'Paradise' Full Show Recap & Ending Explained: Did Jane Kill Sinatra?

The unique Mystery Box genre—a form of fictional narrative that follows a set mythos and unravels its layered intrigues through a steady progression—reached its highest potential with Twin Peaks, became popular with Lost, and currently has become a hot favorite thanks to shows like Silo, Fallout, and From, to name a few. Created by Dan Fogelman, Hulu’s hit series Paradise is masked as a political thriller but belongs to the same Mystery Box genre, and much like the previously mentioned shows, deals with themes like the illusion of reality and control, authoritarian manipulation of narrative, and emotional complexities. What makes the series truly stand out is the way moral and ethical questions regarding the issue of human survival are presented over the course of eight episodes. Even though the ending of the first season does seem a little underwhelming in the context of what the rest of the season had to offer, the possibility of exploring a new direction in the series’ continuation is too intriguing to miss. Now that the first season of Paradise has ended, let us take a look back at all the major events.

Spoilers Ahead

As Above, So Below: President Cal Bradford’s Predicament

The series begins with Agent Xavier Collins, the lead member of United States President Cal Bradford’s personal security detail, finding himself at a loss after discovering the POTUS has been murdered in the private chamber of his stately mansion—and his tablet, which contains extremely classified intel, has been stolen. Bradford had personally selected Collins as the chief of his personal security during his second term. Collins used to share a good relationship with President Bradford—whose wisecracking, sarcastic demeanor and directness in approach had made him quite a likable political figure. However, in recent years, their relationship had deteriorated quite a bit, to such an extent that a part of Collins wished to see Bradford dead—and the reason behind it reveals the current predicament of the world Paradise is set in. 

Years ago, Agent Collins took a bullet to save President Bradford from a crazed killer during a press meet, and out of a sense of gratitude, Bradford decided to reveal and later include Collins in the Versailles Protocol—an emergency evacuation procedure for the POTUS in case of a doomsday event. In reality, the Versailles Protocol was primarily put in place to protect the top one percent of the economic hierarchy of the States, who funded the creation of the eponymous Paradise to save themselves in the worst-case scenario. Under the mountains of Colorado, a self-sustaining township inside the largest dome ever built, powered by artificial sunlight, was built to sustain twenty-five thousand selected people across the country—most of whom were chosen based on their expertise and skills to restart human civilization. It’s always the powerful dictating the fate of those who are less fortunate, and naming the protocol after Versailles, a dark symbol of aristocratic oppression and control, was in character. Bradford had promised Collins he’d reserve a place for his family—his scientist wife, Teri Rogers-Collins, and their kids, Presley and James—in this Noah’s ark. However, three years ago, following a supervolcanic explosion in Antarctica, a mega tsunami annihilated the Southern Hemisphere—and to seize whatever little land and resources might have been left, superpowers like Russia and China started launching nukes across the world. The Versailles Protocol was initiated, as President Bradford had to shoulder the unimaginable responsibility of dictating who gets a chance to live amidst this crisis, and much to Agent Collins’ dismay, Teri, who was staying in Atlanta for work purposes, was left behind. Collins and his kids found refuge in the Paradise under the mountains, and he blamed Bradford for not showing initiative in rescuing Teri when he had the chance. 

In reality, Bradford, an extremely lonely and conflicted man, had hardly any control over his own life, let alone deciding the fate of an entire nation. Son of billionaire oil baron Ken Bradford, Cal had no intention of getting into politics and instead, as a literature major, wanted to become a teacher. However, his overbearing, control-freak of a father had other plans as he forced his son to take up the role of a politician to uphold their family heritage, and despite adhering to his will, Cal received only resentment and disappointment in return. Cal’s relationship with his wife, Jessica, hit rock bottom long ago, and their son, Jeremy, swayed by his idealistic teenage angst, shared an estranged relationship with his father as well. Cal resorted to alcohol, and in later years Agent Collins was the only close friend/confidant he had.

In the political sphere, as POTUS, Cal was supposed to play a role as a stooge of the ones controlling everything—the rich and influential. His utterly miserable predicament being their puppet is seen vividly in the penultimate episode of the season, which highlights the moral dilemma Cal was going through during the end of the world, while fleeing to save his skin and leaving his countrymen to meet a harrowing end. However, for what it’s worth, Cal refused to abide by the dictates of his controllers and directly addressed the citizens of his nation to share the truth of their predicament—to provide them a chance to find comfort with their loved ones in their final moments. In another heart-breaking moment, President Bradford found it impossible to break the truth to Jeffrey, a veteran White House cleaning staff, as he was bound by the dreadful system that serves only the ones in power. However, it is revealed that, using the Blue Code, a failsafe mechanism created by one of the American generals during the Cuban missile crisis to ensure no one gets to control the fate of the world by using nukes, Cal completely shut off all electronics in the entire world before entering the bunker. This particular action made it impossible for any nation, including the United States, to use their nuclear arsenal ever again and even stopped the ones already launched, thereby providing the people of the surface world with a shot at survival. President Bradford had heart; too bad he had little to no chance to prove it. Crisis of the end of the world – when loyalties, ethics, relations ceased to exist, brought forth true colours of people, and Bradford was brave despite being forced into unthinkable situations. However, given the choices Cal was forced to make as a President, it was abundantly clear that a lot of people wanted him dead.

