Severance Season 2 Review: Apple TV+'s Best Show Is Bringing Back Mystery Box Television

Even our coolest TV shows used to release one season per year, with no major gaps between premieres. But that's not something I'll be complaining about today. It's easy to mourn the days when TV followed a more reliable schedule, but it's hard to stay mad at a show like Severance, which finally returns for Season 2 on Jan. 17 after a lengthy hiatus (Season 1 first premiered in February 2022) and is so phenomenally self-assured right out of the gate that it almost immediately makes you forget about how long it kept us waiting.

It's impressive how quickly Severance throws the viewer back into the action. We don't know — at first, anyway — how much time has passed since the innies staged their prison break in the Season 1 finale, concluding with the incredible cliffhanger of Mark S. (Adam Scott) discovering that his outie's supposedly dead wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), was in fact alive and working at Lumon under a different identity. But Severance wastes no time: The season opens with Mark waking up inside that infamous elevator before darting out in a frantic sprint through the sterile, maze-like halls of the severed floor. In an agilely edited sequence, dizzyingly directed by Ben Stiller, Mark rushes to the eerie "Wellness" room, where he and his coworkers had unknowingly spent much of the first season having sessions with Gemma's enigmatic innie, Ms. Casey. There's nothing waiting for him there, but there has been a shake-up in Macrodata Refinement. Mark discovers that his friends — Helly (Britt Lower), who now knows that her outie is the daughter of Lumon's CEO; Irving (John Turturro), still mourning the loss of Christopher Walken's Burt; and Dylan (Zach Cherry), whose discovery that his outie has a family drives much of his story this season — are gone, having been replaced by three new innies. The only familiar face is the last one Mark wants to see: that of the chillingly dedicated company man Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who welcomes him back with a cheeky wink to the audience: "Been a minute."

9.0

Severance Season 2

at Apple TV+

Like

• The writing and world-building remains excellent
• The cast is on fire
• It maintains everything great about Season 1 while allowing itself to grow

Dislike

• The innies being frequently separated

In their absence, Milchick informs Mark that the MDR team have become minor celebrities, or "the face of severance reform." Empty apologies are doled out: Lumon deeply regrets what transpired and is committed to doing better, starting with new snacks and a better break room. Severance Season 1 took on the dystopia of office life; in Season 2, the show has fun skewering corporate reform. Mark isn't having it. Before long he's making enough of a stink about the new conditions to more or less bully the company into bringing Helly, Irving, and Dylan back.

ALSO READ: The complete guide to winter TV

Here, Severance Season 2 creates a fascinating push and pull that persists throughout the season's 10 episodes, all of which were provided to critics for review. How much control does Lumon really have over these people? How did the activation of the Overtime Contingency Protocol impact those behind the scenes? At several points, the innies do appear to be one step ahead of the people in charge. How much of what has been set in motion can really be undone, though? How much can people who know very little push back against the oppressive system they're stuck within? While the powers that be at Lumon are still very much scheming and plotting behind the scenes, it's obvious that this breach has thrown them into chaos. No one at the company anticipated a world where the people they employed would demand answers, freedom, and autonomy. No one anticipated a world where legitimate emotional connections would be forged at work, a corporate blindspot that plays heavily into how the episodes unfold. In Season 2, Severance's teeth are sharper than ever, proving that it hasn't lost any of its cutting observations about the indignities of modern-day office culture.

One of Severance's greatest strengths is how it maintains that honesty without ever sliding into cynicism. It's too aware of the special chemistry of its cast and their lived-in character dynamics, and it gracefully weaves in those relationships with the ever-expanding universe of the show. While one of the only disappointments of the season is how much of it the innies spend separated from each other, the moments when they are together are when the show shines the brightest. The events of the Season 1 finale changed so much about the way they interact with each other; series creator Dan Erickson has referred to the second season as an "adolescence story," which certainly feels like an appropriate description of how the innies — essentially children in the first season, now going through what could be referred to as their teen years — see the world. They're rebellious and horny and angry at their parents. 

For every question answered, five more are raised. One standout episode sends the innies out on a corporate retreat that changes the entire direction of the season; another beautifully threads Mark and Gemma's love story with an explanation of what exactly Lumon has been doing to Gemma all this time. Yes, we sort of get an answer about what's going on with the famous baby goats, but that's not really the end of it, either. It all adds up to dizzying, exciting television, building to a finale that matches the thrilling highs of the end of Season 1. While some viewers were frustrated by Severance's refusal to wrap its story up neatly at the end of the first season, it does in fact harken back to that era of TV many of us yearn for: the age of patient mystery box TV. Give yourself over to the show's expansive storytelling, accept that you're in good hands, and enjoy being along for the ride.

Premieres: Friday, Jan. 17 on Apple TV+, followed by new episodes weekly
Who's in it: Adam Scott, Britt Lower, John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Tramell Tillman, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken
Who's behind it: Dan Erickson (creator), Ben Stiller (director/executive producer)
For fans of: Severance Season 1
How many episodes we watched: 10 of 10