Severance season 2: key information
– Releasing on Apple TV Plus in January 2025
– Trailers unveiled in October and December
– Main cast all set to return
– New cast members announced
– Story synopsis confirms a return to Lumon Industries is on the cards for Mark Scout
– Other plot details teased by cast and crew
– No word on whether a third season is in the works
– Season 1 free to watch on Roku until January 19
Severance season 2 is almost here, everyone! In news that’ll excite your ‘outie’ and ‘innie’ in equal measure, the highly-rated Apple TV Plus show returns this Friday (January 17), so there’s no time like the present to get the lowdown on everything we know so far. Before you do, read my Severance season 2 review, which covers its first four episodes in mostly spoiler-free detail.
Below, I’ve rounded up every sliver of important intel on Severance‘s sophomore season. That includes its release schedule, cast list, various trailers, story synopsis and rumors, and so much more. Be advised, though, that major spoilers follow for Severance season 1. So, proceed with caution if you haven’t watched every episode thus far.
Severance season 2 exclusive coverage
I’ll be covering Severance season 2 in plenty more detail between now and its finale in mid-March. For now, check out my exclusive pre-season 2 coverage, which includes chats with creator Dan Erickson and some of its cast:
Severance season 2 release date
Just a heads up.#Severance Season 2 premieres January 17 on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/LXiaj0wVogDecember 7, 2024
Severance season 2 will launch on on January 17, 2025. Apple finally announced Severance‘s next chapter would debut on its streaming platform in July 2024.
When will Severance season 2 episode 1 release on Apple TV Plus?
Severance season 2 will, as mentioned, start on January 17. Its first episode will arrive at 12am PT / 3am ET / 8am GMT, too, with subsequent episodes releasing at the same time every week.
For a full rundown of when new entries will air, read on:
- Severance season 2 episode 1 – Friday, January 17
- Severance season 2 episode 2 – Friday, January 24
- Severance season 2 episode 3 – Friday, January 31
- Severance season 2 episode 4 – Friday, February 7
- Severance season 2 episode 5 – Friday, February 14
- Severance season 2 episode 6 – Friday, February 21
- Severance season 2 episode 7 – Friday, February 28
- Severance season 2 episode 8 – Friday, March 7
- Severance season 2 episode 9 – Friday, March 14
- Severance season 2 episode 10 – Friday, March 21
Severance season 2 trailer
Released in December 2024, Severance season 2’s stunning new trailer will make you want to praise Kier for multiple reasons. Not only does it tease more mysteries, new characters, and thrills galore in one of the best Apple TV Plus shows‘ next season, but it also confirms the return of season 1’s baby goats, who are now all grown up. D’aww!
Missed the first trailer, which arrived in late October after Apple invited us to attend a big Severance season 2 meeting? Check it out below and then read about why its unpleasantly upbeat and trippy footage is making us excited for a return to the office:
Severance season 2 cast: confirmed and rumored
Potential spoilers follow for Severance season 2.
Here’s Severance season 2’s official cast list so far:
- Adam Scott as Mark S / Mark Scout
- Zach Cherry as Dylan G / Dylan George
- Britt Lower as Helly Riggs / Helena Egan
- John Tuturro as Irving B / Irving Bailiff
- Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
- Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel
- Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey
- Jen Tullock as Devon Hale
- Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale
- Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
- Sydney Cole Alexander as Natalie
- Claudia Robinson as Felicia
- Mark Kenneth Smaltz as Judd
- Karen Aldridge as Reghabi
- Sarah Bock as Ms Wong
- Gwendoline Christie as TBC
- Bob Balaban as TBC
- Robby Benson as TBC
- Stefano Carannante as TBC
- John Noble as TBC
- Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as TBC
- Alia Shawkat as TBC
- Merritt Wever as TBC
Of the above, every actor with a named character is returning from last season. Ms Wong aside, the identities of season 2’s new characters are yet to be publicly revealed, although it’s been confirmed that Bock is the only actor among this new contingent who’ll be a series regular in season 2. We’ll update this section with new characters’ names once Severance returns.
Severance season 2 plot synopsis and rumors
Full spoilers follow for Severance season 1.
Here’s the official albeit incredibly brief plot synopsis for Severance season 2: “In season 2, Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.”
Not a whole lot to go on, then, but the show’s cast and crew, plus what happened in the season 1 finale, allows us to infer what could happen this season.
For anyone who might need a reminder of what Severance is actually about (it’s been three years since season 1 hit our screens): Severance introduces us to Lumon Industries, a shadowy corporate organization – one founded by so-called visionary Kier Eagan back in 1865 – that’s figured out a way to split a person’s psyche in two. Employees, then, have what’s known as an ‘innie’, who works on Lumon premises, and an ‘outie’, who exists in the real world.
The downside is that ‘innies’ do all the work in a never-ending nine-to-five cycle where they never leave the office, and are doomed to repeat obtuse and meaningless tasks forever. Meanwhile, the ‘outie’ has no idea that their other half is subjected to such horrific working conditions. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for some employees to take issue with life as a guinea pig in a soul-destroying, Kafkaesque experiment.
In season 1, we mainly follow Mark Scout, who initially joins Lumon to escape the crippling grief of losing his wife Gemma in a car accident, thereby allowing himself to disassociate from his ‘outside’ psyche for most of the week. However, his inner self becomes more curious about the workings of the company after his friend and manager Petey (Yul Vazquez) unexpectedly stops showing up to work, before new recruit Helly becomes increasingly determined to escape the office.
