Paradise Season Finale Writer Explains Why Sinatra Is Unraveling, Her Tragic Past & More (Exclusive)

The Direct's Russ Milheim spoke with Paradise writer Nadra Widatalla where she helped explain that big Season 1 finale and why Sinatra was having such a hard time with everything.

Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Paradise Season 1, Episode 8.

Paradise's finale is an intense one that finally answers the big mystery of who killed Cal. It turns out it was a Trent the Librarian all along—a former construction worker of the original Paradise site that quickly grew disgruntled after he found the truth out before the world properly ended.

Sinatra's world also unraveled, as she had trouble swallowing her actions, eventually getting shot and severely wounded Nicole Brydon's Jane.

Sinatra's Tragic Past Is Key to Her Unraveling In Paradise's Finale

"What Grief Can Do to You I Think Is Really Answered Here..."

Julianne Nicholson's Sinatra has done some terrible things—despite saying she's not a monster, her actions say otherwise. However, she did pull together this supposed last sanctuary on Earth for a small group of people to survive the end of the world.

She has kept her cool for nearly the entire series, but in this finale, Sinatra is clearly cracking under the pressure of the situation and all the choices she's made up until these crucial moments.

• The Direct: "One of the first moments that caught my [eye], I mean, there's a lot of the finale, but one thing that made me think was just in that finale, Sinatra chooses that moment to kind of admit to Gabriella that, you know, she's done terrible things. She's a terrible person. Why is she just now finally kind of opening up in this way to Gabriella since she really hasn't done that before?"

Nadra Widatalla: The relationship between Gabby and Sinatra is such a personal and tumultuous one. Even you saw in [Episode 2], kind of their origin story. These two women that are bonded in both grief and and power also too, right?

And so what's really amazing and also just interesting about Sinatra and is that you never really know if what she's saying is for the benefit of what she wants, or if she's tapping into her humanity. Because we've seen multiple sides of her.

We've seen her have that really, really crazy conversation with Billy, you know, the confrontation that she had with Cal. Like, that's what I really love about that character, is that you can be both of these things at the same time.

• The Direct: "She really does seem to be kind of breaking down a little bit in that finale because we also see her struggling with this choice of potentially killing Xavier's daughter. Why is that the straw that broke the camel's back? Because she's done some terrible stuff, as she said, but it's that really put her overboard."

Nadra Widatalla: Again, I think it goes back to [Episode 2]. It's like, how did I get to a point where I'm asking someone to kill a child, you know? How did we end up here? How did things get that far? It was both shocking to write and it's shocking to read and shocking to see.

But yeah, grief. What grief can do to you I think is really answered here, to what lengths someone will go to protect the people that they love, to protect her own family. To get what she wants to. Sometimes we invalidate our our decisions simply because we've taken them to a lengths that we now need to just continue to validate, even if we may or may not agree with it.

Crafting the Trail of Clues to Cal's True Killer

There's a Rhyme and Reason to How It All Unfolded

As it turns out, Cal's killer was someone from the outside of Paradise who was never supposed to be in the sanctuary in the first place.

Trent the Librarian (played by Ian Merrigan) was never who he said he was—in fact, he was the one who originally tried to assassinate the President, as seen in the pilot's major flashbacks. But he eventually found his way into the fortress he helped build and exacted his vengance on the man he believed to be responsible for so much suffering.

• The Direct: "The identity of Cal's true killer was a massive surprise. It was the Librarian all along. Well, can you just talk about weaving—Because, I mean, I didn't see it coming. And I'm sure somebody out there theorized exactly, maybe, how that might play out. But can you talk about weaving the clues behind Cal's true killer throughout the show, but not too much so that someone would pick up on it way too early?

Nadra Widatalla: In my personal opinion, I feel like if you're doing a mystery show and we don't see the killer up until the last episode, or when we reveal it, I think that's a bit of a cheat. I feel like, personally, what's really satisfying to me is that if we see this person early on, and so, and we do, we see him in the pilot, he's right there in front of you, so we're in no way hiding who this person is, right?

He comes up in various episodes, interactions with Cal, interactions with the kids, and so, like, we were very intentional and trying to make sure that, this isn't just a rando, right? This is a character in Paradise City, a character in our community. So, I think that was the first part. Obviously, the number served as another clue with, you know, various red herrings, right? [A lot of] people [were] speculating that it may be a flight number, a tail number for an aircraft, or whatever it may be.

But it being a Dewey Decimal Number, tying back to the library, I think was important to us, especially because in Episode 5, we see Cal going to the library, and that being a part of his last day.

The Twisted Game of Nicole Brydon's Jane

Jane Is a Slippery Killer Who Just Wants to Play Her Wii

Nicole Bryon's Jane was revealed to be a secret assassin agent under Sinatra's command in Episode 4, right as she killed Agent Billy Pace.

In the finale, she is the one who holds Xavier's daughter hostage as leverage over him for Sinatra. In the end, however, she makes her own plays, mostly against Sinatra, since she won't even give Jane her requested Wii gaming system.

• The Direct: "Another fantastic part of all these moving pieces within this massive story, but Nicole Brydon is fantastic as Jane, and she was another big surprise twist in Episode 4 when they were like, Oh, she's actually this cold-hearted assassin. She's very slippery in this finale and in these last few episodes. How would you describe her motivation throughout this finale? Is it as simple as she just wants to play the Wii?"

Nadra Widatalla: I love the Wii. I think Jane is such an interesting character, because so many people counted her out in the beginning, in that scene when she's with Billy, and they're confessing, I think it's in [Episode 3] they're confessing all the things that they do when the cameras are off.

And, you know, she surprises us in the end, just being a lot more intelligent than we think she is, but all because she wants to play this Wii, right? It just speaks to like how everyone and everyone in Paradise City has grasped onto something. This show is about, while it is about, finding out who Cal's murder is, it really is about the people in this city, how they've chosen to grieve, how they've chosen to reinvent themselves down here, how they've chosen to live their lives, whether it's the moments of joy, the moments of grief, and what that is.

And so for Jane, it's a really, really—she's such a cool character to me, because this is how this woman copes. And we still, there's a lot more to find out about Jane, and you know, her backstory and what that they may be, you know, possibly in future seasons to come. So I think that, like, she's such an interesting character to me and to us. And so how Jane came to be is one of the questions that I'm really excited to answer.

• The Direct: "I was actually gonna ask about that, without saying any details, because you obviously need to keep that close to the chest. But does the writer's room pretty much know exactly what her [backstory] is? Is it already kind of pinpointed and fleshed out?"

Nadra Widatalla: A lot of the our characters, like our backstories for them are in the like fabric of who they are, and inform, like, it's a very Dan Fogelman thing, you know, and backstories inform what people are doing in the present. So it's definitely something that we've we've thought about for sure.

• The Direct: "Another question about Jane. Do you think Billy ever meant anything to her at any point, or is she really as cold as she seems? Or was it all just a placement? It was a job, basically."

Nadra Widatalla: I personally, I like to be hopeful and think that people are dynamic and complex and can hold two emotions at once. There's some people, there's a version where some people want to believe that she's just a cold killer and she never cared...

The amount of people on internet that hate Jane on Reddit is crazy. So, yeah, there's the person that thinks that. But then, I'm sure there are also people, and I kind of feel a bit the same too, that there's, I would like to think that there's, like, 1% of her that is remorseful, that really love the guy. And she says that before she kills him, when she's putting the gloves on, she's like, you know, I really liked you. I actually think I loved you.

Paradise is now streaming on Hulu.