Severance Season 2 Episode 1 Review: Hello, Ms. Cobel

After an almost three-year hiatus, Apple TV+’s sci-fi thriller Severance is back for Season 2. Was it worth the wait to discover what happened to the “innies” after they made contact with the outside world?

If the premiere Severance Season 2 Episode 1, “Hello, Ms. Cobel,” is any indicator, yes it was.

From the opening moment, you’re thrown into a dizzying two-minute sequence of Mark’s innie (Adam Scott) running through the endless, sterile white hallways of Lumon set to a frantic jazz number. The cinematography is a breathtaking reminder of how impressive Severance is in its production quality.

A devastated Mark finds Miss Casey aka Gemma’s office empty. If you forgot about the Miss Casey/Gemma reveal and haven’t watched Severance Season 1 Episode 9, “The We We Are,” since it aired, this is a good place to stop and rewatch it. Otherwise, prepare for a full episode of saying to yourself, “Oh yeah, that happened!”

Potential memory issues aside, the series does an excellent job of throwing you back into the creepy, dread-filled world of Lumon. Even as the episode unfolds there’s a looming sense of being unable to trust what you see or are told.

Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tells Mark it’s been five months since the innies made contact with the outside world. He even shows Mark a newspaper clipping about the “macrodata uprising” that led to Lumon’s new reforms.

Couldn’t it just as easily have been only one day or even three years? (Sorry, I had to say it.) Since the premiere never once shows the outies’ world, you are left just as uncertain as Mark about what actually happened.

After finding out his team’s outies chose to not come back and their innies have been replaced, Mark takes action. The guest appearances of Alia Shawkat, Stefano Carannante, and Bob Balaban as the new MDR team are short-lived as Mark stages a coup and demands to the board they bring back his team.

For reasons unexplained, the coup works and the core four innies are back on deck after the episode’s false start.

After the shocking finale of Season 1, it feels a little anticlimactic to have them all escorted to a room where they watch a video about Lumon’s changes since the “uprising.” The cheesy, yet threatening video is narrated by an anthropomorphic building who sounds a lot like Keanu Reeves but whose actor isn’t listed in the credits.

I will give points for using the underrepresented art form of claymation, but does anyone believe for a second that Lumon actually made any changes and is not just gaslighting the innies?

That’s what makes Severance what it is though. For every moment filled with the sci-fi thriller plot there’s also a scathing send-up of oppressive corporate culture.

Both elements are what makes the series so impactful in a time when workplace culture is constantly scrutinized yet slow to change and people feel alienated by the demands of a capitalist society that places profit over humanity. 

Fortunately their subsequent confessions to each other about the outside world, including the identity of Miss Casey, bring us back to the thriller part of the show. We even witness a surprising betrayal as Helly (Britt Lower) lies about what she saw out there, clearly too afraid to admit her outie is the enemy.

Her animosity towards outies seems primarily driven by outie Helly, but learning Mark has a wife also seems to drive a wedge. It’s hard to forget the ethical quandary of “two” people sharing a body while being in love with different people when watching Severance.

A touching plot point between Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) where Dylan has to convince him not to quit despite his despondence over Bert reminds us that these innies are more than just rebels for a cause. They’re humans trying to understand how they fit into the world.

“It’s not our world up there,” Irving opines. So far everything Severance has shown us proves him right.  

Although the premiere may leave fans frustrated with the lack of answers given, it’s plenty enough to get re-acclimated to the world and reinvested in the plot.

It also ends on an intriguing note. As the refiners work on the “Cold Harbor” project, the screen cuts to another display receiving the input data showing a picture of none other than Gemma.

It’s clear there’s more to her disappearance and what the MDR team is working on than we know yet. Good thing there are nine more episodes to get some answers!

Additional Thoughts:

• Why is Miss Huang a child?
• I cackled when Milchick tried to claim Ms. Cobel was pursuing a throuple with Mark and his outie.
• Pineapple bobbing seems painful.
• This might have already been mentioned in Season 1, but it’s interesting the video notes Lumon operates in 206 countries and that this isn’t the only “severed” location.
• I’m glad Irving explained the paintings because even with rewatching the Season 2 finale I had forgotten that detail.

What did you think of the Season 2 premiere of Severance? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Severance airs Fridays on Apple TV+. 

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