Denver’s Blucifer Makes Surprise Appearance in Season Finale of Paradise

A local celebrity made a major cameo on Hulu’s hit post-apocalyptic series Paradise.

The Mustang statute outside of Denver International Airport, better known as Blucifer, was featured in the closing shot of Paradise’s season two finale, released last week. Spoilers incoming.

After eight episodes of fans wondering who and where the mysterious “Alex” is, and why Link wants to kill them, the finale revealed that Alex is not a person at all. “A-L3X” is a supercomputer hidden in a second bunker beneath the Denver airport. More specifically, hidden directly under Blucifer.

The reveal plays on the airport’s real-life conspiracy-ridden reputation. For decades, rumors have swirled about secret bunkers and tunnels under the airport. The alleged underground system has been said to house everything from Martians seeking world domination and lizard people running a child slave network, to a subterranean prison created by global elites and a secure hiding spot for presidents. (Paradise’s plot largely aligns with the latter two theories.)

The focus on Blucifer specifically could be a hint about the direction of the show in season three.

The 32-foot-high blue fiberglass horse infamously killed its creator, Luis Jiménez. While working on the statute in his studio in 2006, a piece of if cracked off and severed an artery in Jiménez’s leg, causing him to bleed to death. The brutal tale earned the artwork the nickname Blucifer.

Some Paradise fans are now speculating that A-L3X could follow in Blucifer’s footsteps and attempt to kill its creator, a.k.a. humanity. If the computer was designed to save the Earth from a climate catastrophe, perhaps it views eliminating mankind as the solution? Others believe Blucifer is meant to mirror how Sinata’s creation, the original bunker, killed her at the end of the season.

Conspiracy theorists have also linked Blucifer to the horse on the cover of The Montauk Project, a book about a government experiment during World War II that sent servicemen spiraling through the past and into the future. As the plot would have it, during one mission, U.S. troops landed in 2600, where they came upon a ruined city with the remains of a massive sculpture of a blue horse. (Think the end of Planet of the Apes, but with Mustang instead of the Statue of Liberty.)

Paradise has already dipped into time manipulation, with the message warning that Jane would become a killer being sent before she was even born. Blucifer’s cameo could be meant to further lean into a time travel twist.

Blucifer could also be a nod to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Mustang is the third horse prominently featured on screen, adding to the coin-operated horse ride that Sinatra’s son played on and Annie’s horse from Graceland. Is a fourth stallion on the way?

Regardless of the hidden meanings, Colorado fans can surely look forward to another appearance of our beloved demon horse as Xavier makes the 100-mile journey to the second bunker in season three.