Why ‘Paradise’ has been such a hit, according to its lead actor: ‘We didn’t anticipate the real-world echoes it would have’

At what point does it stop being a spoiler to discuss a plot twist in the first episode of a series? Would having streamed the entire season be enough time? Paradise, which premiered on January 26 on Hulu and released the last episode of its first season a week ago, does not make things easy for those who want to talk about it. If any reader who has not watched the series reads this article, is intrigued by it, and decides to watch the first episode, they have the right to be surprised by a new perspective that is revealed toward the end. In case that happens, the following paragraphs will try to avoid the most blatant spoilers. For those who have seen all eight episodes, season two is on the way after Hulu renewed the series in February.

Sterling K. Brown, 48, has mastered the art of talking about unrevealable plots. “I had six years of experience working on This Is Us, and it is an art to talk about a show without talking about a show,” the actor laughs in a video interview after finishing the first season of Paradise. “There’s an art to talking about a series without talking about the series. With This Is Us we had to say ‘it’s this really wonderful family drama with a lot of interesting surprises and blah-blah-blah. You speak about things generally rather than specifically. But it’s a joy to talk to people who have seen the whole thing, because then you can actually get into details about it. With Paradise you had to say ‘you know, it’s Dan, and there are a lot of surprises and it’s a lot of fun.”

The Dan he’s talking about is Dan Fogelman, the screenwriter behind both the hit family drama (with a surprise twist, yes) This Is Us, which ended in 2022 after six seasons, and the harder-to-classify Paradise. We’ll do what Brown did before the premiere and say that this is a thriller set against the backdrop of the assassination of the president of the United States. Through time jumps and changes in viewpoints, the story follows the investigation of the crime (the president is played by James Marsden) with a dystopian, science-fiction touch that adds layers of mystery. Sterling K. Brown, one of the stars of This Is Us, leads the cast as Xavier Collins, the head of the White House Secret Service.

That twist that takes the story towards dystopia turned Paradise into one of the most talked-about series of the season. In fact, the twists didn’t stop there. Its plot unfolds as the pieces fit together like a puzzle in eight episodes that always end on a high note to invite the viewer to return. It has the flavor of the TV series from the early 2000s that emerged in the wake of Lost, based on a risky premise and a trail of mysteries. “Dan references Lost as his primary influence for the style of the show,” confirms Brown. “There was the idea of being able to recreate something similar to that, but with a beginning, a middle and an end,” explains the actor, who is also an executive producer of Paradise. Because Fogelman has a plan: if the first season focused on what happens in the quiet town of Paradise, the second season (already confirmed and whose filming begins soon) will show what happens outside, and the hypothetical third installment will focus on what happens when both worlds come into contact. “Where Lost was accused of sort of losing its way to a certain extent, although I think it found it back in the end. I think we have a clear beginning, middle and end that we’d like to tell,” says Brown.

That initial revelation hasn’t been the only thing that has hooked the public. The cocktail of Paradise combines murder investigations with political thriller, personal dramas, the challenges of climate change and the natural disasters that result from them. Even the nuclear threat. Which of these elements has been responsible for captivating the audience, in Brown’s opinion? “I think it has been something that we probably couldn’t even anticipate, which are the real-world reverberations and echoes of what’s happening currently in 2025 to what the show was fictionally dealing with. Dan didn’t write it as a result of our current Administration or the people behind the current Administration of the United States. But the echoes are there, right?”

One example of these unintentional mirrors into the real world: one of the most relevant characters in Paradise, nicknamed Sinatra and played by Julianne Nicholson, is a tech billionaire who has ended up being the person who really makes the decisions. In fact, she was the one who chose what the place where they live would be like and who would get to be there. The issue of the proximity of millionaires to the political class could not be more relevant. “Even as the show was about to come out, California, and Los Angeles in particular, was plagued by wildfires, and these things are a direct result of climate change. And one of the things that we talk about in the show is climate change and what level of responsibility we have to the planet to make sure that we’re able to pass something along to the people who come after us. And I think that even though the show is meant to be entertaining, you can do two things at the same time. You can give people something to watch, but you can also give people something to think about.”

The political thriller element also plays a role in this story, and the secrets that states keep from their citizens. “Everyone likes to know what is hidden behind the veil. We are informed about things but we don’t see how those decisions are actually formulated. I think people are sort of obsessed with what happens in the room where it happens, to quote Lin-Manuel Miranda from Hamilton,” Brown reflects.

The climax of the season comes in the seventh episode, which is set up like a disaster movie. The writers did their research on plausible catastrophic scenarios. “We won’t know until we actually have to encounter those circumstances and God willing, we never will. In any case, it seems to be human nature to fight for scarce resources. And if we think we’re going to be cut off from those resources, people want to take what they consider theirs, and sometimes they do it by any means necessary. Sinatra in the series says that in any scenario there will be a nuclear fallout because people will fight for what’s left.”

Although the above paragraphs contain some spoilers (which was inevitable), they do not reveal anything fundamental about the plot. Neither does the small preview that Sterling K. Brown offers us of the second season: “I’ve read the first three scripts of season two. And they’re outstanding. The show will not have a drop off. I think it’s just going to get better. you will be juxtaposing the comfort of Paradise, people who had means and time to plan something, and then you’ll see the world at large, which had no time. You get a chance to see a very different formulation of what life looks like there. And some of it is good. And some of it is very bad.”

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