“And she was the universe.” That’s how Lord Byron’s poem centered around the apocalyptic end of the world concludes. Paradise episode 5 pointed out that an eternal darkness had set upon the outside world and submerged the entire United States underwater. It was what a speaker had predicted during the International Financial Summit in episode 2. Through Byron’s “Darkness,” the show revisits its running theme of human greed and how their selfishness has destroyed the whole planet, forcing the survivors to take shelter in unnatural habitats. An oilman like Kane Bradford reading Byron’s poem couldn’t have been more ironic because conventional fuels are the main contributors to pollution, global warming, and climate change. Kane’s a man who always valued the materialistic things in life. He had kept his wife’s gift, a bookmark, as a souvenir. Yet he failed to understand the true meaning behind the blossoming flower printed on the bookmark. He was a father who gave more weight to his son’s achievements than his happiness and that’s how he eventually lost him.
It is said that those who fail to change, change the world and cast a dark shadow from which the world never recovers. Throughout their lives, they see it as an accomplishment, but only the “last man” knows the reality. Nature spares no one, not even the palaces of the crowned kings. In the show, President Cal Bradford happened to be one of the last of the breed of men who wanted to do the right thing, but before he could tell the truth to his subjects, he was murdered. With that said, in this breakdown I am going to delve deeper into Cal’s murder and all the hints he had left behind before his death.
Spoiler Alert
Cal Knew His Death Was Inevitable
In the previous episode, I had speculated that Cal somehow knew about Billy Pace’s covert mission on the surface, and the fifth episode revealed how he found out the truth. It wasn’t surprising for Cal that his father had much more access and authorization to the classified files than him. Well, Kane Bradford had money and subsurface geological experience, which was why Sinatra recruited him to build her underground paradise. Even during Cal’s funeral, Sinatra was sitting beside Kane, implying that the old man knew more about the place than anybody else. The only issue here was Kane’s deteriorating mental health. He had dementia and only remembered bits and pieces about Operation Colorado. In the episode, he was spilling the secrets from the confidential project, and no one really knew which bomb he was going to drop next.
Cal knew that if he confronted Sinatra with the truth, she would do everything in her power to suppress it, which was one of the reasons why he had left a few clues behind so that the people who loved him would eventually find the truth. Before his death, Cal had made a “mixtape” for his son Jeremy and even left the number, “812092,” on a cigarette for his friend, Collins. On Cal’s tablet, there were a few files named R_99892, H_288722, and E_288781. I guess the number Cal had left for Collins could be a file number, which he wanted someone to find. I know most of you think it’s an aircraft registration or tail number, but I beg to differ.
Using his father’s biometric authentication, Cal accessed the classified Surface Expedition folder, inside which he came across three files: First_Transmission_June23, a video clip of Susan Donnelly, an atmospheric scientist, telling mission control that the radiation level from their self-triggered “Atmospheric Fallout” was still very high. However, the next audio file, First_Contact_June26, pointed out that they had found a woman in the outside world. The four explorers wanted to bring the woman back to the mountain shelter, but Sinatra ordered them not to do so and to wait for further orders. Since they didn’t listen, Sinatra sent Billy Pace to kill them off. This mission order was recorded in the audio file, Explorers_Lost_at_Sea. Now, I am not sure of this theory, but I believe Cal might have mixed these two audio files on the mixtape he had created and put Jeremy’s name on the disc so that no one would suspect a thing. In episode 1, through Collins’ perspective, we saw that the mixtape was still there. So, you never know who’s going to find it.
With the help of these mission briefings from the four explorers, Cal had noted down three locations, i.e., 33.9189N 84.5046; 35.1686111, -89.885; and 36.0430555, 95.9533333. I am really bad with directions and coordinates, so I am not sure where they point to on the map, but do let me know in the comments below. With that said, it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the coordinates where Susan and her team found this woman could be a habitable location on the surface, a sort of suitable environment where the radiation levels are considerably lower. And if Cal had left these coordinates for someone to find them, then it would certainly help the Paradise residents to repopulate the Earth’s surface. Speaking of the mysterious woman, I guess we’ll never find out who she really was, as Billy might have shot her down along with the four explorers. But if she’s alive somehow, then we could expect her to make an appearance in the upcoming episodes.
