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"It was never Beth that I loved."
—Paul Dierden's last words to Sarah Manning[src]
Paul Dierdan
PaulS3
Biographical information
Status: Deceased
Manner of Death: Stabbed by Styles Miller, then shot by Virginia Coady, and killed himself with a grenade
Died: "Certain Agony of the Battlefield"
Occupation: Undercover for the Army working for DYAD
Affiliation: Sarah Manning
Other information
Also known as: Big Dick Paul/ Black Ops Paul (by Felix)
Dirty Paul (by Helena)
Nail-Gun Ken (by Vic)
Gender: Male
Hair color: Brown
Eye color: Blue
Height: 5'10"
Relationships
Marital status: Single
Significant Other/s: Sarah Manning (former lover)
Beth Childs † (girlfriend; subject)
Rachel Duncan (former sexual relationship; subject and employer)
Series information
Portrayed by: Dylan Bruce
Season/s: 1, 2, 3, 4
First appearance: "Natural Selection"
Latest appearance: "The Stigmata of Progress"
Appearance count: 22

Paul Dierden was the monitor who was assigned to Beth Childs before her death. After Sarah Manning took her place, Paul grew to love her and began to protect her and attempted to cover for her, especially after Sarah came clean about being a clone.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Paul Dierden was a military soldier. At one point, he became a part of Project Castor. In a ploy to infiltrate the Dyad Institute to find a cure for the dying Castor clones, an incident in Afghanistan was staged where Paul was apparently a private contractor who ended up killing six marines in friendly fire. This caught Dyad's attention and the organization proceeded to cover it up, using this as leverage against him. Unbeknownst to them, this was the plan all along. Paul was recruited into becoming Beth's monitor, with Olivier Duval as his superior. His guise was to become Beth's boyfriend, whom, despite of caring for, he never grew to love but was forced to stay with.

Eventually, Beth stumbled onto the truth about Paul, realizing that he may be involved in the cloning project. Even when she began investigating him, Beth's feelings for Paul never changed but still she distanced herself from him knowing he never really loved her.

Season 1[]

When Beth commits suicide, Sarah assumes her identity, hoping to clean out the dead woman's bank account. While looking through her things at their apartment, Sarah sees pictures and home videos of Beth and her boyfriend Paul. Later on, Sarah points to Paul's photo saying that if he were her boyfriend, she would have committed suicide too, though Felix jokes that she knows that Paul is hot.

Paul returns from his trip unexpectedly early, surprising Sarah. Paul immediately notices something different about "Beth." Unable to answer his questions, she distracts him with a fierce kiss that leads to their sleeping together. Sarah gets up the next morning and Paul follows, but she keeps sidestepping his every attempt at physical closeness claiming she got up especifically to go to the gym and she leaves hurriedly leaves.

For a while, Paul is suspicious of "Beth," even questioning why she was suddenly dressing like a punk rock ho due to some of her recent wardrove choices, but is never really able to pinpoint what the problem is, mostly because the majority of his encounters with faux-Beth are intimate which confuses him when sometimes he tries to get close or have a serious conversation and she pulls away, and that prompts him to ask her if she'd like it if he acted hot and cold with her in the same way . Thinking Beth is pulling away from him because of the shooting, he opts to move out temporarily and stay with his friend Cody.

After thinking "Beth" is finally warming up to him again, because of a misleading phone coversation he has with Helena, pretending to be "Beth", Paul eventually returns. Catching Sarah in the shower, Paul stays the night.

While in bed Paul asks "Beth" to leave town with him but receives a noncommittal from Sarah, He is forced to let his employers come into the apartment to medically examine her, which Sarah vaguely recalls the next morning, in addition to coughing up an electrode used on her. Paul asks her again to go out of town with him, suggesting Rio de Janeiro, telling her that he is finally ready to commit to her. Sarah, unnerved by the possibility of last nights occurrences, declines and harriedly leaves.

At Felix's, Sarah learns from Raj Singh, Beth's IT friend at the police station, that Beth was spying on someone, possibly Paul, with their surveillance equipment, which Raj asks "Beth" to return soon. They search through the apartment and find evidence that Paul was ex-military and then find the surveillance gear in the back of Beth's car.

At work, Paul is visited by Sarah, who comes to investigate and plant a listening device in his office. It is here Paul notices that "Beth" is missing the scar on her neck and when Sarah leaves, he watches a video of Beth, zooming in on the scar to prove to himself that the woman he was talking to is not Beth. Finally noticing he had been with a stranger all along, he follows Sarah and sees her meet with her daughter Kira. Despite his discovery, Paul does not inform Olivier Duval, the man he answers to, about it. The exchange is recorded and listened to by Felix and Sarah, confirming that Paul is Beth's monitor.

