(Warning: Spoilers ahead)
So that is how the world ends—or at least the version in Hulu’s Paradise. It was a supervolcano in Antarctica, causing a 300-foot-high tsunami sweeping across the globe and devastating earthquakes that did it.
While the person who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) remains unknown—though there is also a twisty development in this department—the cataclysmic event that sent the rich and powerful to live inside a Colorado mountain has been revealed. He might be dead in the present, but Marsden’s president is making waves (excuse the pun) in the penultimate episode of Season 1.
Finding out what happened on “The Day” doesn’t answer every question creator Dan Fogelman has thrown at us, but it is incredibly revealing. This pulpy thriller knows when to drop a bombshell, dial up the drama, and give its impressive cast emotional dialogue to chew on. Essentially, this penultimate outing is another twist-turducken.
In the present, Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) has staged a coup against powerful billionaire Samantha Redmond, aka Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), and taken control of Paradise. However, Samantha claims that Xavier’s wife is alive in the outside world and wants to use this information as a bargaining chip—or one bargaining chip as she has another doozy up her sleeve. Watching Nicholson in full villain mode is endlessly enjoyable, particularly when Samantha quips that she sounds “like a Bond villain.”
For Xavier to buy that Teri (Enuka Okuma) survived the manmade atomic winter that followed the natural disaster, Samantha needs to rewind to the day civilization came crashing down. While the models mapping the aftermath of the supereruption were off, the prediction that nuclear war would follow as nations embrace mutually assured destruction and attempted land grabs is spot on.
However, it turns out the nuclear football has a secret option B that Cal selected, instead of raining nukes down on the already damaged Earth that “would fry every electronic circle on Earth.” Yep, there is an ultimate EMP failsafe that only the president knows about.
As This is Us proved, Fogelman loves to bounce around the historical timeline and introduce something that appears unrelated but will later prove crucial. “The Day” opens with a flashback to October 28th, 1962. History buffs will know this is the date before the Cuban Missile Crisis officially ended, and a US colonel tells his wife how the actions of one Soviet submarine officer prevented nuclear war. He thinks it is inevitable that something of this magnitude will happen again: “What if the wrong persons’ at the controls next time?” Well, let’s not linger too much on that terrifying thought.
Luckily, Cal has a moral center, taking the option devised by the colonel in this flashback to fry everyone’s nukes mid-air. Before his death, Cal’s power had been neutered inside the mountain, stemming from this humane decision.
In the days leading up to Cal’s death, the president discovered that Samantha ordered the murder of the scientists sent to explore the outside world because they found a survivor. He should have the highest clearance as commander-in-chief, but Samantha ruthlessly runs this show after Cal ignores her advice about the EMP. Of course, Samantha thought he should choose the red codes to launch the entire US nuclear arsenal.
Marsden’s perfect cheekbones and all-American smile are undoubtedly part of his charm, yet his Prince Charming attractive qualities also make him seem like just a pretty face. Paradise uses this to its advantage, letting him make several difficult choices with varying degrees of success.
Watching a show with this level of chaos as an environmental apocalypse followed by warfare takes hold isn’t quite the low-stakes escapism I thought I was craving. Nevertheless, watching Marsden take charge as idealistic Cal is incredibly entertaining—even knowing the bloody fate that awaits the president. Along with Netflix’s Zero Day, there is something in the water with nail-biting political thrillers that, if you concentrate on the goofy rather than self-serious elements, are a fun ride (Paradise is better, but the cast is the biggest asset for both shows).
Cal thinks everyone deserves the right to be with their families when it all ends because anywhere that isn’t 300 feet above sea level is screwed (to use a scientific term). However, speaking to the nation live and revealing the grave truth causes widespread panic and a “f---ing riot” (accurately predicted by Xavier). Within the White House alone, several staffers are shot, and Cal’s plea for decency and love does not play out. Again, he has a pretty face and a good but sometimes dumb heart.
Getting to the EMP twist is all part of Xavier’s loathing Cal origin story. For starters, when Samantha tells Xavier that Cal “did something that day” that he doesn’t know about,” Xavier calls BS. Despite Xavier thinking he was with Cal the entire day, he wasn’t with him on the plane.
The root of Xavier’s hatred obviously centers on Teri not making it to Paradise. In flashbacks, Cal hints that Teri should not travel to Atlanta, but Xavier thinks the prez should’ve done more to warn him. It doesn’t help that every model the scientist ran gave them days to respond to the eruption (why they didn’t do a model of the worst worst-case scenario of minutes seems like an oversight, but I digress), so Cal thought there would be time. Unfortunately, Teri’s flight in Atlanta is grounded, and she misses the only last-ditch option. We know she didn’t make it to Colorado, so there are no surprises here.
On the plane, Cal gives Xavier a satellite phone to call Teri, and Brown gets to flex his impressive crying skills. On a monitor, Xavier sees the nukes heading toward the United States, with Atlanta being a predicted target. He doesn’t know that Cal has entered the blue codes, which sets off the linked array of global EMPs—conveniently, not frying electricity within the mountain.
When the connection dies, Xavier concludes that the unsurvivable direct hit caused the dropped call. Instead, Cal’s actions to “shut off the world” stopped the detonation and fried the phone. Okay, Cal has set the planet back 500 years, but he has given people a chance—including Teri.
Samantha concludes her story by playing a recent recording of Teri, who is still alive and looking for her family. Great! So, Cal did save her after all.
Unfortunately, Samantha drives a hard bargain and uses Xavier’s teenage daughter, Presley (Aliyah Mastin), as collateral to ensure an end to the Paradise rebellion led by Xavier. Not only does Samantha want Paradise to return to the way it was, but she also wants Xavier to solve Cal’s murder. Why? Because the DNA found on his body doesn’t match any official Paradise resident. Yep, the killer is from the outside!
It isn’t a super-volcano or an EMP, but this revelation causes one hell of a tremor.
