“Paradise” Lost: Directors Glenn Ficarra & John Requa on Crafting the Series’ Most Devastating Episode

In the first part of our conversation with Paradise directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, we talked about how California’s tax incentive program made it easier for series creator Dan Fogelman to shoot both seasons in Los Angeles. Now, let’s get to the most revealing episode, where Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown) finally confronts President Cal Bradford (James Marsden) about the day his life—and the entire world—fell apart.

What was it about the cinematography that helped sustain the suspense, grief, and paranoia throughout the series?

Ficarra: Yasu [Tanida] is a great DP—he shot almost every episode of This Is Us. He put a lot of thought into how we could present this world underground. How is the sun different? Because it was an odd color temperature. We came up with the conceit that it’s warmer and more romanticized underground, and the real world was cooler and harder, which was a great way to separate those two environments. We shot on the Alexa 35 camera, which gives you a lot of latitude. We had the same crew from This Is Us and incredible camera operators who really made Episode 7 sing. That episode was all handheld—those guys just had cameras on their shoulders the entire two weeks when we were shooting that.

In Episode 7, we finally see what happened the day the world collapsed. After the chaos of evacuating Cal from the White House, Xavier is on Air Force One, headed to the Colorado bunker with the kids.

Requa: We built a big White House set that took over an entire soundstage. It was all interconnected like the real executive offices. We moved around with the camera and did long shots so we could get the feel of what it’s like to be in the White House.

Unfortunately, Xavier’s wife Teri (Enuka Okuma) is still stuck in Atlanta. He literally sees a nuclear bomb heading for Atlanta on the real-time display on the plane while he is on the phone with her. It is just gut-wrenching.

Ficarra: You get a powerhouse actor like Sterling, and the writing is really good, so all we had to do was point a camera at him. The beauty of the show is there’s a lot less plot and a lot more human moments, so we let our amazing cast do the heavy lifting. That was an exciting opportunity to show the end of the world from a very isolated point of view. We’re not bopping all over the world to see the destruction and reactions like other disaster movies. We never leave our characters, so it heightens the tension and makes it feel more personal. We wanted to make you feel the horror of that day without breaking the bank. It was a lot of fun to figure out how we could maintain the tension without cutting to the threats and the villain. Everything was filtered through the eyes of our characters. The TV [news reports] is probably the most outside view you get and we never leave the White House until the very end.

In one of many crushing moments, Xavier confronts Cal after realizing that the President knew all along that Teri was never going to make it if she was still in Atlanta. However, he kept up the charade so that Xavier could keep doing his job.

Requa: Cinematographers don’t like to cross shoot in general, which means shooting both actors at the same time, because it’s hard to light, and even harder when you have visual effects. Cal and Xavier are in this really heated, emotional scene where he lets him have it, blaming Cal for his wife dying. It’s nice when you can say to the actors, you don’t have to worry about your dialogue overlapping, just scream at each other like you would in real life. And they just went at each other. They were really great, so we only did three or four takes.

What makes this post-apocalyptic story different from the others?

Requa: It’s a human drama about people trying to survive the end of the world. In other disaster movies, everybody’s incredibly brave and gets over things quickly so the story can progress. Not in this show, people actually act like real human beings—they deal with the trauma of the world coming to an end.

That’s right. Xavier is very nuanced; he’s not an action hero with endless bravado. His courage and bravery come through in his actions, but he’s also a grieving husband and a worried father, which makes it feel real.

Requa: You see how it haunts them and influences every decision they make in their relationships. It’s Dan’s strong suit, I think it’s awesome that he decided to focus his gifts on an apocalyptic story.

Ficarra: When we first find Xavier, he’s lost, angry, and alone, but he has to protect a man he is very angry with. But he’s an honorable guy who always does the right thing. In Episode 3, we see that’s exactly why he’s there, they count on him to do the right thing.

Two of the other agents, Billy (Jon Beavers) and the psychopathic Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom), are terrific quirky additions to the ensemble. Later in the season, we learn that not only are they lovers, they occasionally shirk their duties to play Cal’s Nintendo Wii (at one point, her only condition before committing a heinous act is to have endless Wii privileges). What is behind their obsession with that game?

Ficarra: I think it’s nostalgia, because Wii is so outdated. There’s a lot of nostalgia in the show, like with Cal’s obsession with ’90s music. It’s kind of novel in that bunker and it’s showing their more innocent side.

Although Cal appears to live a very privileged life, he is also a broken man in many ways.

Requa: We spend a lot of the season portraying Cal as a shallow, heavy-drinking, superficial ’90s rock-loving disappointment to his wife, his son, and his father (played by the great Gerald McRaney!). Then, in Episode 7, he turns into the guy who saved the world when he chose to shut down the world instead of destroying it. He’s actually the biggest hero in the history of the world, but we spend the entire season painting him as the most inconsequential loser of a man. I think it’s a great character arc. James Marsden is so good, he relished playing both sides of it so much. He loved the drunken bathrobe-wearing loser and the hero who makes the hardest decision in the world, but it was the right decision.

Paradise is streaming on Hulu.

Featured image: PARADISE – “The Day” – Sinatra and Xavier confront the past, returning to the harrowing day that brought them to Paradise. (Disney/Brian Roedel) JAMES MARSDEN, STERLING K. BROWN