Everything to Remember from ‘Severance’ Season 1

Three years can go by in the blink of an eye — especially in the world of “Severance.” Apple TV‘s marvelous thriller premiered in 2022 and returns on January 17, picking up from a massive cliffhanger that left audiences breathless.

But before we descend back to the severed floor of Lumon Industries, it’s worth revisiting exactly what happened down there all those years ago. Maybe you remember “Severance” from its distinct visual palette of whites and blues and hallway tracking shots; maybe you remember the aforementioned cliffhanger and its sinister implications; maybe you remember seeing it was directed by Ben Stiller and thinking “That Ben Stiller?!” Whatever questions have resurfaced since the Season 1 finale (it is in fact that Ben Stiller), we’re here to answer — and Season 2 will surely raise new ones in the coming weeks.

Here’s everything to remember from “Severance” Season 1.

The Procedure

The series gains its name from a controversial neurological procedure in which individuals separate their consciousness between work and life. Lumon tauts the procedure as progressive and minimally invasive, but many are opposed to severance and even go so far as to lobby and protest against it. Mark (Adam Scott) has grown used to bracing himself any time the topic comes up, forced to explain his reasons and answer questions about what it’s like. What the people close to him know is that part of why Mark became severed is to escape the grief of losing his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) — but more on her later.

Every morning, Mark and his colleagues wake up for work, make their commute, enter the Lumon building at staggered times so they don’t meet, and then take the elevator down to the severed floor, where their work consciousness (their “Innie”) wakes up and remembers everything that happens in the office. At 5 p.m. (or close to it), they head back up, their Outies feeling as if no time has passed.

What could go wrong?

The Job

Trammell Tillman in ‘Severance’ Season 1Apple TV

Lumon Industries specializes (apparently) in medical and biotechnology, which explains the severance chip and procedure, and employs hundreds of thousands around the world.

How does that effect Mark and the Macrodata Refinement team (MDR)? That’s a little tricker to parse. As Mark explains to new hire Helly (Britt Lower), the Refiners spends their days combing through numbers in files, looking for ones that look “scary,” and then removing them. Productivity is incentivized with things like caricature portraits, finger traps, and the coveted Waffle Party for Refiner of the Quarter. Helly quickly learns that quitting is hardly an option, with strict rules against communicating with one’s Outie, and punishments administered in the Break Room when employees push back.

The company was founded in 1865 by Kier Eagan, whom many of the employees hail as a godlike figure — including employee liaison Seth Milchick (Trammell Tillman) and ex-floor manager Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who was fired near the end of Season 1. Throughout the season she can be seen communicating with the company’s mysterious executive board through an intercom speaker, and the Board never says a word — except when she demands to know if they’re on, and an ominous voice says “Yes.”

Also, there are baby goats on the severed floor.

“The You You Are”

It makes sense that a severed worker would treat the employee handbook like a literal Bible, as is the case with Irvin (John Turturro) — who has never read another book. The same happens when Mark and Dylan (Zach Cherry) happen upon “The You You Are,” a self help book that unbeknownst to them was written by Mark’s brother-in-law Ricken Hale (Michael Chernus). While Mark’s Outie (and most people he knows) view Ricken as something of a blustering fool (with a good heart), the Innies respond to his work like it’s life-changing gospel, clinging to ideas like “Should you find yourself contorting to fit a system, dear reader, stop, and ask if it’s truly you that must change, or the system.” The book becomes key to spurring the Innies to action as they fight back against the rules and walls of Lumon.

The Plan

‘Severance’Apple

After briefly waking up in his Outie’s home, Dylan learns of something called the Overtime Contingency Protocol or OTC, in which Lumon can activate an employee’s Innie outside of the severed floor. Apart from being a major violation of privacy and consent, this can, at a minimum, really mess with the Innies’ heads! In his brief stint above ground Dylan learns that he has a son, and the fury and indignation is so great that he bites Milchick after demanding to see him.

In one their many unsupervised detours (seriously, how did MDR meet their quota in Season 1?) Mark and Helly find the control room from which OTC can be initiated, and the MDR team hatches a plan: Dylan will flip the necessary switches to activate Mark, Helly, and Irving’s Innies on the outside, giving them a taste of life outside Lumon and who they really are. Before they enter the elevator, Mark and Helly share a kiss — knowing that whether or not they return, nothing will ever be the same.

The Outies

Season 1 only acquaints the audience with Mark’s Outie, with glimpses of Irving and just that one scene with Dylan. The finale reveals more about Irving’s past and background, and that his Outie has a list of Lumon employees with addresses — which he naturally uses to find his love Burt (Christopher Walken) and realize in horror that Burt has a partner.

Mark wanders through a house party and learns what viewers already know; that he has a sister (Jen Tullock), that she’s married to legendary author Ricken Hale, and that Mrs. Cobel is somehow part of Mark’s Outie world. When he addresses her by her Lumon name and not as Mrs. Selvig, Cobel sounds the alarm and alerts Milchick to the renegade OTC activity.

Because the greatest liability to having Innies freely roaming the outside world is Helly, a.k.a. Helena Eagan — a legacy of Lumon and their crowning achievement for undergoing severance herself just to show off its merits. Helena is the Outie who sent Helly back to Lumon after she tried to kill them both, and whose work keeps all the severed employees toiling, tortured, and in the dark. Helly wakes up in her Outie form and blows the whistle on Lumon at a major event — but will it be enough?

“She’s Alive!”

Jen Tullock and Adam Scott in “Severance”Atsushi Nishijima / Apple TV+

As if that wasn’t harrowing enough, Mark’s final moments as his Outie bring him face-to-face with a photo of Gemma, who turns out to be none other than Lumon’s own Miss Casey. Miss Casey was last seen entering the elevator in that dark-walled hallway that Irving keeps painting, with an arrow that points only down. Putting two and two together and realizing that things are far graver than he imagined, Mark shouts his final two words before the OTC ends: “She’s alive!”

“Severance” Season 2 premieres January 17 on Apple TV+. The first minutes are now available.