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Three years ago, Severance season 1 concluded on quite the cliffhanger, as our favorite Macrodata refiners figured out a way to awaken their innies in the outside world. With that, we've been assuming that the Apple TV Plus thriller's upcoming second season would continue to reveal more about their real identities and what their mysterious employer, Lumon, is up to...
Instead, the follow-up looks at the more personal impact of the breach from the season 1 finale, which we delve into in our Severance season 2 review, and the ripples of tension its created between the core four. As Severance creator Dan Erickson tells SFX magazine: "After season 1, we had to take a step back and ask ourselves, 'What exactly was it that made that work the way that it did?' It was the smaller things, more so than the big things.
"I think we all have an impulse to know what it is Lumon does; what are the goats, and all of that. But at the end of the day, I think what makes the show so special is Mark, Helly, Irving, and Dylan," he adds with a smile. "And also Milchick, and Cobel, and Devon and Ricken… It's the heart, it's the beating human heart at the center of this cold world. Of course, the innies sort of blew up the status quo at the end of season 1, so we had to respect that and we had to let that propel us into a new situation but we knew we didn't want to lose the small conflicts, like arguing over pencil erasers or finger traps."
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Directed in part by Ben Stiller, Severance centers on colleagues Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irving (John Turturro), who all work at a biotech company called Lumon Industries. Before being employed there, each of them agreed to undergo 'severance', a surgical procedure that splits one's consciousness between work and, well, not work. But during the course of season 1, the quartet began to grow suspicious of their overlords and frustrated with their compartmentalized existences.
"Sometimes it's exhausting, but [it's] rewarding," Turturro says of exploring more emotional themes in the new episodes. "Irving's sort of a buttoned up character and there's a lot of reasons for that. It felt really creative to explore the other side. There's a lot of interesting things about his connection with the team, and him being able to clock someone, saying, 'Well, this is the person I know, but is it the person I know?'"
Season 2 sees the return of the main foursome, alongside Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel, Tramell Tillman as Mr. Milchick, and Christopher Walken as Irving's love interest Burt. New additions to the taskforce this time around include Alia Shawkat, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, and Gwendoline Christie.
"In the last season, so many of our scenes were all of us together. In this season? Not so much," Cherry smiles. "We start to kind of see ourselves off doing other things. [It] was exciting and new but I did miss how tight-knit we were in that first season."
Severance season 2 premieres on January 17. For more, check out our picks of the best Apple TV shows streaming right now.