The Tablet Is A Red Herring
It seems like Cal knew that Collins’ daughter, Presley, used to join Billy and Jane Driscoll for game night at the president’s house. And when the trio switched off the camera on the night of Cal’s murder, he might have sneaked out of his room to hand over his tablet to her, which he wanted Collins to find. This was likely when his father, Kane, saw Presley leaving the house. Cal knew that, in the event of his death, the first thing the perpetrators would be looking for would be the tablet, as it had information that could expose their lies to the residents. But even though this tablet is an important piece of evidence, I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference. It could only be accessed with proper biometric authorization, and Collins obviously didn’t have any.
Revisiting the Crime Scene
When Collins first arrived at the crime scene, he saw Cal lying in the middle of the room with his head bleeding. The preliminary wound analysis suggested that Cal was hit with a heavy object, likely a large rock, as the forensic doctor found samples of what appeared to be soil around the head wound. However, something tells me he was hit with a golf club. I could be wrong, but there were way too many golf references in this episode, and it would really be ironic if Cal was killed by something closely related to his favorite sport. Cal even had a golf simulator at his home with real golf clubs, so you never know.
Furthermore, the balcony window in Cal’s bedroom was closed when he wrote the number on the cigarette. It seemed like he was going to go to bed soon after. And if he wasn’t the one who opened the window for a smoke, it could be possible that it was his killer who jumped out of the window after killing Cal. Or maybe someone was hiding on the balcony, and the moment Cal opened the window, after the surveillance system was deactivated, the killer came out of the shadows and hit Cal on the head. In episode 1, Billy had spotted some crushed plants in the garden and footprints on the pathway, implying that someone had jumped out of the balcony to escape.
The forensic doctor had also found signs of ecchymosis on Cal’s hand and had even swabbed his fingernails for traces of DNA. But these DNA samples never reached the lab because someone really higher up didn’t want Agent Robinson and Collins to identify Cal’s killer. The reason I am saying they’d just need the DNA and nothing else to catch the killer is because the management already had DNA records of every single person living inside Paradise, so it would have been an open-and-shut case if the agents had DNA results in their hands. However, it would be a totally different story if this mysterious killer happened to be a person who is not in the records, and this could be one of the reasons why someone influential tried to obstruct the murder investigation, as they didn’t want the residents to find out the truth. And to be honest, I am quite sure it wasn’t Billy or Jane who killed Cal. The show has been frequently suggesting it’s Sinatra who had the president murdered, but once again, that’s a very easy guess, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the killer is someone entirely different who was hiding inside the house waiting for the right moment to finish the job.
And last but not least, in Cal’s bedroom, one could even spot a copy of Edward Gibbon’s “Fall of the Roman Empire,” which I guess is an allusion to the fall of the United States. In the episode, we saw an image of the Washington Monument going underwater, which perfectly symbolizes the collapse of the world’s greatest nation.
They’re Lying to You
The moment Collins saw a man fixing the street-lamp in the morning, he knew it was Sinatra who had issued an order to plant a camera outside his house to keep a close watch on Collins and his family. He didn’t mind those cheap tricks, at least not until he found his best friend lying dead on the floor. Collins was certain that it was Sinatra’s doing, as Billy had wanted to tell him the secret about Cal’s murder, and before he could spill the beans, he was silenced. This was when he sent a loud and clear message to Sinatra, telling her that he could see through her lies and wouldn’t stop until he got to the bottom of the truth. For those who have caught up with AppleTV’s Silo, this was exactly like the moment when Mechanical sends a message to the Higher-Ups or when Juliette Nichols, as an act of rebellion, drops the wool, refusing to clean, leading to a great uprising in the show. Well, Collins’ message to the residents is indeed going to have consequences, and I just can’t wait a week to find out what happens next.
