Warning: Contains spoilers for Severance season 1
Show creator Dan Erickson reveals that Severance season 2 will show more of Dylan, Irving, and Helly's outies. The Apple TV+ breakout thriller series was directed by Ben Stiller and Aoife McArdle and stars Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette. The series premiered on Apple TV+ on February 18, and it was renewed earlier this month for season 2 before the Severance season 1 finale was released.
Severance takes the concept of work-life balance to the extreme, imagining a world in which employees can undergo a procedure to sever their work memories from their non-work memories. This causes the employees to have two separate lives, one as their "innie" while at work and one as their "outie" outside of work. Severance season 1 focuses on Mark (Scott), a severed employee in Macro-Data Refinement at Lumon Industries, who begins to uncover the company's sinister side as both innie and outie. While Lumon limits contact between their severed workers' two selves, by the end of the season 1 finale, Mark's innie and those of his coworkers, Dylan (Cherry), Helly (Lower), and Irving (Turturro), caught a glimpse of their outside lives. Unfortunately, their time exploring their mysterious other selves was cut short, and Severance season 1 ended with a massive cliffhanger.
Following the season 1 finale twist, Erickson teases that Severance season 2 will explore Dylan, Helly, and Irving's outside lives in more detail. In an interview with EW, he reveals that the next season will show not only what Mark's coworker's outies are like, but also the reasons each severed employee underwent the procedure. He adds that he is excited to see how each actor will differentiate between their characters' innies and outies in season 2. Check out Erickson's full quote below:
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 it 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.
I just can't wait, because these actors are all obviously so good. And being able to take what Adam did in the first season — with the differentiation between his innie and outie, and how they feel like the same person but with this vastly different lived experience — seeing the other three characters' version of that dichotomy is, I think, the most exciting part. In season 2, we're really going to expand and get into all of that.
Severance season 1 left viewers with more questions than answers, even as Mark and his coworkers uncovered more mysteries within Lumon. One of the biggest of these is why Lumon Industries began the severance program in the first place. If Severance season 2 spends more time on each MDR employee's outie, perhaps the answer will appear in Helly's outside life. The season 1 finale revealed that Helly is the daughter of Lumon CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), giving her the best chance at uncovering the company's true purpose.
Although Erickson shares a small teaser of what Severance season 2 will show, there's no guarantee that it won't open up even more questions than season 1. Stiller previously stated his desire for Severance to stretch across several seasons, so there seems to be much more story to tell. While the internet keeps discussing possible theories, viewers will have to wait until Severance season 2 for anything resembling answers.
Source: EW