Severance' Season 2 Episode 2 reveals the MDR team's reason for returning to work, why Lumon needs Mark, and what happened to Ms. Cobel (kind of).

It’s only been a week since the Severance season two premiere dropped on AppleTV+—and I shared my brutally honest review. TL;DR: I thought it was great, and I had plenty of theories afterward, but I generally found it frustrating and,

Fortunately, “Severance” returns to Apple TV+ on Friday, and its makers seem to have used every second of the absence productively. The season takes new turns while remaining the most ambitious, batty and all-out pleasurable show on TV, an M.C. Escher maze whose plot convolutions never get in the way of its voice, heart and sense of humor.

While “Severance” has a wonderfully creepy-compelling premise, it’s a concept better suited to a movie than a multi-episode TV series.

Apple TV+'s thriller returns with more sci-fi creepiness, nuanced social commentary and black humor. And perks like fruit leather.

I’ve already published my full Season 2 (spoiler-free) review. Now, we can dive into each individual episode as they stream every Friday. There’s so much to unpack in each one, I really can’t wait! Let’s start with a brief recap of where we left off back at the end of Season 1.

The first half of the season benefits from that momentum as the innies face the consequences of their outties’ lives. Mark is torn between his feelings towards Gemma and Helly; Helly is implicated by her counterpart’s lineage;

We flash through the ending of Season 1 once more, but this time, we return to the moment when the Outies returned. Mark (Adam Scott) wakes up at Rickon’s book reading — and his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) checks in on him.

After an excellently mysterious premiere reintroduced viewers to the world of Severance in its much-anticipated Season 2, “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig” does the same thing from the opposite angle. While Episode 1 was set entirely within Lumon among the innies,