Editor’s note: The below interview contains major spoilers for the Paradise Season 2 finale.We should’ve known that things would reach an explosive conclusion in Paradise Season 2, but that episode just cracked the door wide open for Dan Fogelman’s Hulu show to pivot into even harder sci-fi territory than it already has. Long before the finale, “Exodus,” ends with a twist that will have fans scratching their heads, the situation inside Paradise reaches cataclysmic proportions, with the bunker going into full meltdown and forcing a mass evacuation — but not every character makes it through unscathed. Ahead of the Season 2 finale, Collider had the opportunity to speak with Paradise writer and EP John Hoberg, who penned “Exodus” alongside Seena Haddad, about the episode’s biggest twists, most shocking character deaths, and the ultimate three-season plan for the series. Over the course of the interview, which you can read below, Hoberg discusses why that Link (Thomas Doherty) identity reveal is more complicated than you think, whether the writers considered killing off more characters in the finale, how the show’s third and final season will answer every question viewers have, and more. COLLIDER: The reveal of Link’s identity pops up in the penultimate episode, but how often do the writers pay attention to any fan theories or any discussion online? Did you notice anyone picking up on any of the right clues surrounding who he really was? JOHN HOBERG: I want to start with just a tiny thing. We have this saying, and we call it Martini’s Law in the room. We like to, in this season and the whole show, basically try to write it so that there is a way where what Sinatra built and what she believes this quantum computer did is actually what it did. But there’s also — she even presents it herself — the possibility that maybe this is just her believing this because she’s needing to process her grief. So, it’s a question of do you believe, for one. As far as fan theories and whether anyone nailed that that’s who Link actually is, I think there are a lot of coincidences around it that point in that direction, especially when Sinatra says that, but it also might not be. Maybe Sinatra is wrong about what this thing can do. We’ll have to see Season 3 to really understand whether or not she was right. But there’s a writers’ chain, and it’s really fun, and it’s just all the writers on the show and the support staff, and every now and then, someone will do a screen capture like, “Holy shit, someone saw where this was headed.” There was one in particular that was so dead-on for what we did in the finale, even, that it was like, well, maybe this is a crew member. Because I couldn’t quite figure out how someone might say, “I think Link could be Sinatra’s son,” after Episode 3, but that’s just me. We have very smart fans. That’s the one thing I’m blown away by. These people miss nothing.
‘Paradise’s John Hoberg Discusses Sinatra’s Sacrifice for the Bunker in the Season 2 Finale

“She felt like her mission was complete, and so she was at peace doing it.”

Julianne Nicholson in the Paradise Season 2 finaleImage via Hulu

Since we’re already on the subject of Sinatra, the episode sets up a certain fate for her by the end, which is Alex essentially predicting her death. How does that inform her decision to go down with the bunker, and was this something that her arc was always building to from the beginning of the show? HOBERG: When she meets Link and has become convinced that this is her son, it means her life’s project, or at least this focus of her project, which was Alex — by the way, she was told by Dr. Logue that the one thing billionaires can’t buy is time. In our minds, what she did is she went and seeded out, not with any idea that a computer would try to mess with the fabric of time, just to try to make the fastest computer possible, so that the problem could be solved as quickly as possible. Because Link and the professor put an AI inside this quantum computer, it started thinking in ways that even they didn’t expect. Then, when Sinatra realized that it could maybe also do something like that, it’s almost too much for her to just let go of. “What if there’s a world where there is a reality where my son is alive?” That would be an impossible thing for her to let go of. But to me, in this episode, it’s like she’s stunned that this thing might have worked, and her goal, if you look at her from the beginning when you met her in this bunker, was to save humanity in some form. So, all of her decisions, and some of these decisions seemed almost evil, that she made, were all in an effort to protect the bunker, and even more than that, to protect the Alex bunker, because that felt to her like what would save humanity. To me, she almost felt like her job was done, and if she wants to try to save all these people on the outside when the bunker explodes, only one person can press that button because you can’t get to the door fast enough. She felt like her mission was complete, and so she was at peace doing it. In terms of the number of characters in this episode that have pretty close calls, everybody from Robinson to Hadley and Preston, were there conversations about having more characters not make it out versus what happens? HOBERG: What’s cool working with Dan [Fogelman] on this show is that Dan is so true to character all the time. He won’t fib on what a character might do. So in some ways, everybody’s life was on the line there, except for Xavier, obviously. There was a while when we were talking, and Sinatra didn’t die, and then it started getting to the point where it’s like, “I think she has to go.” It was really hard because Julianne [Nicholson] is such an incredible actor, and she’s such a part of the show and all of that, but we make ourselves feel better because in a Fogelman show, nobody’s ever really gone, because we have flashbacks and we can tell more of their stories. But yeah, there were different variations of this. Did Robinson sacrifice herself and not make it out? Did Jane get the upper hand on Gabby? We kind of leave everything open for discussion. There’s nobody off the table, really. Speaking of Jane, is it confirmed that she is officially, absolutely dead? HOBERG: Well, what do you think? We did see a body in the shower, but at the same time, is it out of the realm of possibility that she could have somehow gotten away in the chaos of the evacuation? HOBERG: We’re meant to take it definitively. She was stabbed badly in the shower, and then her body was still lying there, probably three hours later. One of the writers made it to a fan screening for [Episode] 7, and she was like, “The amount of applause in the room when Jane was killed was unbelievable.”

