In the first episode of Severance season two, a shrunken office corridor opens out into a stark white, windowless room. Inside are grassy knolls, dotted with sheep grazing under the unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights. It’s the sort of deeply strange scene viewers have come to expect from the Apple TV+ sci-fi series, which was hailed as a sharp and funny comment on office life when it was released back in 2022 – before disappearing for three years.
Finally, following Hollywood strikes, rewrites, and reshoots, Severance is back. As we now know, the severance of the title refers not to a financial payout but to a medical procedure that sees willing employees of a shadowy biotech firm, Lumon, isolate their work selves (innies) from their outer selves (outies). In effect, innies exist purely within the workplace; outies, purely outside of it. Suffice to say, the innies are getting a raw deal.
