‘Severance’ Season Two Is Still Happening, Praise Kier

The ending of season one of Severance practically had me jumping to my feet, pointing at the TV, and screaming, “NO! YOU CAN’T END IT THERE!” But they did very much end it there, and I’ve been on tenterhooks ever since waiting for season two. There’s definitely gonna be one, right?! Well, read on for all the information we have so far.

How did Severance season one end?

***Spoilers for Severance season 1 ahead, obviously***

Severance is all about the horrifying scenarios that result from a society where human beings can “sever” themselves into two personalities, one “innie” for work and one “outie” for personal time. Our main character is Mark (Adam Scott), a man who severed himself to deal with the grief of his wife’s death, and he works in an office for the mysterious and cult-like Lumon company, who are up to some very weird things. Yep, even weirder than the sort of stuff your average everyday mega-corporation gets up to.

At the end of the season the Lumon employees, all of whom have their own agendas, succeed in a plot to get their innies and outies to switch places. This allows Mark to learn that his wife isn’t dead after all—but has been with him all along as “Ms. Casey,” another Lumon employee. He screams “She’s alive!” to everyone within earshot, and that’s it, the season ends!

What might happen in Severance season two?

Show creator Dan Erickson was asked about season two by Esquire in April 2022, and he said:

The severance procedure has the potential to change so much beyond the office. How does this affect the military? How does this affect religion? Are there relationship applications? If your marriage isn’t working and you want to start fresh, can you both create marriage innies? From the very beginning, those questions felt too rich to ignore. We didn’t want to just tell the story in one corner of the world. We wanted to really explore the sandbox. Should we be lucky enough to do Season Two, which we’re hoping for and planning on, then there’s definitely going to be some expansion of the world. Within Lumon, we’re going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too.

And as it turned out, he was lucky enough! Not long after he made those statements, the show was renewed for a second season by AppleTV+. Good news for both innies and outies everywhere.

I personally can’t wait to see all the horrors that come along with these concepts. We’ve already seen a little bit of how severance works outside of offices—remember the pregnant woman who severed herself to avoid the pain of childbirth?—and I want more.

Is there a trailer for Severance season two?

There’s no trailer for season two yet, but there is this little teaser (nope, no new footage within it, sorry!), posted by actor Tramell Tillman in April 2022. Say “gratitude”!

Who will be in Severance season two?

It seems pretty likely that all the major players of Severance season one will be back for season two. So expect to see more of Adam Scott as Mark, Britt Lower as Helly/Helena, Jen Tullock as Devon, Michael Chernus as Ricken, Zach Cherry as Dylan, John Turturro as Irving, Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel, Tramell Tillman as Milchick, Christopher Walken as Burt, and Dichen Lachman as Ms Casey/Gemma.

And there will be some new faces joining them. Deadline reported in October 2022 that eight actors had joined the cast: Gwendoline Christie, John Noble, Meritt Weaver, Stefano Carannante, Bob Balaban, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson. Exciting!

When will Severance season two premiere?

There’s no release date for season two just yet, but stay tuned.

Filming officially started, appropriately enough, right on Halloween 2022. But after that, you might have heard rumors that there had been some chaos behind the scenes of the show, chaos bad enough to delay the production altogether. Entertainment journalist Matthew Belloni claimed in April of this year that the show was suffering from, “pricey problems, including scrapped scripts and the dreaded showrunners who don’t speak to each other.” According to Belloni, Erickson and his co-showrunner Mark Friedman had outright “ended up hating each other.” Had this show about a toxic work environment developed, uh, a toxic work environment?

Well, probably not. Executive producer Ben Stiller denied Belloni’s claims, stating on social media:

The “really slow schedule” bit may not seem very promising to fans, but if that’s how long it takes them to put together a season as good as the first one, that’s fine by me. It’s also fine by me that the writers’ strike may have pushed things back by a few months. If that’s what it takes to be treated fairly by big companies, no problem.

Now that a fair deal has been struck, writers and actors have returned to work. So Severance season two is back to filming, and fans were thrilled to get this little behind-the-scenes peek from AppleTV+ on Jan 29, 2024.

The network’s Instagram post was captioned simply, “Back to work.”

There’s also been a little behind-the-scenes peek from Britt Lower. She posted some behind-the-scenes pics of objects labelled with her character’s name, Helly.

“We’re back to the office,” she captioned it. And in the comments, actresses Quinta Brunson and Melanie Lynskey shared their excitement about the new season. So we’ll be in good company when the show returns! Hopefully, we’ll get a release date soon, praise Kier.

(featured image: Apple TV+)