On January 17, after almost three full years, we get Severance season 2 on Apple TV.
I just re-watched the first season because it’s been so long since the previous one that I forgot some details and you may want to do that yourselves in the days we have until the season 2 premiere. At least the last couple of episodes.
It looks like season two will be 10 episodes long (Season 1 was 9 which is a bit odd).
Apple’s website has the first 8 minutes of the new season up on their website.
I see what you did there.
Looking forward to S2 very much. A deeply weird and unsettling show, but S1 was well worth a look. The season finale was one of the most tense, gripping TV episodes I’ve ever seen.
Off to a weird start.
It’s a weird show!
So far I’m just bummed that it’s gonna take weeks to get all the way through I want it all now!
I don’t love the time skip. I’d like to see at least some dealing with the repercussions of what happened in the outside world.
Mark getting his team back is very strange. It’s not like they tried to separate them and send them to different offices and decided to transfer them back - the innies “woke up” for the first time after the incident when they came through the elevator. I guess maybe the plan was to shp them to separate offices and it’s just that Mark S started first and they changed their plan to put them together. But if you take Milchick at his word, they couldn’t talk their outies into volunteering to come back (plausible) and then when Mark demanded his team, somehow they did. It’s hard to make sense of this.
It’s also hard to believe that their outies would all agree to come back. I could see Mark doing it because he has to try to get Gemma out of there (assuming word got back to him), and Helly maybe because she’s clearly got something going on where she’s determined to make this work even though she knows her innie considers her own existence to be torture. But after learning that the innies consider themselves tortured slaves, it seems hard to believe they’d convince Dylan and Irving to come back.
And for that matter it’s a little difficult to accept that they were given a choice (assuming it was a real choice) and all of the innies chose to stay. Okay, so Mark S feels like he needs to find Gemma, so be it. Helly hates her outie and probably wants to conduct some sort of sabotage against her, so I can buy that but only if she continues to try to take down Lumon from the inside. Dylan – I guess you could say he takes a lot of meaning from his work and he’s happy, so maybe. But Irving knows his outie is disturbed and is obsessively painting something creepy down there. It’s really hard to buy that he’d volunteer to stay.
We’ll see where the season goes but I’m not loving that start.
Watched the episode last night and LOVED it! I personally thought it was a great start to the season. A fair amount of new questions for the new season.
A great aspect of Severance is the unexpected humor. Loved the crazy “Lumon is Listening” video (I noticed in the end credits that Sarah Sherman from Saturday Night Live voiced the water tower); Dylan still has great one liners (“Irving, what’s wrong? Are you poor up there?”).
I doubt we’ve seen the last of the new team members; you obviously don’t cast Bob Balaban and Alia Shawkat unles you are planning to make full use of them.
Lots of speculation online already about Helly. Based on her lying about her outie experience to the other team members, and her general demeanor, there is already a consensus starting to build that Helly is not Innie Helly, but Outie Helena, who has come down to the severed floor to spy on the others. I could go either way with this; can’t wait to see what the end result is.
I hope we get to see pineapple bobbing sooner rather than later.
I still love that exchange used in the trailer:
“Why are you a child?”
“Because of when I was born.”
The posters from the break room:
I am curious about Helly lying.
Milichik is nice and ominous.
When Mark took off from Milichik and the new group, was he looking for Ms. Casey’s office?
If she tells them the truth they might see her as their oppressor and not trust her with whatever schemes they cook up, and she’s probably disgusted/embarrassed about it herself and doesn’t want to tell her friends her shameful secret given how helly feels about Lumon and her outie.
“Is Helly an outie” will be the ongoing mystery this season.
My theory after the Season One finale was that outie Hellen is a family rebel and volunteered for severance to end the company/empire/cult from the “inside”. I think the other severed were tested for obedience before getting hired. Hellen knows her rebellious innie has a chance to burn the whole thing down. She may have even had access to the elevator technology away from the building during the five months, so she could conspire with her innie.
Just watched Episode 1 and trying to find the right word to express my happiness in it. ‘Assured’ might be it. Its just so good to see a production that puts faith in its own judgement about storytelling. Season 1 was a tricky blend of many things which worked to a painted-into-the-corner climax. They’ve chosen to skip ahead to a new starting point and not waste time trying to explain how it all resolved itself because, ultimately, we don’t care or need to know. If there is anything relevant, it will be brought back into the new eps.
The confidence extends to trusting the audience to keep up and enjoy the jokes and the gradual reveal of the new, caring Lumon. Can’t wait for Ep. 2.
Huzzah for the Macrodata rebels!
Something else I neglected to mention in my earlier post: the Lumon building itself in the claymation sequence was voiced by Keanu Reeves.
I prefer to tbink that Keanu Reeves is dubbed by the Lumon building.
It was a good way to come back. Perhaps answered some questions, but also added some more questions. How do we know it’s been 5 months? Are we to take Milkshake’s word? I did miss seeing Mark S’s outtie family.
I don’t know if Helly was lying. What if the Helly we knew was gone and this is a new Helly? This show in so many ways reminds me of the Black Mirror cookies. What if this is the equivalent of a new cookie?
Anyone get Tom Cruise/Mission Impossible vibes during that opening Mark running scene. They look a lot alike.
I just noticed how there were no markings to guide him through the maze and he should be hopelessly lost.
I want to rewatch that scene with The Ecstasy of Gold music playing over it.