{"id":71618,"date":"2025-07-18T03:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71618\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T03:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:33:11","slug":"how-end-of-the-world-research-sets-up-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71618\/","title":{"rendered":"How End-of-the-World Research Sets Up What’s Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t[This story contains spoilers from season one of Paradise.]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBy now, everyone should be caught up on Paradise<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter becoming a runaway streaming hit when it launched on Hulu in early 2025, the Dan Fogelman<\/a>-created post-apocalyptic drama then became a linear hit when ABC re-aired the season weekly in the spring. Now, for the trifecta, the Sterling K. Brown<\/a>-starring saga just picked up four Emmy nominations this week, landing more nods<\/a> in top categories than even awards experts predicted.<\/p>\n

\n\tSafe to say, Paradise is a hit and people are watching. The Hollywood Reporter previously spoke with executive producer John Hoberg, who wrote the groundbreaking seventh episode, \u201cThe Day.\u201d<\/a> That penultimate episode of season one flashed back in time to reveal to viewers what exactly happened on\u00a0the day of the extinction-level event that preceded the beginning of the series.<\/p>\n

\n\tParadise\u00a0viewers had been imagining how the show\u2019s world ended ever since the twisty premiere<\/a>. But nothing prepared them for how current it would feel when it was revealed. Paradise opened in a post-apocalyptic world, where 25,000 people were saved from some sort of catastrophic climate event that nearly wiped out civilization. That event, we find out in episode seven, was from a super volcano erupting in the arctic, shattering the ice shelf, melting trillions of gallons of water and triggered a tsunami traveling 600 miles per hour with a wave as high as 300 feet. The coastal cities were wiped out first and global devastation followed. The president, played by James Marsden<\/a>, and his hand-picked survivors were the only ones who escaped \u2014 to the underground bunker-society called Paradise<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cImagine writing it, it destroyed me for a month,\u201d Hoberg recalled to The Hollywood Reporter about his experience of penning the propulsive hour, which was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Read our chat below on all the research that went into \u201cThe Day\u201d and how it informs season two, which is now filming in Los Angeles.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tHow did you get to be the lucky one to write this episode?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell I\u2019m an EP with Dan [Fogelman] so I\u2019m in the room. I was either going to write the second-to-last or the last episode. I will tell you, it wasn\u2019t my experience writing on Galavant [the 2015 musical series created by Fogelman] that made them think I should do the end-of-the-world episode (laughs). But it had a lot to do with White House and the Air Force, and those are my obsessions.<\/p>\n

\n\tMy wife and I have always written together until this show; she wanted to write a novel and so I took this job with Dan. We have a place up in Solvang and she\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m going to take 10 days and dive all the way in there.\u201d So basically, all I did for 10 straight days was just live in the feeling [of this episode]. It\u2019s such a minute-by-minute episode. I\u2019ve never written this way where I just completely submersed myself in the experience.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll season long, we had ideas about what happened, but it still didn\u2019t prepare me for what I saw.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tGood.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy did you place this episode as the penultimate one of the season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThere are so many mysteries in Paradise, right? Always a new card turned over. We like to answer questions the whole time, because we don\u2019t want to frustrate an audience. So we hint at what happened, but don\u2019t say specifically. It\u2019s why Xavier [Brown] was so angry at Cal [Masden]. The show at its core is the mystery, and then tied around that mystery is, \u201cWhat happened out there? We know something cataclysmic happened, what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWe knew for Xavier\u2019s character that we wanted to hold that back, because you could tell he liked Cal. But something happened. If we had revealed much earlier [that Xavier blames Cal for his wife\u2019s death in the event], then we\u2019d be giving up that mystery as well as the mystery what happened to the world. So it kept drifting. There was talk about it being the fifth episode at one point, but then it felt right that it would be the one before the end. So you finally have that mystery resolved, before getting into the murder-mystery resolve.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tDan has spoken about all the experts<\/a> you spoke to in order to research the end of the world, like the architect who designs cities who wrote you a 40-page dissertation, and experts on nuclear fallout and environmental catastrophe. He said you all were worried it might put you on government watch lists, because of what you were Googling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAs far as we know, that didn\u2019t happen! Though I feel like my computer runs a little bit hotter than it needs to, so maybe they\u2019re in there now. (Laughs.)<\/p>\n

\n\tHe did say that you are going to use a lot of that research in season two. How did you go about funneling all that into one hour of television, but also holding some of it back for season two?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tStephen Markley, who\u2019s the novelist on the show, and Katie French, who was the story editor, were so helpful with the outline and helping to piece this whole thing together. It\u2019s a collaborative process when you break it out in the room. We have cards on the board and we\u2019re talking through everything. So by the time I was going to script, I felt very confident that I knew what the bigger pieces were.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen it was a matter of, \u201cWhat do you get rid of? What do you keep? How do you take something that might be a page of research and make it into a line, but sell it so that the audience feels\u00a0it without having to be told what it is?\u201d You really prepare with a nice bunch of information and a plan before you even get in there.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJames Marsden as U.S. President Cal Bradford in Paradise episode \u201cThe Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tBrian Roedel\/Disney<\/p>\n

