When Severance season one came out in 2022, I ate that shit up. I couldn’t get enough of the bland hallways, the cryptic messaging and the absolutely bonkers plot. After three years, the long-awaited second season of the beloved drama is finally dropping this week. However, if your brain is smooth and empty like mine, you might need a cheeky refresher of what happened in the workplace thriller before tuning into season two.
Here’s a recap of what went down in Severance season one before the new season drops on January 17. And, obviously, this article involves spoilers from season one so read at your own risk.
Everything you need to remember about Severance season 1
What’s Severance about?
Severance is a workplace thriller-drama written and created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller. It stars Adam Scott as Mark S, a man struggling to cope with grief after the death of his wife Gemma. The series kicks off with Mark being promoted at his mysterious biotech company named Lumon Industries.
With its groundbreaking technology, the company offers a surgical procedure called severance, which allows employee’s memories of their life outside the workplace to be completely separated from their memories in the workplace.
As a result, those who opt for the procedure have no knowledge of what they get up to day in, and day out at work. The moment they step into the Lumon Industries doors, they switch to their “innie” self. When they leave, they become their personal self, known as an “outie”.
The series begins with a question about the benefits of a work-life balance in the ultimate sense. But soon, we begin to wonder what secrets Lumon Industries is hiding behind the creepy, bare hallways if it’s determined to keep its work a secret from its employees.
Severance season 1 recap
For Mark S, the procedure was a way he could avoid his seemingly endless grief. The series kicks off with Mark being promoted to Macrodata Refinement Chief (whatever that means) after his work bestie and boss Petey (Yul Vazquez) left the company suddenly. Now, it’s Mark’s job to welcome a new employee named Helly R (Britt Lower) to the team.
He’s stoked with his promotion until somehow Petey manages to contact Mark’s outie self. Although Petey had been reintegrated after leaving Lumon, he somehow has memories of his time as an innie, which wasn’t thought to be possible. The chance meeting confuses the fuck out of Mark and makes him start to question what on earth he actually does at work.
Meanwhile, Helly R is not vibing with her new workplace. Despite her outie wanting her to stay at the company, her innie hates it there and attempts to escape. However, as she’s controlled by her outie, her innie has no control. This sends Helly into a spiral, and eventually, she tries to take her own life while in the office.
The incident creates ripples throughout Mark’s tiny team. Before Helly’s discontentment, Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) were totally happy with their day-to-day and the prospective rewards (if they meet targets, they can get a waffle party. It’s exactly what it sounds like).
Eventually, the team begin to rebel against Lumon Industries and create a plan to find out what the company is really up to.
The explosive season 1 finale
In the Severance season one finale, the team manage to get a glimpse into their outie lives by switching on a function known as the “Overtime Contingency”, allowing them to take control of their outies and discover more about their real lives outside of Lumon.
In a twist that shocked audiences all over the world, Mark discovers that his late wife Gemma is still alive and working for Lumon as a wellness coordinator known as Miss Casey (Dichen Lachman). He’s even had multiple meetings with her, totally unaware of who she was to him.
Meanwhile, Helly’s innie wakes up while at a Lumon company event. She discovers that she is the daughter of the Lumon CEO who has put herself into the severance program to prove how efficient it really is. With her innie’s hatred of the inside work conditions, this is in stark difference to her outie persona.
It’s not long before the big dogs at Lumon catch on to the Overtime Contingency being pulled and revert the switch but now the innies have an idea of who they are outside of work.
In the final scene, Mark screams “she’s alive”, leaving audiences on a three-year-long cliffhanger. Will Mark ever see his wife again? Will Helly change Lumon from the inside out? Who fkn knows?
Annnndd that’s where we’re at now.
To find out what happens in season two, you can tune in to Severance on Apple TV+ from January 17.
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