5 Issues You Might Have Missed, From New Opening Credit To A Dan Erickson Easter Egg

After three painful years, Apple TV+‘s acclaimed office thriller Severance has lastly returned, and its first two episodes have been totally enthralling.

The Season 2 premiere — Severance‘s first all-innie episode — confirmed Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement staff return to workplace, launched intriguing new characters like Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), featured a shock Keanu Reeves cameo, and left viewers with a great deal of burning questions.

Season 2, Episode 2, “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig,” acts as a companion to the premiere, “Good day, Ms. Cobel,” serving because the present’s first all-outie episode and exhibiting viewers the direct aftermath of the Season 1 finale’s Additional time Contingency cliffhanger.

Main Severance Season 2, Episode 2 spoilers forward.

To say there’s heaps to like concerning the second episode of Severance‘s sophomore season could be a critical understatement. It marks the return of Devon (Jen Tullock), Ricken (Michael Chernus), Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander), Helena’s creepy dad Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), and Cobel (Patricia Arquette) herself. It introduces a brand new head of Lumon safety, Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson). It reveals Milchick (Tramell Tillman) placing on a leather-based jacket and using a motorbike to do critical harm management. It reveals Helena (Britt Decrease) recording a Youtube-style apology video and blaming Helly’s OTC outburst on a response to alcohol and a non-Lumon medicine. And it additional stresses the significance of Mark (Adam Scott) finishing his mysterious Chilly Harbor file. However that’s not all!

Since Severance is such meticulously crafted present, each Friday till the March 21 finale, Decider will likely be taking a better have a look at every episode and highlighting 5 moments that should be put underneath the microscope. Whether or not they’re blink-and-miss-it particulars or main scenes that should be talked by way of in larger depth, we’re right here to obsess, hypothesize, and dissect the sequence alongside you.

From a stellar new opening credit sequence to a real-life Dan Erickson Easter egg and extra, listed here are 5 issues you might have missed from Severance Season 2, Episode 2.

1. A Stellar New Opening Credit Sequence Full Of Foreshadowing

   Oliver Latta (who makes use of the creative alias extraweg) gained a well-deserved Excellent Most important Title Design Emmy award for Severance‘s fascinating opening credit sequence in Season 1, and he’s created one other meticulous masterpiece in honor of Season 2. The brand new predominant title sequence, which debuted in Season 2, Episode 2, unsurprisingly slaps. However very like Season 1’s intro, it’s additionally filled with curious clues certain to sign what’s in retailer this season.

   Whereas Season 1’s credit shined a highlight on Mark’s work/life steadiness and the divide between his private {and professional} dilemmas, Season 2’s sequence feels extra like a quest for solutions that highlights overlapping, or conflicting realities of Mark’s innie and outie. Although followers will acknowledge some related themes and imagery from Season 1’s opening credit, Season 2 switches issues up by exhibiting inflated balloon heads, a mind exploration, Mark’s innie and outie looking out with flashlights, and a severance chip being eliminated — all of that are giving ~reintegration~. (Particularly since Reghabi was within the S2 trailer.) We even have eyes on goats, so hopefully our burning child goat questions will likely be answered. We see swift glimpses of Helly and Ms. Casey, which suggests innie and outie Mark are navigating their intense emotions for every. We see snow! We see faceless infants and a tiny Kier! We see an enormous Cobel closing a e-book! And a lot extra!

2. A Actual-Life Dan Erickson Easter Egg

   After Milchick fires Dylan (Zach Cherry) in Episode 2, Mose Allison’s “Younger Man’s Blues” blares and he drives himself to GREAT DOORS, a door manufacturing facility the place his potential boss (Adrian Martinez) interviews him. The truth that the 2 males look precisely like twins (extra creepy Severance twinning occurring!) isn’t the one noteworthy facet of the scene, although. The placement itself is a real-life Easter egg from creator, EP, and author Dan Erickson, who began writing Severance whereas working at a door manufacturing facility!

   When requested about his determination to pay homage to the door manufacturing facility the place all of it occurred, Erickson instructed Decider, “I type of timidly introduced it as much as Ben. At some point I used to be similar to, ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be dumb if Dylan went to a door manufacturing facility?’ And he was like, ‘No, that’s nice. Let’s do it.’ So yeah, I allowed myself that little Easter egg into my very own life as a result of it’s additionally the historical past of the present. It’s the place the present was conceived, mainly. So I assumed it could be enjoyable.”

