Paradise hit Hulu with a bang in early 2025, delivering the pilot’s big twist with, as Entertainment Weekly‘s review declared, “the kind of skillful, unhurried confidence that will prompt many viewers to watch the episode again in search of clues they missed.”

That twist? Paradise, a political thriller about the assassination of President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), is set in an underground bunker (called Paradise) following a mass extinction event. The first season found Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent, seeking the killer while also learning that the situation outside the bunker isn’t quite how it’s been depicted by those in power, including the shadowy Sinatra (Julianne Nicholson).

Speaking with EW following the season 1 finale, creator Dan Fogelman described season 2 as The Empire Strikes Back of his planned trilogy. “The second season is going to turn what you thought the first season was —and what Paradise and the bunker was — a little bit on its head,” he teased.

You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Read on for everything we know about season 2 of Hulu’s Paradise.

How did Paradise season 1 end?

 The season 1 finale revealed Bradford’s murderer as Trent (Ian Merrigan), the Paradise librarian. It turns out that he was living in Paradise under a stolen identity — and that he’d tried to kill Bradford prior to the apocalypse. Back then, he was a project manager on the construction of the bunker, but was fired after raising concerns about the health hazards caused by the dust created by their work.

He first tried to assassinate Bradford at a pre-apocalypse press conference, but ended up shooting Xavier instead. After escaping prison, he managed to infiltrate the bunker along with his wife, Maggie (Michelle Meredith). He murdered Bradford with a construction tool on display in the library.

Xavier manages to track Trent down, but fails to nab him before the killer can leap to his death into the machinery powering the bunker’s skylight.

Xavier then confronts Sinatra, who recently informed him that his wife, Teri, whom he thought dead, may still be alive outside the bunker. But before he can get answers, Sinatra is shot by the enigmatic Secret Service agent Jane (Nicole Brydon Bloom), who has her own Wii-related agenda. Sinatra is alive, but incapacitated.

Using old notes compiled by the late president, Xavier decides to leave Paradise and fly to Atlanta in search of Teri.

What is Paradise season 2 about?

“Xavier searches for Teri out in the world and learns how people survived the three years since The Day,” reads an official description of season 2. “Back in Paradise, the social fabric frays as the bunker deals with the aftermath of Season 1, and new secrets are uncovered about the city’s origins.”

Following the season 1 finale, Fogelman explained to EW that there are two key questions driving season 2. “The first season had two mysteries — who killed the President? And what happened in the outside world, why was this bunker built?” he said. “We’ve answered those mysteries now, and now there’s two new big mysteries looming, which is what happened to Teri? Is she out there? What is her story? And two, what are the effects of all the happenings of episode 8 on the bunker and somebody having publicly left the bunker and opened the doors and gone out there?”

Speaking with EW at the 2025 San Diego Comic-Con, Brown also revealed that the season will spend ample time in the ruined world outside Paradise. “We see how people have been surviving that didn’t have the means and the planning that the people inside the bunker did,” he explained. “They’ve made a way. It doesn’t look as organized, obviously, but it is a way. We meet people who are benign. We meet people who are nefarious.”

But fear not, ample time will be spent both inside and outside the bunker. “Wouldn’t be Paradise without the folks in Paradise,” he added. “The season is divvied up between Xavier’s exploration of what is outside and what continues to happen inside after the melee that transpired with Sinatra and Jane.”

Is there a Paradise season 2 trailer?

The first teaser for Paradise season 2 arrived on Dec. 6, 2025, previewing a hard road ahead for Xavier.

The short clip begins with a downed plane and a pained Xavier, whose efforts to escape the vessel only earn him a broken leg. His journey to Atlanta won’t be an easy one.

Elsewhere in the teaser, we catch glimpses of the broader world, including a frozen, snow-covered expanse and woodlands littered with overturned cars.

Inside the bunker, meanwhile, Sinatra ominously intones, “It was never just about the bunker.”

Who’s in the Paradise season 2 cast?

Brown returns for season 2 along with season 1 veterans Nicholson, Bloom, Sarah Shahi, Krys Marshall, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs IV, and Charlie Evans. Also joining the main cast is Enuka Okuma, who appeared as Teri in season 1 flashbacks.

Marsden’s Bradford, who died in the first episode, will continue to appear in flashbacks. “We get a chance to see him in different time periods,” Brown told EW.

Though she was gravely wounded at the end of season 1, Nicholson’s Sinatra will remain a key character in season 2. “It’s the first time in the show since her early backstory that you’re going to see Sinatra vulnerable and out of a position of power,” Fogelman explained, adding that Jane’s attack on her will reverberate. “This young woman who’s maybe a much more dangerous version of herself has taken her out. The question is who steps into the power vacuum that’s left behind if she’s incapacitated and what does it do emotionally and physically to Sinatra to have been wounded like this and been taken out of power?”

New faces in season 2 include Thomas Doherty (Tell Me Lies) and Emmy nominee Shailene Woodley (Big Little Lies).

Woodley plays Annie, a former tour guide at Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion. “The first episode introduces this new character that Shai plays. It’s hard to talk about without giving away too much, but it is a real tour de force,” Fogelman said during the show’s Comic-Con panel. “A performance tour de force, and I don’t say that lightly. She hasn’t seen it yet but everyone backstage is already coming up to her and telling her.”

He added, “[Xavier and Annie] eventually will meet. But Shai’s character lived in the world before, and so, I’m not going to say which characters will interact with her in the world, but eventually at some point, Sterling and her… we have filmed that. They’ve done scenes together.”

Is there a Paradise season 2 release date?

The first three episodes of Paradise season 2 arrive February 23, 2026, on Hulu. New episodes will arrive on a weekly basis following the premiere.

How can I watch Paradise?

Paradise is available to stream on Hulu.