Severance season 2: Release date, cast, plot, trailer, latest news

"As devastating wildfires continue to impact the Los Angeles area, and with safety as our first and foremost priority, we have made the decision to cancel Monday’s Severance season 2 premiere event," Apple TV+ said in a statement.

"Apple is donating to support the relief efforts on the ground and our thoughts and heartfelt support remain with everyone who has been affected by these tragic fires. Thank you for your understanding."

With the reviews for Severance season 2 now out, stars of the show have also been opening up about what we can expect.

Leading actor Adam Scott, who plays Mark Scout, recently chatted exclusively to RadioTimes.com about season 2 making things very complicated between his Innie and Outie.

He told us that the trouble is only just beginning for the Lumon Innies: "Season 1 was watching Innie Mark gradually grow disillusioned with Lumon, with this place that he believes in wholeheartedly, his whole identity is wrapped up in this place and Lumon, with Kier and Ms Cobel, you know, who’s like a mother figure to him.

"He loves this place, and it's all he knows, and so we watch him gradually grow disillusioned with it.

"By the end of the season, I think he figured he had hit the ceiling of how disillusioned he could be with this place, but then he finds this explosive piece of information in his Outie sister's house, and I think that blows the doors off, as far as anything he ever thought could happen, how depraved a company or a person could be.

"I don't think his mind had ever even gone there."

So, as we wait for season 2 to grace our screens, here's everything we know so far.

Severance season 2 release date

Severance season 2 will begin streaming on Apple TV+ on Friday 17th January 2025.

Apple TV+ confirmed the highly-anticipated release date news with a teaser, alongside the message: "Like you never left."

The remaining nine episodes will be airing weekly on the streamer, with the expected release schedule below:

Episode 1 - 17th January 2025
Episode 2 - 24th January 2025
Episode 3 - 31st January 2025
Episode 4 - 7th February 2025
Episode 5 - 14th February 2025
Episode 6 - 21st February 2025
Episode 7 - 28th February 2025
Episode 8 - 7th March 2025
Episode 9 - 14th March 2025
Episode 10 - 21st March 2025

Writers for the series include: Dan Erickson, Mohamad El Masri, Wei-Ning Yu, Anna Ouyang Moench, Erin Wagoner, Mark Friedman, and Adam Countee & KC Perry.

Severance season 2 went into production on season 2 in October 2022 but was then delayed due to reported creative disputes as well as the Hollywood strikes.

However, producer Ben Stiller later shut down reports of any drama, saying on X (formerly Twitter): "No one’s going to the break room. Love our fans and each other, and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible."

In early January 2024, Stiller confirmed that he was "working on" Severance season 2, but more good news came later in the month – when Apple TV+ confirmed that the instalment was in production.

Sharing a shot of Scott's Mark Scout running down a corridor, they described the picture as: "A black and white action shot of Mark S (Adam Scott) running down a long white hallway. On the right side of the picture is a large camera recording the scene, confirming Severance season 2 is in production."

The series wrapped filming in April 2024.

Creator Ben Stiller opened up about the long delay in bringing season 2 to screens – after all, season 1 launched in February 2022, so it'll be almost three years before the show is back on Apple TV+ in January 2025.

He told Variety: "It’s been an interesting, trying time over the last few years to make things, on all levels for people. So to keep that focus on trying to make the best possible season, being aware that it’s taken a long time. I, like other people, get frustrated when things take a long time. I want to have the next season sooner. So I understand that feeling of the expectation.

"It’s taken a long time. I hope it’s good. You know, people are just wanting something to live up to what they’ve experienced and have it hopefully not let them down. And so, I don’t know, all you all you can do is try to do what you think is good."

The team behind the show won't confirm how many seasons are left to go but Erickson revealed they do know how it will all come to an end.

He told io9: "I have a pretty solid idea of the endpoint of the show. I have kind of a final scene that has always been in my head and answers to some of the big questions.

"I think you sort of have to know those in order to know the rules of the world that you’re writing. But also, I think it’s balanced because I like to be surprised by the show too."

Severance season 2 cast

The confirmed cast list for Severance season 2 is:

• Adam Scott as Mark Scout
• Britt Lower as Helly
• Zach Cherry as Dylan
• John Turturro as Irving
• Patricia Arquette as Harmony Cobel
• Tramell Tillman as Seth Milchick
• Christopher Walken as Burt Goodman
• Dichen Lachman as Ms Casey
• Jen Tullock as Devon
• Michael Chernus as Ricken Hale
• Alia Shawkat as Gwendolyn Y
• Bob Balaban as Mark W
• Stefano Carannante as Dario R
• Sarah Bock as Miss Huang
• John Noble as Fields
• Gwendoline Christie as Lorne
• Merritt Wever as Gretchen
• Ólafur Darri Ólafsson as Mr Drummond
• Robby Benson as TBC

The majority of the main cast, led by Adam Scott and Britt Lower, are confirmed to return and have been seen in various trailers. In October 2022, Variety first reported they'll be joined by some new faces - in particular, new members of MDR as Mark returns to Lumon.

Game of Thrones and Wednesday star Gwendoline Christie, Arrested Development's Alia Shawkat, The French Dispatch's Bob Balaban and Unbelievable's Merritt Wever are among the new cast members.

Christie's character in particular has been a big point of speculation for fans, with her mysterious figure appearing in various trailers.

Robby Benson (One To One), Stefano Carannante (Mirabilia), John Noble (The Lord of the Rings) and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Tourist) have also been confirmed.