   On The Severance Podcast, Erickson revealed that shortly after he moved to LA, the door manufacturing facility was the primary workplace job he discovered on Craigslist. He even labored in a windowless basement! “I used to be very grateful for that job. And the folks there have been very good and handled me very kindly. Nevertheless it was the very last thing on this planet I wished to be doing,” Erickson stated. “I used to be simply strolling into work someday. It was 9:00 a.m. and I actually simply had the thought like, ‘God, what if I might soar forward and abruptly it could be 5? And I might have carried out the day’s work, however I wouldn’t must expertise it.” And that, youngsters, is how we received Severance.

3. Who’s Irving On The Cellphone With?

   By giving us essential perception into the lives of Irving and Helly’s outies, the Season 1 finale not solely revealed that Outie Irv is portray black hallway after black hallway, however that he’s extraordinarily interested in Lumon. He’s received a trunk filled with damaging newspaper articles on the corporate, an inventory of severed staff, a map of Kier, and extra! And judging from the telephone sales space scene in Season 2, Episode 2, he’s received a much bigger plan in movement. Leaving your own home at evening within the winter to stroll to a telephone sales space is suspicious by itself, however for those who activate closed captioning, you’ll see that Irv leaves the next message for his thriller name recipient: “Okay. You’re not selecting up. I get it. I would like you to know my innie received the message.” How is Irv speaking along with his innie? And who’s on the telephone?! Earlier than we get any solutions, Burt (!!!) drives down a close-by avenue, rolls to a cease, and stares forward at Irving. Irv fears he’s being watched and leaves the telephone sales space behind. To be continued…

4. A Quiet Trip On The Helly-vator

   In Season 2, Episode 2, we see how (and why) Mark received his unique MDR staff again. (They should maintain him completely happy and dealing lengthy sufficient to finish Chilly Harbor!) With lower than 10 minutes remaining within the episode, our OG MDR staff file one after the other into the workplace. Mark will get into the elevator, which dings twice — as soon as when it arrives and once more when it closes —and heads right down to the Severed Flooring. Dylan follows with a two-ding elevator journey. Irving is up subsequent. Once more, two dings! Then Helena hops in, trying understandably nervous. The elevator dings when it arrives, after which….nothing. NO SECOND DING! It’s an extremely minor element, which might imply nothing, however with all of the Helly R. theories flying after the Season 2 premiere, we felt it was price sharing.

5. Cobelvig’s Need To Assist Mark (And Herself)

    “Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig” actually ends with Cobelvig dashing away from Mark after she lets out a blood-curdling scream. Earlier than she left, Mark asks, “Why did you do that? What the fuck is that this all about? Have you learnt one thing about Gemma?” She takes a beat and appears as if she actually actually desires to inform him every thing — particularly after Lumon did her soiled.

   When requested if there’s part of Cobel that’s dying to come back clear and save Mark, Patricia Arquette instructed Decider, “Yeah, I feel there may be positively part of that in her and she or he does have this fondness for him. And there’s something occurring that she doesn’t actually wish to not have entry to both anymore. And there’s a thread of her personal private story that she’s projecting onto his expertise, and wanting it to end up a sure approach for her personal closure of her personal unfinished enterprise.” Fingers crossed that Severance Season 2 provides us a deeper look into Cobel’s private story and historical past with Lumon.

Bonus: What’s The Deal With The Pineapples?

Because the season progresses, we are able to assure it’ll get more and more tough to slender this record down to simply 5 issues you might have missed, so sometimes you’ll get a BONUS as a enjoyable Decider perk! As Milchick stated when he delivered a fruit basket to Mark’s door in Season 2, Episode 2, take into account it “compliments of the corporate.” Anyway, Dylan and Irv received Lumon pineapple baskets, too. If you happen to recall, “pineapple bobbing” was a brand new incentive launched within the season premiere. And as soon as I heard Cobel ask “Was a pineapple concerned?” within the firm’s try at getting Mark to return to work, my ears perked up. Because the Official Ranker of Severance Season 1 meals, I do know pineapples weren’t a star within the first 9 episodes. So what are they doing right here now? I requested Erickson for the pineapple tea. His response? “There’s at all times a deeper significance.” So maintain your eyes peeled to see if the fruit pops up once more!

New episodes of Severance Season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.