Marvin Anani
Audio By Carbonatix
A local celebrity made a major cameo on Hulu’s hit post-apocalyptic series, Paradise.
The “Mustang” statue outside Denver International Airport, which is 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 Alex, 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 beneath 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. Overdue on delivering the finished statue to DIA, Jiménez was working in his New Mexico studio in 2006 when a piece of it cracked off and severed an artery in the artist’s leg, causing him to bleed to death. The brutal tale and the horse’s devilish red eyes earned the work the nickname Blucifer.
Some Paradise fans are now speculating that A-L3X could follow in Blucifer’s footsteps and attempt to kill its creator, aka 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 Sinatra’s creation, the original bunker, killed her at the end of the season.
Hulu
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. According to that plot, one mission lands U.S. troops in 2600, where they come 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 back before she was even born. Blucifer’s cameo could be a sign of a future time-travel twist.
Blucifer could also be a nod to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. “Mustang” is the third horse prominently featured on the series, adding to the coin-operated horse on which Sinatra’s son played 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.
