Redditors, take heed: You may have guessed correctly where Season 2 of Paradise was going — but no one has come close to predicting where Season 3, the final season, is heading. So buckle up for what creator Dan Fogelman and star and executive producer promise is a “holy s–t” conclusion. And, yes, it is the end: “I just finished writing the final episode, and I don’t think there’s any coming back from it,” Fogelman said at a recent FYC event for the Hulu drama.
With filming for Season 3 now underway, Fogelman and Brown recently sat down with Gold Derby for an exclusive interview about their creative partnership, which began a decade ago with This Is Us — yielding 39 Emmy nominations, including a best acting trophy for Brown — and continued with Paradise, which scored four Emmy nominations for the first season. Season 2 is predicted to figure heavily in this year’s race as well, particularly Brown and co-star Julianne Nicholson.
The two also entertained our burning questions about Season 3, including whether Xavier will accept Sinatra’s mission now that he’s finally reunited with Teri, what those nosebleeds mean, and whether the finale sticks the landing they originally envisioned. “It’s pretty hot!” promises Brown.
Gold Derby: How is Season 3 coming along?
Dan Fogelman: It’s good. We’re a little over halfway through filming. We started filming episode five last week. The scripts are all done, and all of them are being prepped now. So we’re really nearing the end. There are characters whose stories are coming to a conclusion — not necessarily because they’re dying. I’m writing a lot of emails wrapping people from the series now, on their last day of filming. So we’re at that stage now.
How closely does it adhere to where you thought it was going to go, from when you first started?
Fogelman: It adheres, and it’s different. It expanded in my brain as we went. I told Sterling the second season was going to be his journey to his wife. Season 1 was going to end with him saying, “I’m coming for you, baby,” getting on a plane, and Season 2 would see him find her and bring her back to the bunker, with the bunker collapsing at the end of Season 2, so we’ve kind of known the plan. I’ve pitched Sterling the final scene of the series for a couple of years. So we’ve known where it was ending. How we were going to get there was always a journey, and that’s why I have great writers to bounce things off of and come up with them with me. But I think we’re doing what we set out to do, and I’m really excited by the swings we’ve been allowed to take on the show, and then how different it is at the end from where it started. But if we do our job correctly, hopefully it will all feel of a piece, and that was the point.
Sterling, how does the journey feel for you?
Sterling K. Brown: This is one of these times where I feel like the writing is immaculate, and I feel like I’m blessed to do some really interesting things throughout the course of the season. I feel like if I do what I’m supposed to do, because he’s already done what he’s supposed to do, then I think it’s going to be three seasons of television that people will talk about for a very long time, like in the same way that people talk about 12 episodes of Fleabag. I think people will come back to Paradise years later, because it’s such a brilliant ride, and each season is its own thing, but they do all sort of connect with one another in this gorgeous way. It’s like this beautiful tapestry, man. I’m very excited. I haven’t been this excited artistically. This is maybe the most excited I’ve ever been.
Fogelman: I’m excited that way, too. The third season we really have gone for it, and when I say go for it, it’s not even popcorn propulsiveness or deaths of characters. Because we have Sterling, and I say this, even though he’s sitting next to me, and because we felt like we knew this was the end, and we had the plan, we’ve been able to stretch what we’re going to do, particularly with this guy, by the back half of the third season, I think I would have written a different third season if I didn’t have Sterling. When we were coming back for the season, I told him to rest up, because we’re going to put you through the wringer in every way.
Brown: So I tore my Achilles… [Laughs.]
Fogelman: But I’m excited for him for the third season. I’m excited to watch what he does with this. I’ve been watching it already, and then the back half of the season is just. … There’s one guy who could do this, and that’s really exciting.
How much of that comes from the relationship that the two of you have built together?
Fogelman: I would say that, but it’s honestly just from me having watched him make hundreds of episodes of television. I know what he can do, and I mean, there’s a part in the final episode where I’ve written it, and it’s not about the writing. It’s going to be three minutes with Sterling, and I was like, “I know he’ll do this.” I don’t know what he’ll do yet, but I’m excited to film it, and that just comes from having watched one of our great actors do it with my stuff for a very long time. I like him personally off-camera, but it actually has nothing to do with that. I have this gift, I have one more year in the sun with him, God knows when Sterling and I are going to get to do something again together. It’s like the stars have to align with timing. We’re going to go out with a bang on this one, and I’m going to give him our best and let him take it. I’m as excited for this third season as I’ve been for anything, for a very long time.
