‘Severance’ Season 2 Trailer Ups the Tension for the Innies

A teaser for the second season of Severance previews more tension and regret for Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and John Turturro. Although not much happens in the half-minute or so clip, it gives a sense of how Apple TV+’s pseudo-serious satire of Americans’ inability to achieve a work-life balance could continue when the series returns on Jan. 17.

The clip begins with the four characters donning their company IDs as they enter the elevator, which severs their work life from their personal life. The voiceover replays them reading the contract they agreed to in the first season. “I am aware that this operation is comprehensive and irreversible,” Lower’s character says. This agreement separates people living in the outside world (“outies”) from those inside at work (“innies”). Once the doors close, the drama kicks off with motorcycle rides through hallways, Lower crawling through an air duct, and the four of them looking concerned at the camera in an empty office. The tagline for the season is “Like you never left.”

In the first season, Scott’s character on both sides of the work-life balance begins to worry about himself and try to figure out the mystery of why he can’t remember anything. He ropes in the others to help him figure things out, and both worlds start to crumble. An official description of Season Two suggests the quartet “learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier, leading them further down a path of woe.”

Other returning actors for the second season include Patricia Arquette, Christopher Walken, and Tramell Tillman. Sarah Bock (Bruiser) joins the cast as a regular for the season, and executive producer Ben Stiller directs five of the episodes. Series creator and executive producer Dan Erickson wrote the season.