights of “The Man Who Kept the Secrets,” and make sure to check out our post-finale chat with star/executive producer Sterling K. Brown, who says Season 2 is just as nuts.
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PARADISE’S DARK PAST | The episode opens with a flashback to 12 years earlier, when the underground bunker is being carved out by teams of workers. Their uniforms have a flower logo on the back; it’s the same one that Presley recalled seeing on the back of a mysterious person the night that Cal died. Then we revisit the trip in which Sinatra tells the architect to “build me my city,” but this time, we follow the construction afterward.
The dig’s project manager is a portly white guy who is well intentioned, if awkward, in trying to befriend the construction workers excavating the site. One worker in particular, who hails from Western Africa and who everyone calls Adam because they can’t correctly pronounce his real name, really appreciates his boss’ attempts; they strike up a little friendship.
Eventually, the project manager starts to notice that his guys’ health is suffering. He has some of the materials they’re around every day tested, and the news is bad: Residue from the blasting is toxic. The project manager brings his findings to Sinatra’s architect and says they need to shut the work down. But the architect points out that the substance is only toxic “in early excavation,” meaning that the city eventually will be fine — but the workers won’t. The architect makes a big show of appearing to care, telling the project manager to send his guys home for the rest of the day. The next morning, at the front gate, the project manager isn’t allowed access to the dig.
“We both know this isn’t a recycling facility,” he shouts. “What are we really building here?” The architect says everything is out of his hands, but that the project manager shouldn’t mess with the people behind the project. “Something is coming,” he says ominously, advising the project manager to forget about the jobs and the workers.
He does not follow that advice. Instead, the project manager becomes murderboard-level obsessed with whistleblowing. He leaves lots of unhinged messages for Adam. He 3D-prints a gun. And — yep — he bluffs his way into a White House press briefing and attempts to murder Cal in the assassination attempt we saw in Episode 1. “The world deserves to know!” he yells after his bullet hits Xavier, instead. “Everyone deserves to know!”
Why does the show choose to show us all of this at this point in the narrative? We’ll get to that in a few.
SINATRA STARTS TO UNRAVEL | In the present, we’re still in the room with Xavier and Sinatra, who’s playing a recording gathered at one of the listening stations on the surface. Teri’s talking, and she names Xavier as she tells whoever’s listening that she and a group of other survivors were heading for Colorado. And just like that, Xavier has made his decision: He finds Agent Robinson and announces, “It’s over.”
As they release the government officials they’d held captive, he catches her up: Sinatra didn’t kill the president, and unknown DNA on Cal’s body means “someone either snuck in here or was here before we showed up.” She thinks they should start by taking a closer look at Arrival Day, but he’s more interested in an action-based approach. “What the f—k does she have on you?” Robinson asks as Xavier walks away. “My daughter,” he calls back.
Meanwhile, Sinatra is back at the tower and ordering that the tablet be wiped of all confidential information. (Too late, though, it seems: Elsewhere in town, Jeremy is giving a highly dramatic reading of the scientific mission’s transcript to a crowd that’s gathered around him.) As Sinatra forges ahead with her plan, Gabriela urges her to take a beat. “I don’t think you should waste any more time on me,” Sinatra says to the shrink. “I’m not who you think I am. I’ve done terrible things. I’ve done unspeakable, terrible things.” Then she orders Dr. Torabi to leave so she can call her pint-sized gun-for-hire in peace.
Jane interprets her boss’ musings about what to do about Presley as a clear directive to kill the girl. And she’s instantly cool with that, under one condition: Can Jane have Cal’s Nintendo Wii? For once, Sinatra is the one who’s shocked. “Are you f—king insane?” she wonders. Answer: Yes. Jane hangs up abruptly, later texting Sinatra: “I handled it. Problem eliminated.” Oh NO.
LIBRARY SCIENCES FOR THE WIN! | Xavier returns to the crime scene — Cal’s bedroom — and finds the mix CD the president made for his son. He pops it in the player and hears Cal’s voice tell the teen “I came down to the library to make you a mixtape and bury a few national secrets while I’m here.” So Xavier heads to the library, where we now see an historical display about the workers who dug Paradise… and the glass case includes coveralls with the flower logo on the back.
