‘Paradise’ Creator Confirms No Zombies in the Apocalypse

Sorry, Paradise fans, we won’t be seeing any zombies in Season 2 of the Dan Fogelman series. Between the sprawling The Walking Dead franchise and, more recently, The Last of Us, we’ve not just seen an increase in the number of zombie stories unfold on TV, but the quality of such stories has dramatically improved, with the latter even scoring some Emmy Awards. In this day and age, nearly any story that is set in a post-apocalypse features the living undead, even if a series like Fallout puts its own spin on monstrous figures. Still, Fogelman promised that when Sterling K. Brown’s Xavier explores life outside of the town’s bunker, he’ll make some surprising discoveries, it just won’t be zombies.

While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Fogelman ruled out the fan theory, explaining:

“There’s definitely no zombies … But it was always the intention for the show to get a little bit more sci-fi as we went along, and the second season starts opening up those doors more.”

What Else Can We Expect in Season 2 of ‘Paradise’?

The first season of Paradise centered on the mystery of the President (James Marsden) being murdered and Xavier investigating the assassination, and while that premise was already compelling enough, the pilot episode ended with the reveal that the small town where the murder happened was actually an underground facility that was built for the selected population to survive a global apocalypse. Season 2 ended with Xavier discovering that his wife, whom he thought had died in the apocalypse, had actually survived, and he set out into the unknown world to find her.

Fogelman added of Season 2:

“I keep reminding myself to stick to the plan, because sometimes the plan can be a little scary … There’s a moment where you go, ‘Wow, people are really enjoying this show in this world and we’re gonna be going to different worlds and different areas. And that’s a scary moment where you check yourself a little bit, but we tried to execute the plan that we always had, the plan that I pitched to Sterling when I first told him what the three seasons were gonna be. And we stuck with that.”

Despite Marsden’s character being killed in Season 1, he’ll be returning for more flashbacks in Season 2, with the new season adding Shailene Woodley and Thomas Doherty. Fogelman pointed out that the new season will start with Woodley’s character, who is a figure who survived the apocalypse, and that the new season will pick up almost immediately after the Season 1 finale.

“It was interesting with this particular show because this is a show built on a lot of mysteries, almost all of which were solved by the end of the first season,” Fogelman confirmed of the new season. “Multiple characters who existed in the first season of the show who people really responded to are dead. And so the very nature of the show doesn’t allow you to repeat the first season. And now the looming questions are different: What is it out there? Is Xavier’s wife alive? These are questions that really weren’t the primary questions driving the first season of the show, but now are the primary questions driving the second.”

Paradise Season 2 premieres on Hulu on February 23, 2026.