Severance season 2 is officially a go!
Apple TV+ renewed the workplace thriller for a second season last Wednesday. While the announcement from the streaming service didn’t specify the episode count for Severance season 2, series creator Dan Erickson told Variety that he has planned a 10-episode sophomore run, which is one episode more from the show’s recently concluded nine-episode season 1.
Your #Severance Season 2 request has been accepted. pic.twitter.com/OTayQHRNHL
— Apple Original Films (@AppleFilms) April 6, 2022
What is Severance all about?
Directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle, season 1 of the critically acclaimed series follows a group of employees at Lumon Industries, a biotech corporation that has pioneered a medical procedure called “severance.” Lumon workers who undergo the procedure sever their work memories from their non-work memories, creating an “Innie” version of themselves who only exist in the office, and allowing their “Outie” counterparts to carry out their personal lives with no recollection of their jobs.
Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads the severed employees of Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement division, which includes his colleagues Dylan George (Zach Cherry) and Irving Bailiff (John Turturro), as well as newcomer, Helly Riggs (Britt Lower). Helly’s arrival sets off a chain of events that leads Mark and the others to take a deep dive into the company’s many secrets and mysteries.
In the season 1 finale, the quartet find a way for their Innies to take over their Outies, and in the process, discover shocking truths about their identities.
What will happen in Severance 2?
In the season 1 finale, Innie Mark found out that Outie Mark has a supposedly deceased wife named Gemma who is actually the very much alive Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman). In an interview with Variety, Erickson suggested that season 2 will start to answer why Lumon apparently faked Gemma’s death, which ultimately led Mark to join the company.
“There’s a question of sort of who was targeted first: Was Mark targeted because of his relationship to Gemma, or was it the other way around? And that’s something that we don’t see this [first] season, but we will see in subsequent seasons,” said Erickson. “That’s the big question, what is special about Mark? And is it actually that there’s something special about him or is it more about Gemma, and he was sort of pulled in? Those are all left unanswered this season, but we will get into it.”
Stiller added that Outie Mark’s relationship with Gemma and Innie Mark’s relationship with Helly, who was revealed to be Helena Eagan in the season 1 finale, will be further explored in season 2.
“There is this growing connection between Mark and Helly happening during the [first] season, and then on the outside, Mark is trying to get over his wife’s death — and then we’re going to find out that his wife is still alive. To put him in this position where the Innie Mark, we’re starting to root for him and Helly, but now we also want to root for Outie Mark to find his wife. That’s an interesting juxtaposition and conflict we’ll explore in the second season,” teased Stiller, who also serves as an executive producer of the series.
In a separate interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Stiller and Erickson implied that fan-favorite characters will continue to delight viewers in season 2.
“It’s actually been great to be in this process while the show has come out because I feel like the audience reaction to the show informs the show and it’s important to be aware of what people are responding to,” Stiller said of writing Severance season 2.
Erickson added: “You start to see what people are reacting to, what they’re liking. There are certain characters who have commanded even more loyalty than we thought they would or even more affection than we thought they would, so you always want to make sure that whatever people are loving about your show that you’re earning that and backing it up and giving back to the people who have given their love to the show.”
When will Severance season 2 come out?
Severance season 2 doesn’t have a release date yet, but Stiller told Rolling Stone that the hope is to get the sophomore run “into production by the end of the year.” When asked if the show might return in 2023, he said, “Possibly, possibly, yeah.”
Where can you watch Severance?
The entire nine-episode season 1 of Severance is currently streaming on Apple TV+.