‘Paradise’: Krys Marshall Breaks Down the Finale’s Killer Reveal & Teases Season 2

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Paradise Season 1 Episode 8, “The Man Who Kept the Secrets.”]

Paradise‘s murder mystery was finally solved in the Season 1 finale, but while one major question was finally answered, several more were raised as we look ahead to Season 2.

In the episode, viewers learn that the man responsible for President Cal Bradford’s (James Marsden) death was none other than the librarian, who was actually the same man who tried assassinating him years prior. It turns out that he was in charge of a construction crew that had been working on the Paradise bunker, but when hazardous material was stirred up and conditions became dangerous, he was removed from the build as he tried warning his crew away from working on the project.

As his crew got sick and began dying from the dangerous conditions, the man became more radicalized in his approach, which led to his first assassination attempt of the president. Ultimately, after years in prison, the man found himself escaping on the day of Earth’s seeming demise. Conveniently imprisoned in Colorado, he met a woman at a gas station, and together they stole the identities of a couple who were meant to seek refuge in Paradise.

While the assassin got comfortable in his life, he was reminded of his initial mission when Cal visited the library, sparking the man into action as he broke into Cal’s home. Bludgeoning the president, the librarian sought revenge for the series of events that led to his former crew’s deaths. Ultimately, Xavier (Sterling K. Brown) and Robinson (Krys Marshall) are clued into this situation, and they manage to chase him into the rafters of Paradise’s dome.

Bonnie Nichoalds

Feeling cornered and unsure of where to turn, the man jumped to his death, but it still allowed Xavier to make good on his promise of solving the mystery, in hopes of releasing his daughter from Sinatra’s (Julianne Nicholson) clutches. Initially, Sinatra believed that Presley (Aliyah Mastin) had been killed by Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom), but moments before she is able to clarify who would be responsible, Jane walks in the door shooting Sinatra before Xavier can.

Ultimately, Presley is fine, and Jane gets away with her sneaky behavior as Sinatra is left ailing from her wounds without the ability to communicate. Knowing that Robinson is looking after his kids, Xavier decides to try and search for his wife Teri, who is presumably alive. Below, Krys Marshall opens up about the pivotal installment and teases what could be in store for Season 2.

What was your initial reaction to reading the finale script? Did you get the full story arc for Robinson or did you have to wait script by script?

Krys Marshall: We got [the scripts] the way that the audience gets episodes, bit by bit, which makes it really fun and also really tough to play. The story is told in such a strange way, where we begin in the middle. So I know that Robinson’s having an affair with the president, but I don’t know the nature of that relationship until Episode 3, when I discovered there was real love there, and then Episode 5, when I see that he’s admitted that he loves her back.

So as an actor, it’s a challenge to surrender entirely to the writers and put your faith in their hands. It’s kind of like pin the tail on the donkey where someone blindfolds you and spins you around and then each episode you’re just like blindly going towards a different version of this person. And so, in Episode 1, she’s this hard ass and a total bitch, and then by the end, she becomes the sort of hero to this Batman and Robin team solving the mystery.

Disney / Brian Roedel

Did having Sterling K. Brown, who worked with Dan Fogelman on This Is Us, make it easier to trust the process of not knowing everything about your character up front? 

Absolutely. When I joined the project, of course, I knew that Dan was a showrunner, but James had not been brought on, Julianne had not been brought on. So I came into it with very little information, but I knew what I needed to know, which was that I would be in good hands with Dan and Sterling, and I was. Dan is a brilliant showrunner and storyteller, but I think even more than that, he’s a really great guy. He has a reputation in this town for just being really easy to work with, and that reputation precedes him for a reason.

What’s next for Robinson heading into the second season? Do you know anything about her story yet?

We see that Xavier has a strong hunch that Teri is alive on the Earth’s surface, and so he’s going to go find her. So naturally, we as an audience are going to go find her. We’re going to go look for Teri, maybe we’ll find her, maybe we won’t, but I know we’re going to go look. But then also we see that Xavier has left behind the two most important people in his life, his two children. One of the mottos of Paradise is “trust no one,” and Xavier discovers very quickly that he really has no one left that he can trust. His best friend Billy is gone, the president is gone, and he’s got a handful of neighbors and trusted colleagues that he’s going to put his children in their care, and primarily, it’s Robinson. So I think where we see Robinson when we leave off Season 1 is a really good indicator of where we will pick up with her in Season 2, which is that she’s responsible for looking after these two beautiful children who mean the world to her friend.

Does the trust between Robinson and Xavier stem from their shared investment in Cal or does it come from something else?

I think that we see early on that Robinson has a real allegiance to doing what is right and what is best. And so I think where she and Xavier share that commonality is that he is also so aligned to doing the right thing. We see that in [the episode] where we get to meet Xavier’s father in flashbacks and we see that [Xavier]’s willing to essentially betray him because he knows that it’s the right thing to do to stop his dad from continuing to fly so he doesn’t hurt himself and hurt others. So I think that much more than Xavier and Robinson liking each other, they initially respect each other and that respect is very intense. And then from that grows a working relationship and the beginnings of a friendship.

Do you think we’ve seen the last of Cal and Robinson’s relationship or would you like the show to shift focus to her future in paradise?

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It would not surprise me if Robinson found love elsewhere. I think she has to move on. But selfishly, I would love to see Marsden come back in some flashbacks because we just have such a blast together and I really love working with him. But it’s hard to say. I like seeing the duality of Robinson. I like that she is this gun-slinging badass who’s not going to take s**t from anybody. And at the same time, she’s also this soft, feminine, vulnerable woman in love. So if I get the pleasure of continuing to play that major duality in her in Season 2, I would be happy as a clam.

Jane made some bold moves that Robinson and Xavier still aren’t aware of. Is she the biggest threat in the bunker or is it someone else?

I think that Sinatra has incredible power and access, so she will always be a huge threat. I think Jane and the way that Nicole Brydon Bloom plays her… it’s so saccharine and so sweet that it feels especially sinister when you see her just unzip a heart-shaped pillowcase, move a teddy bear, pull out a nine-millimeter, and walk out at the door. It’s so badass. But then I also know that Robinson is a force on her own, and she is very powerful and very dangerous. So I think that every single character in our world has the capacity to kill, has the capacity to be dangerous. So I don’t know who to watch out for.

What went into filming that confrontation with Cal’s killer?

That took a lot of running. A lot of running outside, a lot of running upstairs, a lot of running around and trying to keep up with Sterling K. Brown, who I think has 12-pack abs. I mean… I was out of breath the entire time. So, yeah, it required a lot of running, a lot of stamina. But that’s the interesting thing about doing a show that is a high budget, high-quality show is that we could afford really beautiful special effects, but it also means that on the day, there was very little practical aspect around us other than stairs and railing. Luckily, I spent years on a space show [For All Mankind] where all around you, one big green screen, so you got to use your imagination. So it was both physically taxing with all of the running and jumping and sort of mentally taxing with imagining a world of things that aren’t there.  But that final sequence was lovely and really cool to play.

Paradise, Season 1, Streaming now, Hulu

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