Severance fans, gather your finger traps and get ready to go back to Lumon Industries. Apple TV+ has announced that its acclaimed workplace thriller will return for a second season—much to the relief of fans freeze-framing screenshots of the company handbook for clues about the central mystery.
"It’s really exciting to see the response from people who are loving the show—and the level of fan engagement,” said director and executive producer Ben Stiller. "It has been a long road bringing Severance to television. I first read Dan [Erickson]’s pilot over five years ago. It has always been a multi-season story, and I’m really happy we get to continue it. I’m grateful to our partners at Apple TV+ who have been behind it the whole way. Praise Kier!"
Severance is the story of Mark Scout (Adam Scott), who works at a mysterious mega-corporation called Lumon Industries. Mark and his colleagues have voluntarily undergone the severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work lives and their personal lives. At work, the employees’ “innies” have no concept of what their non-work lives look like; at home, their “outies” have no clue what they do for a living. When Mark and his team find themselves at the centre of an unraveling mystery about what Lumon Industries actually does, this daring experiment in work-life balance is called into question.
“Thanks to creator Dan Erickson, the brilliant Ben Stiller, and an incomparable cast and crew, Severance has imagined an existence that's equal parts riveting and enthralling as viewers around the globe can’t get enough of these rich characters,” said Matt Cherniss, head of programming for Apple TV+. “We’re excited to go deeper into this wholly unique world and unpack more layers of Lumon in season two.”
What Could Happen In Season Two?
We don’t know much about Season Two yet, but Erickson offered some tantalising hints in an interview with Esquire. "There's definitely going to be some expansion of the world," he teased. "Within Lumon, we're going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too." He went on to comment on the storytelling architecture of the entire narrative:
There's an overall plan for the show. I have an end point in mind, and I intentionally didn't plan it season by season, because I wanted it to be flexible enough that we could get there in two seasons or six seasons. I want to allow us to be surprised by where the show goes. There’s a sense of what Lumon is trying to do and the role that our main characters are going to play in that, and where it all will culminate. It's really exciting to think about taking the next step on that trip.
Season One ends with a spectacular cliffhanger when Mark, Irving, and Helly manage, with great difficulty, to bring their innies into the outside world. The consequences of their subterfuge are enormous: Mark learns that his supposedly dead wife is in fact his coworker, Irving discovers that his Lumon lover is married, and Helly learns her Eagan heritage, then announces to a gala of industry bigwigs that the severance procedure is torture. Dylan is apprehended by Mr. Milchick, but as Stiller pointed out in an interview with Deadline, Dylan has already seen the Matrix, back when his innie discovered that he has a child. "Obviously, that’s a huge question and something that really is important to be dealt with because their whole perception of the world has been altered by having this glimpse," Stiller said. "That’s going to be a lot of what the second season has to deal with—a big part of the engine of the second season’s beginning." Similar conflict abounds for Mark, whose revelations will cause strife in his love life. "With 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," Stiller said. "That’s an interesting juxtaposition and conflict we’ll explore in the second season."
Though Season One centred on Mark and his perspective, meaning that we got scant few glimpses of his colleagues' outies, Erickson promises that everything is about to change. "In Season Two, we're going to be showing all of these people on the outside," he told EW. "Similar to Mark, they each had their own reason for getting this procedure, and they're all at some stage of a healing process for one thing or another... Being able to take what Adam did in the first season—with the differentiation between his innie and outie, and how they feel like the same person but with this vastly different lived experience—seeing the other three characters' version of that dichotomy is, I think, the most exciting part."
Mark's outie undergoes near-constant surveillance from his boss, Harmony Cobel, who moonlights as his kindly neighbor, Mrs. Selvig. Though Mark now knows the truth about Cobel's double life, Erickson teases that we haven't seen the last of her schemes. "I think that she does have some special attachment to Mark," he told Polygon. "And I don’t think it’s entirely Lumon-based, that’s what I’ll say. I think that she’s—without giving away too much of what we’ll see—there’s a professional interest for sure. And obviously, we’ve seen that there’s some sort of experiment or something happening with him and his wife, and sort of observing them. But I think that you can see it in her eyes that it’s become about more than the job."
If you really can't wait for Season Two, mosey on over to the Severance Reddit, where fans have already posted thousands of compelling theories. Many fans have latched onto a comment made by Helly's father ("One day, you will sit with me at my revolving"), postulating that the Eagan family members upload their consciousnesses to a computer and become part of the Board that so tormented Harmony Cobel. Could Kier Eagan still be alive in the ether, by that logic? Another fan suggests that Irving, an ex-military man, may be an undercover operative who underwent the severance procedure to investigate Lumon, judging by his obsessive research and documentation about Lumon employees. "What if the severance procedure was initially developed for use in war?" one Redditor wonders. "You have enlisted soldiers that are easily indoctrinated to do your will, and they have no recollection or PTSD after their tour is complete. Irving would have been involved with this severance program as a soldier, and it explains why his so interested in secretly tracking down other people." In a recent Reddit AMA, Erickson nodded at this theory, saying, "One of the nice things about opening up the world a bit is that we'll get to see other applications of the technology. Other ways society willingly 'segments' itself from unpleasant truths."
And what about those damn goats seen wandering around Lumon? Theories abound, with explanations ranging from cloning to brain experimentation. Erickson isn't saying much, but he assures viewers, "I don’t think we have seen our last goat on the show."
Erickson's AMA confirmed some Season One mysteries and teased what's to come in Season Two. One thing's for sure: "The office is real," Erickson confirms. "It exists physically and everything we see there is actually happening (except the black goo, which is Irv's dream)." If your money was on the good old "it's all a simulation" theory, you've lost your bet. Erickson also hinted at another Season Two mystery—just why did Helena Eagan conceal her innie's suicide attempt from the Board? "Good question. I think more of that will reveal itself in Season Two!" he replied.
Alas, until Season Two makes its debut, there's not much we know for sure. As Erickson tells IndieWire, "It turns out it’s easier to ask interesting questions than answer them." We may not know much, but we do know one thing: trust in Ben Stiller. In an Esquire profile of Stiller, Severance star Patricia Arquette said, “He’s merciless. He never stops. He never stops rewriting, he never stops thinking. Weekends, holidays—you’d get phone calls late at night, you’d get phone calls early in the morning. Ideas. New things. He has incredibly intense focus on everything—every little set piece, every little wardrobe thing. I’ve never seen anybody so focused on everything.”
When Will Season Two Air?
In Stiller and Erickson’s capable hands, no doubt Season Two will be another thrill ride of sci-fi goodness and corporate intrigue, though it's still a long way away, with no specified air date. One thing is confirmed, though: unlike Season One, Season Two will clock in at ten episodes.
In the meantime, there’s still a lot to chew on. Fans who want to delve even deeper can check out The Lexington Letter, a free, supposed “tell-all” book from former Lumon employee Peggy Kincaid, which Erickson confirms is, in fact, canon. We may soon have another book to enjoy, if his tease from the AMA is anything to go on; replying to a fan who asked if Ricken's The You You Are would ever make it into print, Erickson said, "I think the chances are pretty good it will happen..." Praise Kier!
Adrienne Westenfeld is the Books and Fiction Editor at Esquire, where she oversees books coverage, edits fiction, and curates the Esquire Book Club.
