Severance Season 2: Everything we know – cast, plot & more

Praise Kier: here’s everything you need to know about Severance Season 2 so far, from any release window and trailer updates to cast, plot, and more.

If you could curate the perfect work-life balance by forgetting anything and everything about your job the minute you finish a shift, would you?

This is the moral and emotional dilemma at the core of Severance, Ben Stiller’s thought-provoking series which debuted on Apple TV+ in February 2022. The show combines the best of Black Mirror’s dystopian-thriller edge with heart-aching drama.

As for the viewers, they’ve been left itching for the next season after a whopper of a cliff-hanger in the finale. Fortunately, it’s officially returning, so here’s everything we know so far.

Contents

• Is there a Severance Season 2 release date?
• Is there a Severance Season 2 trailer?
• Severance Season 2 cast: Who’s returning, and are there any new characters?
• Severance Season 2 plot: What will it be about?

Is there a Severance Season 2 release window?

Unfortunately, there’s no official release window for Severance Season 2 at the time of writing, but it has started filming – filming which has now been delayed.

In an announcement video, the streaming platform said Season 2 will make you feel “like you never left.”

Your #Severance Season 2 request has been accepted. pic.twitter.com/OTayQHRNHL

— Apple Original Films (@AppleFilms) April 6, 2022

However, a report on April 28, 2023 has indicated that the second season could be delayed due to a “falling out” between showrunners Dan Erickson and Mark Friedman. The report also mentions “extensive script rewrites” as well as astronomical episode costs that could be furthering the delay on production for Season 2.

This has been disputed by those close to the show, including Ben Stiller himself. “No one’s going to the break room. We’re on the same really slow schedule we’ve always been on. Same target air date we’ve always had. Love our fans and each other and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible,” he tweeted.

Now that the WGA strike is officially over and SAG-AFTRA being in ongoing talks, updates of Severance Season 2 could be with us sooner than we think if showrunners are on the same page.

Severance Season 2 trailer: Is there a trailer, and where can I watch it?

Unfortunately, there’s no trailer for Season 2 at the time of writing. Erickson recently told Deadline that writing has just begun on the second season, so it’s unlikely we’ll see a trailer for a while – but we’ll update this space when it’s released.

Severance Season 2 cast: Who’s returning, and are there any new characters?

Given the cliffhanger ending of Season 1, we can expect most, if not all of the Severance cast to return for Season 2, including:

• Adam Scott as Mark Scout
• Zach Cherry as Dylan George
• Britt Lower as Helly R/Helly Eagan
• John Turturro as Irving Bailiff
• Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel
• Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
• Dichen Lachman as Ms. Casey/Gemma
• Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
• Jen Tullock as Devon Hale, Mark’s sister
• Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale, Devon’s husband
• Michael Siberry as Jame Eagan, the CEO of Lumon Industries

It’s unclear whether we’ll see Yul Vazquez as Peter “Petey” Kilmer, a former Lumon employee and friend of Mark’s “innie”, given his death in Season 1. If anything, we’d see him in flashbacks as Mark deals with the events of Season 1.

In October last year, TVLine reported several new additions to the cast for Season 2. These include Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones), John Noble (Fringe), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), and Merritt Wever (Unbelievable). Others include Bob Balaban (Capote), Robby Benson (Brave New World), Stefano Carannante (Blue Bloods), and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Tourist).

Severance Season 2 plot: What will it be about?

Severance follows Mark, a Lumon Industries employee working in the Macrodata Refinement division. Following the death of his wife Gemma, he opts into the titular severance program, meaning his perception of existence is split into two: his “innie” only knows a working life with his colleagues; while his “outie” doesn’t remember anything to do with work.

He works alongside Dylan, Irving, and “Helly R”, the latter of whom being a new employee who particularly struggles with the adjustment, even trying to kill herself – only for her “outie” to reject her resignation request, essentially imprisoning her.

Season 1 ended with one of the most dramatic cliffhangers of the past 10 years: Helly R discovered she’s actually Helena Eagan, the Lumon heir; Irving arrived at Burt’s door after their romantic connection in Lumon, only to discover he’s already in a relationship; and we last saw Dylan being tackled to the ground by Milchick after allowing the “innies” to escape their own bodies for a brief time.

This venturing into the outside world will have consequences in the plot of Severance Season 2, according to Erickson. “There’s definitely going to be some expansion of the world,” he told Esquire.

“Within Lumon, we’re going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too.”

In another interview with Entertainment Weekly, Erickson continued: “We’re going to continue to really focus on the relationships between these characters, and we’re expanding the world.

“The first season was an ensemble piece at work, but it was much more focused on Mark on the outside, obviously. We wanted the audience to experience Mark’s life through his perspective, and he has no idea who Helly and Irving and Dylan are on the outside; his whole context for them is work.

“So we wanted to tell in that way for Season 1, but in Season 2, we’re going to be showing all of these people on the outside. Similar to Mark, they each had their own reason for getting this procedure, and they’re all at some stage of a healing process for one thing or another.”

And that’s before we get to the biggest twist of them all: Mark learned that Gemma wasn’t just alive, but had been severed and was working at Lumon as wellness counselor Ms. Casey. “She’s alive,” he screamed just as the finale rolled credits.

Speaking to Variety, Erickson teased: “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 see in subsequent seasons.

“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.”

Arquette also teased to Entertainment Tonight: “Be scared, very scared. I think these guys have been working really hard, and come up with a lot of really creative things. They have a whole world in their minds. They just let us in, piece by piece, into what’s going on, but I think it will be fun and beautiful.”

Severance Season 1 is available to stream on Apple TV+ now. Be sure to check out our other TV hubs for upcoming shows below:

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