‘Severance’ Doubles Down on the Weird For A Brilliant, Bold Season 2

It didn’t take long for Severance to become a widely lauded series when it first premiered in February of 2022. A strong cast, a curious premise, the creation of an interesting world, and a critical edge about capitalism and corporate culture fueled the series’ widespread success, before COVID complications and strikes delayed the series’ sophomore season. Season 2 is finally back in business, giving a deeper look into Lumon’s mysteries than ever before, but with fresher hells following.

Season 1 of Severance ended with a bang, fundamentally altering the rules of the series as fans have come to understand them. Mark S., Helly R., Irving B., and Dylan G. have devised a way to send their respective Innies’ consciousness into the bodies of the Outies. Dylan discovers that he’s a family man on the outside, Irving discovers that Burt’s in love, Helly discovers that she’s secretly Helena Eagan, and Mark finds out that his Outie’s ‘dead’ wife is Ms. Casey, as well as discovering that his manager Harmony Cobel is Outie Mark’s neighbor, with an entirely different identity outside Lumon.

What’s a team to do?

We enter Season 2 a hefty chunk of time after these monumental events. Mark S. finally returns to good ol’ Macrodata Refinement, except his entire old team have been replaced by a new one for all of five minutes, reunited because of Mark’s importance to a project called “Cold Harbor.” Each member of the team deals with the consequences of their reveals (often privately) while looking for Ms. Casey and dealing with a Lumon that’s creepier than ever while pretending to reform. It’s a lot for the team to deal with, and the more answers we get the weirder Lumon seems.

Season 2 doubles down on the eerie corporate liminal space vibes

Once again Adam Scott excels, with his complex reserved portrayal being well used to cohere the cast and drive central emotional arcs and plot threads home. In the series’ first half, Zach Cherry and John Turturro give excellent portrayals with moving emotional work as the pair face separate struggles over their respective revelations from the Season 1 finale. Tramell Tillman also gives a strong performance as Seth Milchick, struggling through an elevated role at Lumon as Mark S. continues to provoke and challenge both him and the company. It’s a strong set of performances overall, with the entire cast committing hard despite the oddities they continue to face.

There’s so, so much that can’t be spoiled here, but Season 2 capably builds a sense of real answers as the narrative proceeds, all the while provoking new questions in viewers’ minds. These mysteries are the show’s lifeblood, especially as the subtle horrors of Lumon’s totalitarian interior are revealed. The Outie world seems familiar, if not a little bleak, but Lumon’s interior is essentially a liminal space of sorts. At the series’ best, it demonstrates the illogical unreality of modern office work in a heightened, garbled way. It’s a dream logic riff on workaday life, where the neon lights, miles of nondescript carpet, and repetitive, functionless tasks are present but everything’s slightly askew. Season 2 continues to capture this feeling well, with episodes full of wildly different fresh hells each time.

Severance finds new ways to be bold and brilliant in Season 2

The biggest issue in Season 2 might be a side effect of how well the series finds new wild swings. Each episode continues the show’s central investigations and character progress, but on occasion the new challenges and locales are SO wildly aberrant that there’s a real need in moments to take a beat and process lest one feel entirely lost. It’s a small price to pay, however, for a series that continues to surprise, find new levels of Lumon, and which boasts such accomplished worldbuilding.

Altogether, Season 2 is a strong outing that takes what made Season 1 great and doubles down. You like weird mysteries? Here’s weirder ones! M.C. Escher corporate landscapes? Have some more. Send-ups of managerial incompetence? Now you answer to a child. Why a child? Stop having questions, have a pineapple. It’s the epitome of everything that worked about Season 1, but deeper, meaner, and bathed in corporate nightmare logic. Season 1 was a brilliant, incisive series that cemented itself as one of the best shows on TV. Season 2 climbs its way up the highest point of Lumon’s central office and screams to the sky “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

The new season of Severance premieres on Apple TV+ January 17.