Paradise delved into the mystery of Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom) with Season 2’s sixth episode, and it also revealed a time-bending twist as it tracked the agent’s life from birth to the present.
Helmed by writer Nadra Widatalla, the entry kicked off with a bang as a Circuit City employee received a message from an Alex Q on May 29, 1997, that read, “A killer will be born on June 6 at 12:01 a.m. She can be stopped when it matters, if you deliver a message to her.” When the employee ignored the message, he went on to receive many more. But how could this mysterious Alex know about Jane? It’s a question that Widatalla promises answers for, but not likely until Season 3, which was just announced by Hulu.
What we do know is that Jane grew up in an uncaring environment after her mother was told she’d be a killer, and it fostered some shocking behavior from the girl until she eventually ended up in the CIA under Stacy’s (Ryan Michelle Bathé) mentorship, pre-bunker. Taking her role as a mentee too literally, Jane goes to extreme lengths to please Stacy by seriously injuring a colleague who got a promotion over her.
Disney / Ser Baffo
But are her actions a means to emulate or mirror her idols? Or is Jane just too eager to please? After all, we’ve had a taste of this dynamic between the agent and Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson) in the bunker. “I don’t know if it speaks to Jane’s desire to operate as these women do,” Bloom tells TV Insider. “She sees them as successful, loving mother figures, and as we see in the episode, she was sort of abused and abandoned by her mom from the beginning, and so, there’s a clear correlation to why Jane seeks their approval.”
Below, Widatalla unravels the episode, “Jane,” and teases what is coming next after the latest twists and turns as Paradise Season 2 continues.
A Circuit City employee receives a message from Alex that a killer will be born on June 6. It turns out the killer is Jane. How should we interpret the way the show is starting to play with time?
Nadra Widatalla: [The Circuit City employee’s] name is Don, and he gets a message. I know all Reddit fans will probably all over this, and if they’re paying attention, if you pause the screen, there are some clues actually in that scene. It’s definitely something that we revisit in Season 3, and that’s kind of all I’ll say.
It’s the first real proof that the world Paradise is operating in isn’t as it appears on the surface.
What I love about that scene is that moment with Don at the hospital really scarred Jane’s mother, which, in turn, gets us to ask the question, was Jane always meant to be a killer, or was she treated by her mother a certain way, and that’s why she became the person that she is? It’s a nature versus nurture. So, thematically, it’s of the world of our show, even though it is a bit of a prophecy.
Disney / Ser Baffo
What was it like coming up with the dynamic Jane seems to form with powerful women in her life, whether it’s Stacy or Sinatra?
It was awesome. Getting to work with Ryan Michelle Bathé was amazing. She was the first person I thought of when I wrote Stacy, and Jane’s dynamic with women… inspiration for me as I was writing this episode was the movie Single White Female. That’s an extreme version, but it was definitely the vibe I was thinking about when it comes to Jane, this obsession fixation with other women and other mentors, mother figures, it’s because of her core wound. And so, what’s Jane’s version of that? Is it trying to please these women? Is it seeking approval? That was really, really fun to play around with.
Jane takes out her aggression on a fellow agent in hopes of doing something good for her mentor, Stacy. Was that meant to show us the lengths she’d go to please these female authority figures in her life?
Yeah, the d*ck in a bag… I think what’s really fun about Jane is that you don’t know if she’s gonna take something literally or not. In the Season 1 finale, she had that conversation with Sinatra about Presley and whether she should handle Presley. We were led to believe that she was going to kill her, because we just don’t know what she’s thinking, and so, I think that that’s what makes Jane Jane, is that there’s an innocence to her. There’s a little girl in there who maybe doesn’t understand, but is just trying to seek approval, but there’s also a side to her that’s very calculated.
Doctor Tourabi has begun to clock Jane’s actions after her conversation with Robinson. How will that come into play as the season continues?
Doctor Tarabi has a lot of psychological knowledge that she can use with Jane. I think that Robinson has tried to use the fighting and all that stuff, but Jane is CIA-trained, so she’s gonna beat everyone. That hasn’t worked for Robinson, but I think what Doctor Tarabi has is the observant knowledge, watching Jane with Sinatra, and then using that to her advantage. So the face-off is gonna be pretty epic.
How was it working on Jane’s backstory with Nicole Brydon Bloom?
Nicole is fantastic, and that poor girl went through so much combat training, so she’s very, very involved and very excited to get to the core psyche of Jane. I think what’s really cool about Nicole is that we can throw anything at her and she’s like, ‘Oh, perfect.’ And then she’ll do that face, she’ll do that thing, and you’ll be like, this may have sounded ridiculous as I was writing it, but you did it. And I think Julianne is like that, too. What’s really great about them is that you write something and you’re like, Is this a little insane? But then they’ll say it and you’re like, yeah, that’s what makes Paradise Paradise, is that they’re saying really insane stuff, but the acting is so incredible, I buy it. So it was really, really fun working with Nicole. She’s just a phenomenal talent.
Paradise, Season 2, New Episodes, Mondays, Hulu
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