While we're still waiting to see when will we get a full Severance season 2 trailer to feast our eyes on for what may well be the most-wanted streaming TV return, dailies for the show are starting to roll in, and with them rumors of the secrets set to be revealed. Following the 2023 Golden Globes, cast and crew are walking the red carpets, celebrating the show's first season's successes, and starting to give away snippets about what's to come next in the world of Lumon.
Season 2 of Severance will continue the story of the prison-like office. As rib-tickling as it was surreal, Severance's first season had a killer sci-fi thriller twist, becoming an unlikely streaming hit for 2022 – and the real jewel in the Apple TV Plus TV show catalogue. It's now looking to be the streaming service's leading title for 2023.
Severance's first run concluded with a heart-stopping cliffhanger, with a ton of unanswered questions left about its alternate-reality sci-fi world leaving fans chomping at the bit for more info on what was to come next for season two.
That's where we come in. Apple TV Plus's first big hit rolled credits on the final episode of season one of Severance in April 2022, and now cast and crew are beginning to share details of what to expect when the show makes its inevitable return to our screens, now that season 2 has officially started filming. Over at iMore, we've been carefully curating all the latest goings on surrounding the show, and pulling them into this handy Severance Season 2 preview guide.
So what’s in store for Severance fans? Will the psychologically- trapped employees of Lumon ever find out the full details of their ‘real’ lives? And what the hell were those goats about?
From a BBC executive joining the production team, to a giant influx of Hollywood talent joining the cast, to a Barack Obama casting rumor to the shooting schedule and fan theories, we're diving into the world of Lumon and severance surgical procedures ahead of the show's return.
The latest snippets of info come from the cast themselves, with Britt Lower singing the praises of the new cast on the Golden Globes red carpet, and Zach Cherry discussing some out of this world fan theories coming from a place very close to home.
Read on for everything we know so far about Severance season 2, and keep this page bookmarked – we’ll be updating it every time fresh info on the show is released. And be warned: some spoilers may follow.
Let’s get you all up to speed first. For the sake of not wanting to spoil too many of Severance’s excellent secrets, here’s just a top-line overview of the show’s world – a mini Severance recap of the overall concept.
The Apple TV Plus show centers around the employees of Lumon, a biotechnology company that works on a mysterious project so secret that its details are obscured from even the rank and file employees that make up the majority of its staff.
To further protect the company’s secrets, a surgical procedure is in place that most members of staff must agree to – it’s the show’s central hook – where an employee’s memories are split in two, one focussing on their work lives, and the other on the personal lives and memories they’ve had since birth. The two can never come into contact – a Lumon employee turns up at work, enters the workplace, and forgets everything that ever happened during the work day when they leave, meaning that their professional memories effectively constitute a whole other life being lived, that of their so-called ‘innie’, separate and unknown to the personal life.
While some employees believe this separation – this ‘severance – keeps their lives free of the stresses of work, it essentially subjects the other side of their brain to a life of abstract enslavement. However, when new employee Helly (Britt Lower) joins the Lumon Macrodata Refinement team, it sparks a rebellious streak in division head Mark (Adam Scott) and his colleagues Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro), leading to startling revelations not only about the company they work for but also the outer lives they cannot access.
If like us you’ve fallen for the lovably-lost cast of Severance, we’ve got good news. As of the time of writing, all the key cast members from season 1 are set to return for season 2.
Adam Scott (Mark), Britt Lower (Helly), Zach Cherry (Dylan) and John Turturro (Irving) will be returning to the Macrodata department, while Patricia Arquette (Mrs Cobel) and Tramell Tillman (Mr Milcheck) will once again be enforcers. Ms Casey / Gemma, as played by Dichen Lachman will be back, as will our personal favorite character, the kind-hearted Burt, played by the legendary Christopher Walken.
The end of October 2022 saw a giant announcement of new talent joining the show, too.