Paul instead chooses to confront Sarah about it. Paul then sends Sarah photos of her and Kira together, forcing her to a meeting at the apartment. While Sarah initially refuses, Cosima points out that Paul must be falling for her because he covered for Sarah while talking to Olivier. Cosima suggests to Sarah that the situation is an opportunity to get answers, but that a scientific double blind is being used, wherein Paul might not know much, so it is Olivier whom they must ultimately get to, but they need Paul for it.

Meeting at the apartment, Paul and Sarah are both armed and prepared, but Paul being a highly trained professional makes Sarah get rid of her sidearm. During the confrontation, Paul asks her if she killed Beth, but Sarah tells him that he had, as apparently Beth killed herself because she loved him and found out the truth of why he was in a relationship with her when he didn't love her, since he was placed there to observe her and report to the people responsable for the cloning. Devastated, Paul admits that he had no choice but to stay with her for as long as he was told without being inform of the reasons behind his orders to monitor her.

Thy develop an uneasy alliance, both still not entirely truthful and very distrustful of each other. Paul contemplates drugging Sarah with Beth's pills in a bottle of scotch without it been clear the severity behind his intention. During a meeting with Olivier, he tells him that Beth is back in her "dark place" and he fears that he might be unable to prevent Beth from overdosing next time, to which Olivier replies that he will not be held liable as long as he does not directly affect her choices.

Paul then tracks Sarah to the home of Alison Hendrix and breaks in through the basement. There, he meets the half-conscious Alison, her tied-up husband Donnie, and Sarah's ex-boyfriend Vic. Thinking he could get answers from Vic about Sarah, Paul threatens him with a nail gun so he'd reveal her last name and what he knows about her. Sarah arrives and promises to be honest with him if he let's Vic go, since the latter didn't know anything of what was going on. After getting rid of Vic, they are caught by Alison's neighbor Aynsley and convince her that he and "Alison" are having an affair.

Back at Beth and Paul's apartment, he pulls out the bottle of scotch he had previously laced with drugs, but when Sarah begins telling him the truth, he reconsiders it and pulls out a different bottle he hadn't compromised.

work in progress

Olivier continues to question Paul about "Beth's" behavior. Sarah and Felix find Paul's car at a club called Neolution and Felix offers to infiltrate it. He sees Paul and follows him out the door he came in. Paul turns on Felix and asks why he was following him. Sarah rushes up to explain that Felix is her brother.

Sarah and Paul meet back at Paul's place. Paul tells Sarah that Olivier told him someone is killing the subjects. Paul asks Sarah if she knows anything about any killer, but Sarah pretends that she does not know about Helena.

Paul meets again with Olivier, who says that the woman he was monitoring is not Beth. He claims that the person who is killing the subjects looks exactly like Beth. He states that the killer is from Europe, but when Paul asks him to be more specific, Olivier declines. He tells Paul that if he brings the killer in, the company will no longer hold what happened in Afghanistan over him.

Olivier asks Paul to call "Beth" and tell her to come to the club. However, when Paul calls her, he tells her that the company knows she is not Beth and he shouts at her to run. Paul attempts to subdue Olivier, but his assistant Astrid stabs Paul from behind with a hypodermic needle. Olivier and Astrid tie Paul to a chair.

Sarah and Felix drive to the club. Sarah calls Helena and gives her Olivier's name and directions to the club. She instructs Felix to call Art if she is not back in fifteen minutes and tell him everything. She goes into the club and finds Astrid, who leads her to Olivier and Paul.

Sarah asks Olivier how he knows she is not Beth, but he does not know the answer. She tells Olivier that she is not the killer and gives him a description of Helena. Olivier does not believe Sarah and appears to be about to rape her when Dr. Aldous Leekie calls. Leekie tells Olivier to prepare her for transit and Astrid leads Sarah away with a black bag over her head.

Helena sneaks into the club, finds Astrid, and attacks her from behind. She grabs Sarah by the neck and learns Sarah's name. She takes Sarah's place beneath the bag and when Olivier comes to investigate with the knife he took from Sarah, Helena overpowers him, retrieves her knife, and cuts off his tail.

Sarah finds Paul and unties him. She admits that she should have told him more. They find Felix in the middle of calling Art and telling him the call is in reference to Beth. Felix quickly aborts the call and the three of them go to Felix's apartment. Felix excuses himself to go to the bar and Sarah and Paul make love.

Paul finds Olivier in the hospital and he tells Olivier that he has altered the security footage to make it look like only Helena and not Sarah came to the club. He reveals that he knows that Olivier is wanted by the police and that he must lie to Dr. Leekie about what happened. However, Leekie does not believe the lie and has someone murder Olivier, but Leekie does not realize that Paul is behind the lie.

