Paradise just pulled off a devastating Season 1 finale that manages to answer the series’ main questions with an emotional narrative conclusion, once more proving why the Hulu series is one of the most rewarding stories streaming on television. After being released by Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson), Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) finally solves the mystery of who murdered President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) when he unearths the state secrets the latter stashed away in the town library. Knocked unconscious by Paradise‘s resident librarian, Trent (Ian Merrigan), Xavier subsequently wakes up to Trent’s full confession, revealing himself as the one who tried to assassinate Cal back in Episode 1 before finishing the job in Sinatra’s doomed utopia.

From the very start of the episode, the Paradise finale is Trent’s show. The final installment in Season 1 opens with another flashback to the time before the world ended, revealing Trent used to be a project manager for Sinatra’s Colorado construction site. Dismissed for raising legitimate concerns about an iron arsenic sulfide that would compromise his workers’ health during excavation, Trent later escapes his post-assassination-attempt imprisonment during Episode 7’s global crisis, killing two future Paradise residents, Eli and Margaret Davis, to sneak into the bunker alongside Paradise‘s Maggie (Michelle Meredith). As soon as Xavier learns the truth, Trent’s unsuccessful escape attempt is soon followed by a bitter death scene, one with a hidden meaning that strikes at the heart of a deeper message about humanity.

Trent’s Death Scene in ‘Paradise’ Is Tragic in More Ways Than One

The loss of Trent hits especially hard because we see so much of his tragic life. Despite going on to make two attempts against Cal’s life, the Paradise finale flashbacks prove Trent was never a bad guy in the first place. The scenes we see of him interacting with his construction crew reveal the easygoing camaraderie Trent felt for his fellow workers, and Trent’s scenes with Adam (Cornelius Macarthy) in particular give us a brief glimpse into the man’s warm, affectionate nature. What corrupts this nature is the self-serving practices of the elites at the heart of Paradise‘s apocalyptic conspiracy, whose indifference towards the suffering of Trent’s workers drives him into a spiral of violent desperation.

Watching Trent become powerless to save those closest to him is hard enough, but the character’s death at the end of Paradise Episode 8 is especially heartbreaking because it demonstrates the inescapable trauma inflicted on him throughout the series. As Trent himself admits to Xavier, he initially came to Paradise with the aim of finishing Cal off, but he actually got so comfortable in the bunker that he started seeing the library as his second chance to live. To him, the library was Trent’s opportunity to honor Adam and the fallen workers lethally exploited by Sinatra’s billionaires, his own miniature rebellion long before Xavier broadcast his message in the sky in Episode 5.

Only when Cal visited the library in Episode 5 to make a mixtape did Trent renew his obsession with vengeance, illustrating how the injustices he suffered dominated Trent’s psyche so much that they destroyed his chance at a new beginning and eventually led to him being discovered. Trent’s final decision to end his own life rather than be arrested by Xavier testifies to the price of this obsession, as the short-lived librarian believes his cause is more important than his future. Yet, while the death of Paradise‘s true killer is presented as a straightforward case of anti-government martyrdom, the method of Trent’s suicide is equally important because it connects directly to the religious parallels scattered throughout Fogelman’s series.

‘Paradise’ Episode 8 Solidifies Trent as the Devil Figure of the Series

Given both the title of Fogelman’s series and Trent’s actions throughout Paradise as he hides in plain sight, it isn’t hard to see why Trent can be interpreted as the devil of Sinatra’s bunker. Since the term paradise is typically associated with a heaven-blessed, utopian existence for humans, Trent’s deception establishes him as the figurative serpent of the series, the external threat whose self-centered agenda could tear apart Dr. Torabi’s (Sarah Shahi) socially-innovated Garden of Eden. The character’s death scene strengthens this comparison. By having Trent choose to fall from Paradise’s artifical sky in order to spread his message to the people below, Paradise’s true killer directly mirrors the biblical fall of Lucifer, whose own notorious fall from grace originates from the fallen angel’s proud refusal to bend to the will of the Christian God and subsequent descent to Hell.

While it may seem like a stretch to make this comparison based solely on Trent’s final moments, the character’s backstory throughout Episode 8 supports the character’s satanic interpretation, and recognizing this connection is important because it draws attention to the various other religious connections throughout Fogelman’s series. As far back as Episode 2, Paradise is established as Sinatra’s personal version of heaven when she fills it with the same horses that her son (Peter Gorbis) loved to ride when he was alive. The loss of a son and Sinatra’s underground omnipotence also suggest she is Paradise‘s version of God, especially since the figure of Christ is supposed to have died to redeem humanity and Sinatra’s son represents her most redeemable quality — love. Trent’s war against Paradise therefore represents his own fallen angel status as a devil battling Sinatra’s heaven, and these subtle connections provide our clearest insight into Paradise‘s main themes.

The Religious Parallels in ‘Paradise’ Reinforce the Show’s Dark Message About Humanity

Even outside the main cast, Paradise doesn’t hold back when it comes to employing biblical imagery to depict world-shaking events. While nuclear weapons also played a role in destroying Paradise‘s world, the real catalyst for the series’ apocalypse is the flood that follows the eruption of a supervolcano in Antarctica, and a great, world-ending flood has been a common symbol of nature’s wrath punishing human sins ever since the Old Testament. As for why Fogelman and his team would draw so many parallels between Paradise‘s main characters and their biblical counterparts, there are two relevant explanations. First, by strengthening the connection between one of humanity’s oldest stories and a dystopian present, these parallels reiterate the finale’s thesis that humanity is trapped in a recurring cycle of greed and torment, and that we, as a species, cannot help but fall victim to the same story over and over again.

Trent alludes to this cycle when he describes how Sinatra’s city itself succumbed to the same old sins of human inequality before his death, but Paradise doesn’t only use religion as a frame of reference. Fogelman’s series essentially functions as a unique adaptation of biblical scripture because it assigns divine roles to human characters, and Trent’s love for Adam in particular illustrates how the show’s creative team reinvents its own religious subtext in order to showcase the self-destruction of humanity. Rather than going full devil and corrupting Adam, Trent tries to save him, and it is actually Sinatra — Paradise’s God figure — whose actions ultimately damn him forever.

Therefore, Paradise Season 1 argues that in a world where humanity chooses its own God, innocent people are trampled beneath the instinct for greed and self-preservation, and this same injustice is responsible for producing a devil obsessed with their own self-righteousness. It’s a thought-provoking message bolstered by the irony that Sinatra’s heaven is located underground, which is typically a location more associated with Hell. Given how these observations add depth to the series, it’s also easy to see why Paradise‘s creative team would choose to include so many references to the Bible, and with Season 2 hopefully continuing to expand these connections soon, we’ll just have to wait and see what future lessons the show has in store for any person dreaming of a human paradise.