Returning for a second season on Disney + is the Hulu original series created by This Is Us‘s Dan Fogelman, Paradise. The sci-fi/political intrigue based series set in an underground bunker after a natural disaster and the murder of then president Cal Bradford (James Marsden) concluded the first season with Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown). The show’s protagonist, Xavier is fleeing the bunker in a desperate search for his presumed lost wife, after evidence that life has survived outside the bunker arises. Meanwhile, the main antagonist Samantha Redmond (Julianne Nicholson) aka Sinatra (a codename she assumes as the shadow force in charge of everything) has been shot by her own hidden bagwoman Jane Driscoll (Nicole Brydon Bloom).

Debuting with a three episode drop/mini-arc, Season 2 starts by laying out the status quo through three completely separate scenarios. The most intriguing and engrossing of them comes first with the appropriately entitled ‘Graceland’. Here we meet a new character, Annie Clay (Shailene Woodley), a medical school dropout who’s working as a Tour Guide in Graceland when D-Day arrives. Bunkering down in the manor, Annie stays hidden from the rest of the societal collapse for years until she is visited by a group of nerds /  survivalists lead by Link (Thomas Doherty) who charms her out of her hiding. The group has plans to head to Colorado because they have heard of the bunker and plan an infiltration. ‘Mayday’ catches us up with Xavier and his frantic flight to get to Atlanta, but he ends up crash landing in Arkansas.  Injured and disorientated, Xavier has to survive the night in a hostile environment before being found the following morning by an unlikely savior.

While the third episode, ‘Another Day in Paradise’ takes us back to the bunker weeks after the ending of season one to find Sinatra just waking up weeks after being shot. During her downtime, newly elected President Baines has gone full on dictator, deciding that an iron fist is the only way that the community can survive after the events of season one. As per Xavier’s wishes, he takes the blame for everything,but that leaves Jane to further her own position and agenda. This also Agent Robinson (Krys Marshall) and Xavier’s children Presley (Aliyah Mastin) and James (Percy Daggs IV) in precarious positions. And Cal’s son Jeremy (Charlie Evans) is on the run as he continues to try and disrupt the system. The episode also flashes back again to pre-dome times, showing the lengths Sinatra went to in developing the dome project and how she recruited the late Billy Pace (Jon Beavers).

Cr. Courtesy of Disney © 2026

It’s hard to tell how much of this second season of Paradise was planned for and how much was ‘oh shit, guess we have to make up another season’.  This is evidenced by the fact that the premiere episode which has nothing to do with the first season is by far the best of the opening three. I’m limiting my thoughts to the first three episodes so as not to spoil anything past the initial release day. The episode back in the dome feels the most stretching as a lot of plotting and scheming just feels like a retread and the ending is not at all surprising, though I suspect that’s what they were aiming for. The fact that the stuff in the dome feels flat should make the audience wonder if it will have enough legs.

The stuff outside the dome is infinitely more intriguing this time around, which is certainly not harmed by Woodley. Though the script may not be the best laid out in parts for her character, some of her ‘decisions’ are more obviously plot serving and not necessarily on par with the character, Woodley is just so damned good she pulls it all off. I look forward to further interactions with Brown’s Xavier as the season continues on.

As for the dome community, Marshall’s Agent Robinson looks primed for a bigger role which she absolutely earned in season one. Nicholson continues to find ways to make Sinatra’s scheming at least watchable. But the biggest issues here may come from Bloom’s Agent Driscoll as her character seems to be slipping more into caricature and may become the weakest part of the show, though I may blame that more on the writing. And the Collins children seem to have been relegated to more supporting pieces around, especially with Xavier out of the dome.

In the end though, there’s certainly enough here to hold on to and see what continues to unspool through the entirety of a second season of Paradise, especially all the world building and exploration of the world outside the dome.  I genuinely am excited to see the chemistry between Woodley and Brown develop even more as the season goes on. But I’m certainly hoping that something new happens inside the dome as things progress, instead of this water downed retread of season one that seems to be unfolding at the moment. But if we have learned anything from season one, it’s that Fogelman has the ability to pull strings together and deliver a great finale.