When Sarah is at her foster mother Mrs. S' place, Paul tells Sarah that Dr. Leekie knows who she is. He suggests that Sarah meet with Leekie on her terms. They meet at a place of Sarah's choosing and Paul brings Dr. Leekie there blindfolded. Leekie tells Sarah that Maggie Chen was a double agent who betrayed his organization and that he wants Sarah to bring Helena to him.

Sarah captures Helena and brings her to the meeting location, but Mrs. S calls Sarah and tells her to bring Helena to Mrs. S' home. Paul is left to explain to Dr. Leekie that she said she would come.

After Sarah meets her birth mother Amelia, the police arrest Sarah and take her to the police station. Dyad lawyer Daniel Rosen brings her to a company building and Paul is waiting when she exits the elevator. He tells her to listen to what they have to say. Sarah then meets with clone Rachel Duncan, who asks Sarah to sign a contact. Sarah declines, but Rachel gives her another 24 hours.

After Helena kills Amelia and Sarah shoots Helena, Sarah calls Rachel and tells her she is coming to sign the contact. Paul tells her in the elevator that he killed six marines in Afghanistan, but that she should feel no such pressure because Dyad has no leverage on her. After Cosima calls Sarah to tell her that Dyad has a patent claim on the clones and Kira, Sarah leaves without signing.

Season 2[]

Paul is assigned to be Rachel's monitor after Helena murdered Rachel's previous monitor/lover Daniel Rosen. Paul frames Felix for a crime to compel Sarah to give Rachel what she wants, namely Helena, Kira and Sarah herself. Paul's loyalties seem to often shift between Sarah and Rachel at the Dyad Institute. In the season finale, it is shown that despite being somewhat loyal to Sarah his ultimate loyalties were with the United States military all along. The government allowed Dyad to keep control over the experiments dealing with the female clones of Project Leda, but the experiments with the male clones of Project Castor were controlled by the military. At the end of the season Paul and the military (including a clone of Mark) abduct Helena with the complicity of Ms.S. in exchange for the assurance that Sarah and Kira won't be persecuted by the military.

Season 3[]

In "Certain Agony of the Battlefield," Paul has just come back from telling his boss about the creepy black book research that the Castors were doing with women. He also describes digging in Coady's quarters and finding out that all the women the Castors slept with are now infertile because of the clones’ sexually transmitted disease. With this information, he arrests Coady, locks down the camp, and has his director send an extraction team out to fix things. Once they question Coady, they discover that even though the LEDA and Castor clones have the same defect, Sarah is the only one who can fight off the symptoms. Coady is developing a biological weapon to end all wars through infertility for women and brain damage for men. Everyone is locked down at camp except for Rudy, who is out searching for Helena. Mark warns them that Rudy was tipped off by Paul’s boss and is likely back at camp, so Paul and Sarah make a run for it. Before they can get out, Styles Miller and Paul face off, after Paul's attempts to reason with his brother in arms, and due to his reluctance to hurt a Castor, still Paul ends up stabbed and bleeding profusely and Miller dead. Instead of escaping together, Paul leads her to an exit and locks himself in. His final words to her are, "It was never Beth I loved."

Paul then goes to Coady's lab to wait for her. They argue over the ethics of her work when he asks her to heal the boys and drop the rest of her research, in response Coady shoots Paul, whereupon he drops a grenade that destroys the lab and all the valuable science material in it.


Season 4[]

In "The Collapse of Nature," we see him through various flashbacks with Beth Childs. It provides insight into how their relationship deteriorated.

Personality[]

Initially cold, calculating and methodical, Paul is later shown to have a softer, more understanding side with those that he cares about, more specifcally with Sarah Manning.

Appearances[]

Season 1 appearances
Natural Selection Instinct Variation Under Nature Effects of External Conditions Conditions of Existence
Variations Under Domestication Parts Developed in an Unusual Manner Entangled Bank Unconscious Selection Endless Forms Most Beautiful
Season 2 appearances
Nature Under Constraint and Vexed Governed by Sound Reason and True Religion Mingling Its Own Nature With It Governed As It Were By Chance Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est
To Hound Nature in Her Wanderings Knowledge of Causes, and Secret Motion of Things Variable and Full of Perturbation Things Which Have Never Yet Been Done By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried
Season 3 appearances
The Weight of This Combination Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis Formalized, Complex, and Costly Newer Elements of Our Defense Scarred by Many Past Frustrations
Certain Agony of the Battlefield Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method Insolvent Phantom of Tomorrow History Yet to Be Written
Season 4 appearances
The Collapse of Nature Transgressive Border Crossing The Stigmata of Progress From Indistinct to Rational Control Human Raw Material
The Scandal of Altruism The Antisocialism of Sex The Redesign of Natural Objects The Mitigation of Competition From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths

Gallery[]

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