Information key
– No release date has been announced yet
– Filming will begin in October 2022; is scheduled to end in May 2023
– The return of the main cast is expected
– The plot will probably start right after the first season finale
– There is no information on whether the third season will be greenlit
Season 2 of Severance will soon continue the Lumon Industries story on Apple TV Plus. The next installment in the sci-fi thriller series will explore more existential mysteries and a controversial medical procedure that leaves employees unable to remember their lives outside the office walls. No wonder, considering how great the first season was, we can’t wait to see what his second season brings.
Season 2 will continue with one of the best season 1 cliffhangers of recent times. Severance is a series that masterfully combines complex, conflicted characters in a grim office satire. It’s a series whose scope and ambition grew with each crawling episode – like the endless corridors of Lumon’s office, always longer, darker and more disturbing than you expect.
Parting is probably the best Apple TV show so far (although your feelings about it may depend on whether Ted Lasso already has your heart). He is able to wring a laugh out of painfully corporate clichés while pushing them to the most horrific conclusions as we see dehumanized and mentally tortured employees being sacrificed on the altar of CEO worship.
But there’s still a lot we don’t know – including exactly when Severance season 2 will land. However, given that the second season was greenlit in April 2022, and filming is already underway, we’re sure to hear more soon. Here’s everything we know about Severance Season 2 so far.
Severance season 2 release date
The release date for Severance season 2 has yet to be finalized, but we can estimate an approximate launch window. Filming began in October 2022 and is currently scheduled to end in May 2023.
Every time you’re here, it’s because you’ve decided to come back. Shooting for the second season of #Severance has begun. pic.twitter.com/4AgEFHEgV9October 31, 2022
It took about a year to complete the production of the first season and drop it on the Apple TV Plus. Given that principal photography still has six months to go, and the series will require a lengthy post-production phase, we’ll likely wait until late 2023 to see the next installment. We hope that’s the case.
Severance season 2 cast
Here’s the full cast of Severance Season 2:
- Adam Scott as Mark Scout
- Zach Cherry as Dylan George
- Britt Lower as Helena “Helly” Riggs
- John Tuturro as Irving’s bailiff
- Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel
- Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
- Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
- Dichen Lachman as Mrs. Casey
- Jen Tullock as Devon Hale
- Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale
There were a lot of recurring and guest characters in the first season of Severance, so we may see some of those people return for the next outing. However, Apple has not yet confirmed which ones may return or if new actors have been hired to play the new characters.
However, there will be eight new faces among the cast of Season 2. Behind Hollywood reporter (opens in a new tab) (THR), this octet of high-profile stars joined the Severance roster in undisclosed roles:
- Gwendoline Christie (Sandman, Game of Thrones)
- Bob Balaban (French Consignment)
- Robby Benson (Beauty and the Beast)
- Stefano Carannante (Miribilia)
- John Noble (Tassel)
- Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Tourist)
- Alia Shawkat (Search Party, Old Man)
- Merritt Wever (Jackie’s sister)
speak to THR (opens in a new tab) for the season 1 finale autopsy, director and producer Ben Stiller had previously hinted that he had multiple actors in mind for potential roles in season 2, saying “For me, there are a lot of people like Christopher Guest. it would be awesome if one day he could be a part of the show.” It’s nice to have a show like this where people can come in for an episode or two, but also fit into the world of Severance.”
Creator Dan Erickson, however, wants the cast of Severance to become full-fledged stars, joking with THR that “If Barack Obama is [there at the 2022 Emmys]I’ll see if he wants to play this show. I think he’d be really good, he’d bring some seriousness.”
The plot of the 2nd season of parting
Major spoilers for Severance Season 1 follow.
So what’s going on at Severance? The series is set in Lumon Industries, a shadowy corporate organization that has found a way to divide the human psyche into two parts: the “other” who works at Lumon HQ, and the “outie” who never has to work a day in his life.
