Paradise: Who Killed President Cal Bradford In The Hulu Series?

The following contains heavy spoilers for the "Paradise" season 1 finale.

If you haven't watched "Paradise," the best sci-fi thriller show of the year, you really are missing out. "Paradise" might also be either the best or worst timed TV series of 2025, what with it being a topical look at a fictional world ruled by tech oligarchs, impending natural disasters, and extremely unqualified nepo babies who've been elected to office only to end up ruining things for the rest of us. Coming from Dan Fogelman, the creator of "This is Us," the result is a show that offers great character drama, a poignant story, and plenty of intrigue and plot twists.

If you are somehow still reading this article without having seen the show, know that there will be full spoilers ahead. With that said, "Paradise" follows Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) as he investigates the murder of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden). The show's first episode ends with one of the best plot twists on television in years, and it just builds from there. As we learn more about the president and the people he surrounded himself with, we get attempted coups inspired by "Die Hard," a disaster movie that Roland Emmerich would be jealous of, jokes about how great the Nintendo Wii was, and much more.

Now, with its season 1 finale, "Paradise" just answered its biggest lingering question: Who, exactly, killed the president? As with everything "Paradise," the answer is, well, worthy of a Dan Fogelman show — quite sad and emotional. Let's get down to it.

The culprit was Trent (Ian Merrigan) with a rotary drill bit in President Bradford's bedroom. Trent was the local librarian in the post-apocalyptic bunker, and he found the drill bit in a display at the library that he used to commit the murder. But to understand why he did it, we have to go back to the before times.

"Paradise" kicks off its season 1 finale with flashbacks to the excavation of the mountain where the doomsday bunker eventually gets built. We see that Trent, a project manager on the construction crew, discovered that if his crew kept excavating the mountain, then they would release toxic elements that would kill them. Of course, the wheels of capitalism only stop to make sure they've crushed whoever is beneath them, so Trent got fired and his crew was forced to work until they got sick and died. Much like the "Fallout" TV show and its portrayal of Vault-Tec, "Paradise" illustrates the price of keeping the elite and the wealthy alive after the apocalypse, and the lives thrown away without a care or an explanation.

Over the years that followed, Trent became obsessed with seeking revenge against the people that killed his friends. He was also the one who tried to assassinate Bradford back in the first episode as part of an attempt to expose the truth about what happened in the Colorado mountain. After he landed himself in a Colorado prison right next to the bunker, he took advantage of the chaos the day the world ended to escape, kill someone en route to the bunker, and steal his identity. This is why the DNA found on Bradford didn't belong to anyone already in the bunker.

Turns out, Trent had almost given up on his vengeful quest, at least until a visit from Bradford to the library woke him up to the truth of the bunker. "They had a chance to start over down here, to build a better world," Trent laments to Xavier before jumping to his death after being discovered. "Instead, they chose more of the same. Bloated houses for the privileged few, guns. Made this place a prison. It's the American f***in' dream."

"Paradise" has already been renewed for season 2, which is great news because there are still many lingering questions. Though the president's killer has been found, there's still the matter of Bradford's son Jeremy (Charlie Evans) preaching to the people of the bunker about the truth of the outside world, as well as the lies told by Samantha "Sinatra" Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) and her fellow oligarchs. Speaking of which, Sinatra also got shot — not by Xavier out of revenge, but by Secret Service agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom), seemingly because Sinatra would not let her keep Bradford's Wii console.

Why is Jane keeping Sinatra alive, and what happens to the bunker now that people know it is safe outside, and there are other survivors? Season 2 needs to address this. As for Xavier, he finally figured out the meaning behind the last message President Bradford left him — a notebook that (among other things) has the coordinates to a community of survivors on the surface. Season 1 even ends with Xavier piloting a plane and leaving the mountain bunker, hoping to find his wife.

"Paradise" is great appointment TV, so anticipation is high for whenever season 2 drops on Hulu. And if you still haven't watched it, well, now's the time to fix that!