\n\tI understand you listened to recordings of similar doomsday situations, like former President George W. Bush after 9\/11 when he was on Air Force One, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis. How did all of that help inform the real-time reaction we saw in Paradise with President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) as the global tsunami was building?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI have a grandfather who was an advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was there during the Cuban Missile Crisis. So as a kid, I was growing up around this Air Force colonel and a lot of his officer friends would come over for dinner parties. When they tell stories, you wouldn\u2019t hear national secrets, but you would hear about the tension and how personal issues that have nothing to do with the topics can get in the way of things. I tried to sprinkle some of that in, like when [in Paradise] the general is giving a briefing and the CIA guy keeps interrupting him; you can tell he\u2019s annoyed because clearly this guy does this all the time. Some of that was like a lifetime of research from being around an Air Force colonel that helped me feel the rhythms of what was going on, from hearing his stories about the Cuban Missile Crisis era.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou filmed this episode with a propulsive pace, and without a lot of cuts. What were the longest scenes you filmed?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was so fun. John and Glenn, the directors, sat down and we talked about filming this almost as a play. Usually, you\u2019ll do a rehearsal and then people feel their blocking. If you think of the scene where Xavier\u2019s in the hallway and the secretary comes over to say, \u201cWhat do you know? What\u2019s going on?\u201d Then suddenly, the vice president comes through and trips and stands up and you\u2019re in the room, and we go around the table. We shot that entire scene as a oner. We had it to keep that energy up. Let\u2019s make all these scenes so that we shoot them once without cutting, and then we\u2019ll do our coverage so we can pick stuff up.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf you go back and watch that, there\u2019s 70 people involved! We actually let the studio know, \u201cYou\u2019re going to see we\u2019re not rolling camera for a couple hours and that\u2019s because we\u2019re doing this process.\u201d It was a ton of rehearsal and then the shooting of it was really fast, because everybody had it down. It was brilliant. It was their idea, and it was 100 percent right.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere was your White House set?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe had the Oval office set, which I think was from 24. Sometimes you\u2019ll see evidence of where a set has been before. I worked on comedies a lot and every now and then there\u2019d be an ancient room from I Love Lucy or Happy Days.<\/p>\n

\n\tSo we had the Oval office and the area outside the Oval where the secretary sat. We built that next-door Oval office, the cabinet room, the hallway outside the cabinet room, and the hallways that went the other way around the Oval. That was all on a sound stage.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen we went to a country club in Thousand Oaks that matched the feeling. It feels so grand, where Cal talks to the janitor in the big marble hallway. Then we shot the basement somewhere downtown. So it was all pieced together, which was a challenge of how you keep up that same energy. The key is, you can\u2019t have the energy at a 10 in the first act. You have to have it build so when you\u2019re jumping all over the city to film, you can check in and keep up that intensity level.<\/p>\n

\n\tXavier has this painful goodbye on the phone with his wife, Teri (Enuka Okuma), who he believes died in the event, and then he blows up at Cal over it in this flashback episode. Any notes or conversations with your main actors for those scenes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was a mess writing that goodbye scene. You can\u2019t help but think about [your family]. The fact that my wife was up in Solvang and I\u2019m down home thinking, \u201cWhat if I got a call right now and this was it, and I knew it was it?\u201d I remember adding that he could see the screen as the missile hit, and thinking, \u201cFuck, he\u2019s going to have to watch his wife die while he\u2019s talking to her.\u201d I was super emotional writing that.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe other scene that was super emotional was Cal and Xavier fighting on the [airport] tarmac, where Cal is like, \u201cYou know what to do\u201d and Xavier is like, \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do.\u201d Xavier, who always seems to know what to do, this is the only time he\u2019s ever said that, and you really get into his head.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe shot that scene at Long Beach Airport; there\u2019s planes flying around and it\u2019s loud and chaotic, and there were so many extras. Everyone who wasn\u2019t on camera just stopped to watch, because it was that intense in person. The actors know they have it when they\u2019re looking over at me and John and Glenn at village and our eyes are glassy. It\u2019s like, \u201cOkay, they got it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJames Marsden and Sterling K. Brown in Paradise episode \u201cThe Day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney\/Brian Roedel<\/p>\n