Remember the number Cal wrote on the cigarette and left for Xavier? Turns out, it corresponds to the Dewey Decimal System (!), which made my library-loving heart grow three sizes. Xavier follows the number to a shelf of biographies, including those about Frank Sinatra. There’s nothing in the Ol’ Blue Eyes book, but he does find some papers inserted into a Peter Lawford (heh) bio titled The Man Who Kept the Secrets. The sheets seem to be what Cal transcribed from the tablet during his last day alive: transcripts of the scientific mission and Billy’s corresponding orders, information on survivors and their location — lots of good, juicy stuff. While Xavier is poring over that, let’s check in on Robinson.
LIVE BY THE CHEESE FRIES, DIE BY THE CHEESE FRIES | Torabi is at home and day-drinking when Robinson shows up, demanding to see the psychiatric evaluations of anyone who was flagged on Arrival Day. “I need to know who on that list might not be who they say they are,” she says, pushing her way inside. They look over the files of people whose bracelets didn’t work, etc., and a random note in a file catches Gabriela’s attention.
Next we see, Dr. Torabi is at the diner about to dig into a plate of those cheese fries we heard so much about a few episodes back, and she invites Maggie, the waitress, to sit down and share them. She does. And that’s when Robinson puts a gun to Maggie’s side, indicating the gig is up.
As we learned when Gabriela waxed poetic about the fries earlier in the season, the cheese is faux, made from cashews. The real Maggie had a severe nut allergy, her file indicates, yet this (also faux) Maggie has no problem digging in. “I’m almost relieved,” Faux Maggie says, not even trying to object. “I deserve everything that happens to me. But just know, he made me do it.”
Who’s “he?” It’s Trent, Paradise’s librarian, who finds Xavier as he’s reading Cal’s notes in the book and hits him over the head with a fire extinguisher, knocking him out. “Sorry, bud,” Trent says, “wrong place, wrong time.”
GUESS WHO’S BACK? | When Xavier comes to, Trent asks, “You don’t recognize me, do you? I always wondered if one of you would.” He’s the man who shot Xavier while aiming for Cal years before, though he’s bald now, with a beard and glasses, and he’s thinner. Then we’re walked through the whole shebang, so get comfy!
Trent went to prison for the assassination attempt; while there, he continued calling Adam until one day the other man picked up and angrily informed Trent that he was dying. Not long after, the catastrophic climate event happened, and bedlam broke out at the facility. The inmates took over, killing guards and freeing everyone; Trent helped himself to a dead guard’s uniform, radio and weapon (as well as the knife sticking out of his chest), and used it to pose as a law-enforcement official helping manage the chaos as people flocked to Paradise in their cars. (Side note: Apparently, there was a list of approved people who’d be able to get in.)
Traffic is at a standstill on the way to an entry point, and Trent stops by a couple’s car and asks for their IDs. The man nervously sputters that he’s a librarian and he’s on the list. Trent says not to worry, he’ll help them with a shortcut to the arrival coordinates. I should note here that the driver is bald and has a beard… you get where this is going. The driver is the real Trent, but it won’t matter all that much in a moment, because the cop-impersonator leads the couple into the desert and shoots them, killing them both.
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During a quick stop in a gas station bathroom, Not Actually Trent But Let’s Just Keep Calling Him Trent Anyway pulls a Sydney Bristow, shaving his head and changing into the dead man’s clothes. He finds an upset woman smoking and eating junk food in her car and lets her know that “you might be the only person in the world who’s in the right place at the right time” — she becomes Trent’s wife, Maggie, the woman we know from the diner. The pair got through the Arrival Day screening by Trent’s faking a loud panic attack at the entry point when questioned about his broken wristband; the harried worker manning the screening equipment eventually just let them both through.
Trent’s plan, he tells Xavier, was to “finish the job” and kill Cal, but he got comfortable. “I started thinking: I deserved to survive, to live, even. For Adam, and for everybody who built this place who didn’t get invited,” he says. “I was willing to live out my days down here quietly, sadly, in this library that I loved… until.” We flashback to the day Cal showed up to make the mixtape, which proved a trigger for Trent. “It all came back to me,” he recalls, “and I knew I had to finish what I started.”