Given that some other guest characters died during the course of season 1, it’s less clear whether they’ll continue to be involved in the story (for example, Yul Vazquez’s 'Petey', who met his demise in season 1, continued to appear in flashbacks and archive footage).

Is there a trailer for Severance season 2?

Yes! Check out the official trailer below:

How many episodes will be in Severance season 2?

Good news – Severance season 2 will consist of 10 episodes, one more than season 1!

There'll be a lot to get through – so the longer episode count can hopefully only be a good thing!

Severance season 2 plot

The official logline of season 2 is: "Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe."

Of course, that doesn't give away a huge amount, but the stars have been opening up a bit more about what we can expect.

First off, the trailer sees Mark and co arriving back at Lumon after their eye-opening adventure in the outside world. They arrive back to find new members of staff have joined the department.

With his world now shattered, and his time as an Outie now over, Mark has to deal with the fallout of MDR’s coup on the company as we pick up right where we left off for season 2.

Scott told RadioTimes.com of how season 2 begins: "We're kicking the season off with Innie Mark having this piece of information and how that will affect him down at MDR, whether he'll be able to take that information and get it to his Outie, and how he would even try to do that."He teased: "Who knows, but that's where we're starting. That's where the season is teeing off.”
One thing that's sure to be addressed is Mark and Helly's growing affection for each other, and the complications that's going to cause, after Mark discovered his wife, who he thought was dead, is actually alive, and that Helly is actually Helena Eagan, a descendant of mysterious founder Kier Eagan.

“That's really complicated,” Scott told RadioTimes.com.

“That's kind of like where the show... I think it lives, in terms of that tension,” he added. “Just, on my end, the tension of this idea of this first season where we've seen this relationship grow, and really these Innies grow as people, almost start to mature.

“You could say that they're kind of like children in the first season, and we've said in the second season, it's like they're turning into adolescents, or they're starting to just test the bounds of their world and develop emotional connections with each other.

“Those two aspects, Mark's Outie and Mark's Innie, are really at odds with each other in season 2.”

While we're going to have to wait for the ins and outs (if you will) of the plot, it's also been said that the tone of the series is taking an even darker turn.

Creator Dan Erickson told Vanity Fair: "I think things get darker. We very much wanted to put our heroes in a scarier place because season 1 ends with them poking the bear.

"They form this little rebellion, and they’re able to achieve a modicum of success with it, but the question with season 2 was: What happens when the bear pokes back? What’s the fallout of this victory that they had? I think, without giving much away, the fallout is dire."

Stiller added: "When [season 1] came out, it was fun to look at all of the reactions and how people would kind of dig into theories.

"We wanted to pick up the story where it left off. We’re bringing the Innies to the Outie world and then will answer some questions by the end of the season. Hopefully we keep it enough of a mystery and intriguing enough that people want to keep following the story."

Plus, we're going to see more within Lumon and in the outside world.

Erickson previously teased to Esquire: "There’s definitely going to be some expansion of the world. Within Lumon, we’re going to see more of the building, and we’ll see more of the outside world, too."

He added of the show as a whole: "There’s an overall plan for the show. I have an end point in mind, and I intentionally didn’t plan it season by season, because I wanted it to be flexible enough that we could get there in two seasons or six seasons.

"I want to allow us to be surprised by where the show goes."

How did Severance season 1 end?

Severance’s first season ends on quite the cliffhanger, so fans will be thanking Kier himself that a second season is coming to pick up where things left off.

After a season of following the severed 'Outie' life of Mark Scout and the separate 'Innie' life of Mark S, the final episode combines the two plotlines, with 'Innie' Mark waking up inside his body outside of the Lumon building for the first time.

And he’s not alone – thanks to Dylan’s (Zach Cherry) operation of the Overtime protocol, his MDR co-workers Helly and Irving both awaken in their 'outie' bodies too.

Irving (John Turturro) discovers the unsettling paintings he’s been painting of an ominous corridor in the Lumon building, then tracks down his beloved Burt (Christopher Walken) – only to discover he has a partner on the outside. Still, he’s ready to confront outie Burt as the credits roll.

Similarly, Helly (Britt Lower) discovers some hard truths. It turns out her 'Outie' is none other than Helena Egan, part of Lumon’s senior staff who undertook being 'severed' as a PR exercise.

Onstage at a fancy gala, she exposes the truth of the severed employees’ miserable existences.

Meanwhile, Mark (Adam Scott) tells his sister the truth, only to discover even more lies.

Seeing a photo of 'his' wife, he realises something the audience (and the bigwigs at Egon) have known for a while – she’s still alive and working at Lumon as the mysterious wellness rep Ms Casey (Dichen Lachman).

Mark S desperately tries to communicate this in the seconds before his 'Outie' returns to control, shouting "She’s alive!" as Dylan is tackled in the Egon control room.

Altogether, there are a lot of plot threads to pick up in a second season. Will Helly and Mark’s revelations cause a public backlash against Severance? Did Irving reach Burt? And how will the severed MDR employees be punished when they return to Lumon for their next shift?

We also still don’t know what exactly MDR are working on at Lumon, how Mark’s wife survived, why Ms Cobell (Patricia Arquette) was testing her and Mark’s interactions, or whatever the hell was going on with the baby goats.

In short, there’s an awful lot still to get through, so thank goodness we’re getting more episodes to unravel it all. Waffle parties all round!

Severance season 1 is streaming now on Apple TV+. Season 2 will be released on Friday 17th January 2025.

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