Severance Season 2 Was Well Worth The Wait

No one expected to wait three years for a new season of Severance — not even the series’ creators. Created by Dan Erickson and directed at turns by Ben Stiller, the first chapter of Severance hooked audiences early. But its sinister sci-fi twist, however compelling, was shrouded in mystery. After a harrowing season finale, it only left us wanting more: more intrigue, sure, but most importantly, answers. Apple TV renewed the series quickly — but after a writers’ strike and mounting expectations, delivering the next chapter of Severance was easier said than done.

The intervening years have given fans a lot of time to think. Much of that has manifested in playful discourse, copious theories on platforms like Reddit, or viral memes on X and TikTok. But the other side of that coin contains seeds of doubt: Mystery boxes usually start on a promising note, but more often than not, end in disappointment. That Severance is taking cues from shows like Lost and Westworld — shows that teased great, galaxy-brained secrets, only to drop the ball as the story dragged on — is as much a blessing as it could be a curse. And that’s especially true as it returns for another season, one that promises to be even trippier than the first.

After such a jaw-dropping cliffhanger and so much time away, it’s natural to expect answers from Severance Season 2. But Erickson and Stiller aren’t quite ready to give up the game just yet, resulting in a follow-up that teases out as many mysteries as it attempts to address. In its second season, Severance remains a twisty, tongue-in-cheek meditation on a work/life balance taken too far. But by diving deeper into the fractured psyches of its ensemble, the series manages to skirt the need for outright answers... at least for a little while.

Severance’s first season, which started with a strong sci-fi premise straight out of The Twilight Zone, introduced a cult-like conglomerate named Lumon Industries, the pioneers of a procedure that allows employees to split their work selves from their out-of-office personas. The process essentially creates two consciousnesses in one body. It’s highly controversial, making any severed individual a pariah in the real world. And though “innies” like Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro), and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) have no knowledge of anything going on beyond Lumon’s severed floor — a purgatory that sums up their entire existence — the revolt they stage at the end of Season 1 is pretty indicative of their experience.

Said revolt, known as the Overtime Contingency, notably answered a handful of mysteries teased in Season 1. Mark discovered that his outie’s wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman) — whose alleged demise inspired Mark to sever his consciousness in the first place — is still alive, working on the severed floor alongside him. Helly, meanwhile, learned that her outie is none other than Helena Eagan, the daughter of Lumon’s creepy CEO. That bombshell sets up a tangled web of intrigue, one that Season 2 takes its sweet time exploring.

The bulk of Season 2 surrounds the fate of Gemma, aka “Ms. Casey,” but not before diving into the fallout of the innie revolt. The latter takes priority in early episodes, and admittedly makes for a slow start. That’s largely because life at Lumon will never be the same again. The innies essentially hijacked their outie’s lives for less than an hour of freedom, a stunt that not only raises security concerns, but has threatened all of Lumon’s special projects. Helly aired the grievances of the innies and their abysmal working conditions, just as her father, Jame (Michael Siberry), was working to remove the stigma around severance. Lumon may be a sinister conglomerate, but it’s still a business at the end of the day. Even if the inner workings of the company remain a mystery, it makes sense that Severance would choose to explore its attempts to regroup after such a public humiliation.

A new angle on Lumon also gives us the chance to get to know the other half of Helly, a callous, composed figure only glimpsed in flashes in Season 1. It’s most gratifying when she shares scenes with Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) or Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), the stewards of the severed floor. By day, they’re Helly’s domineering managers — but after hours, Helena’s top of the food chain. Severance juggles their shifting dynamics with aplomb, and Tillman especially gets the chance to explore the chinks in Milchick’s armor in earnest. The character was a chief scene-stealer in Season 1, inspiring collective dread and viral moments in equal measure. There’ll be plenty of the latter in Season 2, thanks to a sequence that’s determined to outdo last season’s “defiant jazz.” But through Milchick, Severance is also wading deeper into its exploration of identity, introducing themes of race into its oppressive corporate setting.

While Lumon’s upper crust regains control of the severed floor, the innies are still searching for answers below. Irving is still reeling from the loss of his worktime crush, Burt (Christopher Walken). Their connection isn’t one so easily broken, bleeding into their outies’ lives and teasing a new mystery in Lumon. As the one innie who stayed behind during the Overtime Contingency, you’d think Dylan would have the least to lose this season. But the series finds a way to bring the character to a more vulnerable place — and into direct competition with his outie.

The same could obviously be said for Mark. Outside of work, his grief-stricken outie is grappling with an outlandish conspiracy involving his wife. At Lumon, Innie-Mark is trying to reconcile his feelings for Helly with his larger responsibilities. His two halves will have to work together if they plan to free Gemma from Lumon... and if they plan to expose Lumon’s crimes beyond Helly’s one-time outburst. But waging a battle against the company also comes with undue consequences. Dismantling the concept of severance would eliminate the need for severed individuals — and as we learned in Season 1, so many innies already have lives of their own. “Freedom” would mean losing that altogether, a concept that Mark and Helly would rather delay as long as possible.

Erickson, Stiller, and their collaborators have clearly taken their time to further build out the world of Severance, and they do so by relying on its cast. The murky bureaucracy of Lumon (the loftiest of which involve a reverence for its founder and godhead, Kier) are easier to understand with a stronger focus on Cobel — and Mark’s task at work, once vaguely defined by clumps of numbers on a computer screen, gains new context with Gemma’s existence. As the series launches into its own retro-futurist take on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, it thankfully leans more on the personal. That keeps us duly invested, even as the technobabble and eerie observations about Kier threaten to go over our heads.

Occasionally, the series does test its goodwill, especially when withholding answers to mysteries established back in Season 1. Fans have waited years for clarity, and waiting longer for a third season may be frustrating — much as Severance deserves it. Perhaps more than any show that’s come before, it’s finding ways to stretch a concept that’d be better suited to a one-and-done story. There’s a question of how much further Erickson and Stiller can take this story before it repeats the mistakes of its predecessors. But even though mysteries remain at the end of Season 2, the stakes are only getting higher — and it’s impossible not to want more once the credits roll. A resolution to this story may be taking longer than expected, but if the Severance team can keep up the momentum, we’ll wait as long as it takes.

Severance premieres on Jan. 17 on Apple TV+.