Severance‘s Creators Explain the Very, Very Long Wait for Season 2

When Severance returns for season 2 connected January 17, astir 3 afloat years volition person passed since the first season’s shocking finale. That’s a agelong clip by each metric and while its creators understand immoderate vexation fans whitethorn beryllium feeling, they person precise bully reasons for the delay.

“On a applicable level, it’s a precise intricate show,” writer and creator Dan Erickson told Vanity Fair. “Each quality has 2 lives—essentially, 2 personalities—and we are expanding. For me, the penning was the astir painstaking portion of the process due to the fact that determination were truthful galore ways we could go. And sometimes we would travel up with thing that worked perfectly good connected paper, and past it wouldn’t beryllium until we got determination and we’re shooting it that we realize: This isn’t rather it. We were ne'er consenting to fto that crook it into thing that wasn’t perfect.”

So that’s portion one. The penning took a while. But past determination was production. “It took a portion to constitute play two. Then we started to sprout successful October of 2022, and we got unopen down by the onslaught successful May [2023],” enforcement shaper and manager Ben Stiller said. “At that point, we had completed astir 7 of our 10 episodes, and past we had to regroup aft the strike. It takes america a portion to prep the show. And so, we didn’t commencement shooting until January [2024]. Then we changeable from January to May to decorativeness the past 3 episodes.”

That’s portion two. Production was delayed owed to the strikes. Then those accumulation delays created adjacent much problems. “[We had] full locations that we were readying to spell to. We had already built oregon partially built them erstwhile we realized, ‘Oh, that’s not going to work,'” Erickson said. “Those aren’t ever amusive calls to person with the studio, wherever you’re. like, ‘Hey, you cognize that happening you enactment a batch of resources into? Well, we’re not going to bash it now, oregon we’re going to bash thing that’s wholly different.’ But again, astatine the extremity of the day, it’s worthy it.”

Long penning process, stunted accumulation schedule, and monolithic overhauls. It each makes sense. And, if play 2 delivers, it’ll beryllium forgotten instantly. Erickson and Stiller know, and promise, play 2 volition code the galore mysteries near unanswered by play 1 portion besides creating caller ones. Questions similar however is Mark (Adam Scott) going to woody with the cognition that his woman (Dichen Lachman) is really alive? Is determination immoderate fallout knowing Helly (Britt Lower) is some a Lumon worker and 1 of its architects? What’s going to hap to the innies who broke the rules to interaction their extracurricular selves? And what the heck adjacent happens astatine Lumon anyway?

“I’m excited that we yet are astatine this place,” Stiller said. “It’s an absorbing process making thing similar this 2nd play due to the fact that you present cognize there’s an assemblage determination that cares. That has been successful our minds the full time: ‘Wow, radical truly are paying attraction to these details.’ My anticipation is that, erstwhile they spot this season, there’s an consciousness that we’re trying to link immoderate dots and besides permission immoderate dots unconnected and enactment retired immoderate caller dots to connect.”

Read much, overmuch much astir Severance play 2 over astatine Vanity Fair. It returns to Apple TV+ January 17.

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