There were reasons to worry about a “Severance” sophomore slump.
Foremost, the Ben Stiller-backed, 2022 Apple TV+ series was such a brilliantly realized paranoid thriller/sci-fi satire of the work-life balance illusion — recreating its first season magic would be a herculean task under the best circumstances.
Then there were reports that creator Dan Erickson and more experienced co-showrunner Mark Friedman weren’t getting along to such an extent that “House of Cards” veteran Beau Willimon was brought in to smooth out the follow-up’s trajectory. Hollywood strikes notwithstanding, production delays also seemed ominous.
Whatever went down, Season 2 finally premieres Jan. 17. And while there’s more than a bit of wheel-spinning in its first few episodes, saying “Aha, I knew it!” will make you sound like a clueless Outie guessing what goes down on a Lumon Industries severed floor. The new season explores profound ideas about what having one’s consciousness split inside and out of the office means for the individuals who agreed to let a corporation surgically bifurcate their memories — and, as a result, their growingly divergent personalities.
After a few delays and typically obfuscating, “official” exposition, the MicroData Refinement division members find their way back to the carrel quad where they move numbers around computer screens all day.
In the wake of the Innies’ harrowing escape to their Outies’ minds at the end of last season, Adam Scott’s Mark Scout is at various times aware that mysterious wellness counselor Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) is actually the wife he’s long thought dead. Mark has to cope with the increasingly urgent mission of finding and rescuing her from Lumon’s labyrinth of white hallways (and darker, more claustrophobic ones). Of course, his feelings for coworker Helly (Britt Lower) complicate that.
Even more complicated, some days Innie Helly isn’t really her at all, but Helena Eagan, scion of the family that owns Lumon. While her identity switches are intentional, Mark now uncontrollably phases between his split personalities, not to mention some unwelcome memories. These developments offer both lead actors new dimensions of conflicting motivations and emotions to play.
It’s hard to say whether Scott is at his complex best when trying to work out Mark’s feelings for Helly on the spot or manipulating and arguing among his various selves. Either way, it’s the most powerful portrayal since Bill Hader’s “Barry” of a disoriented soul by an actor who’s also the show’s key comedian.
Lower has an excellent poker face, especially when what’s behind it may be the face of corporate evil. Yet while she can effortlessly make us forget whether we’re watching Helena or Helly, she doesn’t let us lose sight of either’s wants and needs for long. Each version finds herself in situations that require additional masks upon masks. Lower makes 3-D chess-style acting seem like the most natural thing in the world.
We learn a lot more about Dylan’s (Zach Cherry) Outie life and his Innie’s deeper feelings; both are near-unbearably poignant. While he plays a key role in the office politics of Season 2, John Turturro’s Irving really develops out in wintry gray Kier, the company town named after Lumon’s godlike founder. We also learn more about Irving’s office crush Burt, one of Christopher Walken’s tenderest characterizations (who, typically, he manages to make somewhat sinister all the same).
While still menacing in their distinctive, inscrutable ways, we see far more of severed floor supervisors Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and Seth Milchick’s (Tramell Tillman) tensions with their deity-like employers, and what that does to their own senses of themselves.
The impressive list of new hires includes Alia Shawkat, Bob Balaban, Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever (as usual, a nexus of emotional intelligence), Robby Benson (his aged face particularly ravaged, which suits the character he plays), Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, James Le Gros and John Noble. And those are just the famous S2 players we’ve not been instructed to keep secret.
Though the latest batch of episodes boasts fairly relentless spoofing of corporate culture (especially with Lumon’s new, post-Innie breakout agenda of concern for employee welfare), the metaphors lean more toward expanding weird lore than satirizing worker abuse. The extent of Kier-worshipping and importance placed on the MacGuffin-sounding “Cold Harbor” initiative this time around can feel like too much of some not so interesting things. Yet just as you fret that this profoundly intelligent show is heading the way of “X-Files,” “Lost” and countless other WTF series that crawl so far into world-building fantasy they lose sight of any point (or resolution), an episode will go deeper rather than just weirder.
Existential connundra related to Innie/Outie individuality — each iteration’s rights to their own lives, personae and relationships — is examined extensively. Several episodes take an abstract, feelings-forward approach; they’re interiors beyond inside out dialectics, if you will, and quite unlike anything the humor- and plot-driven first season addressed.
Location and some fine formal deviations add welcome variety to the Lumon-Kier monotony that, after all, is a defining feature of “Severance.” Gorgeous noir shadows appear in most episodes, which is doubly impressive for a show about overlit workspaces. Facial closeups are favored by Stiller and the other directors this season; they emphasize how the focus is on characters’ personal needs more than their situational reality this time around. There’s a spectacular night-on-the-severed-floor montage that leads to some climactic realizations. Theodore Shapiro’s remains the most bone-rattling score on television.
Still, nothing in Season 2 matches the orchestral cinematic majesty of S1’s closing chapter, “The Way We Are.” There may be something different that’s just as good, though, something more romantic than we’d expect from “Severance.” All four members of the MDR unit get mired in love triangles, even quadrangles, in and out of the office space. Each is heart-wrenching in its unique way.
Some of Erickson, Friedman and Willimon’s most thoughtful calculations have gone into working out the split personalities’ affections. If that’s the kind of job a contentious writers room produces, they’ve got to figure out a way to make that industry policy.
“Severance” Season 2 premieres Friday, Jan. 17 on Apple TV+.
