Severance is back with season 2 after nearly three years away, but going back to work has never felt like so much fun as the doors to unconventional Lumon Industries prepare to open for the cast.

Severance is one of the jewels in the Apple TV+ crown and, since its 2022 debut, it's won critical acclaim and numerous awards. It's also been the subject of plenty of fan theories about Lumon's mysterious practices... Don't be surprised if Severance series 2 is one of the most talked about shows of the year.

We'll be looking for answers when Severance releases on Friday, January 17, 2025 (mark this date in your calendar!). Viewers will meet Mark S, Helly R and their co-workers as they face consequences for blowing the whistle on their employers in the season 1 finale.

But in the meantime, here's everything you need to know before clocking in for Severance season 2, including the plot, cast, and what happened at the end of series 1.

***Warning: spoilers from Severance season 1 ahead***

Hollywood actors strike halted Severance season 2 filming

Two years between seasons isn't out of the ordinary in the streaming age, but the (nearly) three years we've been away from Lumon Industries have felt like an eternity.

Severance season 2 wasn't helped by the Hollywood actors' strike of 2023, which brought production to a standstill two thirds of the way through the shoot. But an even bigger factor in the delay appears to be the creative team's desire to get this follow-up season right.

"For me, the writing was the most painstaking part of the process because there were so many ways we could go," Severance creator/showrunner Dan Erickson told Vanity Fair. "And sometimes we would come up with something that worked perfectly well on paper, and then it wouldn't be until we got there and we were shooting it that we'd realise 'this isn't quite it'. We were never willing to let that turn it into something that wasn't perfect."

Severance season 1 recap

Season 1 introduced the employees of Lumon Industries. They've gone further than most in the hunt for that elusive work/life balance, undergoing a surgical procedure that ensures their professional selves ("innies") have no memory of life outside the office. Their counterparts in the outside world ("outies") are also totally unaware of what goes on at work.

A quartet of office drones (Mark S, Helly R, Dylan G and Irving B) realised that something wasn't quite right, and spent season 1 trying to figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, their hunt for answers was aggressively discouraged by Lumon management.

What do Lumon Industries actually do?

That's not entirely clear, though we do know they specialise in biotechnology. Lumon Industries was founded in 1865 by enigmatic entrepreneur Kier Eagan, still regarded as an icon within the company. Subsequent Lumon CEOs have all been his descendants, while he also lends his name to the town of Kier, PE, the primary location in Severance.

The day-to-day roles of "severed" staff members Mark, Irving, Dylan and Helly are even harder to pin down. Although we know they work in the nebulously titled Macrodata Refinement - and pass their nine-to-five processing numbers on clunky retro computers - their ultimate goal remains a mystery.

Other Lumon departments include "Optics and Design" (previously headed up by Christopher Walken's Burt G), and a room filled with baby goats. Nobody appears to know why.

Severance ending explained: How did season 1 end?

Having spent the season gathering more and more intel on the world beyond Lumon's walls, Mark, Helly, Irving and Dylan initiated the so-called "Overtime Contingency Protocol". This allowed their innie personas to wake up in the outside world.

Mark learned that his Lumon boss Harmony Cobel is also his real-world neighbour, Mrs Selvig. He confided in his sister, Devon, who encouraged him to report Lumon's shonky business practices to the press. We also discovered that outie Mark's late wife, Gemma, looks an awful lot like Lumon wellness counsellor Ms Casey. "She's alive!" were Mark's last words before the series ended.

Meanwhile, Irving faced up to the heartbreaking revelation that Burt, the man he fell in love with at Lumon, is in a relationship with another man. And Helly - who in the real world is actually Helena Eagan, daughter of current Lumon CEO Jame - used her platform at a gala event to tell the audience that the innies are actually unwitting prisoners.

What happens in Severance season 2?

As you'd expect, the plot for Severance season 2 is set to explore the aftermath of those cliffhanger revelations, both inside and outside the office.

Apple teases that "dire consequences" are on the cards for the co-workers who broke the rules, and that Mark will be forced to "confront the true nature of his work… and of himself".

Episode 1 will reportedly pick up the story from innie Mark S's point of view, before episode 2 shifts the perspective to his outie.

Severance season 2 cast are a sight for sore eyes

All the show's big names are back in the Severance season 2 cast.

That means returns for Adam Scott (Mark S/Mark Scout), Britt Lower (Helly R/Helena Eagan), Tramell Tillman (Seth Milchick), Zach Cherry (Dylan G/Dylan George), Jen Tullock (Devon Scout-Hale), Michael Chernus (Ricken Hale), Dichen Lachman (Ms Casey/Gemma), John Turturro (Irving B/Irving Bailiff), Christopher Walken (Burt G/Burt Goodman) and Patricia Arquette (Harmony Cobel/Mrs Selvig).

There's some consistency at management level, too, where showrunner Dan Erickson has put in some serious overtime to write all 10 episodes. Multi-hyphenate movie star/director/executive producer Ben Stiller returns to call the shots on five episodes.

The show has also recruited Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (Trapped, The Tourist) and Bruiser star Sarah Bock (as Lumon deputy manager Ms Huang) as series regulars, alongside fellow Lumon newbies Bob Balaban (Mark W), Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat and John Noble.

We need answers in Severance season 2

Seeing as Severance is essentially one big question, there could be a lot to unpack. But, based on previous form, it seems safe to say there won't be too many definitive answers in season 2 – and that any answers we do get will simply open up bigger and bigger mysteries of their own. This is the Lumon way.

Top of the agenda is finding out what happened to Mark's late wife, Gemma, and why she appears to live on as Ms Casey at Lumon. The Severance season 2 trailer suggests Ms Casey will be missing at the start of the series, hinting that this plot line is going to be a particularly big deal – especially as it's unlikely to be a coincidence that Mark S's boss, Harmony Cobel, is his outie's neighbour.

It also seems probable there was more to Helena Eagan's decision to get severed than good PR for the family business, while there are sure to be major ramifications following Helly R's spectacular whistleblowing exploits - especially in the wake of newspaper headlines reporting that "Innies blow the whistle". Are the quartet really "the face of Severance reform" as their supervisor, Seth Milchick, claims?

Then there's the question of what Macrodata Refinement is for, and what Lumon Industries is up to. And that's before anyone's even addressed Severance's true million-dollar question: what is the deal with that room full of baby goats?

Severance season 2 release date confirmed

Severance season 2 is released on Friday, January 17, 2025.

Series 1 is available to stream now on Apple TV+. Series 2 starts on Friday, with new episodes debuting weekly until 21 March.

There are 10 episodes in total, and all the new episodes will drop on Fridays at midnight EST. Yep, they are making us week a whole week between episodes!

When does Severance season 2 finish?

Season one featured nine episodes, but this time around there are 10.

Starting on January 17, the episodes will air weekly before the Severance season 2 finale releasing on Friday, March 21.

To keep the mystery ongoing, the titles of each weekly episode haven't been released, and all we have so far is the Severance season 2 trailer.

Severance series 2 starts on Friday, January 17, 2025. Watch on Apple TV.