What to Remember for Severance Season 2

When the first season of Apple TV+‘s hit sci-fi series Severance ended on a massive cliffhanger back in 2022, nobody—from the fans to the creative team—knew it would be quite such a long wait. Nearly three years later, the series holds the distinction of having one of the longest breaks between seasons in TV history, one worsened by the 2023 Hollywood strikes and the exacting vision of its creators.

Given the unexpectedly long break between seasons, fans who haven’t spent the intervening years poring over every cryptic detail of Lumon might be forgiven for forgetting a thing or two. A lot of things were in play at the end of season one, so here’s everything a returning viewer might need to know to feel caught up when season two premieres on January 17th.

(Note: the following contains major spoilers for season one of Severance)

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Severance’s Premise

For those who might need a refresher about the basic premise of Severance, the series follows a group of employees at Lumon Industries, a shadowy corporation with its own quasi-religious culture, who have undergone a procedure known as “severance,” where a device is implanted in their brains that separates their work life from their home life, literally creating two separate and distinct consciousnesses. The “innies” have no knowledge of their lives on the outside, and the “outies” know nothing about what they get up to at work.

The main point of entry to this strange world is Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a former professor left hollowed out by grief after the accidental death of his wife Gemma. He undergoes severance to escape his pain, though this really only serves to leave him trapped on both the inside and the outside. His sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and her pretentious but well-meaning husband Ricken (Michael Chernus) try to help, but it turns out escaping your grief for eight hours every weekday is a poor excuse for healing.

Mark works in the mysterious “macrodata refinement” department alongside Irving (John Turturro), a Lumon true-believer; and Dylan (Zach Cherry), a hyper-competitive employee with an eye on the job’s many weird perks. At the top of the season, their coworker Petey (Yul Vazquez) suddenly hasn’t shown up for work. He’s quickly replaced by Helly (Britt Lower), a newly severed worker who has a hard time adjusting to her reality, and Mark is promoted to department chief. The team is overseen by their overzealous boss Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and cheerily intimidating middle manager Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who try to keep their severed charges on track and in line.

As the season progresses, the innies start to push against the existence they’ve been forced into, one in which they never leave the office or enjoy the freedoms of their outies. Helly encourages her coworkers to question their purpose, while Irving’s world starts to fracture when he falls for Burt (Christopher Walken), a severed worker from another department. Ricken’s hokey self-help book accidentally ends up in the hands of the innies, leading to some unexpected self-actualization. Meanwhile, on the outside, Petey has undergone a reintegration procedure and makes contact with Mark, introducing him to the anti-severance movement. Cobel surveils Mark, posing as his nosy neighbor and even getting hired as a lactation consultant for Devon.

It all comes to a head when the innies learn of the “overtime contingency,” an emergency switch that allows their inside selves to be awoken on the outside if necessary. Dylan is awoken after his innie takes something from the office, accidentally discovering he has a son, leading him to want to know more about his outside life. With this knowledge, the innies hatch a plan to expose what’s going on at Lumon to the world.

Innies on the Outside

In the season finale, the innies carry out their plan: Dylan stays behind to activate the overtime contingency for his coworkers, who must then find the nearest trustworthy-looking person and tell them everything about what’s going on. Mark wakes up in the midst of Ricken’s book release party, deducing that Devon is his sister and trying to get her alone to tell her what’s going on. But things are complicated by the presence of Cobel posing as Devon’s lactation consultant, who figures out what’s going on when Mark accidentally says her “inside” name.

Irving awakens at home, where he lives alone with his dogs, surrounded by dozens of paintings of a mysterious dark hallway leading to an elevator, an image from Lumon he somehow remembered on the outside. Looking around his house, he uncovers a trunk full of research about Lumon and the list of names of the other severed workers. He finds Burt’s address and goes to try and see him, discovering that he’s a happily partnered man. Undeterred, he pounds on Burt’s door.

The most shocking outie revelation belongs to Helly. As it turns out, her full name is Helena Eagan, part of the Eagan family that runs Lumon. Whe she wakes up, she’s at Lumon’s annual gala, about to give a speech about her severance experience meant to sell the world on its benefits. It’s the perfect opportunity to expose the truth about severance to the widest possible audience.

Back on the severed floor, Dylan struggles to hold the two switches that keep the overtime contingency activated. Cobel warns Milchik about what they’re up to, and Milchick tries to cut through the belt Dylan’s tied around the control room door, while also plying him with new perks and dangling more knowledge about his outie’s family life. He finally breaks through, tackling Dylan and ending the overtime contingency. But not before Mark sees a photo of Gemma and realizes that she’s the same person known as Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), the severed floor’s “wellness director” who was forcibly retired earlier in the season. Just before he’s turned off, he manages to hold the picture aloft and yell to Devon that his wife is still alive.

This is where Severance left its audience at the end of season one, with Irving banging on Burt’s door, Helly exposing severance to a wealthy crowd, and Mark discovering that his wife is still alive, at least in some form. It’s been a long wait to see what kind of consequences these actions have, and viewers who got hooked on Severance’s strange and unique world three years ago couldn’t be more excited.

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Cast

Adam Scott
, Britt Lower
, Zach Cherry
, Tramell Tillman
, Jen Tullock
, Dichen Lachman
, Michael Chernus
, John Turturro
, Christopher Walken
, Patricia Arquette
, Sarah Bock
, Marc Geller
, Michael Cumpsty

Seasons

2

Streaming Service(s)

AppleTV+

Directors

Ben Stiller

Showrunner

Dan Erickson
, Mark Friedman

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