SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers from the Feb. 4 episode of Hulu’s “Paradise,” titled “Agent Billy Pace.”
“Paradise” twisted the knife with its latest shocker, revealing the tragic backstory of Agent Billy Pace (Jon Beavers) and his double-crossing ways between friend and boss Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) and his actual boss, tech mogul and Paradise overlord Samantha “Sinatra” Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) and killing him, all in the same episode.
The heel-face turn from Billy’s villain origin story to his decision to quickly tell Xavier all about the missions Sinatra has given him — including killing people who have ventured outside the Paradise bunker and learned the earth is inhabitable — is cut short by “the biggest motherfucker” Sinatra’s got working for her: Billy’s girlfriend, Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom).
Jane poisons Billy (set to a smooth cover of Poison’s ballad “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”) with a bottle of beer just minutes after he comes home from first telling Sinatra he’s done with her, and then telling Xavier he wants just one more night as “Uncle Billy” to Xavier’s kids before he reveals all the heinous acts he’s committed. The turn of events was one that Bloom herself didn’t know was coming when she took on the role of the seemingly super sweet Secret Service agent who falls for her colleague Billy in the post-apocalyptic underground city.
“Jane is not how she was initially presented to me, nor is she how the audience initially sees her,” Bloom told Variety. “So it was really fun to explore that side of her character once I found out such a savage twist.”
Nicole Brydon Bloom as Jane and Jon Beavers as Billy Pace in “Paradise”– Disney/Brian Roedel
Disney
When Bloom got the character description for her audition, she had just a few details on Jane: “She was a Secret Service agent. She’s a little bit green. She looks up to her co-workers. She looks up to Sterling’s character, Xavier. She slowly, as we find out, is having a little bit of a taboo relationship with Billy. But at the time, I just knew she was sweet, a little wide-eyed and sort of green.”
It wasn’t until a callback audition over Zoom with “Paradise” creator Dan Folgeman and his fellow producers that Bloom caught on to Jane’s real M.O.
“Dan was like, ‘Hey, could you maybe just try this scene where Jane’s waking up in bed with Billy as if you’re a psychopath?’ And I was like, ‘Hmm, could you say more?’ And he said, ‘No, not at this time,’” Bloom said. “And I thought about it for a second, and I was like, ‘Well, if she’s really smart and if she truly is a psychopath, I don’t think I would play it any differently.’ And then there was sort of a long pause, and they were like, ‘OK, that’s a really weird answer.’ But we did do a few takes and it was hilarious, because I was like, ‘I really think if she’s sociopathic, she would be really good at reading people, really good at knowing how to manipulate people.’”
Bloom was finally given the privileged info about Jane’s real role within Paradise during her screen test with Beavers: “I was like, oh, whoa, she really is ice cold, at least at this at this point, when we see her do the unthinkable.”
And it really seemed to be the unthinkable, since Billy and Jane had a charming relationship up until this point. But Bloom says just because Jane killed Billy doesn’t mean the sociopath didn’t have feelings for him.
“I think there is an emotional connection there,” Bloom said. “I think Jane, as we see her throughout the season, is the most isolated character. You don’t really notice it at first, but we don’t see any of the friendships that she has or any family down with her. And so whether she was supposed to get on the inside with Billy, or if it just sort of happened accidentally, and then she’s tasked with taking him out — I think there is some sort of empathy that exists within her. But she’s also one of the best at her job, so it clearly doesn’t win out over whoever’s giving her her instructions.”
From here, “Paradise” leaves fans wondering how Xavier will get the information he desperately needs now that Billy has been killed, and why Sinatra has secret assassin agents following her other assassin agents in her theoretically idyllic world.
“It makes me wonder: clearly Jane knew Billy was working for Sinatra. I don’t think there’s any chance that Billy knew Jane was involved,” Bloom said. “And Sinatra is so brilliant and complicated, and Julianne plays her so flawlessly, it’s really pointing to the larger picture that Sinatra really is the power here.
“It seems, at least right now, that Sinatra is the head of the snake in Paradise.”