Brown: It’s complete and total trust with Dan. I’s so easy. There is the skill and the craft of what he does on the page, but there’s also the humanity behind him, because it’s not just telling a great story and telling it artistically, but it’s also telling a story that I think the world needs, that is of benefit. When I was talking about redemption, forgiveness, these are sort of core fundamental values to him as a human being. … Everybody starts off in this one thing, and you think that there’s something, and they turn out to be this much fuller picture of humanity, and I think that that’s the thing that makes it easy for me to fall head first into the deep end, because there is a love of people that undergirds the whole thing. The artistry and the craft is top-notch, but the humanity is something that I’ve fallen in love with over the course of 10 years. You point me in a direction and say run. I’ll just say, how fast do you want me to run? How hard do I have to hit the wall? Because I know it’s going to add up to something. If I hit the notes, because the notes are so clearly structured for me, the music is going to be gorgeous, and it’s been 10 years of that.
What’s one thing you’ve learned from each other?
Brown: So much. Oftentimes he will deflect the beauty of his soul with his intelligence and with his humor. That’s usually his sort of go-to thing. When we finished shooting This Is Us he took us all to this resort, this big softy, he got us all these really lovely gifts, and he just started talking about the show, and how hard sometimes it is to actually appreciate something in the moment, because you’re so busy just doing, doing, doing, and this was a moment of just when I do sit back and realize what we’ve accomplished, I recognize it as being something beautiful, and he’s talking, and the whole time he’s just got tears that are just streaming down his face.
Fogelman: I had a tear.
Brown: We’re all crying, too, because you don’t see Dan like that, that much, but I think what I’ve learned is that you can be all these things — very bright, very funny, and incredibly warm. He’s a good, good man.
Fogelman: That’s nice. [Laughs.] I have found that Sterling is very much who he is. If he laughs, if he finds something funny, he laughs big, and there’s no part of him that goes, “I shouldn’t laugh so loud.” He’s authentic. … I watch Sterling with admiration, how he navigates the world, and his family, and his children, how him and Ryan talk on their podcast about their marriage. That is the stuff of a fully realized person who’s come of age at the right time, who is just comfortable in his own skin. Like me or don’t like me — and everybody likes him — but that’s who I am, and whereas it’s a work in progress for me a little bit more.
Sterling, as an executive producer, I know you’re not sitting there in the writing room giving notes, but how has that manifested itself on this series going into the final season?
Brown: We talk about the directors who are going to do the seasons each year, and I just usually say, that’s a good one, because I introduced one director who wound up doing like most episodes, Hanelle Culpepper. I will say things in the writers’ room, if the things that they talk about, I’ll say, like, “Oh, that reminds me of this,” and I don’t know if it makes its way in there or not, but it’s just a conversation because they’ve already thought through things so thoroughly, so intricately. It’s a blessing. I’ve been on other shows now that I’ve EP’ed, that I probably have to give a bit more input, and that’s probably a muscle that I’ll have to develop more over time. But not with Dan.
Fogelman: I once directed a movie with Al Pacino. I remember Al saying to me, “Hey, let’s have everybody over my house for a read-through,” and I remember at the moment I was young, and I was like, “Oh Jesus, Al, we don’t need to do another read-through,” but his point was, “Don’t have people meeting me for the first time on set.” Sterling coming in a room and sharing his opinions and reacting to things, they might have their perception of him from This Is Us or from other films and shows he’s done. I think it really informed our writers really who this guy is, and the decency that radiates him through just being in a room with Sterling. You might not always realize it. So many times, Sterling’s come in and told a story, and it becomes a part of the fabric of something in the show. It happened on This Is Us and on this show.
Going into Season 3, What are some of the themes you’re going to be exploring?
Brown: Redemption. That’s probably one of the biggest ones.
Fogelman: We’re addressing it without talking about it out loud, what’s important, the meaning of it all. We’re zooming way out at times, because we do get a little bit more science fiction in a way that we can handle. The show started as this kind of thriller, political thriller, about a murder, and then it became a little apocalyptic, and was a little bit of this puzzle box that would get unwound. We’re really starting to explore some of the bigger questions by the end of this whole thing about humanity and about the stuff we’re talking about, which is, are we the worst versions of ourselves or the best as individuals and as a species? That’s where we’re heading, and that’s really exciting, and then ultimately family that becomes a big part of it. It’s heavy and not in the ways of life and death, but it’s big stuff, and it’s really exciting, really challenging. Our crew is on fumes, and we’re halfway through, but we’re going for it.
Sterling, Xavier was handed a mission at the end of Season 2. Are you following through on that mission?
Brown: That’s a great question. [The show will] come out sometime, probably in February or March. [Laughs.]
Fogelman: All I’ll say, because he’s afraid to answer, is he’s handed a mission at the end of the season, and when you zoom back the next day from that mission, a person who’s been kind of archenemy and seemed to have been kind of losing it at the end, gave him this mission. So I don’t think your first step after getting your family back is necessarily to say let’s go on a new adventure, and I think that’s his battle. I think when we find Xavier in Season 3 at the beginning, there’s that kind of retired warrior Braveheart character who just wants peace, but there’s a mission coming that you’re not going to be able to avoid forever. And I think that’s the place he finds himself at the beginning.
Will we explore more flashbacks? People never seem to die in the Fogel-verse.
