Paradise Timeline: What Led to the End of the World… and What Happened Next

Paradise Timeline: What Led to the End of the World… and What Happened Next Southeast Asia Home Amazon Deals Pro-tips by Codashop PC PS4 Xbox One Nintendo Mobile Entertainment EsportsMoreSearch Home More About IGN SEAContactAdvertisePressUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyRSSIGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd Change Region United States United Kingdom Australia Africa Adria Serbian/Croatian Adria Slovenian Benelux / Dutch Brazil China / 中国 Czechia / Slovakia France Germany Greece / Ελλάδα Hungary India Israel Italy / Italia Japan / 日本 Korea / 한국 Latin America Middle East – English Middle East – الأوسطالشرق Nordic Poland Portugal Southeast Asia Spain / España Turkey / Türkiye world.ign.com Register / Login Register / Login Login Register Paradise Paradise Timeline: What Led to the End of the World… and What Happened Next The hit Hulu series is back for Season 2, so catch up on what you need to know about 'The Day.' This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale. By Alex Zalben  Updated: Feb. 19, 2026, 9:30 p.m. Related reads:MapleStorySEA Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Massive Summer Updates Spoilers follow for Paradise through the end of Season 1. Paradise Season 2 will debut on February 23.Paradise, the wildest post-apocalypse series on TV, is back on Hulu for a second season this week. Starring Sterling K. Brown, Julianne Nicholson, and James Marsden, the Dan Fogelman-created series was a huge hit in Season 1, and it looks like it won’t let up in the second season either. But even with a short-for-streaming gap between seasons (a year instead of the now default two- to three-year hiatus), you might be a little confused about the timeline as you jump into Season 2…More like thisOpen Back Headphones: A Sound Experience Like No Other…And that’s because the timeline is confusing. Like other flashback shows such as Lost – or more to the point of the whole Fogelman of it all, This Is Us – while there’s plenty of action happening in the “present,” there’s also a lot of jumping back into different points in the past. So with that in mind, particularly given some plot points coming up in Season 2 (no spoilers here), you’re probably going to want to check and recheck the timeline of Paradise to make sure you know who was where, when.While we won’t hit every single plot point from the first season, we are going to break down major events – and some seemingly minor ones that may have ramifications as the series moves forward. So let’s get into it, starting back in… the ’90s?The Paradise Timeline1997Actually, before we even explain why we’re in 1997, aka the year Titanic took over the box office, it’s also important to note that this timeline is gonna ditch the dates pretty soon. The reason for that? Most of Paradise takes place in the “present day,” all centered around the before and after of a future (for us, the viewers) event that’s referred to as “The Day.” Again, we’ll get there in a second, but for the moment we’re starting with a real year, when Bill Clinton started his second term as President.We got this specific year in Season 1, Episode 5, “In the Palaces of Crowned Kings,” when future President Cal Bradford (Marsden) told his dad that he wants to be a teacher. Instead, the overpowering father Kane (Gerald McRaney) forces him into politics, kicking off a series of events that leads to Cal’s murder at the beginning of Season 1.Gerald McRaney and Charlie Evans in Paradise Season 1, Episode 5.19 BTDAt this point, given the TV show doesn’t provide years, we’ve got to establish a time scale of our own. So we’re going to use Before The Day (BTD) and After The Day (ATD). For example, 19 years BTD, the billionaire Samantha Redmond, later known by her codename “Sinatra,” met her husband, Tim (Tuc Watkins), in a bar after selling her tech startup.(We’ll also note that a lot of these dates are approximate, and some of it doesn’t quite add up. We’re flying slightly by the seat of our pants here, though ultimately it does lead to the correct order of events, even if things might be off by a year or so.)16 BTDFor example! Sinatra’s daughter Hadley (Kate Godfrey) is born in about 16 BTD. We know this because she’s about 16 years old when we meet her on the show in – you guessed it – the present day. However, she seems to be much younger than this when we see her in flashbacks during Season 1, Episode 2, “Sinatra.” She also has an older brother, Dylan (Peter Gorbis) who was born before her, but we don’t know when. Gotta love it!Julianne Nicholson as Samantha Redmond, aka “Sinatra.”13 BTDWhile outside a store riding a horse (not a real one), Dylan collapses and is diagnosed with some sort of unspecified Child Sickness. They proceed to get him treatment over the next year and a half, but…11 BTDDylan dies. Before he does, he tells his mom he wants to see heaven and he wants it to be full of horses, which sets her off on a journey to, as Belinda Carlisle might say, make heaven a place on Earth. Though she doesn’t quite get there with the whole “full of horses” thing.Just before this, Sinatra meets Dr. Gabriela Torabi (Sarah Shahi), a therapist who helps Sinatra with her grief and becomes a good friend, assisting Sinatra as she builds her plan to save the world. There’s not much you need to worry about with this in terms of the overarching plot, though Torabi and Sinatra’s friendship timeline does get brought up a lot on the show.10 BTDSinatra attends an international finance summit where she sneaks into a lecture by Dr. Louge (Geoffrey Arend), who is less concerned about finance and more concerned about the end of the world. Basically, he thinks the world has 10 years until there’s a global catastrophe caused by a super volcano, and he is weirdly spot-on as it turns out. Sinatra, still distraught about the death of Dylan, hooks right into this and begins to put all her time and resources into constructing a plan to weather the end of the world.Also at this finance summit? Cal Bradford, who is now a US Senator and well on his way to his destiny as President.Dr. Louge thinks the world has 10 years until there’s a global catastrophe caused by a super volcano, and he is weirdly spot-on as it turns out.9 BTDMoving quickly on her plan, Sinatra recruits Anders (Erik Svedberg-Zelman), a brilliant architect who she wants to design an underground bunker in the mountains in Colorado, where she plans to build Dylan’s heaven on Earth – and save as many people as she can, of course. By this point, she’s already begun hollowing out the mountain, and Anders agrees to help. Then, in a good chunk of the Season 1 finale, “The Man Who Kept the Secrets,” we see them building and hollowing out the mountain more, under the part