Long story short: season 1 ended on a cliff hanger, with Mark S, Helly R, and Irving B, aka the ‘innie’ part of each character’s persona, temporarily transporting themselves into the real world. They did so using Lumon’s Overtime Contingency device, which fellow Lumon employee Dylan G activated from inside the building’s security room.
Severance season 2, then, picks up immediately after its forebear’s finale. Based on Mark’s reunion with Seth (as seen in the trailers), we suspect Lumon won’t take too kindly to Mark and his allies’ ‘innies’ managing to escape, too, but Lumon will need to keep them onside so they don’t reveal more of the nefarious company’s secrets to the world.
One of the biggest shocks to emerge from season 1’s final chapter was the revelation that Helly’s ‘outie’ is Helena Egan, aka the daughter of Lumon Industries’ CEO. How will Lumon’s macrodata refiners react if they find out the truth? And how might Helena use the ‘innies’ brief breakout to her advantage?
That wasn’t the season 1 finale’s only big story twist. Mark S also found out Lumon’s wellness chief Ms. Casey is not only the wife of his ‘outie’, but his ‘outie’ (aka Mark Scout) also learned that she’s somehow alive – albeit not entirely because, well, shadowy Lumon stuff – in Lumon. Don’t be surprised, then, if Mark Scout tries to find a way to get Ms. Casey out of there and get a second life with his partner.
Based on season 1 episode 9, we expect Severance season 2 to focus on the world outside of Lumon as much as the menacing corporation, especially after Helly’s gala outburst, Mark’s discoveries, and Irving’s infatuated ‘innie’ driving to Burt Goodman’s home to try and rekindle their office romance.
It wouldn’t be Severance without, well, severance, though, so we’ll continue to see frequent switches between these characters’ ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ – especially if they need to further investigate Lumon’s labyrinthine office corridors, which presumably contain plenty of mysteries yet to be unearthed. That includes what role Gwendoline Christie’s mysterious character will play in Severance’s sophomore season, who Sarah Bock’s individual is, and whether Harmony Cobel will be brought back into the Lumon fold after she was fired last season.
While nobody is willing to give away anything significant about season 2’s plot and character arcs, some individuals aren’t quite so reluctant to spill the beans.
“There’s an expanding world that I think is sort of teased and in a way is owed by the way we ended season 1 where we did suddenly get some glimpses of Helly’s life on the outside and Dylan’s life on the outside, and Irving’s life on the outside,” Erickson told Gold Derby. “I don’t want to get into how much time we’re going to be spending in those various arenas, but we know that they have stuff going on the outside that we haven’t seen that we haven’t really explored yet, and of course, inside the company it’s a vast company and there’s plenty of stuff that we haven’t seen yet.
“It’s expanding on both sides and that’s both the fun and the challenge,” he continued. “How do you make it bigger and how do you take a broader view of it and include some new elements that weren’t there before but still keep it feeling like it’s centered in the same world, on the same story that you were doing before?”
Director/executive producer Ben Stiller expressed similar sentiments to Variety, saying : “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. 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.”
Elaborating further on which mysteries may be solved throughout the show, Stiller told Vanity Fair: “It’s an interesting process making something like this second season because you now know there’s an audience there that cares. That has been in our minds the entire time: ‘Wow, people really are paying attention to these details.’ My hope is that, when they see this season, there’s an awareness that we’re trying to connect some dots and also leave some dots unconnected and put out some new dots to connect.”
“I think things get [narratively and thematically] darker,” Erickson also said. “We very much wanted to put our heroes in a scarier place because season one ends with them poking the bear. They form this little rebellion, and they’re able to achieve a modicum of success with it, but the question with season two was: What happens when the bear pokes back? What’s the fallout of this victory that they had? I think, without giving much away, the fallout is dire.”
Sounds ominous. While we wait for next season to arrive, read our article on the five big questions we need Severance season 2 to answer when it’s released.
Where can I watch Severance season 1?
Like Severance season 2 will be shortly, the hit series’ first season is available to stream on Apple TV Plus. You can read our Apple TV Plus price guide to see how much it costs, or check out our Apple TV Plus free trial article to learn if one is available.
If you don’t want to sign up to Apple’s streaming platform, you can catch Severance season 1 for free right now on Roku. You’ll need to be quick, though, as it’ll only be free to watch until Sunday, January 19.
Will Severance get more seasons on Apple TV Plus?
It seems likely. Severance is one of Apple’s best TV Originals, so the tech giant will want to maximize the potential of a certified hit. It currently holds a 95% certified “fresh” critical rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and earned its fair share of awards following season 1’s release.
Additionally, with plenty more story to tell and mysteries left to unravel, it seems unlikely everything will be squeezed into two seasons – especially as the show has been such a major hit for Apple TV Plus, aka one of the best streaming services.
If there is a Severance season 3, though, don’t expect to see it before 2027. Indeed, with season 2 only set to arrive in early 2025, and with new installments of most live-action series taking two to three years to make, it could be another lengthy wait for its return again. Given that season 2 took so long to film before Stiller, Erickson, and company “shoot pretty methodically, and we probably don’t turn around as many pages of script per day as a lot of other shows” (as Erickson told Vanity Fair), season 3 won’t be with us any time soon if it’s eventually greenlit.
For more Apple TV Plus-based coverage, check out the best Apple TV Plus movies, our review of Apple TV Plus, and our hubs on Slow Horses season 5 and Foundation season 3.
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