{"id":308634,"date":"2026-02-20T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308634\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:02:08","slug":"paradise-season-2-breaks-out-of-the-bunker-and-brings-even-more-tension-and-thrills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/308634\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Paradise\u2019 Season 2 Breaks Out of the Bunker and Brings Even More Tension and Thrills"},"content":{"rendered":"

The post-apocalypse adds a new setting (the outside world!) and new intrigue (billionaires are always up to something) when Paradise<\/a>, Hulu\u2019s dystopian thriller<\/a>, returns. Season two brings back the show\u2019s flashes of melodrama and frequent pop culture references, emphasizing its complicated characters while also reminding the viewer that this is taking place in a version of our world that\u2019s gone very, very sideways<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Season one, which unfolded almost entirely in an underground city created to withstand a global environmental disaster, closed the case on its presidential assassination whodunit\u2014but left plenty of bunker-bound intrigue in its wake.<\/p>\n

The main timeline of season two picks up just a few weeks after season one, but once again Paradise\u2014created by This Is Us\u2019 Dan Fogelman\u2014relies on frequent flashbacks to bring fresh context and perspective to what we only think we know. A big reason Paradise is so entertaining is the way it constantly subverts expectations, springing surprise twists that in retrospect feel logical rather than random\u2014and revealing over and over that first impressions aren\u2019t always what they seem.<\/p>\n

It is very carefully plotted, with breadcrumbs of various significance sprinkled across the early episodes, then highlighted in the \u201cpreviously on\u201d segments that become essential parts of the Paradise viewing experience.<\/p>\n

\"Paradises2robinson\"\u00a9 Disney\/Gilles Mingasson <\/p>\n

Paradise season two once again runs eight episodes, with the first three arriving together; it\u2019s a smart choice since each episode focuses on a different character and entry point into the drama. (io9 was provided with the first seven episodes for the purposes of this spoiler-free review.)<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to wait very long to see how Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown, who brings plenty of gravitas but also looks convincingly like a guy who could kill you with his hands) fared after escaping the bunker. In the course of discovering who killed President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), Xavier uncovered hidden truths about the bunker and its most powerful resident, billionaire Samantha \u201cSinatra\u201d Redmond (Julianne Nicholson). He also found out his presumed-dead wife, Teri (Enuka Okuma), had survived the disaster and was still somewhere near Atlanta, her last known location\u2014which is exactly where Xavier points the small plane he appropriates from the bunker\u2019s stash.<\/p>\n

All three of those storylines\u2014Xavier\u2019s journey to find Teri, Sinatra\u2019s desire to conceal just how deep her well of secrets goes, and Teri\u2019s survival struggles after what Paradise calls \u201cthe Day\u201d\u2014propel season two. After barely getting any time with Teri in season one, we finally get a chance to see why Xavier thinks she hung the moon, and the show is better for it.<\/p>\n

Season two also digs into the turmoil left behind in Liberty Grove, the underground community that even Paradise itself has started calling \u201cParadise.\u201d After season one\u2019s upheavals, the facade of normalcy is poised to crumble anew with every new confrontation.<\/p>\n

This includes the tension between Sinatra, recovering from a bullet wound sustained in the season one finale, and her former confidante, Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi). There\u2019s also the increasing distrust that Agent Nicole Robinson (Krys Marshall) feels about Agent Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom), who viewers well know is a vicious killer only pretending to be, as Robinson once pegged her, \u201cHolly Hobbie with a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Paradises2liedetector\"\u00a9 Disney\/Ser Baffo <\/p>\n

As Paradise switches between these separate\u2014yet interlinked, all part of the show\u2019s precise design\u2014plotlines, it also makes room for brand-new characters. While fans might be eager to see what happened to Xavier and Sinatra immediately, season two instead spends its entire premiere with a fresh face: Annie (Shailene Woodley), a med school dropout who\u2019s just starting to find happiness working as a tour guide at Graceland (another example of interlinking: as we know, Teri\u2019s such a big Elvis fan, her daughter with Xavier is named \u201cPresley\u201d) when disaster strikes.<\/p>\n

Annie\u2019s experiences give us a whole new point of view on the Day as well as the first three years of its devastating aftermath. Since season one was so bunker-focused, the audience was shielded from witnessing the environmental nightmares, including the deep freeze caused by the supervolcano\u2019s giant ash cloud. There are also considerable challenges associated with living in a world where an EMP, set off by Bradford to prevent nuclear war, has knocked out all power sources beyond the most primitive.<\/p>\n

We immediately care about Annie. She\u2019s all alone and would prefer to keep it that way, so we feel her terror when a group of rough-looking men suddenly appears at Graceland\u2019s gate. That said, like many of the characters on Paradise, they\u2019re not what they seem at first. It\u2019s in this way we meet another significant new character: Link, played by Thomas Doherty.<\/p>\n

Paradise manages to successfully juggle all these threads because each character has a very clear destination, a very clear motivation, or often both. We don\u2019t always know what\u2019s driving them at first, but they do, and that helps the pieces of the narrative slot into place. Even the most slippery characters have an inner code\u2014which is not always a moral code, mind you\u2014that they remain loyal to above everything else.<\/p>\n

\"Paradises2horse\"\u00a9 Disney\/Ser Baffo <\/p>\n

That includes Jane, whose tendencies toward evil are further explored across season two\u2014very necessary, after sort of materializing out of nowhere in season one\u2014and the deeply complex Sinatra, who remains Paradise\u2019s most enigmatic character even as we learn more about her.<\/p>\n

If you watched the trailer, you heard her say, \u201cIt was never just about the bunker,\u201d and that tantalizing statement becomes the rabbit hole that season two plunges into. Strap in, and cringe at some of the music choices if you must\u2014but know you\u2019re in for a hell of a ride, as Paradise spins another gripping story about how the end of the world can inspire some of the very best and very worst choices among what\u2019s left of humanity.<\/p>\n

Paradise returns to Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ on February 23 with a three-episode drop and a weekly rollout thereafter.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The post-apocalypse adds a new setting (the outside world!) and new intrigue (billionaires are always up to something)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,3287,61,60,97252,97355,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-308634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hulu","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-paradise","13":"tag-sterling-k-brown","14":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}