It’s time to go back to work. After almost three years out of office, Mark S., Helly R., Irving B. and Dylan G. are back on Friday for season 2 of Severance on Apple TV+.
Some positive feedback.#Severance Season 2 — Premieres Friday on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/WiXwtqiUDH
— Apple TV (@AppleTV) January 15, 2025
After a nine-episode first season, season 2 of the thriller set at a cult-like company where we follow the lives of “severed” employees Mark S. (Adam Scott), Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro) and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) will have 10 episodes, which will drop every Friday.
Timing notes
Last season featured episodes ranging in run time from 40 to 57 minutes. Like all streaming shows, Severance attempts to walk the line between taking advantage of having an unlimited run time of its choice and indulging in artistic bloat. Luckily, Ben Stiller et al. did a fantastic job keeping the tension high and letting the story unfurl at an appropriate pace in the first season.
Notes
(Warning: Spoilers for season 1 of Severance ahead.)
- For those who haven’t caught up yet — and you can catch up for free right now on the Roku Channel — “severed” employees, like the team from the Macrodata Refinement division at the mysterious, cult-like Lumon Industries, are people who have willingly agreed to have their memories at work severed from their memories outside of work, basically splitting themselves in half creating “innies” and “outies.”
- The “innies” have no knowledge of their outside lives — for instance Helly awakens on the conference table having no memories of her childhood or the color of her mother’s eyes, which Lumon argues improves productivity. The severance procedure is seen as controversial in the Severance universe, with groups protesting the practice even as Lumen attempts to build public support for the legalization of the practice, which includes buying off a state senator and even the CEO going to extreme personal lengths to see the efforts succeed.
- As the first season progressed, Mark, Helly, Irving and Dylan discovered more and more cracks in the seemingly benign facade of Lumon and began to take steps to expose the secrets guarded so closely by severed floor manager Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and supervisor Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), including the “overtime contingency” which allows the innies to experience the outside world and reveal what is happening to them at Lumon.
- The season finale appeared to shake up the status quo and left us on something of a cliffhanger surrounding the “death” of Mark’s wife, Gemma, so it will be interesting to see how we — and the main characters — find ourselves back on the severed floor at Lumon.
- If you need a reminder of what we saw in the first season or just want to dive in, Apple TV+ has shared this recap:
So there we have it. Will you be throwing yourself a “Waffle Party” to celebrate Severance’s return? Or maybe a “Music Dance Experience?” Either way, it’s time to clock back in and I, for one, couldn’t be more thrilled.
