'Paradise' Finale Recap and Ending Explained: All Your Questions Answered

Paradise is one of those Hulu shows that keeps you guessing to the very end. The riveting first season of Dan Fogelberg's political thriller answered many lingering questions, including the central mystery that has carried the show since the pilot episode: Who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden)?

Like a complicated onion, the show offered a new intriguing layer each week, revealing a bigger conspiracy surrounding this underground city that was buried (literally) underneath the surface. 

Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) worked tirelessly to crack the case, but as with any good mystery, there were McGuffins and red herrings aplenty. Yet, as the final moments played out and the end credits rolled, audiences got what they wanted: answers to the show's most pressing questions and a hint at where things would go in the second season.

Major spoilers are ahead for the entire first season of Hulu's original series Paradise. If you're not caught up, tread lightly. 

Read more: Hulu Review: Strong Library of Network TV and Exciting Originals at a Competitive Price

Who killed President Bradford?

It was Trent the librarian. Who, you may be asking? Let me back up a bit, here.

As we saw in the moments leading up to the finale episode, The Man Who Kept the Secrets, Bradford's behavior had become erratic in his final days. He had learned that Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) was making sinister power moves behind his back that resulted in the deaths of innocent people and a bombshell cover-up regarding the discovery that there are survivors out in the world beyond the parameters of Paradise. 

Episode 7 clearly explains the extinction-level event that decimated the global population. It came in the form of a God-sized tsunami, kicked off by the explosion of an underground volcano, and it seemed that no one was safe. This is why Sinatra built this secret city inside a Colorado mountain.

The opening act of the finale dialed the calendar back 12 years to Paradise's building period and followed a group of men working to blow up the internal components of the mountain to make room for the dome city to be built. Our central character in this backstory is that of the crew's project manager, who forged a loving bond with a West African worker named Adam. When the manager discovered toxic material in the construction site, he was fired -- and warned about a pending catastrophe -- which led him obsessively down a conspiracy theory-fueled path.

So, why did he do it?

His mission was to inform the general public about what was being done in that mysterious mountain, but no one would listen. So, he decided to make a scene and kill President Bradford. But his first attempt, which transpired at an outdoor press conference, was foiled by Xavier; he took a bullet to the chest in the process, and the heartbroken attacker went to prison.

All hell broke loose once the tsunami struck, leading to a prison break. After disguising himself as an officer, he murdered a couple who had approval to get into Paradise and then took on the man's identity: Trent, the librarian. 

He blamed the president for everything, but specifically for the death of his crew. Buried beneath Paradise is a graveyard that no one will ever know about. However, once inside the town, he grew complacent and comfortable.

When President Bradford decided to visit the library to begin making mix-tapes, he awakened the rage in Trent, which led to Cal's murder. Heck, if he never went to make those mixtapes, he'd probably still be alive.

Cal's mix-tapes and government secrets

Cal Bradford loved '90s rock music, much to the chagrin of his son and those close to him. In his final weeks, he was consistently drunk, blasting his favorite tunes and being weirder than usual. 

While it was clear that President Bradford was a glorified puppet who loved his liquor, this amped-up behavior was partially for show. Truthfully, he discovered some government secrets -- kept even from him -- that indicated the outside world wasn't at all the previously conceived unlivable hellscape. He began leaving breadcrumbs in case something ended up happening to him. And it did, but not at the hands of who we thought.

Sinatra was the shot-caller behind a bunch of violent actions -- she even had Agent Billy Pace murder survivors with the sole intention of keeping Paradise's citizens safe (before having his innocent-seeming girlfriend Jane kill him). This was one power move after another to maintain control of the people. 

Cal hid all the government secrets he learned in Peter Lawford's memoir The Man Who Kept the Secrets in the town library. Thanks to the Dewey Decimal System, the number he wrote in the cigarette Xavier found at the murder site was the book's location.

Xavier's wife isn't dead, after all

Whether it was the natural disaster or the nuclear war that it sparked, Xavier had to wrestle with the heartbreaking truth that he would never see his wife again. 

Throughout the show, Xavier's dedication to Terri's memory was front and center. Even as a romance blossomed between him and Dr. Tarabi (Sarah Shahi), he remained loyal to his wife -- or at least, to the idea of her. After leading the operation to take down Sinatra and expose the government's lies to the citizens (and after cornering the woman and aiming a gun at her head), he was delivered the bombshell news that his wife may still be alive and among a group of survivors in the outside world.

That, and she had his daughter Presley held captive by Jane, her loyal unhinged murderer. 

In the end, after discovering the librarian did it and recovering the Book of Secrets, he confronted Sinatra. Jane led her to believe she killed the girl, but Presley was alive and unharmed. Sinatra, on the other hand, got a bullet to the sternum because, as Jane whispered to her, she was no use to her dead.

The outside world awaits

The president's lead agent decided to venture out into the unknown with the prospect that Xavier's wife, among others, were alive outside the mountain. Early in the series, he revealed that he wasn't a successful pilot like his father. But that didn't stop him from bidding his children farewell and flying out of town.

Yes, he's heading to Atlanta to find his wife. But from the sound of things, Xavier Collins is going out into the ravaged world to take stock of things. Are conditions livable? Is there a government entity topside? How many people survived the catastrophe? He will be the eyes and ears for those back in Paradise and, potentially, will guide the way back to a normal life (within reason, I suppose) for humanity. 

Needless to say, Season 2 of Paradise has its work cut out for it.