The Adults Season 1 finale ended on a kiss nobody saw coming, and Season 2, premiering August 27 on FX and Hulu, is built entirely around the fallout. Anton and Paul Baker locked lips right after their green-card marriage, leaving Paul Baker’s actual girlfriend, Issa, standing right there.
That single scene turned a green-card favor into a full-blown love triangle. To understand why it landed the way it did, you have to go back to how Paul Baker joined the friend group in the first place, and the show just gave viewers that exact origin story.
From Marathon Day to the Marriage Kiss
Ahead of Season 2, FX dropped a surprise prequel episode titled Marathon Day, showing how Paul Baker first fell in with Samir, Billie, Issa, and Anton. The episode reveals Issa met him first when he collapsed mid-marathon, and she nursed him back to health, but it also gives Anton and Paul Baker their own meet-cute.
In the episode, Paul Baker steps in to cover for Anton’s lie about having a marathon medal by handing over his own and thanking Anton for letting him borrow it earlier. It is a small, throwaway kindness on the surface. Placed right before Season 2, it reframes the entire friendship.
Co-creator Ben Kronengold explained the thinking behind revisiting this territory now.
“The question we get the most often from fans is how the group all got together. So, we thought this was a fun opportunity, as we gear up to release Season 2 in August, to show our five housemates’ origin story, back before they knew Paul Baker, back before Samir’s parents even knew anyone was living in the house.”
That framing matters because it tells viewers the show wants them to think about foundations right as it blows up the group’s dynamic. Paul Baker did not stumble into Anton’s life as a long-time confidant. He was a complete stranger who instantly jumped into Anton’s web of lies the day they met, establishing a deep, foundational trust that completely reframes their future green-card marriage.
Related: Why Is Anton’s Sister Suddenly in the Picture in Adults Season 2? Raven-Symoné’s Role Explained
Was the Chemistry There All Along?
Jack Innanen, who plays Paul Baker, has been direct that the kiss was not built out of nowhere. Speaking with TheWrap about shooting the prequel, he described the early dynamic between the two characters as something that was always simmering under the surface.
“It’s not at the front of his brain, but there’s something in his brainstem that exists and did exist throughout and grew throughout the first season.”
That lines up with how the marriage itself came together. Issa hesitated when Paul Baker’s visa trouble came to a head, and rather than let their relationship carry that weight, Anton stepped up instead.
What was supposed to be a practical solution to an immigration problem turned into the moment that exposed real, unresolved feelings between the two men. Innanen has said the writers never intended to play it as a joke.
Season 1 gave Anton and Paul Baker plenty of screen time together outside of Issa, from raising a teenage houseguest named Annabelle to covering for each other’s white lies. The show spent an entire season building a friendship intimate enough that a fake marriage did not feel like a stretch, which is exactly what made the kiss hit as hard as it did.
Season 2 now has to answer for that kiss directly, and Issa is caught in the middle of it. She is Paul Baker’s girlfriend and Anton’s best friend, which puts every one of the group’s easy dynamics under pressure at once.
The fallout will not stay contained to just the three of them either, since Billie and Samir carry their own unresolved romantic threads into the new episodes.
Adults Season 2 is now premiering on FX and Hulu.