'Paradise' Season 2 Trailer: Paranoia, Corruption, and Lawlessness
Leaving the bunker was only the beginning as powers shift, secrets unravel, and survival turns ruthless
“It was never just about the bunker.”
That line—spoken as a quiet threat and a confession all at once—hangs in the air of the Paradise Season 2 trailer like ash. Because once Xavier Collins steps outside, there’s no version of this story where things stay contained, controlled, or clean ever again.
Season 1 ended with truth detonating in real time. Sinatra’s revelation—that Xavier’s wife, Teri, may still be alive—wasn’t just a twist, it was a moral rupture. And the Season 2 trailer makes one thing painfully clear: Xavier will stop at nothing to get Teri back.
After his plane crashes, Xavier emerges into a world that has learned how to live without rules, without structure, and without mercy. Enter Shailene Woodley, a new figure whose presence immediately shifts the axis of the show. She isn’t just a guide—she’s a mirror, someone who understands what it costs to keep going even when the world stops.
“Out here, the little things will kill you.”
It’s not just a warning. It’s a heavy promise of the darkness that infects the human mind, altering the behaviors of even the kindest person—turning them into something worse than a monster.
The trailer leans hard into a split narrative—above ground and below with sown seeds of chaos and control, lawlessness versus institutional corruption rotting each location from the inside out.
Outside the bunker, humanity has adapted in terrifying ways. Without leadership, without systems, people become colder, crueler, and more desperate. Inside the bunker, the absence of Cal and the exposure of Sinatra’s lies create a vacuum where power doesn’t disappear—it mutates.
And the Season 2 poster? Xavier on a horse in the middle of an abandoned city. This is the evolution of the archetype: protector turned hunter, the former presidential secret agent stripped of his badge but never his purpose. Xavier exudes “Rick Grimes energy,” filtered through the same feelings of grief, guilt, and the fallout of an institution that failed to protect its citizens.
This season doesn’t just ask what would you do to survive? It asks what will you destroy to to save the one you love most?
Dan Fogelman hinted at this pivot exactly one year ago in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, and the trailer confirms it:
“Each season of the show is a slightly different show, within the same show…there’s big moves ahead.”
Those big moves look like heightened paranoia, escalating danger, and corruption no longer hidden behind procedure or policy. Xavier’s stressors are now doubled—external threats in the world above, and the knowledge that by leaving, he may be repeating the very abandonment that shaped him since The Day.
The most devastating throughline of this dilemma? His children are still in the bunker.
His decision to leave them behind in order to find their mother becomes the single thread keeping him alive—and the one that could snap at any moment. Love, in this world, isn’t soft. It’s combustible.
But what the trailer promises isn’t just more action—it’s consequences. Every step Xavier takes away from the bunker feels like a step closer to becoming something unrecognizable. And yet, what other choice is there to make?
If Teri is alive, then nothing else matters.
Paradise—created and executive produced by Dan Fogelman—stars Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Krys Marshall, Enuka Okuma, Aliyah Mastin, Percy Daggs IV, and Charlie Evans. Recurring guest stars include Shailene Woodley and Thomas Doherty.
Jess Rosenthal, John Hoberg, Sterling K. Brown, Steve Beers, Glenn Ficarra, and John Requa also executive produce.
Season 2 of Paradise premieres Monday, February 23, with the first three episodes dropping on launch day and then weekly thereafter. If Season 1 was about control, Season 2 looks ready to prove that hope can sometimes be the most dangerous of motivations.
Check out the trailer below.