SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers from “Agent Billy Pace,” the fourth episode of “Paradise,” now streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
When hearing the name Scott Weinger, it’s hard not to think of him as two characters: Steve, the on-again off-again boyfriend of DJ Tanner on “Full House” and “Fuller House,” and the voice of “Aladdin.” But since 2003, Weinger has also worked as a TV writer.
In fact, he’s worked as a writer on multiple Dan Fogelman shows, now — “Paradise” is his fourth, but his first heavy drama.
“During the run of ‘This Is Us,’ I was doing my side job as an actor. Not that he ever offered me a job on it, but I had worked with Dan on a few sitcoms before,” he says. Weigner started his writing career on Fogelman’s first show, “Like Family,” in 2003, then went on to work on his ABC sitcom, “The Neighbors,” in 2012, and the musical series, “Galivant,” in 2015.
Fogelman shared the idea for “Paradise” in fall 2022 and asked for his thoughts.
“It was like every writer’s dream in television. Basically, Dan emailed me one day and said, ‘I have a script that I wrote, and I’m really excited about it. I think it’s cool, but I’m not sure. Would you take a look and tell me what you think?’ I read it, and I was blown away,” Weinger recalls.
They then spent a few months with other writers discussing where the show could go and speaking to experts, scientists, and psychologists. “Then things happened very quickly because it’s Dan. He brought Sterling K. Brown on board and called me, said the show is going to Hulu and hopefully we’ll be starting soon.”
While they had to pause for six months during the writers’ strike, they got right back to work afterward. For the first time, Weinger was working on a sci-fi drama. “It is technically a sci-fi show, but we didn’t approach it from that perspective,” he says. “With Dan, the human side comes first. The relationships come first.”
Episode 4 is the perfect example of that, as the heartbreaking backstory of Agent Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) was revealed — starting with his abusive childhood and leading to Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) using him as an assassin. When he finally stood up to her and nearly told Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) that there is, in fact, still life outside of Paradise, she had him killed — by none other than his girlfriend, Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom).
Disney
“It’s hard to remember the exact moment when we realized what the Jane dynamic was going to be, but I really hope the series continues [to future seasons] because we have big plans for the character of Jane, and how she became that way,” says Weinger. “One thing I’ll say about Jane and Billy is that they genuinely cared for each other. Even though the relationship ends badly, I genuinely feel like Jane really cared about Billy. She’s not faking that.”
Still, Weinger says he “wouldn’t necessarily say she was in love,” since for her, “the job comes first.”
There was bit of fear around killing Billy, who had quickly become a big part of the show. Luckily, since Fogelman is known for playing with time — ie, Milo Ventimiglia’s Jack in “This Is Us” and their own James Marsden in “Paradise” — death “doesn’t necessarily disqualify you from being on the call sheet,” quips Weinger.
“I was reluctant [to write the death] because he’s so likable,” he admits of both Billy and the actor behind him. “The character was so endearing. In a lot of ways, the show is about the end of the world and how there’s no good way to spin the end of the world. It’s pretty bad for most people, but for him, the world that he grew up in was so horrible. He never really had anything normal in his entire life. Watching this character who’s suffered, struggled and caused all kinds of misery his entire life having some sort of normal life, a best friend, a niece and a nephew who called him Uncle Billy… it’s ironic, considering he murdered his own uncle early on. For him, this was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
When breaking the fourth episode, Weinger was hoping he’d get to put his name on this one; it allowed him to both write a very dramatic storyline while also writing what he knows so well: family, comedy and romance.
“It’s set around a carnival and a big holiday in this small town, and everybody’s going to be there, and they’re all excited about different aspects of it. We have a little bit of a teen romance storyline in it,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of things that I’ve written plenty of times, but put through a fun-house mirror of crazy drama and a crazy situation and really violent, sinister things happening.”
Moving forward, the dynamics will change a bit with Sinatra and Xavier.
“The world that Sinatra built was an amazing thing — she saved 25,000 people from probably certain death. In a way, it’s kind of like a Noah’s Ark thing. Bit, in an arc, there’s no land out there. You’re just in the floating in the ocean,” he says. “But if you’re being kept there against your will, because maybe you might be able to open the door, walk out and survive, then it becomes more of a prison. The arc prison duality is really a big theme of the show.”
So, is she the villain? “It’s a great question,” says Weinger. “I don’t think she thinks of herself as a bad person, but it’s an interesting study in what happens when you watch somebody cross the line for good reasons, and you watch them get darker and darker as a character.”
Writing has been Weinger’s main career for the last two decades. He hasn’t starred on TV since 2020 in “Fuller House,” a role that started as a guest pop-in role, but when he was asked to stay on, he couldn’t turn it down. And maybe one day, he’ll be back in front of the camera.
“I do miss it. I’ll go by the makeup trailer on set, or see the actors are hanging out, running lines, and sometimes I feel the bug,” he says. So, if “Paradise” continued, could he pop up as a guest star? “Maybe,” he laughs. “Maybe I’ll run it by Dan!”
