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| Images Courtesy Apple TV |
It’s rare for the sophomore season of a show to top its previous season, but it can happen: Justified, The Expanse, Schitt’s Creek, Fargo, and The Leftovers. Severance succeeds by avoiding the usual second-season traps and goes hard into developing its characters. Season two excels by using all of the show to further mature the Innies as people, giving them more humanity and agency.
A masterful first episode picks up where season one ends: the four macro data refiners were able to initiate the Overtime Contingency by waking up their Innies after hours. Viewers learn the fallout of this from the Innie’s perspective, as the entire first episode takes place on the severed floor. A great opening bit expands the Lumon world by revealing more about the company, but it also shows how this event affected Dylan (Zach Cherry), Mark (Adam Scott), Virgil (John Turturro), and Helly (Britt Lower). It’s also fascinating (and sickening) to see how the company reacts to the Innies’ rebellion.
Leadership works to control the narrative of this event by reframing the internal espionage as company lore. They even go so far as to have a propaganda-like art mural of the espionage created to greet employees when they step off the elevator. Each of the characters spends season two dealing with the aftermath, where the line separating the Innies from their outside lives begins to crack. Mark pursues his new knowledge that Miss Casey (Dichen Lachman), a wellness counselor, is actually his wife who was supposed to have died in a car crash. Dylan, after having learned that his Outtie was married with two kids, works to learn more and further complicates his Outtie’s life.
Also complicating his Outtie’s life was Virgil, whose Innie tracked down Burt (Christopher Walken) in the outside world after their innies developed a workplace romance. Helly learns her Outtie is an Eagan and in line to take over Lumon Industries once her father, Jame Egan, dies.
Also complicating his Outtie’s life was Virgil, whose Innie tracked down Burt (Christopher Walken) in the outside world after their innies developed a workplace romance. Helly learns her Outtie is an Eagan and in line to take over Lumon Industries once her father, Jame Egan, dies.
Each of the character’s increasingly complex lives shows how the divide between work and private lives is crumbling. The world-building that happens in this season will be satisfying for fans, but it’s wisely used to further character development instead of answering all the company mysteries. This is one of the traps that many second seasons of shows fall into: expanding the universe of the show to the developing characters. Because of this show’s character focus, a couple minor subplots get dropped along the way.
This could be dissatisfying for fans wanting to know how these plots play out, but rewarding for those wanting to see the show stay focused on its characters. Lumon leadership has also changed after Harmony Kobel (Patricia Arquette) was offered some vague ‘promotion’ that would take her away from the severed floor. Mr. Milchik (Trammel Tillman) replaced her, though he now has the frigid intern/floor manager Miss Huang (Sarah Bock) taking his old position. Their dynamic makes for an absurd and anxiety-inducing satire of corporate relationships. More focus on Mr. Milchick’s development, including some racial realities of that workplace, creates more humanity for this corporate middle-man who’s not used to anything except blind obedience.
The exquisite art direction and cinematography of the first season continues, making nearly every scene a feast for the eyes. The disciplined color palette continues to use one accent color that pops and contrasts everything else, whether it be a colorful lamp in dreary corporate housing or a red ball during an insufferable team-building exercise at work. The severed floor is itself just as suffocating and claustrophobic as before, which makes for a wonderful blank canvas when something like blood is thrown onto it.
The exquisite art direction and cinematography of the first season continues, making nearly every scene a feast for the eyes. The disciplined color palette continues to use one accent color that pops and contrasts everything else, whether it be a colorful lamp in dreary corporate housing or a red ball during an insufferable team-building exercise at work. The severed floor is itself just as suffocating and claustrophobic as before, which makes for a wonderful blank canvas when something like blood is thrown onto it.
The most engaging part of the series is seeing how each character's more complicated lives start to influence each other. Since the block between Innies and Outties becomes more porous, the show explores more questions concerning the humanity, rights, and agency of the Innies. This new agency creates a captivating exploration of a person’s relationship to their job, their co-workers, and what is owed to each other.
There’s no wasted scenes in the entire 10-episode season, with every minute spent on the floor or outside of the office furthering the messy lives of the characters. Some fascinating what-ifs are explored that delve into the issues of having separate consciousnesses that share the same body. These what-ifs are a great example of how so much of the show focuses on characters more than the plot, though all these elements work together masterfully for an epic finale that’s an hour and 17 minutes long.
Severance is a top-notch example of how to expand the universe of a show without taking the focus off of the characters.
- Eric