Rarely has there been a season finale that has left me more desperate to find out what happens next than the end of Severance’s first season. The Apple TV+ sci-fi workplace thriller — rated one of the best new shows of 2022 — brought the drama to a boiling point for all of our beloved Microdata Refiners, and left viewers begging for Severance Season 2 with all of those wild cliffhangers. But, for all the new information we were given about Lumon and our heroes, there was still so much left unanswered about the inner workings of the company and the characters overall.
Praise Kier, a second season of the Ben Stiller-produced thriller has already been ordered, and once we finally learn the consequences that await the characters played by the Severance cast (both their Innies and Outies) after MDR’s field trip outside Lumon, we really hope some bigger revelations about Lumon Industries and those connected to it will follow soon after. Here are six big questions we hope will be answered when Severance Season 2 returns to Apple TV+ subscribers:
How Did Mark Come To Work At Lumon, And What Happened To Gemma?
Mark (Adam Scott) choosing to sever himself, as an emotional escape following the death of his wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), seemed to make enough sense — albeit in a depressing and flawed way. But the late-season reveal that Gemma (or the “Ms. Casey” version of her) has apparently been on the Lumon testing floor the whole time adds an interesting wrinkle. Did Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) have a hand in Mark taking a job on Lumon’s severed floor? Was Lumon involved in Gemma’s “death”? Was Gemma severed before or after her accident?
Since Ms. Casey told Mark that she’d only been awake for 107 hours, does that mean the testing floor is the department Petey (Yul Vazquez) told Mark about, where you don’t get to leave? With Season 1 ending on Mark’s haunting wail of, “She’s alive!” this is definitely going to get some attention next season.
How Does Irving Know About The Testing Floor?
Speaking of the testing floor, Irving’s Outie seemed to have a fixation with it, as we saw him compulsively painting the hallway leading up to it. So, how did he know about the testing floor? From what we saw of Irving (John Turturro) in Season 1, there was no indication his Innie had seen it, either.
There did seem to be some blending of Irv’s worlds, because as well as that, we also saw his Innie hallucinate black paint (like from his Outie’s paintings) when he nodded off at work. Why was it important for Irv’s Outie to stay awake via loud music and coffee? Was he avoiding nightmares? Was he trying to get his Innie to fall asleep on the job? I think we’ll definitely delve into the MDR Outies more next season.
We’ve Got To Talk About The Waffle Party
Definitely one of Season 1’s biggest “What the actual fuck?” moments came when Dylan (Zach Cherry) was rewarded with a waffle party after being named Refiner of the Quarter. In a twist so bizarre even Stephen King commented on it, Dylan enjoyed a plate of waffles in the model Kier Eagan house, before climbing into Kier’s bed and donning a large mask of the Lumon founder. Then four costumed dancers in lingerie came out and seductively re-created the Lumon painting of Kier and the four tempers.
I need to know what would have happened if Dylan hadn’t had to sneak out to wake up his colleague’s Innies. You absolutely cannot introduce something like that in Season 1 without seeing it through in Season 2. You just can’t.
What Does Lumon Even Do, And What’s With The Baby Goats?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What kind of company is Lumon Industries? We know they’re a billion-dollar corporation, high on security, and pro-severance even outside of what is mandatory for their employees. Oh, and don’t forget the cult-ish religious overtones. We know the MDR department sorted numbers based on the emotion they evoked, but to what end? It could literally be anything on the spectrum from some kind of emotional manipulation to meaningless busy work.
If we couldn't even nail that down, there’s no way to speculate what the other departments were doing, or even how many departments there are. Mark and Helly (Britt Lower) stumbled upon a man bottle-feeding baby goats, who seemed terrified because “it isn’t time.” Severance will need to give us at least a morsel of what we’re looking at in regards to Lumon’s agenda next season. Those goats were giving me Lost polar bear flashbacks, so I hope there’s a satisfying explanation.
Why Was The Card Dylan Stole Such A Big Deal?
The infographic card that Dylan stole from the Optics & Design department didn’t appear to be anything wildly incriminating — maybe some kind of martial arts or self-defense instruction — but whatever it was, it was important enough for Milchick (Tramell Tillman) to wake up Dylan’s Innie on the outside to get it back, thus revealing the Overtime Protocol to the MDR staff. Why was Milchick so concerned?
Also, with Dylan staying behind to wake up the others, we didn’t learn as much about his Outie as we did for Helly and Irving. Milchick tried to bribe Dylan with information about his three children, and with Dylan’s late-season desperation to know more about his family, I'm thinking we'll learn more about them in Season 2, including why he decided to sever himself.
What Is Regabhi’s Plan, And Will We See A Successful Reintegration?
Mark was the only Outie we spent any real time with in Season 1, as his work BFF Petey tracked him down following his reintegration. Season 2 is going to have to dive deeper into that process, including what former Lumon employee Regabhi (Karen Aldridge) is plotting. All we know is that Regabhi was the one who performed the severance process on Lumon’s other workers, and now she’s figured out how to reverse the process.
Why is she doing that? Why doesn’t she work for Lumon anymore? What killed Petey? The first season really only scratched the surface on reintegration, as even the Lumon Board refused to acknowledge that it could be done. I expect that we’ll not only learn more about Regabhi next season, but we’ll possibly even see a successful reintegration.
It’s baffling how deep a world Ben Stiller and Dan Erickson were able to create in just nine episodes, and how invested we got in the characters and their stories, while still being so in the dark about the universe at large. As we wait for Severance Season 2 to clear up a lot of these questions, be sure to check out some of the other best shows on Apple TV+ as well as these other shows to watch if you liked Severance.
