Before Hulu’s Paradise returns for a second season, it is expected to answer some — but not all — of the burning questions in the upcoming finale.
During an exclusive interview with Us Weekly, stars Julianne Nicholson and Sarah Shahi weighed in on how the show wraps up its first season as viewers wait to find out who killed James Marsden‘s character Cal.
“Let’s just say many of the itches are scratched by the end of episode 8,” Nicholson, 53, teased about the season finale on March 4, “But it definitely dangles.”
Shahii, 45, meanwhile, joked that fans should expect to “get new rashes,” adding, “I couldn’t resist. It was a good analogy.”
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Hulu’s political thriller Paradise, which premiered in January, has taken the internet by storm as viewers theorize each week about the various plot twists. Creator Dan Fogelman‘s new show initially appeared to be set in a serene and wealthy community forced to face the realities of a shocking murder. In typical Fogelman fashion, however, there was a twist at the end of the premiere, when Paradise was revealed to be an underground bunker housing the world’s most prominent individuals after an apocalyptic event destroyed the rest of humanity.
“The biggest lengths [we had to go through to keep the twist secret] are happening now when we’re actually talking to people about it,” Nicholson told Us about how they have managed to keep the true Paradise story a surprise. “When we were on set, everybody knows what’s up, so we don’t have to be that secretive.”
She continued: “But now the trick is how do you grab people’s attention and assure them that this is something different without giving away any of the details? But we’re very excited for people to get on the ride with us.”
While one of the larger reveals was that there were survivors on the outside, the bigger mystery is who was responsible for killing Marsden’s character minutes into the premiere.
“Whenever the scripts would come out, they weren’t secretive. I’ve been on projects in which they would not release the script until you were ready to shoot those pages,” Shahi told Us. “But then this one, they were not selfish with their scripts. The minute one was ready to come out, they would send it over to us.”
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Shahi recalled being caught off guard when reading the script for the season 1 finale, adding, “I don’t think anyone saw this coming. I am still surprised. I’m still surprised and I know what happened.”
As for Nicholson, she wanted to know the killer’s identity as soon as possible. “I’m always happy for me — the actor — to have as much information as the character does because it is just nicer to not have to fake it sometimes,” she noted. “We knew fairly soon after filming.”
Nicholson praised Marsden, 51, for finding a way to make the audience care about his deceased character, saying, “Your heart breaks for him being this figurehead of a president who was never able to live up to his father’s definition of who he thought he could be. That just goes to show how great James is in terms of balancing all of those things at once. That you feel that way for him.”
New episodes of Paradise are released on Hulu every Tuesday.
With reporting by Johnni Macke