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The evacuation of the bunker is a really big turning point for the show. What does that signal for Season 3’s story, especially now that everybody who has been inside Paradise is on the surface, many of them for the first time since the world ended? HOBERG: What’s interesting to me is Xavier’s been given this mission from Sinatra, but I think you really have to question why he would trust her. Does he believe what she said? We’re leaving him in this position — he’s finally got his family for the first time in years, they don’t have a home anymore, and now he’s been given some task. So, in Season 3, we’re going to deal with that, obviously. Also, if you think of Link and his people, they had a dual mission. One was to destroy this Alex computer. For all Link knows, the bunker destroyed it. They always wanted to go out and restart the world. A lot of characters are going to have a moment of what they want, versus the first two seasons. People had wants, but it was very much that the cards were laid down for them and they were dealing with their situation. Here, we’ve got characters who have pretty strong wants, but now they’re going to go into a world where they might be able to act on some of those things. I will say there will be as many twists and turns and surprises in Season 3 as there were in Season 2. As far as a starting point for the season, that’s kind of where we’re finding everybody. Obviously, this is a post-apocalyptic setting, and things can be very fraught, but it always feels like the show circles back to this feeling of community, especially for people on the surface. Is there a possible conflict that could arise between the people who’ve been stuck in the bunker and the people who’ve been essentially forced to survive on the surface, or can viewers anticipate more of the same in terms of people surviving by working together? HOBERG: We try to keep a balance, and I think there should be a realistic balance of what would happen with this group. It’s funny, I’ve been thinking of [James] Marsden as almost the moral center of the show, weirdly, for a guy with seemingly loose morals. When he gave that speech in the seventh episode about believing people are inherently good and that people need a chance, and that they need to be able to take and make a choice in what they want to do with their lives, I feel like thematically that runs through all three of the seasons, and that same theme is going to run through the third one. Obviously, I can’t not ask about the biggest reveal at the end of the finale. HOBERG: By the way, I will also say I’m terrified of talking about this show because I don’t want to give anything away. So, I feel like a politician right now. That’s fair. HOBERG: I don’t want to take anything away because I think Season 3 is going to be so incredibly satisfying for viewers that I don’t want to accidentally slip and spoil anything for anyone.
‘Paradise’ EP John Hoberg on Why the Show’s Ending Will Be “Satisfying” for Fans

“You will get answers to these questions…”

Thomas Doherty as Link leaning his head out of a vehicle in Paradise Season 2Image via Hulu

In the last conversation that Sinatra and Xavier have, she says that he’s already capable of stopping all this because she believes that he’s already done it, and that moment introduces the twist of a possible time paradox. The vision that Xavier has been having of Link/Dylan, is that a future that also simultaneously exists in the past? Is that what the nosebleeds are also linked to? It seems like the show is pushing further into hard sci-fi territory with this possibility of correcting things that maybe have already happened in another timeline. HOBERG: I will say one of the things that the professor said to Billy at the bar, or somewhere around where Billy killed him, is, “Do you believe that things happen for a reason, or is it just coincidence?” I think that’s a good question for people to be asking themselves. There are coincidences throughout this. Is there a purpose to it, or is there not?

As far as answering anything about that, I think all I really want to say, because again, I’m terrified to talk about this show, is that, like we’ve done the first two seasons, Season 3 will answer all your questions. There was something that Dan and Scott Weinger and Dan’s producing partner, Jess [Rosenthal], and I, when we first got together, when it was this small group when Dan got the pilot, we were trying to play with the ideas and what might be there. One of the things we talked about early on is we want to answer questions and not frustrate people. That continues on through Season 3. You will get answers to these questions, I’m just not going to take the chance of trying to give any. I get it. Circling back to the screening, Dan spoke about the overarching plan for the show. With Season 3’s renewal, that arc can play out. Is Season 3 going to be the final season? HOBERG: Yes. Okay. HOBERG: You’ll know when you see Season 3. You’ll be like, “Okay, great.” It’s always nice when a show can begin and end on its own terms instead of feeling like it’s getting pulled past its shelf life. HOBERG: Yeah, it does. As a writer, I’ve written with my wife for most of my career, and I ended up going on this show while she was working on a novel, but we’ve always worked on shows that were kind of open-ended. Most of them were comedies, so there you go, but this is so satisfying. We’ve done movies, too, and this feels like writing a movie almost in a three-act structure way, but we get to take these characters to full arcs by the end of the third season, and that is just really satisfying. Apart from being bummed that we don’t get to start working again on the next season, it feels right. It feels like the right way to end the show, like you said, where it wants to end versus, “Okay, well, let’s just keep going.” Paradise’s Season 2 finale is now available to stream on Hulu.