Severance: Season 2 (2025) Cre: Dan Erickson
- Ridley Coote
- 18 hours ago
- 3 min read
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Dan Erickson's Apple TV original series 'Severance' made waves when it first hit the streaming service in 2022, but I didn't watch it until this second season was already up. As such, I didn't arrive at this follow-up until a little while later, but my excitement had only increased, having enjoyed that first season a lot. If there's one way to grab an audience, it's to hit them with something unexpected, and that can pretty acutely describe what made season one so good. If I had one slight concern, it would be that season one was so good that season two couldn't possibly live up to it.
Much like in that aforementioned first season, there was some absolutely superb and incredibly interesting cinematography throughout this season. For a show set primarily in a bland white office floor, the series directors, which included the iconic comedian Ben Stiller, took the ball and ran as far as they possibly could with it. The show was so stimulating to look at, and gave audiences some extremely striking images and scenes to consume.
The narrative, of course, drove audiences straight back into the chaos from the season one finale, giving audiences a sense of urgency from the off. However, this time, I found the pacing a little off in the first half of the season. Even though I was enjoying the bulk of the content, it dragged a little too much, and I found it hard to watch more than one episode at a time, which had not been an issue with the previous season at all.
The actual season arc was still very intriguing, and it got even weirder and wilder than the show already had. I was slightly divided on the season finale. On the one hand, I quite liked the way the season built towards what you thought would surely end the show, before swerving the audience one more time. But, on the other hand, it left me genuinely a little concerned about much juice was left in the show's tank for season three.
Adam Scott once again proved his worth as an actor, in a role that suits him scarily well. I had never really enjoyed much of his work prior to seeing him in this series, but I have come to respect his capabilities a lot, thanks to the strength and consistency of his performances across both seasons of this show. The other standout this season was easily Britt Lower, whose acting was excellent throughout this second season, much like it had been for the first. I particularly enjoyed her acting in the later episodes, which was even more compelling, considering the events taking place on-screen.
I have come to adore both John Turturro and Zach Cherry in their respective roles, particularly Cherry, whose comedic timing and delivery has been one of this show's great strengths so far. Both not only conveyed their humour well, but also delivered their more emotional scenes excellently. I have a lot of time for both of their characters now.
Tramell Tillman continued to be truly another level of excellent with his wonderfully charismatic and flamboyant antagonistic character - I truly think Tillman has elevated the series so much with his involvement. I also want to at least briefly mention Patricia Arquette, Dichen Lachman, and Christopher Walken, for their respective supporting performance. All three brought some very strong acting to the show, particularly Walken, whom I loved watching this season.
Overall, although I enjoyed many aspects of this sophomore season of television, I couldn't help but notice the threads loosening and the edges just beginning to show signs of fraying. The problem with producing such an excellent debut season is that the expectations for the follow-up will always be high, and perhaps this season suffered slightly in my mind because of that. Either way, it still did a lot of things very well, and I will certainly be keen to see the third season. With that said, I do hope that next season will be the final one, because I can't see there being much more than one series-worth of story left at this point.
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