Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for Severance Season 2 Episodes 1-4.Apple TV+’s Severance is winding down its second season, but over these last few weeks, the series has already answered a lot of questions that were hanging out unanswered in the wake of the Season 1 finale — most importantly, what happened to Mark Scout’s (Adam Scott) wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman), and what has Lumon Industries been doing to her all this time? As of now, we’ve uncovered more about this mystery, including what “Cold Harbor” is actually referencing and its direct connection to Gemma, but with these answers come just as many questions.
While Collider couldn’t pry every reveal out of creator Dan Erickson during our chat with him ahead of the premiere of Season 2, we did get some answers from him. Over the course of the interview, which you can watch above or read below, Erickson explains why the show didn’t leave the Season 1 cliffhanger unresolved for very long — and why the Severance writers are asking many of the same questions the characters do on the series. He also discusses the process of casting Keanu Reeves as the voice of the Lumon building in the “Lumon Is Listening” video, whether the new opening credits for Season 2 reveal anything in terms of spoilers, and more.
Dan Erickson Explains Those New Opening Credits for ‘Severance’ Season 2

Image via Apple TV+

COLLIDER: There are so many things I want to pick your brain about, but I did want to start by asking about the new credits for Season 2. What did you really want to try to emphasize in terms of themes with this new opening for the show?
DAN ERICKSON: It was a lot of different things. I don’t know that there is one cohesive theme that we went into with that in mind, but we wanted to go back to Season 1 and have certain imagery that was evocative of Season 1. Then at the same time, as there was in the first season, we’re — I wouldn’t even say “hinting” because it’s not that literal, but if you had watched Season 2, and then you went to sleep and had a nightmare, some of this might be the stuff that you would see.
I don’t think that there’s anything spoilery in there. If people go in looking for direct spoilers for Season 2 in the credits sequence, say, I’m not sure that they’ll find what they’re looking for. But it is, tonally and in terms of feelings and themes, all in there. Oliver Latta, who is the designer of that sequence, is just an absolute genius, and so it’s one of my favorite new things about the show.
Something delightful that I think a lot of people are going to pick up on is the voice of the Lumon building in the “Lumon Is Listening” video. Was the decision to cast Keanu Reeves something that was in the script from the beginning? Did you toss around ideas of who that was going to be? What was that whole process of landing on him for this? Because it’s pretty hilarious.
ERICKSON: All I can say is that we talked about a couple of different people for that role. We always wanted it to be somebody that people would have certain associations with, but also, it had to be a warm presence. The Lumon building is very friendly in the context of this video, and there’s a friendliness to that particular voice and a heart to that particular voice.
Dan Erickson Explains Why ‘Severance’ Season 2 Doesn’t Waste Time Addressing Last Season’s Cliffhanger

Image via Apple TV+

The finale really drops that bombshell on Mark that Gemma is still alive somehow, but it feels like this season pays that off pretty quickly, at least by Episode 3, when that information is communicated to his outie. Why did you want it to pay off over that hanging thread that we get this early in the season? Is it because there’s a lot more to really unspool?
ERICKSON: Yeah, I think so. First of all, I think it just made sense. We tried to put ourselves in the minds of those characters immediately following the Overtime Contingency, and we know that Devon was there. Devon heard what he said. Ricken was there, and all the other party guests were there, but probably didn’t quite know what was going on or what he meant. We knew that there had been this thing with the baby just earlier.
Sometimes on the show, the characters end up having the same conversations that we have in the writers’ room, which is like, “Well, maybe someone would think he was talking about the baby.” But ultimately, we didn’t want to spend too long on that because we wanted to pay off the Overtime Contingency. We thought the most interesting thing about it is that Mark does manage to communicate an important piece of information and also get an important piece of information, and that changes the status quo on both sides. All of a sudden, we’re living in a very different world on both the innie and the outie side. So, we wanted to get him to a point where he was actively trying to make contact with his innie and ultimately trying to save his wife.

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“It’s a Complete World Shifter”: ‘Severance’s Ben Stiller and Adam Scott Explain Why Season 2 Is Already Answering Big Questions

They also discuss the very cold experience of filming Episode 4 and expanding the horizons of ‘Severance’ this season.

Speaking of another episode that changes the status quo, Episode 4, the ORTBO, leads to a pretty big reveal about Helly and Irving. His suspicions are definitively confirmed in this episode with that interaction, but I’m wondering about the decision to bring that outside of the office and have them go on this woodland retreat. Why did that feel like the best backdrop for all of this to go down?
ERICKSON: I had always had this image in my head, really, since the beginning of writing the show, of an innie suddenly waking up and being in a totally new, unfamiliar, hostile environment. It’s one of those things that you can only do on this show. What’s so fun about it is, in any show, you can plop the viewer down into a situation, and they don’t know the context, and they don’t know what’s going on, but this is one of the only shows where you can do that with the character just as much. Innie Irving, in that first moment when he wakes up, is as confused as we are. Why the hell is he in this frozen wasteland? Then, you learn the answer to that, along with the characters. We thought that it was fun from a narrative perspective.
Then, with Lumon, what I love is that it’s presented as the innies getting what they wanted. It’s like, “Well, you want to be outside. Here’s outside. This is what you asked for, and we’re giving it to you in all of our generosity.” But of course, with Lumon, no prize is actually a prize. Everything is a punishment if you dig deep enough.
The Severance Season 2 finale premieres Friday on Apple TV+.

Severance

Release Date

February 18, 2022

Showrunner

Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman

Writers

Dan Erickson