\n\tLet\u2019s talk about the nuclear football. How much of what Marsden explains was true\u2026 there\u2019s a nuclear fail safe that can set the world\u2019s technology back 500 years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI don\u2019t know! I do know that my grandfather was at the Air Force when they were developing the football, and he had something to do with the football, and I will say that he would not divulge national secrets to me, but what he did say is the chilling thing that that thing can unilaterally launch a nuclear war. We did our research into what it is. And there\u2019s all this speculation, because really nobody knows \u2014 there are people who know, but it\u2019s not us. He was not awed by a lot. He fought in two wars and still had shrapnel that popped out of the top of his head every now and then. And he talked about that thing in a way that was like, \u201cThere\u2019s something going on there that\u2019s bigger than I could possibly imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile we were shooting this, there was a question about if some foreign government was testing an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] device in space. There\u2019s all this research that that was one of the early things they discovered and that there are EMP weapons, but the danger with EMP is that if you light one off in Los Angeles, there are physical wires connecting things all around the world and you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s going. So it\u2019s a very dangerous thing and that got us to this idea of like, \u201cWell, if this is the last chance of survival, you wouldn\u2019t worry about what it might destroy.\u201d But the answer is, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe flashback ends, and then we heard Sinatra\u2019s (Julianne Nicholson<\/a>) version of what happened: That they avoided a nuclear holocaust, but their Paradise bunker still had the tech they needed. How much are we meant to believe Sinatra\u2019s version<\/a>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWell, that\u2019s going to be a question for season two. Did it work? There seems to be some real evidence it worked, with this audio recording of Terry and other survivors. We\u2019ve done a lot of research about what happens with EMP, what it destroys. It basically can destroy most electronic things, but the most rudimentary things can be brought back. Like shortwave radio would probably be one of the first things that started to come back. Diesel engines are based on compression versus a spark. So people would know how to start to rebuild, and it seems there\u2019s evidence that people with know-how are starting to try to rebuild.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf I had to guess based on what Sinatra said, not any knowledge I have, she said it seems that it worked at least partially. We witnessed a nuclear bomb go off and there seemed to be others that were hitting around the globe. But the question is: Did they all hit or was one of them averted, or a handful of them averted?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, this explains why there\u2019s no communication with the outside world, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWhen they sent those four people out there, they didn\u2019t know anything. They didn\u2019t get their shortwave communications until they sent them out there and put up their own short wave to communicate with them. Then that\u2019s why Sinatra started hearing these radio signals.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt seems like Cal should have been more suspicious of Sinatra earlier because he pushed that button on the nuclear football, which shut down every nuclear weapon in flight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tRight. There\u2019s a power dynamic difference in episode seven when they\u2019re on the plane and he says to shoot Sinatra. Clearly between then and when we\u2019ve met him [in present day], it shifted and he\u2019s lost that sense of power. So I think there were a lot of emotional things that went on between those people and everybody else in the time from when he pushed that button to when we meet up with him in Paradise world.<\/p>\n

\n\tSinatra put Xavier in this ultimate blackmail situation, when she informed him that his wife is actually alive. How does this change him going into season two?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOn set, that was a scene where Sterling [as Xavier] had to put his weapon away, and he was wrestling with that. He was like, \u201cI would just fire the gun..\u201d But John, our director, was like, \u201cYou\u2019re Sterling K. Brown. Show us that on your face.\u201d He told Sterling, \u201cLive in that, because that\u2019s what we\u2019ve put you in. This impossible situation.\u201d That to me was one of the most impressive moments of acting in the show, because you could feel him wrestle with that and then put his gun away. What happens when you\u2019ve just tried to overthrow the government and you\u2019ve succeeded, and now you have to back down?<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAgent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) with Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney\/Brian Roedel<\/p>\n

\n\tDan told me about his three-season plan and that the end of season one would reveal enough to shift course so each season can be its own thing, but with the same characters. So, obviously the season one ending is setting up some great exploration in the world above for season two<\/a>. Would you say the finale raised a whole new set of questions to explore?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the goals early on was that we wanted to make the viewing experience satisfying. That we\u2019re not just dangling things and then not answering them until the end of the season, or not answering at all. So you\u2019re going to get answers to what you want and then there are new questions raised. We were in a room breaking out [season two since before the official renewal] with this anticipation of, \u201cIf goes well, you never know,\u201d but we know where season two [ends].<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there a reason you named the billionaire bunker project \u201cVersailles\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYou always have a temporary name for something in the room. The librarian at one point, I made a joke that we should get Trent Reznor to play that, so that became a reference name. With Versailles, it sounded like a far away place where the rich would go, and there was a little bit of irony in that, so it sort of stuck. That it was a retreat for the billionaires, but also there\u2019s violence there, too.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere were strange real-world parallels as the season was airing. Like how after President Donald Trump<\/a> announced he wanted to declassify the JFK assassination files, Paradise had in an episode a line from James Marsden that the second he took office, he asked about the secrets: Bigfoot, JFK and aliens.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt keeps happening on this show. When we first started talking about it, it was probably two and a half years ago. I remember feeling like, \u201cAre people going to buy that they\u2019re in a cave and there\u2019s a sky that looks real?\u201d And then The Sphere [in Las Vegas] comes out and we talked to The Sphere people who said [Paradise] is based on 100 percent true science and you could do this.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere were a bunch of things that keep mirroring reality. But for that particular one, I remember as a kid saying I want to run for president just so I can find out the secrets. That to me is the number one thing I would want day one as the president. Tell me everything.<\/p>\n