Getting ready to enter the Lumon offices are Emmy nominee Gwendoline Christie (star of the recent Star Wars movie reboots, and a Game of Thrones fan favorite )Oscar and Emmy nominee Bob Balaban (a regular in such Wes Anderson movies as Moonrise Kingdom and The French Dispatch), Robby Benson (the Beast from Disney's animated Beauty and the Beast – no, seriously!), Stefano Carannante (Mirabilia), John Noble (star of Fringe and the one who really grossly eats tomatoes in Lord of the Rings), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Tourist), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development and Search Party), and Merritt Wever (Godless).
“We already have an incredible new set of cast members," Britt Lower told The Hollywood Reporter(opens in new tab) at the 2023 Golden Globes. "I’m geeking out about all of them. Honestly that’s all I can think about. They’re really dynamite”.
But could we have some more comedy luminaries join the cast? And even one of the most famous people on the planet – a former president?
“For me there are a lot, people like Christopher Guest [the comedy genius behind Spinal Tap and Best in Show]. I kind of imagine ‘Wow that would be amazing if someday he might be a part of the show,’ ” director / executive producer Ben Stiller said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter(opens in new tab).
“It’s fun when you have a show like this where it allows for people to maybe come in for an episode or two but also fit into the world of Severance.”
In an even more ambitious move, Erickson teased that he was going to pitch a role to Barack Obama. "I think he’d be really good, he’d bring some gravitas,” the creator told The Hollywood Reporter.
Actress Jen Tullock, who plays Devon on the show, had some dream casting desires of her own too – she'd "pretty much give you every American dollar I’ve got in my bank account" to have Barbara Streisand make an appearance.
It's not just the cast that's expanding though, but the production team too. Fifth Season, the production outfit behind Severance (which was previously known as Endeavour Content), has been quietly adding to its ranks in preparation of season 2's kick off. It has added Ben Irving to its roster, who was previously acting as the BBC's acting director of drama. He'll be taking on the newly created position of creative director, UK Television at Fifth Season.
When a company, even a fictional one, has the power to make demands of their employee’s bodies, you can be sure they’ve got deep pockets and an even deeper reach into many aspects of the world they inhabit. Season 1 of Severance showed how many people in its universe actively protest against Lumon and its Severance procedure, and season 2 of the show will delve further into exactly how much influence Lumon has on the wider world.
"There’s definitely going to be some expansion of the world," Erickson said in an interview on season 2 with Esquire. "Within Lumon, we’re going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too."
Lots of that will tap into exploring the mystery of Mark and Gemma’s (Dichen Lachman) relationship, too, with the season 1 finale tightly tied to their fates.
"There’s a question of sort of who was targeted first: was Mark targeted because of his relationship to Gemma, or was it the other way around? And that’s something that we don’t see this season, but we will in subsequent seasons," Erickson told Variety.
"That’s the big question, what is special about Mark? And is it actually that there’s something special about him or is it more about Gemma, and he was sort of pulled in? Those are all left unanswered this season, but we will get into it."
"I think that the biggest thing is how to maintain all those things in terms of the feeling of the show, while at the same time expanding the world since the end of the last episode," said Stiller in an August interview with Variety(opens in new tab).
"We’ve brought Mark and Irving and Helly to the surface, and I think those are storylines that people are going to be interested in. So, it’s going to be figuring out that balance. We’re writing and prepping right now to shoot in October."
“It’s so exciting,” Erickson added in a December 2022 interview with Gold Derby(opens in new tab). “There is an expanding world that I think is teased, and in a way is owed, by the way that we ended season 1. We did suddenly get some glimpses of Helly’s life on the outside. What is Dylan’s life on the outside? What is Irving’s life on the outside? They have stuff going on that we haven’t seen, that we haven’t explored yet. And of course, inside the company, there’s plenty of stuff that we haven’t seen yet. It’s expanding on both sides. That’s both the fun and the challenge.”
Britt Lower wouldn't be pressed on details of the scripts she's worked on for Severance season 2 when talking to The Hollywood Reporter in January 2023, but was excited to continue to explore Helly's Lumon experience:
“I can’t tell you anything! Yes [I was shocked and surprised]. It’s great. There’s just this sense of excitement that we’re getting to revisit this story, to step back into the characters shoes, literally and metaphorically. And to come back with the sense that the fans have received the show with such warmth and curiosity. There’s a lot of integrity with which we’re approaching this season so that we really deliver."