By Joanna Orland
I love Severance as much as the next person, but Season 2 has a few things to nitpick at. It’s still great, but the second season lacks some of the key elements that were at the heart of Season 1. Season 2 widens the story and mystery, shifting the focus of the series.
With an expanded story, the show is no longer about the original four characters from the MDR department. Because of the time spent on them in Season 1, the audience is very connected to these characters, particularly as a unit. In Season 2 they’re mostly not together, but also, some of them hardly feature at all.
‘Severance’ Season 2 Expands the Lumon Mystery
Severance Season 1 is nearly perfect, as a small and focused story. As is the case with many mystery box shows (think Lost and all that came after opening the hatch), in its second season, Severance has become sprawling. It’s now examining more of the wider Lumon conspiracies, and is less about the character dynamics and smaller office mysteries that make the first season so compelling.
Not as much time is spent on the severed floor, and hardly any in the actual MDR department. In exchange, we learn more about the world of Lumon, including the origin story of the severance procedure from Harmony Cobel’s (Patricia Arquette) perspective. While it’s great to get some answers, albeit with the knock on effect of creating more questions, it’s no longer a tight show about the four characters on the severed floor.
The MDR Department Is Broken Up, and Irv Is Hardly In the Show
Season 2 breaks apart the beloved group dynamic of Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry), and Irv (John Turturro). In fact, Irv is hardly in this season at all. While this allows for more time with other characters, and for a more secondary character like Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) to break through, we are missing the chemistry of the core MDR team.
The season is also lacking the characters’ more narrow, singular motive of breaking out into the real world via the overtime contingency. For Mark, it is about “Cold Harbor” and finding Gemma (Dichen Lachman), while the others have their own things to deal with. There isn’t one clear goal or desired outcome, especially as innie mark isn’t that keen on outie Mark’s objectives.
‘Severance’ Season 2 Doesn’t Flow Episode to Episode
As the characters are more broken up in Season 2, so is the narrative. It jumps focus from episode to episode, with cliffhangers never paying off. As Mark gets his reintegration process started in the episode, “Who Is Alive?,” the next episode jumps to the ORTBO. This leaves us wondering about what has just happened with Mark, thinking maybe the timeline is a bit skewed.
This happens a lot in the season as cliffhangers are never followed up on in the immediate, and the story jumps from character to character on a more per episode basis. This leaves a void as we hardly see Irv, Burt (Christopher Walken), or Ms. Cobel — characters the audience is heavily invested in from Season 1. While we get amazing episodes like “Woe’s Hollow,” that create memorable moments for the series overall, the pace of the story feels extremely disrupted.
Whereas Severance Season 1 is small and focused, Season 2 is wide and sprawling. It allows for some interesting character breakthroughs and iconic episodes, but it negatively affects the flow of the season as a whole. It’s still an engrossing and deservedly talked about show, but it’s not the same one that it was in its first season.
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Severance is available on AppleTV+