‘Paradise’ Ending Explained – Cal’s Killer Is Finally Revealed, And You Never Would Have Guessed Who Did It

Paradise is much more than a murder mystery, but its ending is very much in the style of the classics. Episode 8, “The Man Who Kept the Secrets”, not only finally reveals who killed Cal, but gives him the space to deliver an entire monologue explaining why and how he did it. Of course, though, this is just the tip of the iceberg in Hulu’s exquisite drama, which over the weeks has become 2025’s finest show. The finale is the cherry on the cake, delivering tons of payoff while also, crucially, leaving plenty of intriguing threads open for Season 2.

There’s a case to be made that Episode 8 doesn’t quite have the blistering tension of the penultimate outing or the resonance of certain earlier episodes, but it has more plates to spin than both, having the whodunit reveal share space with seismic shifts in the governance of Paradise and lay out the bones of Xavier’s next mission, which will take him into the irradiated outside world. But we’ll get to that. There’s plenty to go over in the meantime.

Introducing Our Killer

As expected, even the finale of Paradise begins with a flashback. This one takes place during the original excavation process of the swathe of Colorado that would eventually become Paradise. With Anders inscrutably overseeing the operation, a firm friendship — with, I think, some romantic implications? — blossoms between the project manager and one of his West African employees, “Adam”. The project manager, who is credited as “Trent the Librarian” for reasons that’ll become clear in a bit, is the only one who bothers to pronounce Adam’s actual name and sample the traditional cuisine he brings to work. He goes out of his way to get him African beer. In as platonic a way as possible, they sort of fall in love.

And then Trent discovers that the excavation is unearthing toxic residue. The whole project should be abandoned, but it can’t be, since it’s the only hope for humanity, so Anders removes Trent from the project and keeps the hazards secret from the workers. Trent is ostracised while all the workers, including Adam, obliviously become fatally sick. Trent tries to blow the lid on what’s happening, especially since Anders let slip that a calamity was coming, but nobody listens. He drives himself mad on a concoction of grief and guilt, becoming a conspiratorial loner in the meantime.

In his isolation, Trent builds a gun, hides it in a boom mic, and disguised as a journalist attempts to shoot Cal on the White House lawn. This is the assassination that Xavier intervened in earlier in the season. This is Cal’s killer. Though how he made his way to Paradise and pulled off his revenge requires a bit more explanation.

Getting to the Truth

After Sinatra’s bombshell revelation about Presley and the DNA in Cal’s murder not matching anyone in Paradise, Xavier goes to Robinson to tell her to stand down. But he also tells her about the DNA. Knowing their search should focus on Arrival Day, they go their separate ways, with Xavier going back to the White House — is it still called the White House down here? I’ve never been sure — and Robinson going to see Gabriela.

Gabriela is already day-drinking because Sinatra is fraying at the edges in crisis management mode, trying to contain the secrets Xavier has already revealed and talk Jane out of killing Presley. But that’s easier said than done. Sinatra needs to keep Presley quiet since she knows too much, but at no point does she suggest Jane kill her. That’s Jane’s implication, though. She wants Cal’s Nintendo Wii, of all things, and she’ll quite happily murder a teenager to get it. She hangs up the phone before Sinatra can argue, later sending her a message saying the problem has been eliminated. It’s enough to tip even Sinatra over the edge.

Gabriela is dealing with the guilt over her complicity in this when Robinson arrives asking to see the psychological consultations of everyone who was flagged on Arrival Day. The only suspicious entry is Maggie, the woman who works at the diner. When Gabriela and Robinson confront her, she confesses but claims “he” made her do it.

Playing the Long Game

Sarah Shahi and Julianne Nicholson in Paradise | Image via Disney/Brian Roedel

While this is going on Xavier is following his own leads. At the White House, he looks through Cal’s CDs and finds the mixtape he made for Jeremy. He plays a few seconds of it and hears Cal say he’s recording it in the library, which gives him an idea. Using the number written on the cigarette, 812092, he’s able to track down a specific volume — a copy of James Spada’s The Man Who Kept the Secrets, a biography on Robert F. Kennedy’s brother-in-law and “Rat Pack” member Peter Lawford. The book contains Cal’s handwritten transcriptions of all the damning classified files on his presidential iPad.

At this point, Xavier gets knocked out from behind. It’s Trent the librarian, Paradise’s former project manager turned would-be assassin and prison escapee. While Xavier is coming to, he relays his story. He was imprisoned in Colorado, close to the site he knew would eventually become Paradise. When the end of the world came, he used the chaos to escape, and disguised as a guard he killed a husband and wife who were approved to settle. He took the husband’s identity and gave the wife’s to Maggie, who he met sitting in a car outside, eating junk food and smoking.

But he became content in Paradise. He decided he wouldn’t pursue Cal and his dreams of revenge, and would instead quietly live out the rest of his days as a librarian. But when he saw Cal in the library that day he went to record the mixtape, all the emotions came flooding back. On the worst night of Cal’s life, right after he had been rejected by Robinson, told by his father that he hadn’t made him proud, and told by Xavier that he’d only be forgiven when he was dead, Trent broke into Cal’s room and beat him to death.

Trent takes the copy of The Man Who Kept the Secrets and leaves, determined to expose what happened in Paradise to whatever remains of the world.

All Aboard for Season 2

Robinson, having been pointed in the right direction by Maggie, arrives at the library soon after to free Xavier. They both go after Trent together, pursuing him to the “roof” of Paradise, the rafters with all the complex lighting arrangements that create the simulacrum of a sky. With nowhere else to go, Trent throws himself from the top of the dome, plummeting down from the top of the sky and splattering on someone’s roof.

After, Xavier goes to report what happened to Sinatra, who implies, tearfully, that Presley is dead. She clearly believes what Jane told her and, equally clearly, is devasted by it. But not as devastated as Xavier, who collapses to the ground in grief, though only to spring back up with a hidden gun that he uses to kill Sinatra’s bodyguards and turn on her.

Xavier doesn’t kill Sinatra, though, because Jane shoots her first. She tells Xavier that Presley fine, that she has been with her the entire time, and in his excitement, he doesn’t stick around. Jane has shot Sinatra nonfatally since she may need her in the future, but she’s in no fit state to tell anyone what happened. The last we see of Sinatra, she’s on a ventilator. Jane is playing the Wii, just as she always wanted, and nobody is any the wiser that she’s a maniac.

The ending of Paradise is understandably about setting up Season 2. To that end, we see a flurry of scenes teasing several different plot threads that will presumably be developed in the follow-up. Jeremy, inspired by his father’s mixtape urging him to fix the world he built if he doesn’t like it, seems to be at the head of a burgeoning resistance movement. There’s a notable power vacuum in Sinatra’s absence that the billionaire donors can’t stop squabbling over. And Xavier, crucially, is leaving.

With reassurances from Robinson that she’ll protect his kids, and blessings from the kids themselves, Xavier uses Cal’s notes in The Man Who Kept the Secrets to plot a course for Atlanta. He’s going in search of Teri. Episode 8 of Paradise ends with Paradise’s doors opening, bathing him in real sunlight as he mutters, “I’m coming, baby.” We’ll be there.