A lucky group of Severance fans were left surprised on Tuesday (14 January) when the leading stars from the Apple TV+ series appeared unannounced at New York’s Grand Central Station to perform a publicity stunt.
Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry and Patricia Arquette, who all play employees at the fictional biotechnology company Lumon Industries in the series, acted in character while encased inside a giant glass box that recreated Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement department office.
Starring Scott and Lower as Lumon employees Mark S. and Helly, the psychological series sees Lumon staff undergo a procedure called “severance”, which divides their work and home lives completely in a daring experiment to find a work-life balance. This means that the “severed” employees navigate through life as two distinct people with no knowledge or memory of the other.
The first series was released in 2022 to strong approval from critics, and the forthcoming second series – out on Friday 17 January – has already received overwhelmingly positive reviews.
During Tuesday’s stunt to promote the second series, the actors passed the time cleaning the office carpet, completing their mysterious data organising tasks on their computers and improvising conversations with each other.
Meanwhile, the show’s director and executive producer, Ben Stiller, posted several images from the scene to his social media, writing, “Grand Central right now.”
Fans were astonished by the stunt, with one person on X/Twitter calling the idea “genius”.
“I actually have a crazy amount of thoughts about the Severance actors playing their characters in a public glass box with fans everywhere filming, to market a show that is about privacy, identity, and what it means to be a person under constant surveillance. just genius,” they said.
Another added: “The cast of Severance chilling in a glass tank in the middle of Grand Central is the type of entertainment marketing I’ve MISSED I feel so FULL.”
“Imagine running late for your train and you’re like “sorry, i had to watch Mark S from Severance use a carpet sweeper!” added another.
One person who missed out on seeing the action live, wrote: “I don’t really care if the Severance pop up at Grand Central happened to you. it should have happened to me instead.”
For the forthcoming series, new cast members include Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie, Search Party’s Alia Shawkat, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, John Noble, Ólafur Darri and Sarah Bock.
For a reminder of what happened in the Severance season one finale, read on. But be warned – spoilers follow.
It was revealed that Helly R’s Outie – the person she is on the outside – is actually Lumon CEO Jame Eagan’s newly severed daughter, Helena Eagan, and she’s just announced to a party full of Lumon shareholders the company is torturing its severed employees – despite Ms Cobel’s (Patricia Arquette) huge efforts to prevent her from doing so.
Mark’s Innie, meanwhile, found out that Outie Mark has a supposedly dead wife called Gemma (Dichen Lachman), who we know is actually alive because in Lumon she is wellness director Miss Casey. He admitted the shocking news to a room of guests at Devon (Jen Tullock) and Ricken’s (Michael Chernus) book launch party.
Innie Irving (Turturro) went to the home of his romantic interest, now-retired severed Lumon employee Burt (Christopher Walken), whose Outie has a partner. And finally Dylan’s (Cherry) heroic hour-long battle to hold the switches keeping the mental gate open for his colleagues’ Innies, so they could find help on the outside, was shut off by Milchick who pushed him to the ground.
Severance season two is released on Friday 17 January.
