Severance Season 2

Streaming on: Apple TV+ (17 January)

Episodes viewed: 5 of 10

It has, as the creepily perma-smiling Lumon manager Milchick (Tramell Tillman) puts it, “been a minute”. Three long years have elapsed since the first season of Severance — the sci-fi-ish drama about an extreme form of work-life balance — became a sleeper hit for Apple TV+.

If you’re feeling as forgetful as a microchipped “innie” on what exactly happened during those first ten episodes, you would be forgiven. Thankfully, this much-delayed season 2 begins with a three-minute recap to catch us up: reminding us how the four “severed” office drones, Mark S. (Adam Scott), Irving B. (John Turturro), Dylan B (Zach Cherry), and Helly R (Britt Lower) staged a quiet rebellion in their secretive office workplace — leading to a truly astonishing season finale, in which the two worlds finally blurred.

There is a marvellous juggling of tones from head writer and showrunner Dan Erickson: it is by turns gripping, tense, bewildering, and darkly, absurdly funny.

We pick up in the immediate aftermath of what has now been termed the “Macrodata Uprising”. Given how innies and outies experience time completely separately, “immediately” is both seconds and months later. Episode one of this excellent new run of episodes stays exclusively underground at the severed floor of Lumon Inc, with Mark S. desperately trying to comprehend what he saw of the surface world; the second episode follows his outie having a parallel head-scratching session.

Episode one does not mess about: Ben Stiller, back in the director’s chair for five of these ten episodes, has his camera barrel-rolling through Lumen’s corridors, some Sam Raimi-esque visual acrobatics bringing us right back. It is again one of the more stylish and thoughtfully directed shows currently on television: the innie world an endless gleaming corporate purgatory, the outie world dark and foreboding.

There is a marvellous juggling of tones, too, from head writer and showrunner Dan Erickson: it is by turns gripping, tense, bewildering, and darkly, absurdly funny. (“Why are you a child?” Bob Balaban’s Mark W. asks of Sarah Bock’s confusingly-teenage new deputy manager Miss Huang. “Because of when I was born,” is the best she can manage.) Erickson also slowly expands his worldbuilding, further establishing the personality cult of Lumon founder Kier Eagan with mantras like “Let Keir guide your hand”.

But most pressingly, after that almighty years-long cliffhanger, does it offer any answers? Yes — but those answers only open more questions. Erickson and Stiller will satisfy some of your queries, but sustain the mystery by skilfully asking new ones: What are they doing with the “macrodata”? What is motivating Helly’s outie? What, exactly, is up with that goat farm? And what does it mean for the duality of a soul when a single mind is split? “We’re the same-ish person,” observes innie Mark S. of his outie. “It’s… mushy.”

That need to sustain a puzzle-box mystery may feel frustrating at times: significant plot shifts from one episode lead only to handbrake turns into another. Patience, again, is required. But you are in the hands of strong, confident, ambitious storytellers here. The wait was worth it. Praise Kier!