The downside, of course, is that the “other” doing all the work experiences an endless nine-to-five loop where he never leaves the office and is doomed to perform dull and pointless tasks over and over again for eternity. And it doesn’t take long for some employees to question such a soul-destroying, Kafkaesque experiment.
Mark Scout initially joins Lumon to escape the crippling grief of losing his wife in a car accident, allowing himself to shut out his “outer” psyche for the better part of a week. But he becomes more curious about how the company works after his friend and manager Petey unexpectedly stops showing up for work, while the new recruit seems determined to get out of the office. Look out for a lot of manipulation by their employer, unexplained baby goats and a surprisingly violent disco.
Season 1 ended on a huge cliffhanger, with four of these rebellious “intelligents” successfully activating their psyche to work “remotely”, throwing themselves into the lives of their “freaks” and spreading the word about their cruel working conditions and ruining Lumon’s reputation just before the crucial vote whether to extend the clearance procedure.
We expect to go back to where the first season ended when this remote activation was interrupted by the staff supervisor. It has Irving knocking on his office sweetheart’s door, Dylan caught red-handed in Lumon’s control room, “Helly” on stage at the Lumon gala after leaving the firm’s practice, and Mark still alive at his sister’s house after firing his wife and works as an employee of Lumon. There’s a lot going on at once, and all of these people’s “freaks” will suddenly find themselves back in the room after an hour of their bookbinders taking control.
We expect season 2 to focus more on the world outside of Lumon Industries, with the Helly Gala blowing up and Mark’s discoveries revealing some of the company’s secrets to the public. But it wouldn’t be Severance without, well, a breakup, and we’ll certainly see the cast jump between their “intelligents” and “outsies” at times, especially if it’s to further explore Lumon’s labyrinthine office corridors, which are sure to hold a lot of secrets, that we haven’t discovered yet.
speak to Diversity (opens in a new tab) on what fans can expect from the next season, Stiller teased: “I think the biggest thing is how to keep all those things in terms of the vibe of the show while expanding the world from the end of the last episode. We brought Mark, Irving and Helly to the surface, and I think those are the stories that people will be interested in. So it will be finding a balance.”
During the Comic-Con 2022 panel (per Magazine (opens in a new tab)), Erickson added, “I’m excited to move on to Season 2, building the world a little more and being able to see, with this one little shift in reality, what the different consequences will be. We didn’t want it to feel like science fiction in the classic sense of the word. We wanted it to be a lot more grounded.”
Oh, and expect there to be some sort of reveal these goats in season 1. When asked if their appearance at Comic-Con made any difference, Erickson simply replied, “Yes.”
A Breakup season 2 trailer
There’s no official trailer for Severance Season 2 yet, but we did get a very brief teaser at the Apple iPhone 14 event in September 2022.
The footage only shows Helly getting off the subway train on her way home or to the office in Lumon, so it doesn’t reveal anything about the show’s second season. Still, it’s a fun little Easter egg clip, and it shows how much Apple relies on another of its flagship shows (like Ted Lasso before it) to attract subscribers to the streaming service.
We’ll update this section when the official trailer comes out.
Will we get more seasons of Severance?
Will there be more entries after Severance Season 2? It seems likely. Severance is one of the best TV shows to hit Apple’s streaming platform since it launched in 2019, and the company won’t want to sleep on a certified hit. It holds a 97% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, has already won numerous awards and is sure to be a big winner in the 2023 awards circuit as well.
Ted Lasso, Apple’s other megahit original series, is gearing up for a third season, and we expect Severance to get similar treatment. It really depends on how the second season of Severance goes, but the quality of the narrative so far bodes well for later seasons, and the many unsolved mysteries of Lumon Industries should last for several dozen episodes before it all runs out. Just don’t expect Severance Season 3 to arrive in 2025 at the earliest.
For more coverage based on Apple TV Plus, check out the best Apple TV Plus movies, how much a subscription costs, or our review of Apple TV Plus as a streaming service.