In a chaotic world, people can only dream of an island that feels like an oasis, but not for the characters in the new Hulu series Paradise.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, Paradise follows the life of Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and his path to becoming the president’s right-hand man before a murder turns their world upside down.

What does ‘Paradise’ mean for main characters Agent Collins and President Cal Bradford?

“I don’t think it’s a destination. I don’t think it’s a place,” James Marsden told Blavity’s Shadow and Act of what paradise means to his character, President Cal Bradford. “I don’t think it’s something you can own for him. I think he’s a guy who, if he could jump in a time machine and go back in time and change some things, he would. So maybe peace with himself is his paradise. I think he struggles a lot with the relationships in his life, and I feel like he wishes a lot of things were different. Paradise for him would be some clarity and being able to wake up in the morning and sort of be proud of who he is as a human being.”

“In the context of the show, literally, paradise means survival for Xavier, like an opportunity to live life first and foremost, right? But in terms of an idealized situation, his family together wherever is his paradise, right?” Sterling K. Brown added. “I think the interesting thing, which we find him at the beginning as a single father with his two children safe and sound, but absent of his partner in life, is a level of devastation that he’s still in the midst of figuring out how to move forward and through.”

Who killed President Bradford?

The basis of the Hulu series is to uncover the mystery of the heinous crime that has taken place, leaving the president of their underground oasis dead. 

Agent Collins finds himself at the center of the investigation after he doesn’t follow protocol when he first discovers that Bradford has been murdered. Through time jumps, it isn’t long before viewers find out what led to the demise of the relationship between the two.

“I think he carries a lot of regrets, and I think when he meets Xavier for the first time, I feel like … surprisingly, they become close and friends, and they’re so different when you first meet each other, but then they become important to one another,” Marsden said. “And I think maybe, I don’t know, maybe Xavier is more important to Cal than Cal is to Xavier. That could be argued, I guess. But I think you see the regret start to surface for Cal through the show. I also feel like he may have sensed in his gut that his time was, his clock was ticking, and perhaps — not perhaps — did make a conscious decision to go against power or persuasion or force, to go against the grain and do what is right, what he feels is right for the people that he cares about, for the people that deserve it. Even the people he doesn’t know, which, to me, just speaks to his character.”

Marden added, “As troubled as he is, I do think he’s a good human being at his core, and you start to see him try to, you know, get back what was lost and sort of right his wrongs in his final days.”

Will Agent Collins ever recover from the loss of his wife?

After the mass extinction event, each character in Paradise lost something to reach the underground bunker in the post-apocalyptic world.

For Collins, the loss was inevitable, and he found himself immersed in a world where his wife and children’s mother no longer existed…or that’s at least that’s what we think in the first half of the season. With the penultimate episode airing this week, we still really don’t know the truth.

“His wife is like his right arm, his heart, his chest, his whole body,  really, and he just feels empty without her,” Brown said. “And will he find a way? I think once he realizes that he stil has these two beautiful children to live for, right? There’s something wonderful about that. Then there’s also something else that I won’t tell you about because you probably haven’t seen it yet, and when you do, you’ll be like, ‘Oh my God.'”

Marsden interjected, “This is basically the character he becomes in the eighth episode… gave you a little Easter egg there,” as Brown laughed.

Paradise episodes air weekly on Hulu. The finale drops next week.