\n\tI spoke with John Beavers<\/a> about how post-apocalyptic shows are usually in the far future, with zombies or something. But this show feels too close to tomorrow. Did it feel that way when filming?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYes. One of the things that was important for all of us is that the disaster wasn\u2019t one thing. It\u2019s a cascading series of events. This wave is going to kill all these people on the coasts, which is where a large percentage of the population is. But then it\u2019s going to black out the sky, and we did a lot of research into Krakatoa, which was a big explosive earthquake [in 1883]. That volcano actually had a sound wave that circled the globe eight times or something like that, a pressure wave. It was important for us that what happened in the show was real, but then also it\u2019s the human reaction and governmental reaction. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo if the sky is blotted out, then one country would take a run for another country\u2019s resources to try to ensure their safety and before you know it, with all of our treaties, it would probably end in some kind of nuclear or regional war. That feels as real as it could possibly be, because the show is not just what happened. It\u2019s about how people react to what happened. That\u2019s where it gets messy. There are things that are going to happen naturally on the planet, but it\u2019s how we react to it that\u2019s so frightening.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid global warming and climate change, this show tells us that the rich and the elite can survive. Paradise had a line about how the West Wing is stocked to feed those it could save for eternity. It highlights<\/a> who gets saved and who doesn\u2019t, which is interesting in this current moment in time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tMy grandfather had a tour in the Greenbrier Inn in West Virginia. You can now go tour it if you want, but it was the bunker to keep the government going in a nuclear war. The plan was that the government would all get on trains \u2014 \u00a0all of Congress \u2014 but then you go in there and it\u2019s a bunker. They had a press room and hid the doors to close it off in plain sight. These bank vault doors. And my grandpa\u2019s job for a little was that he would be the person in charge of operations to get everybody in and out. But his job was then to close the door \u2014 and be on the other side of it. I visited that place and I\u2019ve always thought about that. Who\u2019s in and who\u2019s out?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe would have been like that guy who Xavier shoots on the side of the helicopter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tExactly! That realization of, \u201cOh, you don\u2019t get to come in.\u201d And he was fully aware of it. He said it was great during drills, because he wasn\u2019t in the bunker, he would get to stay at this fancy hotel. That part was nice. In reality, it wouldn\u2019t be nice. I grew up hearing this and my mom said when she was a teenager that he had the weight of the world on his shoulders because he was aware how real all this is. There are people who were doing everything to protect, and you can\u2019t protect everybody. The line has to go somewhere, and that\u2019s the crazy thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, President Cal does the right thing in the end. He tells the truth. It creates chaos, but he tells the truth. We\u2019ve been talking a lot lately about television capturing our current post-truth era. What do you hope people take away from President Bradford?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI like that moment where he says that people are inherently decent. That\u2019s what he\u2019s seen, and he\u2019s speaking to all of us as like, \u201cLet\u2019s lean on our best version of ourselves.\u201d You like to think that every president is going to wrestle with and tell the truth. Sometimes my guess is it\u2019s too dangerous to tell 100 percent of the truth. You have to hope that humanity comes through. Cal is playing someone who\u2019s got a big heart and really is trying to do the right thing, and even he got sucked into it. It took that interaction with that janitor to be like, \u201cThis isn\u2019t right. I can\u2019t do this\u201d to snap out of it. With any administration, it\u2019s like, when does the humanity of it make you make the decisions that are in the best interest of people?<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is a fictional president. You don\u2019t even know what his party is, and we\u2019re trying to not make it about that. It\u2019s really about the people and the decisions being in power, what do you what do you do? And the weight of power. But also, Xavier\u2019s wrestling with the same thing when he\u2019s lying to that secretary about being able to help her. It\u2019s healthy to explore that. It\u2019s easy to look at the people up above making selfish decisions. But then we put Xavier in that position, too. He\u2019s not telling 100 percent of the truth either. We wanted it to feel real and messy.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat can you say about the murder-mystery reveal and how the season ended to set up season two?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tHaving worked in comedies for so long, you don\u2019t have to worry about the mystery of it all. When I was first talking about this show with Dan, because this show has a little bit of This is Us<\/a> in it, with its real heart, but also that apocalyptic thing like The Last of Us<\/a>, my joke was that I started calling this show This Is the Last of Us.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tParadise is now streaming on Hulu. Catch up on THR\u2019s season one coverage.<\/a><\/p>\n