Then we watch what actually happened the night Cal died. The president was on his balcony, smoking a cigarette and reading the tablet, when Trent, wearing the excavation uniform, snuck up and hit him with a heavy drill bit from the library’s display case; Cal dropped the tablet in the hedges below. Trent dragged Cal inside and seemed like he was going into shock; he sat down, dazed, and didn’t realize that POTUS was still alive. Cal managed to grab his cigarettes and make an X on them, placing them on the bedside table, before he marshaled whatever reserves were left to stand and launch himself at the librarian. But Trent hit him again, and that was it: He fell, face-down, and landed in the position that Xavier found him.
His story done, Trent says he’s going to leave Xavier tied up but NOT kill him “so you can tell everyone who did this, and why.” Call Xavier, Ishmael, I guess! He thanks the Secret Service agent for finding Cal’s notes, because he’s planning to head above ground, but he didn’t know how to get outside until Xavier found the info.
HOW TRENT WENT | After Trent leaves, Robinson shows up and cuts Xavier loose. She wants to call Trent in to their coworkers, but Xavier says he knows where the guy is headed. They eventually corner Trent on the catwalks that crisscross behind the dome that makes up Paradise’s sky; when he realizes he’s caught, he prepares to jump to his death. “They had a chance to start over down here, build a better world. Instead, they chose more of the same,” he says, crying. “Bloated houses for the privileged few, guns. Made this place a prison. American f–king dream. There are bodies scattered in the dirt down here. People need to know this place is nothing more than a grave site. Now, it’ll be mine, too.” When he jumps, he falls through the lighting grid and plunges to the town below.
JANE GOES ROGUE! | A subdued Xavier returns to Sinatra’s, surrenders his gun to her goons, and fills her in about everything he found out that day. “Now, where the hell is my daughter?” he demands, deadly calm. “I’m sorry, Agent Collins,” she says, tears in her eyes. “I never intended for things to go this far. God forgive me.” Xavier seems like he’s overcome with an immediate and all-encompassing grief, but what he really does is bend in half and grab a hidden gun from his heretofore unseen ankle holster; he uses it to kill the two guards that are in the room, then places the muzzle against Sinatra’s head. “WHAT THE F—K DID YOU DO?!” he yells.
Just then, there’s a gunshot, and Sinatra is hit — but not by Xavier. Jane, standing at the door, took her down. And since Xavier has no idea what’s transpired behind his back, Jane is able to play the sweet, naïve Secret Service agent: She eagerly reports that Presley is safe and being watched by other agents. Once Xavier runs to find his kid, Jane leans in close to Sinatra, who’s gasping for air and bleeding copiously.
“He was going to blow your brains out, but you’re no use to me if you’re dead,” she says. “Long recovery ahead of you. Probably should have just let me have the Wii.” OH, I LIKE THIS NEW WRINKLE IN THE PICNIC BLANKET.
‘I’M COMIN’, BABY’ | After Xavier’s tearful reunion with Presley and James (oh, and Carl and his pooch are fine, too, in case you were worried), he and Robinson talk next steps. “I would die before I ever let anything happen to those kids,” she tells him. And after Presley urges her father to bring Teri home, it’s decided.
The episode-ending montage finds Jeremy listening to his father’s mixtape — which contains the songs we’ve been hearing all season, like “We Built This City” and “Eye of the Tiger” — and gathering people at the park. The baby activist seems to be taking Cal’s advice: “If you don’t like this world I built, fix it.” Elsewhere, Jane happily plays Wii Tennis. Sinatra is in a hospital bed, husband and daughter by her side, while machines keep her breathing.
And Xavier uses the book to get to the spot where all the airplanes that brought people to Paradise are stored. Per Cal’s instructions, he opens the gates to the outside world and then climbs into an aircraft and powers it up. He’s got his father’s wings and coordinates from the Lawford book, and he says, “I’m comin’, baby,” just before the episode goes to black.
But is she still alive? And how is he even going to find her in the nuclear wasteland that is the outside world? Those are problems for Season 2 Xavier — see you there, Paradisers!
Now it’s your turn. What did you think of the finale? Grade it — and the season as a whole — via the polls below, then hit the comments with your thoughts.
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