Paradise's Season 2 Finale Casualty Speaks: 'Is Anyone Dead In A Dan Fogelman Show?'

This post contains spoilers from the Season 2 finale of "Paradise."

Samantha "Sinatra" Redmond willed the bunker community of Paradise into being. So it's only fitting that, in the Hulu drama's Season 2 finale, she presides over the post-apocalyptic dome's demise... as well as her own.

In case you didn't watch Episode 8, which began streaming Monday, here's what went down. Sinatra learned that Alex, the artificial intelligence built by Link and Prof. Henry Miller, had become prescient. Among its predictions? Sinatra's death, later that day. Meanwhile, the combination of Paradise's doors being forced open and its nuclear reactors overheating led to an exodus order for everyone inside the bunker. Link was eager to find Alex, but ultimately was unsuccessful. He did learn, though, that Sinatra thinks he's her son, via an "anomaly" caused by some Alex-initiated time-weirdness.

Still with us? Phew. Anyway, someone had to stay behind to close Paradise's doors from the inside, ensuring that the imminent nuclear meltdown would be contained within the bunker. So Sinatra sacrificed herself, sending Xavier back to his family with an edict that he go to Alex and somehow figure out how to save the world. (Read a full recap here.)

TVLine spoke with two-time Emmy winner Julianne Nicholson about Sinatra's final day in Paradise, the way her character "softened up a little bit" once Link knocked on the bunker's doors, and the potential of her showing up again in the flashback-heavy (and now time-twisty) series. After all, she jokes, "Is anyone dead in a Dan Fogelman show?"

TVLINE | Did you know from the start that the shifting time element would be part of the story?
JULIANNE NICHOLSON | No, not at all. Not to my understanding. I believe Sterling [K. Brown, series star/executive producer] knew from the beginning, the outline of the three seasons. I did not. I was only told about Season 1. It wasn't until Season 1 was finished, and we were going into Season 2, that Dan told me, loosely, what was coming.

TVLINE | It's a left turn of sorts, in a show that already took a few left turns before it got there.
[Laughs] Oh my God, where are we even? So many left turns!

TVLINE | What were your thoughts, once you realized the direction the show might be taking?
It really stumped me, actually. I had to just have a lot of faith — which wasn't hard — in Dan and the writers. They are so thorough with their research that it's like, "OK, I don't understand quantum physics, or the idea of different timelines happening at the same time at all." So then you just have to trust and have faith — and I do, deeply, to the bottom of my core, in Dan and the other writers that he assembled. And then, you just play it scene by scene.

For the Dylan stuff, I just had to be like, "OK, obviously he's not the person, the boy, the child that I buried, because how does that happen? We buried that guy." It was more, for me, the idea of Sinatra believing that to be what I felt like was a beautiful thing. And I could play that. I understood that well.

TVLINE | She's such a data-driven person, her whole career. And then this inexplicable thing happens, and she seems so sure.
Yeah, she's sure. She knows. So I don't have to know, but I know that she knows. That's how I would make peace with these things. Like, I don't have to understand it. She understands it.

TVLINE | She's made a lot of comments this season about how she's made sacrifices, done things that people shouldn't have to do. How much do you think, in her mind, was for the greater good, versus how much of her was hoping that her actions would fix this terrible tragedy in her life?
I think it's both of those things. I do think she was working for the greater good, starting with her family and her immediate loved ones and going wider with the whole of the Paradise community. But I think it also is, when you start talking about alternate timelines and quantum physics, can you go back and erase the things that had to play out as they did in the days that we watched, in the world that we first came to know? If that makes sense. [Laughs]

TVLINE | She takes a lot in stride as the episode goes on: Xavier's reappearance, Torabi's admission that she killed Jane. Do you think there's a possibility she's not engaging with a lot of it because she hopes that it all will be fixed at some point in the future/past?
The reveal of her son being alive just shifts something in her, and then everything is just like extra. Everything else is like the, the cherry on the cake. Life is the cherry on the cake. [Exhales] Yeah, it's pretty heavy, Sinatra's journey, with that final sacrifice she made. I don't think she's thinking — I wasn't thinking —that she's going down with the ship because she thinks she might be able to come back. I think it's more selfless than that. I think she really believes if someone doesn't do this, we all die. The thing that was driving her all these years was the grief and the loss, and with that resolved, the better person showed up. And she's making the ultimate sacrifice for her family and the community that she has been trying to protect this whole time, g-ddamn it! [Laughs]

TVLINE | No one is ever actually gone on your show. Flashbacks are a beautiful thing. Are you allowed to speak to whether we'll see you in Season 3?
I hope so! I'd love to. When you're part of something that hits in a certain way and people really respond to, it's such a special thing. Knowing that this is a three-season thing, to pop up in that season would be great. But I don't know. I couldn't say.

TVLINE | Do you know how this all wraps up?
No idea. I can't wait. I was with Thomas Doherty [who plays Link] today, who's about to start filming the next season. I'm like, "Tom, what happens? What happens in the first episode?!" [Laughs] I'll be watching along with everybody else next season.