The suspect behind former United States President Cal Bradford's death has yet to be revealed in Hulu's gripping series Paradise.
Paradise's marketing mainly centered around the assassination of President Cal Bradford. However, Episode 1's wild ending confirmed that the president's death is only the tip of the iceberg in the show's avalanche of twists.
It turns out that the citizens of Paradise live in an underground base because the surface world is no longer safe due to an apocalyptic event that occurred a few years ago, ultimately changing everything.
How Did the President Die in Paradise?
Paradise Episode 1 did not waste time in showing Cal Bradford's death, but the specifics of how he died are still shrouded in secrecy aside from the clues given at the crime scene.
While Samantha Redmond (aka Sinatra) helped orchestrate a fake reason behind the president's death so that the citizens would not panic, Xavier Collins, the lead Secret Service agent under Cal Bradford, is sure that foul play is involved.
Based on what was shown, Cal's body was found lying on the floor with an injury on his head. However, there was no weapon.
The tablet that holds classified information couldn't be located as well. There were broken bushes underneath the balcony, suggesting that someone must've frantically escaped after killing the president.
The underground city does not have weapons, which complicates things (read more about Paradise's filming locations). This is in addition to the cameras going dark from 10:42 p.m. to 12:13 a.m., meaning everyone could be a suspect.
Who Killed the President? Theories Explained
While some characters believe that Xavier Collins is the main culprit because he is the last one who saw Cal Bradford alive, his continued efforts to find the real suspect make it clear that he is not behind the killing.
Agent Robinson, who was revealed to be romantically involved with Cal, is also believed to be innocent even though they were intimate in the hours before the president's death.
This is further proven by Robinson's alliance with Xavier in Paradise Episode 6, in which they work together to expose Sinatra's evil side.
Agent Billy Pace (played by Paradise star Jon Beavers) was initially at the top of the suspect list due to his brutal nature and the fact that Sinatra hired him to kill the scientists in the surface world.
However, Pace is killed at the end of Episode 4 by none other than his girlfriend, Jane, who is revealed to be a sleeper agent/assassin working for Sinatra. His death happened because he was going to tell Xavier the truth about Sinatra the next day.
Signs point to Sinatra as the mastermind behind it all, considering that she wants to fully take control of Paradise with a puppet president (and Cal no longer wants to be controlled).
Despite that, Episode 6 unveils another twist when Sinatra confesses to Xavier that she did not kill Cal, ultimately eliminating Paradise's overarching villain from the list of suspects.
Based on the process of elimination, the most obvious suspect is Jane, the calm yet ruthless double-faced assassin.
There is reason to believe that she may have killed Cal since she was already at the house on the night of his death. However, one loophole is that she was with Agent Pace the whole time, indicating that Jane may end up being innocent despite her villainous ways.
Another potential suspect is Cal's father, Kane Bradford. Given that he is suffering from dementia, he may have accidentally killed his son and completely forgot about it.
Here’s Why Cal’s Death Is an Accident (Theory)
Through six episodes, Paradise makes it clear that Cal Bradford knows that he will be killed because he has already found out that the surface world is inhabitable, which Sinatra doesn't want to reveal because of the power she holds underground.
This is why he prepares for his eventual death by creating mixtapes to tell his son, Jeremy, about the truth and, hopefully, he will be the one to tell the community everything about the surface.
Sinatra is the real enemy in Paradise, but the fact that she was surprised to learn about Cal's death and later genuinely confessed to Xavier that she did not do it suggests that she may be telling the truth.
If Sinatra did kill Cal or sent someone to do it, it would've been clean and not the messy crime scene that was unveiled in Episode 1.
There is a strong chance that Cal died due to an accident involving the underground city.
The most popular Reddit theories claim that debris from the artificial sky of the underground city might've fallen straight to Cal's balcony, hitting and instantly killing him.
This could explain the broken bushes. He may have dropped the tablet, which led Presley (Xavier's daughter) to retrieve it for safekeeping.
Whether Cal's death was an accident, many would agree that it changed the status quo of the underground city forever. Xavier must honor his friend's legacy by making things right.
The next episode of Paradise premieres on Hulu on Tuesday, February 25 at midnight PT.
