SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for Season 1 of “Severance,” streaming on Apple TV+.
A recap is available upon request.
“Severance” returns on Apple TV+ this Friday, but it’s been nearly three years since the first season of the sci-fi workplace thriller ended on a brutal cliffhanger.
So, before you head back into the office Jan. 17, here are some things you should remember from Season 1. If you’re looking to freshen up on just the finale episode, skip to the end.
“Severance” follows Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a man who is grieving the loss of his wife Gemma outside of the office — and who is blissfully unaware he has a wife inside the office. That’s because he works at the mysterious Lumon Industries and underwent an experimental and controversial “severance” procedure, essentially splitting himself into two different people: his innie and his outie. When severed people enter the Lumon office, they have no memory of their life outside of work. Likewise, outies know they work at Lumon, but they have no memory of their 9-5, including their co-workers. Outie Mark is depressed and spends most of his nights alone, in the dark. Innie Mark is chipper, spending his days “refining macrodata” (neither his innie nor his outie knows exactly what that means beyond sorting numbers into different boxes in a computer program). At the start of the series, Mark has been promoted to department head after the sudden departure of his colleague, Petey. He works alongside Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro) and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) on the Severed Floor of Lumon, which is overseen by non-severed managers Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman). Every so often, the innies are provided with therapeutic wellness sessions with Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), who tells them facts about their outies.
After work one day, Outie Mark is approached by an unfamiliar man named Petey (Yul Vazquez), who claims to have worked closely with him at Lumon. Petey reveals he has undergone “reintegration,” an untested process meant to reverse the severance procedure, allowing him to merge his innie and outie and access both his work and personal memories. He tells Mark that Lumon is up to some shady stuff, and severance is not what it seems. He gives Mark information he gathered inside Lumon that opens his eyes to the company’s nefarious behavior. Petey fears he is being watched, so for his own innie’s sake, Mark takes Petey into his home to hide out. He suffers from severe side effects of the reintegration process, including debilitating headaches and hallucinations. Midway through the season, he dies due to the sickness.
Things start to get worrisome when it’s revealed that Ms. Cobel is surveilling Mark outside of work, too. While Cobel is not severed, she lives a double life outside of Lumon as Mrs. Selvig, Mark’s next-door neighbor and the doula to his sister, Devon (Jen Tullock). After Petey dies, she sneaks into his funeral to covertly cut open his head and retrieve the severance implant.
The series starts on Helly’s first day working at Lumon. Unlike her more senior colleagues Mark (who believes his work is meaningful), Irving (a scholar of Lumon’s rules and history) and Dylan (obsessed with acquiring company perks), Helly wants out. In the first few episodes of the show, she constantly attempts to escape the office. She tries to send messages to her outie by writing words on her body, but they are intercepted by Lumon. She files a formal resignation request, but her outie denies it. And she even attempts to end her life by hanging herself in the elevator.
Other than it being advertised to potential employees as a lifestyle choice (come shut off your brain for half the day and never work!), severance is justified by Lumon claiming its severed workers deal with highly classified information. It’s a way of guaranteeing that Lumon secrets stay within the confines of the office. But there are other uses for the severance procedure as well, as is the case with Gabby Arteta (Nora Dale), the wife of a pro-severance senator, who used the severance technology to compartmentalize (and completely forget about) her pregnancy.
Things get spicy in the office when the Macrodata Refinement department crosses paths with another group of severed workers over at Optics and Design. There are rules against fraternizing with other departments, something Irving would typically care about. But instead, he’s smitten by Burt G. (Christopher Walken), who similarly has an appreciation for the paintings hanging throughout Lumon’s halls. The two forge a strictly forbidden office romance, and suddenly Burt is “permanently retired” (i.e. his innie essentially dies). This radicalizes Irving. Meanwhile, he keeps having hallucinations at work of a black paint-like liquid dripping from the ceiling.
