Praise Kier! ‘Severance’ Renewed for Season 2 at Apple TV+
Break out the melon bars and waffles. “Severance,” the dystopian workplace comedy from creator Dan Erickson and director/executive producer Ben Stiller, has been renewed for a second season at Apple TV+. The nine-episode first season premiered on the streaming platform February 18 and has already picked up strong reviews and a cult following. The Season 1 finale streams April 8.
“It’s really exciting to see the response from people who are loving the show — and the level of fan engagement,” said Stiller in a statement shared with press. “It has been a long road bringing ‘Severance’ to television. I first read Dan’s pilot over five years ago. It has always been a multi-season story, and I’m really happy we get to continue it. I’m grateful to our partners at Apple TV+ who have been behind it the whole way. Praise Kier!”
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With elements of the American paranoid thrillers of the 1970s and arthouse science fiction, “Severance” centers on the team at the shadowy Lumon Industries, whose employees have agreed to undergo a “severance” procedure, surgically splitting their memories between their work and personal lives. Lumon’s upper management, led by a wickedly imperious Patricia Arquette as Charlotte Cobel, worships a mysterious founder named Kier Egan.
Heading up the Macrodata Refinement (MR) division is Mark Scout (Adam Scott), whose “outie” (the person he is in the real world) is dealing with a personal loss and whose “innie” (the person he is at work) is trying to wrangle an often willful team of employees. They include Zach Cherry as Dylan, Britt Lower as Helly, and John Turturro as Irving. Tramell Tillman and Christopher Walken also star in the series as employees at other levels of Lumon. What, exactly, the MR team is being tasked to do remains unsettlingly unknown. “What are we doing here?” Mark asks Charlotte at one point. “We serve Kier, you child!”
“Thanks to creator Dan Erickson, the brilliant Ben Stiller, and an incomparable cast and crew, ‘Severance’ has imagined an existence that‘s equal parts riveting and enthralling as viewers around the globe can’t get enough of these rich characters,” said Matt Cherniss, head of programming for Apple TV+. “We’re excited to go deeper into this wholly unique world and unpack more layers of Lumon in Season 2.”
The series is written and created by Dan Erickson, making his small-screen debut and bringing his own corporate background to the story. Read IndieWire’s rave review of the first season here.
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