Agent Collins Was a Chosen One

At present, Agent Collins finds Cal’s cigarette case bearing a bloody cross mark, within which a single cigarette has a particular code written on it. Collins is skeptical of everyone who happened to be in the close proximity of President Bradford, which includes Special Agent/Chief of Security Nicole Robinson, who was having an affair with him, and Samantha ‘Sinatra’ Redmond—the richest woman in the world, one who actually controls this so-called Paradise. It should be mentioned that along with Sinatra and a bunch of billionaires who were the lawmakers of this so-called safe haven, Cal’s father, Ken Bradford, was one of the major figures who had access to and knowledge of the clandestine intel of the place. However, Collins himself is deemed a suspect, as his terse relationship with Cal was not much of a secret, and Agent Robinson decides to conduct a polygraph test upon him to learn the truth. Dr. Gabriela Torabi, a psychologist who helped Samantha to process the grief of her son’s demise, used to be a counselor to President Bradford and Agent Collins as well, and at present she helps Collins to not botch the polygraph test. As it turns out, Dr. Gabriela was the one responsible for selecting who gets to live in Paradise based on their psych profile, essentially an architect of the dome’s social well-being. She specifically selected Agent Collins after learning of his complex history with his father, Fred Collins. 

Fred, son of a Tuskegee airman, was a proud pilot and took great joy in his son’s success. As a person of color, it was indeed a great deal for him to go through so many adversities to see his family’s legacy being carried on. However, despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s at the late stage of his career, Fred’s dedication to his duty and pride made it impossible for him to acknowledge that it was time to retire from his job. Xavier took it upon himself to report his father’s condition to the airline authority for the greater good, as Fred was putting hundreds of lives in jeopardy. This resulted in an estranged relationship between father and son, which was not resolved till the day Fred drew his last breath. However, the incident established that Xavier Collins had a strong moral compass and could be relied upon, which is why Dr. Gabriela advised President Bradford to assign Collins as his personal security chief. However, even for a upright man like Collins, the end of the world posed a moral crisis, as he had to deny assistance to the ones close to him – as shown through the way he betrays Marsha, President Bradford’s aide in White House, by not helping to evacuate his chronically ill son. 

Sinatra’s Devious Machinations

Not every chosen member of the dome township was selected for the same reason, as Gabriela reveals that days before his murder, Bradford had confided in her about Billy Pace, one of the members of the president’s security detail, being a potentially dangerous individual. From moral compass to personal ideology, Billy was the exact opposite of Agent Collins. Essentially a violent psychopath, Billy spent the majority of his youth in prison before getting enlisted in a dreaded mercenary group—and his expertise in taking lives made him a sought-after individual for people like Sinatra. Months after the chosen few settled into the dome township, a specialized expedition crew was sent to the surface world by President Bradford to ascertain whether there were any survivors left or to learn whether the world was habitable any longer. However, Sinatra, who was paranoid about the possibility of bringing in survivors who would jeopardize the lives of the dome-dwellers, ensured that neither the expedition crew nor any survivor got to re-enter the dome by sending Billy Pace to eliminate all of them. In reality, the outside world was not only habitable, but as revealed through the established shortwave transmission network, there were survivors living out there who tried to communicate with people inside the dome. President Bradford had learned about Sinatra’s heinous schemes days before his assassination by using his father’s credentials on his tablet and writing down details about her actions and details about survivors outside—which he kept hidden in Peter Lawford’s “The Man Who Kept The Secrets” at the library. 

Unlike Collins, who lost it when he arrived at the dome township due to the death of his wife during the apocalyptic scenario, Billy gained a second chance at life—as his life was much better here than it was in the surface world. He became good friends with Collins, who looked after him as his brother, and introduced him to his kids as well, with whom Billy shared a great rapport. Also, Billy shared a romantic relationship with his colleague, secret service agent Jane Driscoll—and finally found the connection with people he was severely lacking. Initially, after learning of the possibility of Billy’s involvement with Cal’s murder, Collins looked up his troubling history, but upon having a conversation with him, he realized that Billy wasn’t the culprit. On the other hand, seeing Collins snooping around and investigating on his own, Sinatra tries to turn Billy against. Collins and his family. Billy refuses to do so, and threatened to expose her secrets. However, before Billy could share the truth with Collins, he gets poisoned to death by Jane, who is revealed to be working for Sinatra all along to keep Billy in control. Suspecting foul play after Billy’s demise, Xavier Collins redirected his attention towards Sinatra—who’d already lied to the public through Vice President Henry that President Bradford died of natural causes. Agent Robinson, who suspected her to be responsible for Cal’s murder as well, joined hands with Collins.

