‘Paradise’ Season 2 Finale: Sterling K. Brown, Thomas Doherty and Producer Talk Big Sci-Fi Twist, ‘Multiverse’ Plans for Third and Final Season

SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for the “Paradise” Season 2 finale, now streaming on Hulu.

Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) has a new mission heading into “Paradise” Season 3 — but whether he’ll accept it is left up for debate by the end of the second-season finale of the Dan Fogelman drama, which released Monday on Hulu.

In the final episode of “Paradise” Season 2, titled “Exodus,” it’s revealed that the “Alex” that Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) has been hiding away is a super computer more advanced than any AI has ever been, to the point where it’s potentially capable of time travel. The device was created by Link (Thomas Doherty), who is now hellbent on shutting it down as he fears it has fully taken on a mind of its own and could be a detriment to the remaining people of Earth rather than a saving grace.

At the same time, Sinatra has formed the theory that not only is Link is actually (somehow, thanks to Alex) her deceased son, Dylan, but that Alex is the key to reversing what happened to the Earth, and Xavier is the one who needs to solve it. Why Xavier? Alex has provided instructions for a “User X,” whom Sinatra has surmised is Xavier. And before Sinatra sacrifices herself to shutdown the bunker while everyone else escapes its destruction, she tells Xavier he has to be the one to go to Alex and save them all — because she thinks he somehow already has in the future, leading to timeline anomalies like Link/Dylan.

“I think this is Fogelman’s exploration of the multiverse. Any show that’s dealing with genre and science fiction or whatnot eventually loves to play around with the idea of, is time travel a possibility?” Brown told Variety. “And what are the rules that dictate our excursion into time travel? The first time that I really got geeked over it was ‘Back to the Future.’ So you’ve seen Marvel has dealt with the multiverse and all the different timelines. ‘Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ has done its own specific thing as well. I find it intriguing, because ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is more real than people think. And it unlocks your brain in such a way that whatever you think is possible can be possible if you can conceive it.”

Brown continued: “And so now that this is introduced into our world, I think the question is, what do you really want? Do you want to go back? Do you want to move forward and leave it alone? Is it too mysterious to play with, to even tinker with, or is it too compelling to not? And different people have different decisions to make based upon where they are in life at that particular time. And you’ll see how that plays out over the course of Season 3.”

“Paradise” executive producer and Season 2 finale co-writer John Hoberg confirms that creator Fogelman’s plan is still a three-season arc, with the upcoming Season 3 — which will begin filming April 7 — serving as a “pretty definitive” ending for the story.

“If you think about where all of our characters are and what we were left with at the end, which is Xavier has been given this task by Sinatra to go to this second bunker, the question for me is, is he going to?” Hoberg teased. “Does he believe in what Sinatra is up to? Is Sinatra actually up to good? Does this machine do what she thinks? Or is she actually just dealing with her own grief, like she said? And will Xavier answer the call to do what she wants? I don’t know if I can name a specific genre [to describe Season 3], but I do know we’re going with, Xavier has been given a task, and I’m asking myself, is he going to follow through on this? And what are the repercussions if he does and if he doesn’t?”

What makes Xavier the chosen one in this case? Hoberg promises “Paradise” will answer that burning question, and many more, before the series ends. In fact, it’s been a mission of Fogelman and the “Paradise” writers’ room (which just pitched the series finale outline to Brown last week) to not leave any big loose ends: “There is a reason why Xavier is User X, and we’ll find that out,” Hoberg said.

“I think from Season 1, we established the moral compass that is Agent Collins, and that he’s willing to make difficult decisions for the greater good,” Brown added. “There’s something about him and why Dr. Torabi chose him to be part of the president’s Secret Service detail in the first place to come to the bunker that makes him uniquely equipped to deal with difficult situations in the clearest way possible.”

Meanwhile, Link/Dylan is also dealing with an identity crisis: He’s maybe Sinatra’s son, he’s definitely the father of the now-deceased Annie’s (Shailene Woodley) infant daughter, and he’s potentially still leading the crusade to take down Alex.

“He knows that it’s feasible. Is it true? We don’t know yet. We’re going to find that out, definitely, in Season 3, so that’s why I don’t want to say too much on that,” Doherty said. “I think with Season 3, we’ll start to see all this information — I mean, one of those things, individually is hard to compute, to comprehend, never mind process it. I think we’ll see him start to process his daughter. We will start to see how he’s processed Sinatra potentially being his mother. We will start to see the loss of Annie.”

Though nothing can be confirmed yet. Brown says that the “coincidence” of Link/Dylan’s name and birthday is “beyond mere coincidence, but more like a coincidence.”

“There are things that we actually had in that finale that got cut that go a little bit further in trying to explain the connection,” Brown said. “I think they ultimately decided to take them out, because I don’t know if the science scienced, exactly. What can I say? Oh, my God! They are obviously connected. I don’t think it is just her grief working out. There’s a connection.”

By the end of the “Paradise” Season 2 finale, Xavier’s family has been reunited, but his wife Teri (Enuka Okuma) and children Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and James (Percy Daggs IV) now face a new challenge, along with the thousands of other people who have just been expelled from the now-destroyed bunker.

“You got the 10,000 people that Link had, the 20,000 people that were inside the bunker,” Brown said. “There’s no central leadership. You could say Link is leading the folks on the outside — but there’s a mass amount of people that came to do something and now it’s a matter of, do they continue on to destroy Alex? Do they change course? Is Alex not as important anymore? What do the people inside the bunker decide to do? Are they going to stay together? Are they going to branch off and try to find their own people? There’s going to be a lot of different groups that disperse throughout Season 3 and we will follow all of them.”

Doherty says that in “Paradise” Season 3 “it’ll be really, really interesting” to watch the dynamic between Link/Dylan and Xavier, as Dylan looks to parent his infant daughter (brought to him by Xavier only the “holy charge” from Annie) and continue on his quest.

“I think that they’re cut from a very similar cloth, but I think Xavier is a lot more settled as a human being. He’s older, he’s more experienced, he’s got more composure; whereas, where we leave Dylan, he’s still kind of full of spunk and full of justice,” Doherty said. “And, like younger people generally are, he’s got that testosterone and that, like, ‘this is the right thing to do,’ compelling them. It’ll be quite interesting for him to be around someone that shares very, very similar beliefs, but is also more of a realist than him. Is Dylan gonna learn from him, or is he gonna fight against Xavier?”

Xavier has other problems to deal with to: now that he’s reunited with his thought-to-be-dead wife, he’s got to explain his one-night stand with Dr. Torabi (Sarah Shahi) to Teri. “You will see in Season 3 that it has obviously been brought to her attention,” Brown said. “And you will see how they manage it as a couple. We’re not just gonna slide over it.”

Overall, the Collins family is happy to be back together, but much has changed in just the few years they’ve been apart as Xavier and the kids have lived in the bunker and Teri has survived on the outside.

“I think it’s a very different setup,” Brown said. “We also have two more white babies with us. Delightful welcomes to the tribe. I think he’s happy as a pig in slop to be with his wife, to be with his children. They obviously have been displaced, so they have to find out, what does life look like for them now, where they’re going to go, where they’re going to set up, who’s going to be a part of their tribe? His daughter’s getting older. She’s got a boyfriend, she’s walking off from her daddy. So there’ll be different challenges in terms of that dynamic. There’s gonna be something really interesting with our two newest members as well, with Bean and Annie. Now, Annie’s obviously with her dad, but there’s something there will be something there, too. The dynamics have shifted, and the shift causes a certain degree of friction which will compel us into action for Season 3.”