Another week, another Tuesday night spent screaming at my TV, courtesy of Paradise.
Dan Erickson’s hit Hulu series starring Sterling K. Brown as Xavier Collins, Secret Service agent to mysteriously murdered President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), is famous for jaw-dropping twists and cliffhangers that keep viewers on the edge of their seats. So in true Paradise fashion, Episode 4, “Agent Billy Pace,” delivered both.
Written by Scott Weinger (yes, Steve from Full House) and directed by Gandja Monteiro, Episode 4 dove into Billy’s (Jon Beavers) deeply dark backstory on the heels of Episode 3’s final moments, in which Gabriela (Sarah Shahi) told Xavier that Cal thought Billy was dangerous.
“Episode 4 may have been the episode that stuck with me most in terms of what I thought was going on, and then having the have it flipped so, so intensely,” Paradise star Julianne Nicholson said. And we agree! So what exactly went down?! Buckle up and get ready to scream as Jon Beavers and Nicole Brydon Bloom unpack the big Episode 4 twist.
Spoilers for Paradise Episode 4 ahead.
Turns out, Billy is dangerous in the sense that he’s a killer! Flashbacks showed him landing in a juvenile detention center for murdering his abusive uncle. Then, when he got out of lockup as an adult, he was recruited to become a trained killer, which is why Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) secured a spot for him in the bunker’s population of 25,000 people. Though Billy swears he didn’t kill Cal, flashbacks revealed that when Cal sent explorers outside the bunker to assess the situation and search for signs of life, Sinatra also sent Billy out to kill any survivors he found. All these years, Billy took Sinatra’s orders without asking questions or pushing back, but a fear for Xavier and his family’s safety finally inspired him to confront her and demand that she leave them alone. As you can imagine, it didn’t go well…
“You want to know what your job is, William Pace — juvenile delinquent, convicted murderer, highly-paid mercenary? You’re a killer. That’s all you are. That’s all you have to offer the world, it’s all you’ve ever had to offer, and it’s all you offer to me now down here. It’s why you were spared,” Sinatra told him. “So you’re gonna shut the fuck up, and you’re going to apologize for marching in here without an appointment, and then you’re gonna wait for the next time I tell you I need someone dead, or I’m gonna take away every good thing you mistakenly think you’ve earned down here.”
When Sinatra threatened to take away Billy’s girl, Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom), he doubled down on his threat, so Sinatra implied she’d send another killer after him. “You’re gonna send somebody for me? You better make sure it’s the biggest motherfucker you got,” Billy replied. Before the end credits rolled, he was dead.
With minutes to spare in the episode, Billy promised Xavier that he’d fill him in on everything the next day but warned Sinatra was a “cold-blooded killer.” He headed home to comfort Jane after ditching her at the carnival, surprised her with a sparkler, kissed her, and took a refreshing swig of her beer, which she gave him permission to finish.
As Jane daintily ate a funnel cake with her fingers and Billy updated her about the good advice he gave Presley, he started gasping for air and collapsed to the floor. In response, Jane calmly pulled out a pair of black gloves, spread a bottle of pills out on the table to stage his suicide, and told him, “You told her to send the biggest motherfucker she had. I’m it, baby!” AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
“I loved it” Bloom told Decider over Zoom when asked about first reactions to the big twist. “I felt differently,” Beavers quipped.
“Well, how fun, you know? Initially I got the character description and it was like, ‘Jane’s really sweet and she’s kind of quiet and new and looking up to all the people around her.’ And I was like, ‘OK, great. I’ll just be myself,'” Bloom continued. “And then to learn about this twist, I was like, ‘Oh wow. There’s so much more going on here. And is she okay?! And what’s going on? She needs a therapist.”
“Is she OK?! Was that hard on her?” Beavers sarcastically replied.
When reflecting on the scene and her chilling portrayal of Jane’s betrayal, Bloom recalled a telling moment in her audition process. “It’s really interesting. In one of the callbacks, we were doing one of the normal scenes, and [Dan Fogelman] was like, ‘Can you just can you just do this with a version as if you’re a psychopath? And I had no idea what the context was. And I was like, ‘Can you explain a little bit more?’ And he’s like, ‘Not really.’ And I was like, ‘OK, well, if she’s a psychopath, I think she would play it exactly how I just did it, which is acting like nothing is different. That was kind of a sociopathic answer from me,” Bloom laughed. “So I talked to my therapist —”
“[Dan] was, like, ‘HIRED!” Paradise star Krys Marshall added. “Genius!”
Though Billy and Jane’s romance is short-lived on screen, Bloom said “It was really fun. We had so much fun building our little relationship that you get to see. And then unfortunately, I felt really bad. Billy is such a likable character.”
While Billy was undoubtedly heartbroken that his final moments of life were spent processing an inconceivable betrayal, Beavers has no hard feelings over his characters death and simply wants to praise Bloom for her stellar Paradise performance.
“I think you’re so brilliant. She knows that I think that. But I think there’s tremendous performances in this show. And because the writing is so good, every layer that gets peeled back reveals more about the character. And you could probably watch it two, three times and be looking for, ‘Was that true the whole time?'” Beavers explained. “I think people are going to pop off the screen. I think everybody’s going to realize how incredible Sterling K. Brown is. I think what Krys Marshall is doing is amazing. But I think Nicole Brydon Bloom is doing fucking — excuse my language — incredibleness. And when you get to that twist, I think you recognize everything she’s been doing the whole time.”
“You didn’t see it coming,” Marshall echoes, perfectly summing up viewers’ responses after watching Episode 4.
“I think I think Nicole is a genius. So there it is on record,” Beavers concluded.
So who killed Cal now that Billy is no longer a suspect? Was it Jane? Sinatra?! Stay tuned.
New episodes of Paradise premiere Tuesdays on Hulu.