Paradise’ creator breaks down the shocking extinction reveal and what it means for Season 2

Paradise is created by Dan Fogelman and features Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, James Marsden, and others. The post-apocalyptic political thriller was released on January 26, 2025, and has received praise for its writing and performances.

The show is set in a world where a few people live in a massive underground bunker in Colorado, three years after a doomsday event that destroyed human civilization. It blends post-apocalyptic mystery with a murder-mystery as the series finally reveals in its penultimate episode how the global mass extinction event came about.

Further, it also focuses on US Secret Service agent Xavier Collins (Brown), who wants to find the truth behind the killing of the President of the US (Marsden). The series is full of twists and turns, especially after Paradise’s latest revelation about the end of the world has raised questions about the fate of the story going forward in Season 2.

Paradise discloses that it was a volcanic eruption in the Arctic that led to the melting of ice and created a massive Tsunami, which ended up destroying cities and wiping away the human population.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, executive producer John Hoberg reveals how he wrote the crucial extinction reveal episode and how it sets things up for the next season.

How did the extinction come about in Paradise?

One of the many reasons why Paradise has become such a huge hit with viewers is because of its writing and direction. Apart from the themes around class and privilege, the show has also maintained a consistent suspense about the cataclysmic event that led to the creation of a bunker-like society in Paradise. When the show opens, viewers are only aware of a certain doomsday event that took place three years prior, and only the Secret Service of the President and his chosen few survived the event.

However, executive producer John Hoberg, who wrote the groundbreaking seventh, as well as the penultimate episode of the season, titled The Day, which contains the flashback about what happened, told The Hollywood Reporter that it “destroyed” him.

The seventh episode of the season goes back in time and discloses the extinction-level event that resulted in a bunker-like society in the series, to the viewers. The event begins when a super volcano erupts in the Arctic, which shatters the ice shelf. This melts trillions of gallons of water and leads to a tsunami, with waves as high as 300 feet and travelling at 600 miles per hour. Such a massive event led to the coastal cities being wiped out first, and then the eventual destruction of the whole planet.

What does this mean for Season 2 of Paradise?

During his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, John Hoberg discusses how aspects of unveiling the extinction will play out during the second season of Paradise.

One of the important questions surrounding the show focuses on Sinatra’s (Julianne Nicholson) version of the events as the flashback ends. She maintains that humans avoided a nuclear holocaust, but their Paradise bunker still has the tech they needed.

Therefore, the mystery around this version, as well as belief of the viewers' regarding it, remains anticipated for the next season. Though Hoberg hints that there is some evidence of it working, with an audio recording of Terry and other survivors, and how rudimentary things, for instance, shortwave radio, could be brought back following such an event.

Furthermore, Sinatra ends up blackmailing Xavier after informing him that his wife is actually alive after the apocalypse. Xavier's initial belief that she had passed away is proven false. The next season sets up a complex dynamic to be explored between Xavier and Sinatra. Overall, Hoberg added that the creative team knows where Season 2 will end and how the show will answer the viewer’s questions while simultaneously creating new questions to maintain the momentum of the series.

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Paradise airs on Hulu.

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