There are spoilers in this article, so beware!
I love Paradise. The Dan Fogelman (This Is Us) creation has more twists and turns than a mountain road and for the most part, they work. Right up until the end, that is. The show’s premiere sets things up to be a murder mystery after President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) is found dead by the head of his security detail, Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown). Unfortunately, the payoff in the final episode, which you can watch with a Hulu subscription, left me disappointed and frustrated.
Making A Murder Mystery
Great mysteries leave breadcrumbs for the audience to follow. Paradise dropped red herrings and hints to the potential murderer. There are the two Secret Service agents who turn off the cameras to play video games (or so they say), and a sociopathic villain and leader of the hidden, underground town. Then there's the head of the Secret Service who was secretly having an affair with the president. Even Xavier himself is a potential killer.
All of it setting up a showdown between the villain, Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) and Xavier. In the end, we get the showdown, but the murderer turns out to be a side character no one paid attention to who has nothing to do with the bigger picture.
It would take until the final episode until we started getting any clues at all as to who the real murderer was, instead of endless fake outs and deceptions. It turns out, it was someone no one expected, because literally no roads led to him until about 45 minutes before the reveal.
It Was The Librarian? What?
Finally, in the last episode, we learn more about the man who attempted to assassinate President Bradford before the disaster occurred, a call back to a flashback in the premiere. Trent (Ian Merrigan), the town librarian, walked out of prison in the chaos of the impending disaster, and faked his way into the bunker after murdering two people stuck in traffic to get in.
It also turns out, we learn in a flashback, that he was a construction foreman who helped build the bunker and he was upset that the powers that be were exposing his workers to dangerous arsenopyrite, and so he took action by attempting to kill the president and landed in prison.
We then learn that it was Trent who killed Bradford, finally getting his revenge for the deaths of his crew. That’s honestly all well and good. Who the murderer is isn’t what frustrated me, it was that nothing at all pointed to Trent throughout the show. That plotline was sidelined and the final reveal felt like a twist for twists' sake. One last “OMG” moment that, for me, fell completely flat.
It Doesn’t Ruin The Future Of The Show
Paradise is clearly much bigger than the murder mystery. The intrigue that the finale sets up for Season 2, which will also be available with a Disney+/Hulu bundle. Xavier is off to find his wife, the villain Sinatra is laid up in the hospital, and Agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom) is a potential new villain. It leaves a ton to be explored and I’m very excited by that. It’s just too bad the mystery wasn’t more fun to watch play out.
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