When it debuted on Apple TV+ in 2022, Severance became the rarest of success stories: a sci-fi series not based on any existing property that caught on because of its sharp writing, terrific acting, exceptional directing, and great idea: a group of employees have their brains "severed" for their jobs, meaning they have no memory of what they did at work while they're at home and vice versa. Over the course of the first season, the "innies" — the versions of the people who have only ever known the office — start pushing at the boundaries of their existence to fascinating, scary and hilarious results.
Severance definitely says something about modern work, but I'm not sure what. I do know that I'm fully in the show and very much looking forward to the second season. Early reviews are now out, and the signs are excellent.
One common theme is that fans can set aside concerns that the second season won't live up to the first. Check out these early impressions:
- The Verge: "[S]eason 2 hits just as hard as the original, pushing further into the dark, weird edges of the Severance universe, while expanding it in fascinating new ways."
- New York Post: "Season 2 is just as phenomenal as Season 1. Even though 2025 is young, there’s no doubt that “Severance” will end up on most “best shows of the year” lists and be a serious awards contender again. "
At the end of season 1, main charaters Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) got a taste of the world outside the office, and learned some surprising things about what the company they work for, Lumon Industries, may be up to. In season 2, the producers get to work deepening the characters and expanding on the strange concepts they introduced in season 1:
- BBC: "They return to the office carrying all that knowledge with them, but the storytelling is trickier and more playful now. From the start of the show, we have seen both innie and outie worlds, and so knew more about the characters than they knew about themselves. But this season we are less certain than we were – or thought we were – about some characters' motives. What is their game, what are they hiding, and are they as united as they seem? Everyone is, at least for a while, an unreliable narrator, smartly adding suspense."
- IndieWire: "There’s more lore for the Eaganites obsessed with how Lumon Corp came to be the frighteningly strange, eerily plausible business it’s become. There’s more time spent with the main characters’ Outies, including a particularly poignant arc for Dillon. There’s further exploration of the company’s perplexing departments, like the goat farm glimpsed in Season 1, and there’s more biting humor, even if it’s often so blunt the jokes barely register as something meant to coax out a chuckle."
Severance is a mystery box show, meaning much of it is driven by the desire to figure out just what the hell is going on. But it's a mystery box show with great characters, careful writers and visionary directors. It's got more to offer than just the mystery elements. It sounds like all aspects of the Severance experience will be serviced in the second season:
- Variety: “'Severance' lives or dies not by an airtight, detail-dense story, but by sustaining an eerie sense of unreality. Season 2 fulfills this sine qua non with deceptive ease. Real-time viewers have had their patience strained; future binge-watchers will barely notice a blip."
- TheWrap: "[N]othing in Season 2 matches the orchestral cinematic majesty of S1’s closing chapter, “The Way We Are.” There may be something different that’s just as good, though, something more romantic than we’d expect from “Severance.” All four members of the MDR unit get mired in love triangles, even quadrangles, in and out of the office space. Each is heart-wrenching in its unique way."
Criticisms of Severance season 2
That review from TheWrap is the first review we've sampled that even hints at being negative, and even it seems split about it: 'There's nothing in season 2 that matches the season 1 finale, but some things may be just as good.' Doesn't that mean the new things match the old things?
In any case, a few outlets are more unambiguously critical, with some dinging the show for expanding the world too much and taking us to too many new places:
- The Hollywood Reporter: "The scattered focus can be a bit of a drag to sit through — not enough to inspire an invested viewer to quit, but enough to inspire groans of frustration when a cliffhanger takes an extra week or two to resolve, or grumbles of skepticism about whether the series might ever fully clarify its biggest mysteries. (I still can’t tell which way it’ll go.) It also comes at the expense of some of the character dynamics that made the first season so winning, particularly among the members of MDR."
- RogerEbert.com: "The first six episodes of season two of “Severance” feel like a writer’s room with a well-deserved mandate to get as creative as possible, embracing deep concepts but losing some relatability and human emotion on the journey of three long years between chapters in this tale. I still greatly admire “Severance” just for existing, but it’s a show weighed down by its own ideas for the first half of this season, a program that has lost a step by trying to do too much."
IGN, meanwhile, wanted the show to gives us answers to more of the questions posed in the first season: "There are still so many mysteries about Lumon’s goals and the lives of the characters outside of the office that it feels like the writers are being needlessly stingy with their reveals. When they do come, it’s easy to feel a refreshed love for the show."
It should be noted that most of the outlets being critical of the show have seen only the first six episodes, rather than the full suite of 10. I unfortunately got the screeners pretty late and have only seen one episode so far, but I can tell you I was hooked on it and badly want to watch more.
We'll end with a review from Rolling Stone that teases the season 2 finale: "The season finale once again takes various characters to a seeming point of no return, and in a way that plays smartly in conversation with events from the end of Season One. By this point, though, it’s time to stop questioning the ongoing viability of the concept. After the way the first season ended, this one has no business working at all, never mind this well. By now, Severance has earned the right to go in whatever wild, seemingly unsustainable direction its creative team wants."
Severance season 2 kicks off on Apple TV+ on Friday, January 17, with new episodes coming out at a rate of one per week until the season burns through all 10. Interestingly, we only got nine episodes in season 1, so Severance is the rare show giving us more episodes rather than fewer as it goes on. And it sounds like that's only one of the many ways it will please audiences going forward.
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