We are only a week away from the long-awaited second season of the Apple TV+ psychological thriller series, Severance, and the show’s creator, Dan Erickson, is teasing what we can expect when we jump back in, as well as his vision for the show’s end.
During a recent interview with io9/Gizmodo, Erickson was asked if he knows how the show will finish telling its story, and he explained:
“I have a pretty solid idea of the endpoint of the show. I have kind of a final scene that has always been in my head and answers to some of the big questions.
“I think you sort of have to know those in order to know the rules of the world that you’re writing. But also, I think it’s balanced because I like to be surprised by the show too.
“Sometimes we’ll meet a new character or find a new location or element of the show that I am surprised to find myself in love with and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Well, now that has to be part of it.
“We can’t just leave that there. We have to make that a part of the bigger story.’ And that’s where a lot of the fun comes in. You have to think on your feet a little bit and let the show surprise you.”
This show does nothing but surprise me, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Speaking of what happens next, Erickson also talked about why they decided to jump right into the drama in season 2, episode 1, with exposition-heavy conversations happening between the lead characters.
When asked if this was done because of the long break between seasons, or because it was always the plan, the show creator explained:
“It was always going to be the case. Part of it was so much happens at the end of season one, and it really upends the status quo for everybody, there was some danger of it getting convoluted and confusing and being like, ‘Okay, who knows what?’
“So we wanted to sort of put everything out on the table. That’s why, on the outside, the characters pretty quickly get into conversations with each other about like, “Okay, what the hell just happened? What was that? What did that mean?”
“And then on the inside, it’s the same thing. In the trailer, you have Dylan (Zach Cherry) straight up asking the question “What did you guys see up there?” That felt narratively like the right thing to do and it also felt true to the characters.
“All of these people are going to be desperate to figure out what on earth just happened and what that means for them, so we just let them have those conversations organically.”
It makes sense that this is how we find them. The severed Lumon employees just had a little excursion finding out about their “outies,” and they have a lot of questions.
I just rewatched season 1 (which I highly recommend), and I just can’t wait to see where this next chapter will take us.
Severance season 2 will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, February 17th.