Samantha Redmond, aka Sinatra, who became the richest woman in the world after selling her cloud storage startup, had found happiness by settling down. However, the death of her son shattered her resolve, and the paranoid, anxious mother was the first to pay attention to Dr. Louge’s doomsday theories—which prompted her to build the dome township. Her genuine concerns and fear to protect her family gradually drove Sinatra so far that she turned into a vile, Machiavellian figure who could stoop to any low to ensure the protection of her close ones. The creation of the dome township to protect the ones deemed useful, and choosing who are worthy enough to be given a spot is already a highly contentious topic, which sheds light on Sinatra’s effort of playing god. On the day of Cal’s murder, he had confronted Sinatra about the truth, which makes her a prime suspect in his death. Agent Collins and Robinson staged a coup by stealing the hidden arsenal of weapons to expose Sinatra. Carl, Collins’ neighbor, whom he had assisted on several occasions, used his access as a technician to warn the people of the dome by displaying a message on the dome sky, and a mass panic ensued when a desperate Sinatra ordered a system reboot in the dome to stop the insurgents in their tracks. 

The Hidden Truth Finally Revealed

Meanwhile, Agent Collins’ daughter, Presley, had gotten her hands on Bradford’s tab quite randomly on the night the President was assassinated, and she decided to keep it in hopes of learning about her mother, Teri’s final fate. Presley formed a bond of friendship with Cal’s son Jeremy through their mutual sense of estrangement from their fathers. In one of the emotionally heavy moments of the series, Jeremy and his dementia-afflicted grandfather, Ken Bradford, make peace with their memories of Cal by acknowledging his role in their life—the theme of family legacy is beautifully addressed in this scene. Anyway, upon Presley’s request, Jeremy approached Ken to access the restricted intel on the tab, which allowed him to learn about the truth behind Sinatra’s machinations.

On the other hand, as Sinatra and Collins finally came face to face, Sinatra gained the upper hand by revealing that his wife, Teri, had survived after all—as by accessing the Blue Code, Cal had prevented the destruction of Atlanta. Sinatra had already assigned Jane to take care of Presley to have leverage on Collins, and now she threatened him with the lives of both his wife and daughter unless he stopped his pursuit of the truth. At the same time, she shared that even though she was responsible for Billy’s death, she had nothing to do with Cal’s predicament. 

Forced into a corner, Collins decides to look at things anew to find the culprit, and as he is able to learn the truth by finding out the hidden details Cal left for him, librarian Eli Davis reveals himself to be the killer—and a whole lot of details regarding his vendetta against Cal Bradford come to light in the final episode of the series. In reality, Lee, the project manager of the dome township excavation, shared a close relationship with one of the West African workers, Abdur Rehman. Lee had complained to the chief architect of the project about mineral poisoning, which led to fatal working conditions for the workers, and as a result, he got himself thrown off the project. Lee was inquisitive and sharp enough to figure out that they were creating a doomsday vault for the privileged, sacrificing the lives of downtrodden people like Abdur and his colleagues in the process. However, labeled as a conspiracy nut, Lee was unable to convince the world of the truth he’d known all along and tried to assassinate the president, whose connection to all this was pretty apparent to him by then. After being captured, coincidentally enough, Lee was held captive in a Colorado prison and was able to break free during the tumultuous situation on the D-Day. Killing the real librarian, Eli Davis, and his wife, who were supposed to be the chosen ones with the privilege of living inside the dome, Lee sneaked into the township with another luckless individual like him, Maggie, who was on the verge of giving up on life when she got a second chance. 

Lee was content with life in the township and almost moved on from his true intention of exposing the truth when President Bradford returned into his life. Lee finally lost it all and murdered him, and through DNA matching, it was revealed that Cal’s murderer was some outsider who was not a part of the chosen ones. At present, Collins was rescued by Robinson, and the duo tried to capture Lee, who wanted to expose the truth using the written details left by President Cal. However, a desperate Lee decided to take his own life rather than be a prisoner for the ones in power. For him, it is a paradise for sinners who abandoned people and played god by deciding who deserves to live. 

Collins approaches Sinatra with the identity of the murderer and the secretive intel, only to learn Sinatra had Presley killed. An enraged Collins holds Sinatra at gunpoint until Agent Jane arrives and shoots Sinatra, revealing Presley is alive and safe. The truth is, the psychotic Agent Jane turned against Sinatra after she mocked her mental constitution, and Jane’s role in all this remains unknown to Collins after Sinatra’s incapacitation. Sinatra remains alive, but for now she is recuperating from her injuries, while Agent Jane enjoys her freedom and asserts her dominance. Elsewhere, Jeremy gets a hold of the mixtape his father had left for him, and finding comfort by his father’s final words to him – gets inspired to share the truth with the dome-denizens to guide the people in a better direction.

Collins appears hesitant to reveal the truth to people when Agent Robinson motivates him not to let Lee’s sacrifice go in vain. In the final moments of the first season, a determined Collins decides to venture out to the surface world in search of his wife Teri, as he takes off with a plane—upholding the legacy of airmen left by his father and grandfather.

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