‘The Irrational’ Canceled After 2 Seasons

People behave irrationally under all sorts of circumstances, and world-renowned professor of behavioral science Alec Mercer (Jesse L. Martin) is exactly who you’d want on a case involving just that. Unfortunately, his time doing so has come to an end after two seasons.

On The Irrational, Alec lends his unique expertise to high-stakes cases and mysteries. His insight and unconventional approach to understanding human behavior lead him to work alongside varying clients ranging from the FBI to everyday people caught in perplexing situations desperate for answers. With the help of his trusted team and social-science experiments, Alec solves crimes and uncovers the truth to answer intriguing, and irrational, questions.

Will The Irrational return for Season 3? Read on for everything we know so far, from the cast to what it would be about and more.

Is The Irrational renewed for Season 3?

No, NBC has canceled the drama after two seasons, reports Deadline. The Season 2 finale aired on March 25, 2025.

Who was in The Irrational cast?

In addition to Jesse L. Martin as Alec Mercer, the drama also starred Maahra Hill as Marisa, Travina Springer as Kylie, Molly Kunz as Phoebe, and Arash DeMaxi as Rizwan. Recurring were Karen David as Rose and Max Lloyd-Jones as Simon.

How did The Irrational end?

The NBC drama left off on a major cliffhanger. Alec realized that someone had been watching him after getting photos of himself texted to him by a mysterious number. He became Rose’s first case as she opened her own agency in D.C. rather than return to MI6.

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Meanwhile, Marisa decided she was ready to move out of the house she once shared with Alec and where her boyfriend was killed, and Kylie turned down an offer to become an FBI agent as well as one from a friend.

What would have happened in The Irrational Season 3?

TV Insider spoke with executive producer Arika Lisanne Mittman about what we could have seen next after the shocking Season 2 finale.

“We want to tease something about, ‘Hey, next season there’s going to be more intriguing mysteries, more to uncover, this doesn’t mean the story’s over,'” Mittman explained about that ending. “So I wanted to make sure to give everybody something else to chew on a little bit before next season.”

As for who has been following Alec, “That’s the thing we’ll have to get a Season 3 pickup to find out, otherwise no one will ever know,” Mittman teased.

“The only thing I will say is we definitely opened the door to Rose staying and to Rose being a more permanent fixture of the season and for her, having this new agency, of having her own little detective agency, if you will, having something that’s not always high-end crisis management,” Mittman shared. “I like the idea going forward of Alec getting — he gets some of his cases from the FBI, He gets some of them from different random places like friends of his, and he can also get some cases from Rose as he has before, but of Rose not just being attached to sort of high-end wealthy people’s sort of fixer problems, for her being able to have a whole different variety of cases with different kinds of people.”

She also hoped that everyone would return in the same capacity, but acknowledged that was something that would have had to be worked out if Season 3 was picked up. As for whether we would have heard Jesse L. Martin sing again after he did so for the musical episode in Season 2, well, that was very much TBD. “If I had my druthers, yes, but, what Jesse and I agree on is it has to be organic for the story and organic for the character of Alec,” said Mittman. “We can’t just throw in Jesse Martin singing. It has to make sense just like it did in the musical episode that we did.”