Severance season 2 review: Synergy is still electric as we circle back to office workplace thriller

At least there’s Milchick (Tramell Tillman) – whose chilling, too-friendly smile is there to greet him with balloons to welcome him back. Never thought we’d see the day balloons come across as some inherent threat, but Severance manages to achieve it.

Much like Mark, Severance season 2 gets straight back to work, with the fallout from the heart-stopping season 1 finale weighing heavy on everyone involved. Soon even the friends are struggling to figure out who among them to trust, as Lumon’s managerial team try to keep everything in check, Helly hides her true identity to the group, Mark tries to find his long-presumed dead wife, and Irving nurses his broken heart after discovering Burt (Christopher Walken) has a relationship in the outside world.

That’s before we even delve into Helly and Mark’s growing will they/won’t they relationship, with both torn about their outside obligations and each other.

For the first time in a while, the Innies and Outies are somewhat in sync in this way, with the Outside world versions of the severed workforce now more aware of what their Innies are enduring, or at the very least more curious about what’s going on. None more so than Mark, who is trying to figure out what his Innie meant by his chilling scream of “She’s alive”.

With a show that’s been missing from our screens for such an extended period of time, it is an achievement from director Ben Stiller and the creative team to throw us into the chaos like no time has passed, ramping up the tension so much you feel awkward and uncertain about what lies ahead minute-to-minute, let alone episode-to-episode.

Severance continues its perfect skewering of inter-office ‘family’ culture, doubling down on the empty gestures companies make in order to make their workers feel “more comfortable” while only making it worse. It’s all about the optics and the bottom line, and no one quite captures this better than Trammell Tillman’s Milchick, a stand-out performance amid a sea of actors giving it their all.

In a world where blind service to the mysterious Mr Eagan rises above all, cracks in the visually stunning veneer are only growing wider for everyone; something, or someone, is destined to snap. In the episodes available at the time of writing, it’s a game of figuring out who.

Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel is, once again, proving to be an interesting force, and someone who is serving her own purpose within the Lumon world. She is looking out for number one, as always, but to what means remains a mystery – even if she is criminally underused in the first few episodes.

Intense, thrilling and unnerving, Severance’s world continues to be a captivating must-watch, ramping itself up with new mysteries emerging just as another gets solved. Despite its core location being a never-ending maze of neutral walls, the show expands in a bizarre and warped way only Severance can achieve.

Episode 4, Woe’s Hollow, is a stunning spectacle from beginning to end worthy of every award going – though no spoilers, you’ll see when you get there. It’s breathtaking in the truest sense of the word, with the implications lingering well beyond the final credits.

It is also a show that utilises the 'one a week' model so rare in streaming. Binge-watching this still works, but a week of waiting to find out what happens next will only play into the stress of the plot itself. It'll be painful, but it'll so be worth it.

There are also some new additions to the office team – some feeling a little jammed in for hype or speculation for the trailer’s sake (sorry, Gwendoline Christie, we love you), but for the most part serving the greater purpose of Severance in increasingly interesting ways.

Merritt Wever’s inclusion provides a truly sad and emotional element that was unexpected but, upon reflection, so pivotal to showing a fresh aspect of the “severance” procedure on the outside world that the show has maybe been lacking.

Severance may have taken a while to boot up, but it knows what it’s doing. With perfect synergy, this series is a delight to circle back to and worth being kept in the loop with.

Severance season 2 launches on Friday 17th January on Apple TV+ with new episodes airing weekly. Season 1 is available now.

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