Paradise: Who is Sinatra and why does she control everything in the bunker? Here's what we know

Paradise hit Hulu on January 26, 2025. The show is a post-apocalyptic series that is set in a colossal underground bunker located in Colorado, three years after a catastrophe that has eliminated all life on the earth. It stars Secret Service agent Xavier Collins, played by Sterling K. Brown, who attempts to investigate the murder of the President of the United States.

The show was also one of the most-watched series of the year, attracting millions of viewers during the first week alone. But despite everything keeps moving by the murder mystery, there is one character who lies in the middle of all the events, a woman named Sinatra. She did not get elected. She was not appointed. The world that everybody is living in was constructed by her, and that implies that she sets the rules.

Here is everything you need to know about her identity and how she managed to get the top position.

Paradise: Who is Sinatra?

The real name of Sinatra is Samantha Redmond, played by Julianne Nicholson. It is said that she is the richest self-made woman in the world and the prime decision maker within the bunker. She is composed and smooth on the surface. She is the one who runs almost everything going on down the ground, behind closed doors.

Samantha was the wealthiest woman in Paradise twelve years before the catastrophe, after selling the tech company. She was a successful, driven woman who was creating a life with her husband and two children. She appeared to be happy by every measure. This was transformed when her son Dylan fell ill and lost his life.

His death in Paradise shattered something in her. Nicholson, in an interview with TV Insider, said Sinatra is “operating from a place of grief” and that the loss of her son has “got her all wrong on the inside.” She did not fall apart, though. Rather, she was plunging into something bigger.

Samantha, about the same period of time, met a motivational speaker who was telling people about an impending world disaster. She also became acquainted with Cal Bradford, a young politician who would be elected into Presidency. Cal’s father was the one who nicknamed her Sinatra, meaning that she could give people the sense that they could confide in her and rely on her during difficult times. That was the kind of presence she possessed.

She did not wait when she heard that some disaster was approaching. She employed some construction workers across the globe to construct a bunker in Colorado where people would be safe. When the catastrophe struck in Paradise, she had thousands of victims in the bunker and underground.

Although the bunker has a President, Sinatra is the one pulling strings behind the scenes. When President Bradford is killed in the early part of the show, it is Sinatra who comes forward to fill the position. The moment speaks volumes. She never had a title in government, yet she is more powerful than any person who holds one.

In Paradise, she runs the bunker pretty much because she is the richest in the bunker. She financed it, she designed it, and she determines how it is operated. The President can be nominated, but Sinatra has the power.

It is not only politics that she controls. She does her best to ensure that people do not get to know that life on the surface may still exist. She even confessed to killing four explorers who were carrying a survivor to the outside world. She had also been intercepting radio transmissions made by individuals who remained on the surface, but decided to hide all that.

To her, the only way she could save people was by confining them within the bunker. As a matter of fact, she was holding them in a trap.

Nicholson was able to summarize it in such a manner that it is quite easy to grasp:

“I think she thinks she's protecting her family and the community at large.”

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She truly believes that she is doing the right thing even when it is evident that what she is doing is wrong. The combination of good intentions and ruthless acts is what makes her one of the most convincing characters of Paradise.

Paradise Season 2 will be released on February 23, 2026, on Hulu, and Nicholson has already affirmed that her character will reappear, seeking to reassert her power. To a woman who created a whole world out of nothing, some setback is not going to hold her down too long.

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