In the third episode, Mark discovers a map of the office sketched by Petey, hidden behind a framed photo. As skepticism and curiosity grows amongst the innies, Mark and Helly set out to explore the long, white halls of Lumon. They discover a room filled with baby goats, and a man wearing a lab coat who warns, “They’re not ready yet!” Among the other known places in Lumon are the Break Room, which breaks the minds and spirits of innies as they repeatedly read an apology script as punishment for misbehavior; Optics and Design, where Burt works; the administration offices, where Ms. Cobel and Mr. Milchick are stationed; and the Wellness Center, with Ms. Casey. There is also the Perpetuity Wing, which serves as a Lumon museum of sorts. Separate from the Severed Floor is the Testing Floor, where it is implied that Lumon runs experiments on the innies and tinkers with their severance chips. No character is seen entering the Testing Floor except for Ms. Casey.
Things take a sharp turn in Episode 6, when Dylan’s innie suddenly wakes up at home, inside his outie body. Innie Dylan had misplaced some type of informational card from the Optics and Design office, so Mr. Milchick has come to his house after work hours to find out where he put it. This is possible due to the Overtime Contingency, an emergency process that allows innies to be woken up in the outside world. Innie Dylan’s world is shaken when a young child barges into the room, hugging him and yelling “Daddy!” Now that Innie Dylan knows he has a son back home, it’s all he can focus on at work.
Toward the end of the season, Mark is led toward Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), an ex-Lumon scientist who was integral to the creation of severance technology but is now leading an underground resistance against the company. She is the one who performed the reintegration procedure on Petey. Mark meets Reghabi in a dark building in the middle of the night, where he is discovered by Doug Graner (Michael Cumpsty), head of security on the Severed Floor. To Mark’s shock, Reghabi murders Graner and gives Mark his all-access security card to take into the office. She promises him that his innie will know what to do with it.
One of the series’ most jaw-dropping revelations comes at the end of Episode 7, as Mark is taping back together a photo of his late wife, which he had previously torn up. As Outie Mark stares longingly at a photo of his wife Gemma, we recognize that very same woman (who is said to have died in a car accident) as Lumon’s very own Ms. Casey. In the following episode, Ms. Casey informs Innie Mark that she has been fired as wellness director. She is sent to the Testing Floor.
Armed with Graner’s security card, motivation from a self-help book discovered inside the office and a whole bunch of rage, the innies devise a plot to activate the Overtime Contingency on themselves. The plan is for Dylan to stay back and sneak into the security office so he can wake up Mark, Helly and Irving in the outside world, where they can share the truth about Lumon. Leading up to the big rebellion, Helly and Mark share a kiss. Ms. Cobel is fired for her ongoing failure to control the innies. And Dylan is treated to the coveted “waffle party” perk, which involves a freaky sexual performance in a replica of Lumon founder Kier Eagan’s house.
When the innies wake up in their outie bodies after Dylan starts the Overtime Contingency, they find themselves in shocking situations. Mark is at a party at his sister’s house featuring a reading from the innies’ favorite self-help book, which is written by her husband, Mark’s brother-in-law Ricken (Michael Chernus). He recognizes Ms. Cobel at the party (though in this setting, she is Mrs. Selvig).
Irving awakens in his house surrounded by dozens of black canvases all depicting the same scene — he has been repeatedly painting the Testing Floor hallway, despite never consciously visiting it. In his house, he finds a dog, military medals and files containing information about past and present Lumon employees, including Burt’s home address.
Helly finds herself at the Eagan family gala, where she discovers her outie is Helena Eagan, daughter of Lumon CEO Jame Eagan. She agreed to get severed as part of a public relations campaign, to present the procedure as both safe and ethical.
Innie Mark tips Ms. Cobel off about his identity by calling her Ms. Cobel, rather than Mrs. Selvig. Irving gets in the car and races to Burt’s house, only to discover he is married to another man. Mark tells his sister Devon he is currently in innie mode and that there is shady stuff going on at Lumon. She tells him about Gemma, his outie’s dead wife. Helly gets put on stage in front of the Lumon board and other gala attendees, where she reveals the truth about her family’s company: “We’re prisoners!” And Mark finds a photo of him and Gemma, recognizing her as Ms. Casey. He rushes into the living room of his sister’s party and screams, “She’s alive!” Immediately after, Mr. Milchick breaks into the security office and tackles Dylan, shutting off the Overtime Contingency. The innies zap back into outies. Season 1 cuts to black.
