Almost 3 years ago, the first season of Apple TV’s Severance, a sci-fi thriller about a procedure that separates your work memories from your personal ones was released to critical and fan acclaim. Now, with the second season on the horizon, we thought it appropriate to write a recap to refresh all of season one’s answers (and questions) just in case the long wait left any gaps in your memories.

The Macrodata Refinement Department

Severance’s main premise revolves around the severance procedure, an operation designed by the shadowy Lumon corporation that separates your personal and work personas (labelled as “outies” and “innies” respectively) so that each one has no memory of the other. The four central characters (Mark, Helly, Dylan and Irving) are all workers at Lumons Macro Data Refinement Department, where they spend their days staring at a computer screen and mindlessly sorting seemingly meaningless numbers. Helly (Britt Lower) is a new hire to the department, replacing a man named Petey, and it is through her we learn about Lumon. Helly is a rebellious soul, refusing to participate in the oppressive culture of Lumon and desperate to escape. Throughout the season, she goes to drastic means in attempts to rebel against Lumon, even going so far as attempting suicide so she can kill her outside persona. These acts are met with just as drastic responses from Lumon, such as the Break Room, a form of psychological torture that has the worker kept in a dark room forced to repeatedly apologise until they mean it, sometimes for days on end.

As the first season progresses every member of the refinement department starts to question what they are really doing at Lumon. What do the numbers they are ‘refining’ represent? Why are they punished for asking questions and what or who are their ‘outies’?

New team leader Mark (Adam Scott) finds a vapid self-help book addressed to him (written by his brother-in-law, although he has no knowledge of this) that ultimately teaches him there is more to experience in life than work. He also falls for Helly, and their romance is solidified when they kiss in the finale.

Dylan, (Zach Cherry) a happy worker who is incentivised by Lumons reward schemes such as finger traps and waffle parties, learns that he has a son on the outside, and that these rewards are a poor replacement for the intrinsic joys of life that he is prohibited from having.

Irving (John Turturro) is a man ruled by a strong sense of morals and he abides by rules, worshipping Lumon and its founders in place of a religion. His innie suffers from hallucinations, and on a trip to Lumon’s “wellness centre” he meets Burt, (Christopher Walken) who he starts up a tender workplace romance. Meeting Burt is the first time Irving has ever met another of his Lumon colleagues. The departments are kept away from each other, another of Lumon’s strict rules but one that Irving feels compelled to break to see his new friend.  Irving recognises that Burt is retiring, and the heartbreak and grief lead him to turn on the company he had once devoted himself to.

Together, the four hatch a plan to rebel against Lumon and use the overtime contingency protocol (a protocol that allows work personas to be activated on the outside in emergencies) and escape into the real world to expose the truth of a worker’s life inside Lumon.

Mark Scout

Mark is the show’s central character, and the character we follow outside of the Lumon. Mark is a man grieving the death of his wife 2 years prior, and underwent the controversial severance procedure to deal with his pain as for 8 hours a day he would forget his overwhelming grief. His outside support system consists solely of his sister Devon, her husband Ricken and their child together who is born during the season. He struggles to connect with anybody else, despite the efforts of Devon to introduce him to other people like her doula, Alexa.

His life is derailed further when Petey(Yul Vazquez), a man claiming to be reintegrated from severance, shows up and states that he was Mark’s coworker. Petey suffers from reintegration sickness, and eventually succumbs to his illness and dies, causing Mark to follow a string of clues left behind and question the morality of severance and his own procedure. He finds the woman who did Petey’s reintegration, but before she can do anything they are found by Lumon’s head of security, Mr Graner, who is murdered by the scientist.

By the finale, he’s made progress with his grief and is beginning to get back to his own life and open to his family more. Due to this self-actualisation and growing doubt in Lumon and their practices, he starts to debate on whether or not he should quit his job at Lumon.

Lumon

Lumon’s secrets are many, and possibly the biggest mystery in the show. On the outside, the company is rallying for “legalised severance”, a practice that would allow the procedure to be used freely for commercial use. In the season, an upper-class woman uses the procedure so she has no memory of giving birth, but the procedure is highly contentious in the wider community with Lumon often picketed and protested against. The secrecy within the company also extends to the workers themselves. Each department is spread far apart, and they are discouraged from interacting with each other through creepy legends told to them about the other departments being violent and evil. In season 1, we only find out about 4 departments. There’s our central department in Macro data refinement, Optics & Design, who are responsible for creating any Lumon-related merch and decorating the halls of the office, as well as sorting miscellaneous items for an unknown purpose. Another department (and the most interesting), is concerned with raising baby goats and only has one man in it, and the final one is the wellness centre, where a woman known as Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) who helps the innies through stressful moments by reading them vague facts about their outies life. Ms. Casey is only ever woken up for those sessions, and when she is retired near the end of the season, she has only been awake for a total of 107 hours.

The hierarchy of Lumon is another thing that is shrouded in secrecy. The big bosses present for most of the first season are Mrs. Cobel (the brilliant creepy Patricia Arquette) and her second-hand: Mr Milchik. (the smiley but sinister Tramell Tillman) Mrs. Cobel has a complete devotion to the company, similar to religion except a lot more intense and all-consuming than Irving’s faith, and goes to extreme lengths to prove her worth to her bosses. Her boss is a shadowy entity known only as “The Board” and we only ever hear them speak once. The Board do not believe that reintegration is possible, and she proves this by taking Petey’s severance chip from his core, but she is ultimately fired before she can present her findings to them. Cobel is working constantly, posing as Mark’s well-meaning neighbour Mrs. Selvig, she weaves her way into every aspect of his life. It’s unclear why she is so focused on Mark specifically. We don’t see her interacting with any of the other ‘outies’ so it’s unclear why Mark gets such special treatment.

The Finale

In the final episode of season 1, Dylan stays behind to activate the protocol and allow the other workers into the outside world. This episode ends with Dylan getting caught and the outside workers being severed. On the outside, Irving finds that his outie has been making paintings of something that looks very similar to the Break Room on the Lumon work floor that uses a material reminiscent of what he sees when he experiences hallucinations at his desk. He also discovers a case full of information on Lumon’s practices and workers. Using this information, he tracks down Burt and discovers that on the outside, Burt already has a husband he is content with. Despite this, he starts banging on their front door, and his connection severs at precisely that moment.

Helly wakes up at the Eagan Family Gala, a high class event for the founders of Lumon, and it is revealed that her outie is a part of the Eagan family and daughter of the current CEO. She took a severed job in an effort to prove how humane the procedure is and push for it to be legalised across the board. Innie Helly realises this and when she gets on stage and sabotages the speech using it as a chance to reveal reveal how unhappy the innies are and how inhumane Lumon is, and it is at this point her connection is cut.

Mark awakens at a reading party for his brother-in-law’s book, hugging Mrs Cobel.  Mrs Cobel realises what has happened, and despite having been fired, alerts Lumon and races to the family gala in an effort to stop Helly exposing Lumon’s secrets.. Mark tells his sister about everything that happened at Lumon, and she promises to try and help.

It’s a series full of brilliantly executed twists and turns as we learn things along with those in the severed programme. In perhaps the most shocking twist, Mark sees a photograph of him on his wedding day with his wife, and realises that his wife and Ms. Casey are the same person and that his wife didn’t die. He manages to relay this information to Devon, right before the connection is cut and the season ends.

Severance Season 2 has a lot to live up to, it has a ton of questions to answer, and the wait for it has been almost unbearable, but hopefully, this recap has helped to refresh your outie’s memory before you head to work before the new season on Friday 17th January 2025!