‘Severance’ Season 1 Recap: What To Remember For Season 2
The wait is almost over for Season 2 of Apple TV+’s Severance, created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller.
Season 1 of the thriller series, which stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Patricia Arquette, Dylan Cherry, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Micheal Chernus, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Dichen Lachman and more, arrived in February 2022. Season 2 has added several big names to its cast as well who will no doubt add to the mysterious hallways of Lumon Industries as well as the town beyond it.
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For a recap of Severance Season 1 and what to remember ahead of Season 2, which premieres on Apple TV+ Friday, Jan. 17, follow along below:
The “Severance” Procedure
Season 1 of the show opened on Helly R. (Lower) who was lying on a conference room table as Scott’s Mark S. spoke to her over a radio. He asked her a series of questions to determine whether the severance procedure had been successful on her brain. Some of them involved basic facts like her name while others were oddly specific like Kier Eagan’s (the founder of Lumon) favorite breakfast.
Lumon Industries, the company for which Mark and Helly both work, requires the severance procedure for employees on a certain floor in the basement in the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department. It is unclear what data they sort beyond “scary numbers.” That’s how Mark and his coworkers describe the data sets to Helly — the batches of numbers will feel scary and beg to be sorted. Helly gets right to work on the Siena file, while Dylan (Cherry) is gung-ho about his own file, which he is almost done with at the start of the series.
RELATED: ‘Severance’ Season 2: Everything We Know So Far
What the Severance procedure entails is consent from the person in the outer world, the “outie” to undergo the surgery in which a chip is placed in the brain that reacts to some kind of barrier between the ground and basement floors of Lumon. The employee who works in the basement becomes the “innie.”
Lumon Industries
Lumon was founded by Kier Eagan, whose ancestors served as CEO after him. He remains a mysterious idol of sorts whom his employees somewhat worship like a god. Lumon also contains the Optics and Design department and more. Mr. Milchick (Tillman) serves under Ms. Cobel as the coordinator of onboarding and new hires as well as daily activities and rewards from melon parties to Waffle Parties.
Lumon has two ways to deal with underperforming workers: The Break Room, and wellness. The Break Room is a narrow dark hallway where troublesome employees go to read an apology as many times as Mr. Milchik determines before they really mean it. Wellness is where Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) operates as a therapist of sorts, who treats patients by either reading them delightful facts about their outties that they are supposed to enjoy equally or by having them sculpt their feelings out of clay.
Ms. Cobel, Mark’s Boss, Is Also Mark’s Neighbor
Patricia Arquette plays Mark’s boss at Lumon, but she is also Mark’s neighbor, Mrs. Selvig, in severed housing. She, herself is not severed. Throughout Season 1, Ms. Cobel kept a close watch on Mark S. inside and outside of the office. She even went as far as to serve as a lactation consultant for Mark’s sister Devon (Tullock), who was having trouble getting her daughter to latch.
Ms. Cobel often has to answer to “The Board,” a mysterious group or force that rarely speaks over radio in meetings but is the overruling authority in Lumon.
Petey Tipped Mark Off
Peter “Petey” Kilmer (Yul Vazquez) was in charge of the MDR Department, which included Mark, Dylan and Irving Baliff (Turturro). Petey chose to undergo reintegration, but at work, this reason was not given as to his departure. Helly replaced Petey as the new refiner.
Petey visited Mark outside of work to share a letter with him and warn him that he hid a map of the severed floor of Lumon in the office. Mark found the map, which Helly immediately took to mean they should explore and rebel, but he shredded it. It took Petey dying for Mark to change his mind. Ms. Cobel went to Petey’s funeral to recover his brain chip, which involved her drilling back into his skull.
Helly’s Rebellion
Helly’s innie is not a fan of severance or Lumon. She makes multiple attempts to quit the job from leaving notes on her arms to trying to swallow one and smuggle it out. She films videos for her outie to accept her resignation, but her outie sends a brutal video back claiming that she, the outtie, is a person, and Helly the innie, is not.
Helly even tried to hang herself at one point out of vengeance.
Burt & Irv
Irv, whose outtie viewers learn later paints a mysterious corridor over and over again, is a pretty strict stickler for the rules at Lumon, but even he joins in on the rebellion. He also fell in love with an O&D employee, Burt Goodman (Walken), and they fraternize for a bit before stuff hits the fan in the end. Burt also tipped Irv off that O&D was more than just two people, if inadvertently. Irv learns of this by going to the department by himself and listening in to a doorway where a lot of noise came from. Then he saw how many people were really behind the door working big machines.
Ms. Casey Has Another Identity
Mark dates his sister’s doula Alexa (Nikki M. James) on and off through Season 1, and viewers learn that he elected to receive the severance surgical procedure because his wife Gemma died. But as revealed later on in the show, Gemma is actually still alive. She is Ms. Casey! Whatever that car accident cover-up story was, hopefully, we learn more about it in Season 2.
After Mark’s last wellness assessment at the end of the quarter, Cobel demands that Ms. Casey be sent to the testing floor to supposedly reboot some things. This is another dark hallway that leads to an elevator with a red down arrow.
The Overtime Contingency
The Overtime Contingency is a procedure used for emergencies that allows Lumon to wake up its employees outside of work hours when they are inhabiting their outtie bodies. Dylan experienced it first with Milchick, who activated the OTC to recover something Dylan stole from O&D. He also learned during it that he has a son. This caused him to bite Milchick later when Milchick taunted Dylan and wouldn’t tell him his son’s name.
Together, the four MDR employees band together to activate the OTC so that they can try to get a better idea of what’s going on at Lumon. This wakes them each up at distinct and important moments. Mark is at his brother-in-law Ricken’s (Chernus) reading of his new book, The You You Are, which made it down into Lumon because Ms. Cobel took it from Mark’s porch when she was suspicious of Mark housing Petey. Ms. Cobel, who operates as Mrs. Selvig when she is in Mark’s neighbor form outside of work, attended the reading, and she realizes Mark is his innie when he slips up and calls her Ms. Cobel at the party.
RELATED: ‘Severance’ Season 1 To Stream Free On Roku Channel Before Second Season Premiere On Apple TV+
Irv immediately goes to see Burt because he has an address book of all the Lumon employees. He also sees that he has a dog named Radar, and he is a bit spooked by all of his paintings of what could be The Break Room or the elevator leading to the Testing Floor. He sees that Burt has a husband and seems happy. Irv started banging on Burt’s door to get his attention, but the story cut away before viewers could see what happened.
Helly, viewers learn, is none other than Helena Eagan! Daughter of current CEO Jame Eagan. As Helena, she was ready to give a rousing and sugarcoated speech about her Severed Story, but once her innie was activated, that all went to shambles. Helly took the chance to tell the truth about how they get tortured at work.
The finale episode ended with Mark screaming “She’s alive!” meaning he made the connection that Ms. Casey was Gemma.
RELATED: Ben Stiller & Dan Erickson Explain ‘Severance’ Season 2 Delays: “It’s Worth It”
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