Fogelman: Definitely. People that you think are dead might have more opportunity. There’s definitely flashbacks, filling in people’s backstories, people’s backstories who you haven’t had the entire or full story. People’s backstories who we return to learn more even more about them. So there’s all of that in surprising and obvious ways. There’s a lot of action.
Brown: We have two women recently, after having babies, Nicole [Brydon Bloom] having her first, and Krys [Marshall] having her second, and they jump back in, and everybody is working hard.
Fogelman: The mission becomes the framework for the entire season.
Speaking of babies, does Annie’s baby factor into Season 3?
Both: Yes, huge. Huge.
Does she get a name? Is her name meaningful?
Fogelman: Yes, her name makes sense. At some point in the season, we might make a little bit of a time jump, so you also get to see her a little bit older, and that version of a character becomes a very important, very exciting new addition to the season.
Brown: Remember you asked this question. That’s a good one.
Is Link really Sinatra’s son, or does he just need to believe that he is?
Fogelman: We have a theory in our writers’ room, which we call Hoberg’s Law, who’s one of our executive producer/writers, which is at any point you could look at like a more mystical science fiction version of things, and it should make sense, but at any point you could also have kind of a reality. So it’s possible he’s had a concussion or two in the course of his plane crash, or is there something in the science-fiction space that’s happening as of now? Both lanes can be true, and the third season should solidify an answer for that.
What do the nosebleeds mean?
Brown: It’s a good question. That’s a great question.
Fogelman: Again, using Hoberg’s Law, the nosebleeds could be because he had a high-altitude plane crash and he’s getting a nosebleed here and there, and Link has been shutting down power plants all over the country, and that people’s noses bleed. But in the show the explanation we give it on the sci-fi thing is when we’re talking about the quantum mechanics and quantum physics, we’re talking about is when anomalies are happening between realities or anomalies, we are seeking and getting and receiving and utilizing a lot of guidance in the quantum physics space, which it takes me a while, and some of our writers are better at, but I feel like I have our head around what we’re doing and have the answers for all of these things.
How much research did you do into season three? How much of this is rooted in what’s really possible?
Fogelman: A lot. What we try to do is say, does our scientific language make sense, does this add up, and it does. At the same point, we’re making up a wholly original story, so no, there’s not a bunker underneath the Denver airport…
Brown: …that we know of!
Fogelman: But we also like the conspiracy theories have been centered around it, so that’s fun. So we’ve tried to create a wholly original story with chapters, basically, which is what this is. A novel that has chapter breaks between each season, where you would get a jump in storytelling, and then hopefully the complicated science fiction underneath it makes sense, like in the best Christopher Nolan movies, where you don’t always understand it, but it should pass muster with those who do, and it should be entertaining for those who don’t.
Brown: Not Tenet.
Fogelman: I just got the best note I got the other day. I just wrote the finale, and one of the executives wrote me, “Holy s–t, Dan. That was f–king unbelievable. I’m not sure I understood any of it.”
What was your reaction to the finale?
Brown: I haven’t read it yet.
Fogelman: I finished it a week ago,
Brown: So I’m walking around with one through seven in my backpack, because we bounce around, and the reason why we have to bounce around a little bit more than normal is because in the flashbacks Xavier has to go back to his other look. One of the few things that makes me a little persnickety is putting extra stuff on my body when I have to act. I’m not a wig dude, so I was like, can I shoot the first part of the season where the look is out in the world, and then the other part of the season when I have to go back and do the flashbacks, and he’s very accommodating in terms of that. So that’s why we’re shooting this first half of things that are occurring in the present timeline, and then we’ll go back and shoot the other stuff.
Fogelman: So I’m already editing the first episode of the new season, and we’re missing the opening five minutes of the show. We’re not going to shoot that for three more months, so I’m going to have to work on an edit where we don’t have the opening of it, because I have to get him clean shaven for it. But that’s pretty normal, honestly. The only time I’ve ever seen Sterling not enjoy coming to work was when we put him in the old-age chubby makeup.
Brown: It’s like Randall just stopped living. It’s like Randall gained 70 pounds all in the jowls.
What’s your proudest moment from Season 2?
Brown: Episode 204 is a definite highlight. I think Shailene brought so much to the show with the character of Annie, and the time that we got a chance to spend together with each other was truly, truly special. Sometimes it’s easier for me to appreciate the things that I’m not a part of directly. I do really enjoy watching the redemption arc of Sinatra and the self-sacrifice that she makes. Julianne is an extraordinary actor. I have a big acting crush on that woman, so watching her do her thing is always a pleasure.
Fogelman: That was one of mine. Every time we brought Marsden back and watching how seamlessly he folded back into the show without distracting. It’s just like so much fun to have that charisma that energy. That first episode with Shailene and Thomas was really, really special. All those guest stars we had this year. I love watching this cast do their thing. And the end with Julianne. I just enjoy the show. It doesn’t feel like work to me. I enjoy writing it and editing it. It’s been a real treat.
