Some spoilers below for Severance’s Season 2 premiere, so tread carefully while running through the labyrinth of hallways if you haven’t yet streamed it with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Few TV shows arriving on the 2025 premiere schedule are set to provoke as many bonkers fan theories as Severance Season 2, and the Lumon-branded gloves have already come off now that we’ve finally seen the series’ first new episode in 3 years. “Hello, Ms. Cobel” reignited so many of the same speculation-centered synapses, even without Patricia Arquette’s character actually appearing. Another absent fan-fave was Christopher Walken’s Burt, but the Emmy-nominated actor’s latest comments seemingly confirm something big is coming.
Or to be more specific in relation to this show’s complicated nature: the comments seem to confirm something big already happened, and that further information may (re)surface for some of these characters. Namely, that Burt and Irving have known and cared for each other for far longer than their severed colleagues and viewers have been led to believe.
Speaking with Collider, Walken was asked if he knew he was specifically requested by co-star John Turturro to play the R&D head that so clearly captured and held Irving’s attention throughout Season 1. The Deer Hunter alum said he was only recently made aware of that tidbit, and then spoke of Burt and Irv’s kinship in a VERY intriguing way, saying:
I think one of the things about Burt and Irving has to do with Chris and John. I've known John for a very long time — 40 or 50 years. We were young actors, going around New York looking for work. I've known him a long time. He's a terrific director, and I've been in two or three of his movies. I know his family. You can tell when you see people together that they've known each other a long time, that they like each other, they laugh at each other's jokes, they finish sentences, and so I think it makes absolute sense that John and I would be playing people who love each other.
By all means, I don't mean to imply that anything Christopher Walken said above is brand-spankin-new information to anyone paying attention. From the start, the chemistry between Walken and Turturro's characters was warm and friendly, among other things, and the duo's real-life friendship certainly shone through.
But what did we really see in those scenes? Burt and Irving talking about Lumon topics such as the new tote for the handbook, art, and other things. Some hand-touching. An embrace amidst some greenery. Moments that could easily imply a deeper relationship, but within a context that makes such a relationship seem impossible.
So for Christopher Walken to say that he and Turturro are "playing people who love each other," I can't think of any other way to take it than to assume that their backstory goes much deeper than what we've been led to believe. Which, obviously, has been a huge avenue for fan theories, particularly when it comes to Outie Irving's paintings.
Fans Like Me Believe Lumon Reset Burt And Irving's Chips After They Had A Previous Relationship
Without going too deep down any rabbit holes, the basic idea is that Burt and Irving likely worked in the same department together years prior to the start of the series. And that they got a little too close for Lumon higher-ups' comfort, leading both of them to get sent down to the Training Floor, the place where it's theorized that severed employees go to get their chips reconfigured. At this point, it's assumed that they were relocated to different departments in further efforts to eliminate such fraternizing.
But such is the power of love that Irving and Burt did indeed reconnect, and that their innate feelings are apparently too strong for Lumon's technology to successfully thwart in full. Rather than making the same choices and running the same risks as before, Lumon took the initiative to have Burt retire from the company outright, thus ending the duo's inter-office mingling.
Obviously their connection hasn't been severed altogether, though, or else Christopher Walken wouldn't be doing any promotional interviews for Season 2. But I do think it's interesting that Burt was left completely out of the stop-motion "Microdat Uprising" video.
For now, it's unclear just how and where he'll pop up again, but I'm making a hopeful fan's bet that we'll see Outie Irving and Outie Burt having a potentially baffling discussion sooner rather than later. I doubt we'll find out what the goats think about it, though we did get a bit more insight into the that mystery.
Severance streams new Season 2 episodes on Apple TV+ every Friday, as followed by new episodes of Ben Stiller and Adam Scott's companion podcast.
