Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 4, 2025
Perhaps inadvertently, but Hulu’s Paradise finale basically followed the Game of Thrones playbook by dropping the biggest events in the penultimate episode while using the finale to set up the next season. That said, the Paradise finale did answer one very important question: Who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden)?
Spoilers ahead.
It was the librarian.
OK, but who the hell is the librarian?
Played by Ian Merrigan, Trent the Librarian was once a project manager overseeing the construction of the city in a mountain. Twelve years before this season’s events, Trent was a decent guy who had bonded with his crew, particularly a worker named Adam. But then he discovered arsenopyrite residue at the site, a toxic chemical hazardous to the construction workers (but not the future inhabitants). When he tried to blow the whistle, he was fired and silenced. Over the years, his former coworkers kept dying.
We actually met Trent a couple of times this season. He was the guy who tried to assassinate the President in the before-times. Imprisoned in Colorado, he escaped amid the apocalypse and — knowing about the bunker — sneaked in under an assumed name, along with a woman who’s been posing as a diner waitress.
Trent, now unrecognizable with a beard and different hair, settled into Paradise as a librarian. But when President Bradford wandered in one day asking how to make a mixtape, it triggered Trent’s old rage. So, he orchestrated assassination by bludgeoning the President to death.
Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) eventually pieced it together, deciphering a series of numbers Bradford had scrawled on a cigarette. They turned out to be Dewey Decimal numbers, leading Xavier to a book about Frank Sinatra—who, in this world, is the nickname of Julianne Nicholson’s villainous character. Inside, the book contained details about escaping the bunker and clues to the potential whereabouts of Xavier’s wife.
But before Xavier could act, Trent knocked him out, tied him up, and took off with the book. Xavier and Agent Nicole Robinson (Krys Marshall) managed to track him down, but they were too late — Trent jumped through the bunker city’s dome ceiling and plunged to his death.
With the book’s intel, Xavier confronted Sinatra to learn where his daughter was being held. Sinatra, however, suggested his daughter had already been killed. In a grief-fueled rage, Xavier nearly shot her, but Agent Driscoll — who was actually holding Xavier’s daughter — arrived just in time and shot Sinatra in the chest, keeping her alive (and useful to Driscoll). As Sinatra lay bleeding, Driscoll reminded her that all of this could’ve been avoided if she had just given her the Wii she had requested earlier in the episode.
We should note here now that it is abundantly clear that Agent Driscoll is a sociopath.
So, where does that leave things? Sinatra is neutralized (for now), there’s uncertainty over who will take her place, Driscoll got her Wii, and Xavier’s children are safe. But Xavier himself? He takes the final moments of the season to follow the clues from Cal’s Sinatra book, flying off to Atlanta in search of his wife.
That’s where season two will pick up. And yes: Hulu has already renewed the series. Creator Dan Fogelman came in with a three-season plan, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t get to see it through.
