SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers from the series premiere of Hulu’s “Paradise,” which is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
Fool us once, shame on Dan Fogelman. Fool us twice, shame on us.
Following 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 was not about separate people in different circumstances all living in modern day, but a time-jumping show about one family over the span of decades. Now the “This Is Us” creator has debuted his new series, Hulu’s “Paradise,” and caught everyone off guard once again with an even bigger surprise: a show that’s at first blush a political conspiracy drama is actually a thriller 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, is like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m feeling the story. This is really cool. I’m loving it,’” “Paradise” star Sterling K. Brown says about the start of Fogelman’s “This Is Us,” on which he starred for six seasons as Randall Pearson. “You’re loving it already. And then you get to my man pulling out a cigarette at the hospital,” Brown says, which was the audience’s big clue that one timeline is taking place in the ’80s.
Now to “Paradise,” which follows Brown’s Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent charged with protecting former president Cal Bradford (James Marsden) who has been killed at the top of the premiere and, because of his tumultuous relationship with Xavier before his death, leaves Xavier behind as the top suspect in Cal’s murder. As the episode ends with Xavier running, the audience’s attention is taking away from the mystery at hand when we notice the ducks in the town’s pond are fake, the residents are paying for everything with the same exact wristbands, and the entire community is enclosed in a giant dome inside a cave.
James Marsden as President Cal Bradford in “Paradise”
Courtesy of Disney/Brian Roedel
“In the original version of the script, there were these sprinklers, like you see Xavier running through this whole thing at the beginning,” Brown says, during an interview for a Variety cover story. “There’s sprinklers on, etc., and then you fast-forward to the end, and come in close, and the sprinklers are releasing dye, because you have to color the grass. The ducks are a part that maintained from beginning to end. And then you realize, like, ‘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’re not expecting it, right?
“Next time I read something, now. I know I’m just gonna be waiting for the twist. But it was great, and it only just made me lean in.”
If all of that weren’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 scheduled debut of its first three episodes on Hulu on Jan. 28.
Here, “Paradise” creator Fogelman talks with Variety about that big twist, and where things are headed throughout the rest of the eight-episode first season.
“This Is Us” was filled with questions, some of which didn’t get answered until the very end of the show. How long will we be 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 having come off six years of “This Is Us” — is any question about a mystery or something that provokes a question gets answered in the course of the first season of the television show. So in terms of Xavier’s feelings towards Cal at the outset of this pilot, there’s two mysteries in the show: There’s the mystery of exactly what happened to Cal, who killed him, and why? A murder mystery, right? But then there’s the deeper questions in the show about, what is the conspiracy? What’s gone on in the world? Does it have anything to do with what the murder? And both of those get answered.
In terms of Sterling’s reaction to Cal’s body, and to Cal in general in the pilot, it all has to do with that larger mystery. I’ve seen everything from people coming off of the pilot, saying, “He’s mad at Cal because Cal killed his wife!’ and that kind of stuff. And you’re supposed to have different theories and wonder, I don’t know that people will quite get it, but it’s definitely going to be answered in the course of the season.
By the end of Episode 7, you will have answers to all the questions about the big picture mystery of the world. I don’t think there’s any more looming questions after that. But you will have a lot of questions about the murder, about Xavier’s wife — and those answers all come in the eighth episode.
Sterling K. Brown as Xavier Collins in “Paradise”
Courtesy of Disney/Brian Roedel
There are a lot of 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, I screen ad nauseam for people, and while I do 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 they’re just television watchers, is: Where are you confused, and are you following the twist? It starts with a schematic and renderings and drawing, and I’m screening that for people, and going, “Are you following it?” And they’re all going, “Oh my God, what’s happened?” That’s the confusion I want. It’s, do you understand the story I’m intending to tell?
So then you take it to the next level, you start saying, “What does that look like? And that look like?” And then I’m even pulling back one out of every 10 people right now is having one 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 final private conversation in a flashback, in particular the line, “I’ll forgive you when I can sleep again, and I’ll sleep again when you’re dead.” Why go so hard with his potential guilt right off the bat?
That was a big controversial line. I shot different alts of it in case it was too much. And we just all really liked it. Sterling, when we shot that line, he said, “Oh, that one 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’ll never forgive myself either.” So it was softer, gentler.
You’ve said you have a three-season plan for “Paradise.” The show hasn’t yet been 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 get hooked on then go off the air for two and a half years. And so my goal is to have this thing back on television at least within a year.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
