5 Details You May Have Missed

It’s been one of the most anticipated returns to our TVs in recent memory, but we finally have a release date for the second season of Apple TV+ hit Severance – and a trailer to go with it.

On Friday, January 17, 2025, we’ll be back under the fluorescent lights of Lumon Industries – almost three years since the debut of the first series. Here’s a look at the brand new trailer:

“In Severance, Mark Scout (Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries whose employees have undergone a severance process that surgically divides their memories between work and home life,” Apple’s Season 2 synopsis reads.

“This daring experiment in ‘work-life balance’ is called into question when Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and himself. In Season 2, Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of messing with the severance pay barrier, leading them further down a path of misery.

That… doesn’t sound good. But it also doesn’t reveal much about what awaits us in season 2. So we’ve scoured the trailer for the most exciting bits you might have missed – here are five clues as to what the heck is going on at Lumon.

1. A new Lumon crew?

The trailer shows Mark waking up dazed and confused in the elevator at Lumon Industries after the dramatic finale of the first season. However, there is evidence that he has been gone for a while – “It’s been a minute,” says supervisor Milchick.

But when Mark returns to his office, he is confronted with a whole new team of colleagues – newcomers Bob Balaban, Alia Shawkat and Stefano Carannante. What happened to Dylan, Helly and Irving? Has the rebel team been split up?

2. Doppelganger replacement?

Although we don’t see much of the old Lumon team, most of the returning cast are mentioned in quick cuts throughout the trailer.

This shot shows Zach Cherry’s Dylan George sitting across from him, appearing at first glance to be himself. But upon closer inspection, two different actors emerge. Does Lumon replace every worker with a doppelganger replacement?

3. A promotion for Cobel?

Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel was a stone-cold villain in Season 1 who managed to claw his way from the jaws of defeat to victory by uncovering the brewing mutiny within the Lumon ranks. She’s shown briefly in what appears to be a boardroom – perhaps she’s climbing the corporate ladder as a reward for her hard work? And maybe we’ll see more of the mysterious bigwigs who call the shots at Lumon.

4. Irving’s lineage?

John Turturro’s Irving had a particularly difficult time in the first season of Severance, with his mental health perhaps at the lowest of all the characters. Clues to his fragile state are found throughout the trailer – there’s that unsettling watermelon head, a shot of Irving’s outtie sneaking through the real world, and the sketch of the mysterious “downward” elevator that Irving apparently experienced. But why is it apparently held by Milchick? There is a suspicion that Irving knows too much about Lumon’s inner workings and may be punished for it.

5. Where is Mrs. Casey?

The big reveal of season one (SPOILER ALERT) that Mark’s “outtie” was in a relationship with Ms. Casey (or Gemma, as her “outtie” was called) was the jaw-dropping moment of the final episode. She lives! And they know each other! So what cruel joke is being played to keep their “innies” working together without realizing this fact?

The season 2 trailer shows a hand-drawn missing person poster of Miss Casey being printed on a Lumon printer, perhaps suggesting that Mark’s innie will inform the rest of the Lumon workplace about the deception. But where did Ms. Casey disappear to and why?