The wait for Apple TV+‘s Severance has not been smooth for those who are eager to find out exactly what will be in store for Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro). And it’s no wonder why curiosity prevails: the first season ended with three Innies taking a forbidden voyage into the Outie world, and Milchick’s (Tramell Tillman) tackle left an audience hanging on how “work-life balance” would continue.
During that gap, the tech giant’s streaming service has been growing its sci-fi/thriller supply, but for now, let’s piece together clues on what to expect from Severance second season.
Plot
Never before have red herrings been more appropriate (and dare I say acceptable) than with Severance. Were the core four going to remain in the same Lumon department after communicating the reality of severance to the Outie world? Regardless of whether you or I were hoping that would be the case, Apple TV+ did encourage devotees to envision Mark and Helly in the same room with a clip that shows them together and reacting to Gwendoline Christie’s foreboding character declaring that they “should have left.”
Yet a new teaser trailer, which arrives with a “[t]hings look a little different around Lumon” warning, builds upon other previous suggestions of Mark glitching and running around with welcome-back balloons, which are actually supplied by Milchick, who isn’t dancing anymore but is still clearly in control of the situation and the control room.
That teaser trailer reveals that Mark takes off running through Lumon’s maze of corridors only to discover that he does not recognize his three cubicle-mates (one of whom is now portrayed by Alia Shawkat), and this sliver of a synopsis surfaced: “Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.”
Now that he’s back at Lumon, Mark must figure out if his “dead” wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachmen), is still alive as Ms. Casey after it sure looked like she was being led somewhere worse than the break room. Additionally, Mark’s budding romance with Innie Helly has now turned into a troublesome love triangle, since Innie Mark didn’t realize that he was still married. As a result, Ben Stiller has suggested that the idea of leaving severance is now more complicated. To be fair, though, leaving severance was probably never an option after Mark’s learned of Petey’s (Yul Vasquez) suspicious death after departing.
Ideally, the audience will receive some concrete answers as a reward for waiting nearly three years for a second season, but is it possible that the show will carry on for a third season? Severance writer and co-executive producer Mohamad El Masri recently told Indiewire that Stiller and series creator Dan Erickson have “mapped out” the full series run, and it sounds like third-season plans (and perhaps more) do exist:
“There was always a thinking ahead to future seasons. Even in Season 2, we were talking about, what is the end game and how does this show end? A lot of work was talking about that. I think there’s a natural overlap that happens, especially with the second season of a show, that you’ve got to keep [the momentum] going. People are interested, people are watching, and now with Season 2, you really have to sort of think about, not just what is Season 2 going to deliver in a satisfying way, but how does this set up Season 3 and beyond?”
Stiller, for his part, admitted to Variety that he’s in unfamiliar territory with delivering a second TV season because “[e]verything I’ve done has gotten canceled back in the day.” He added that he understands why viewers re “frustrated” by the wait. That’s why — and Stiller has been through social media hell with this ongoing thread revealing countless people telling him to “work faster” — he and Erickson aimed to truly deliver a followup that would be worth the wait. Stiller also promises that they’ve painstakingly arrived “where the characters really start to have a life and the actors understand the characters so well, and it grows into something more.”
Cast
Lumon will introduce a new crop of workers, although they might not be new to severance. As Deadline reported, characters portrayed by Gwendoline Christie and Alia Shawkat, Stefano Carannante, Robby Benson, Merritt Wever, John Noble, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson will report to the office.
Returning cast members will include Dichen Lachman (although we do not know whether she will be aware of being Mark’s wife, Gemma, or whether she will appear in the office solely as wellness counselor Ms. Casey). Tramell Tillman, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, Michael Chernus, and Jen Tullock are expected to return to some degree, and of course, we should expect to see the main quartet — Adam Scott, John Turturro, Britt Lower, and Zach Cherry — who might or might not be working together again.
Release Date
January 17, 2025 will see the debut of a 10-episode second season.
Trailer
The aforementioned teaser trailer for your viewing confusion:
And there’s never a wrong time to revisit Milchick’s dancing: