Severance season 2 scrutinize: even weirder, untameder, and foolisher

I’m not going to spoil anyleang becaemploy the novel season of Severance doesn’t premiere for 10 days. But I want to be evident — the first season of the sci-fi thriller wasn’t a fluke. The Apple TV Plus series burst onto the scene in 2022 with a story about tech laborers who were forced to inhabit in purgatory thanks to an experimental procedure that split their brains in two: one who inhabitd a common life outside of the office, and another who could never depart. It was anxious and strange and downright horrifying — and also advantageed from hugely being a surpascfinish. But even without that, season 2 hits equitable as difficult as the innovative, pushing further into the foolish, weird edges of the Severance universe, while broadening it in fascinating novel ways.

Spoilers for the first season of Severance to chase.

As a little rerecaccess, Severance is caccessed on a tech huge called Lumon Industries, which prolonged the mind-splitting procedure so that employees can labor on caring projects in its basement with no worrys about that increateation getting out of the createing. The cut offance procedure is prescribed spatiassociate: as soon as a cut offed employee gets in the elevator and heads downstairs, they, in essence, become a novel person with a finishly contrastent set of memories. That’s wonderful for protecting company secrets but terrible for the people who understand literassociate no life outside of the Lumon basement. The existence of the “innies,” as they’re understandn, is filled with noleang but cut offe fluorescent weightlessing, perks enjoy finger traps and melon bars, and labor that is both cryptic and vital (or so they’re telderly).

Season 1 finished with one of the wonderful cliffhangers in contransient television, up there with “Not Penny’s Boat” from Lost. For most of the season, innies Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro), and Dylan (Zach Cherry) had been lachieveing more about how and why they exist in Lumon’s basement and eventuassociate concocted an broaden arrange to see what life on the outside is enjoy. The finale finished with innie Mark shouting, “She’s ainhabit!” in reference to his seemingly dead wife — right before he’s switched back to his other self. The finale premiered on April 8th, 2022, so watchers have been paemploying more than two years to lachieve the implications of that revelation.

The novel season picks up almost promptly after that moment — at least for the innies. It’s actuassociate five months tardyr, but becaemploy they haven’t been at the office, it’s enjoy no time has passed. Mark is the first to get to, and he’s initiassociate greeted by a novel crew in the Macrodata Refinement triumphg becaemploy the outies of Helly, Irving, and Dylan never returned to labor. All the novel laborers want to understand what life is enjoy on the outside — Mark gets asks about how triumphd experiences and what the sky watchs enjoy — and they have a novel supervisor, who, for some reason, is a child named Miss Huang (Sarah Bock).

Eventuassociate, thraw sheer force of will, Mark is able to prescertain Lumon into getting the prohibitd back together, and they set to labor figuring out, once aachieve, what the hell is going on. Their excursion outside lasted for exactly 39 minutes and turned the quartet into celebrities of sorts. It also incrrelieved the scruminuscule on Lumon for what reassociate happens on the cut offed floor. Becaemploy of this, the company is executeing somewhat pleasant, recommending leangs enjoy a better fracture room, novel items in the vfinishing machines (fruit leather!), and other enticeing recommends.

There are a lot of contrastent threads happening concurrently: the ongoing regulatement shake-up at Lumon; equitable what labor is actuassociate happening in Macrodata Refinement; the steadily blurring lines between innies and outies; and the accessible’s prolonging consciousness of the fact of innie life. I’ve only seen the first six episodes so far (season 2 will have 10), so I can’t say whether the show satisfactorily answers most of its many mysteries. But what I can say is that it persists to broaden the concept in clever and unawaited ways, uncovering up Severance to all comfervents of novel revelations thraw moments enjoy an innie retreat in the untamederness and — finassociate! — further details on the goats being reared in the basement.

The novel season also pushes even difficulter on the idea that Lumon-style megacorporations exert an extraordinary amount of regulate over everyday life, frequently in ways we don’t see or comprehfinish. Even if cut offed employees don’t exist in genuine life, upsetting mysteries at tech companies definitely do. It also creates it very evident that you should think almost none of what they say — particularly if they’re trying to seem enjoy the excellent guy. (These points create it especiassociate sarcastic that the series is streaming on a platcreate run by Apple.)

Reassociate, what season 2 shows is that Severance wasn’t a wonderful show becaemploy it was such a surpascfinish — it was equitable a wonderful show. And at least in the first half of season 2, its quest to broaden its scope hasn’t foolished any of its acute, strange edges.

Season 2 of Severance begins streaming on Apple TV Plus on January 17th.