Praise Kier.
For anyone worried that “Severance” could have a sophomore slump — especially since the wait between seasons was three years long — put aside your woes.
Season 2 (premiering Jan. 17 on AppleTV+) is just as phenomenal as Season 1. Even though 2025 is young, there’s no doubt that “Severance” will end up on most “best shows of the year” lists and be a serious awards contender again.
Season 1 premiered in 2022 and got 14 Emmy nominations (it won 2). Created by Dan Erickson and executive produced and directed by Ben Stiller, the psychological thriller/sci-fi series follows employees at Lumon Industries, a mysterious biotech company.
There’s the team of four “Macrodata Refiners:” Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry), and their sinister supervisors, Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman). There are also side characters like Mark’s buffoonish author brother-in-law, Ricken (Michael Chernus), and “Game of Thrones” star Gwendoline Christie as a mysterious new character.
Severed employees have chips in their heads that divide their consciousness into “innies” (their work selves) and “outies” (the people they are outside of the office). They have no memory of what they do when their other “self” is behind the wheel.
Lumon is bizarrely cult-like, worshipping the late first CEO, Kier, like a deity. Workers are encouraged to study his kooky ideas (such as everyone having “the four tempers” of “woe, malice, frolic, and dread”) like he’s a philosopher.
Season 1 ended with Harmony getting fired and the “innies” rebelling by briefly sneaking into their “outie” lives, which led to shocking revelations. Mark learned that his late wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) is somehow alive at Lumon (her innie was the Wellness counselor, Ms. Casey). Helly learned that her “outie” is Helena Eagan, who is in line to be the next Lumon CEO. Since Helly hates working there, this means she’s literally her own worst enemy.
Irving also got his heart broken as he learned that his office love, Burt (Christopher Walken), is married to another man in the outside world.
In Season 2, the show gets weirder and wilder. Each scene crackles with tension since you never know what will happen next, and anything is possible. Some plot questions get answered while others get raised — and yes, there’s more goat stuff. Viewers who found Season 1 too strange likely won’t be won over as Season 2 goes further.
Some material flirts with flying off the rails, but most of it makes for a riveting watch. Each episode is like a meticulously created painting that’s there for us to marvel at its craft and detail — all while wondering if the artist has all their marbles.
While it’s not an especially sexy or romantic show overall, those qualities are increased in Season 2. Since this is “Severance,” its version of romance is unsettling, screwed-up, sometimes heartbreaking, and oddly sweet all at once.
In Season 1, Mark was the primary character, and we got to know both his “innie” and “outie.” Season 2 expands that scope. We also see new areas of Lumon and get a sliver of emotional insight into the inscrutable Milchick.
Although it’s not clear where this is all ultimately going, the show isn’t dragging its feet on unanswered questions just for the sake of it. For the most part, it’s well-paced and executed with razor-sharp precision on every level. No moment is wasted, and no scene is sloppily constructed.
In this age where too much entertainment feels “made by committee” or “made by algorithm,” this is a rare show that feels like a singular creative vision.
“Mystery box” shows — where the premise isn’t a murder mystery, but a “what’s going on?” mystery — can be hit or miss. Past shows within this subgenre (like “Lost” or “Westworld”) bit off more than they could chew. They eventually collapsed under the weight of their unanswered questions and overly convoluted plot twists.
It remains to be seen if “Severance” will succeed where the rest flubbed. But, the follow-through in Season 2 makes for such enthralling TV that you’ll want to break out into a Music Dance Experience.
