The ‘Severance’ Season 2 Premiere Explained by Creator Dan Erickson

(This story contains major spoilers for the season two premiere of Breakup.)

In the first episode of Breakup In the second season — out Friday — newly promoted Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tells the protagonists’ split versions of Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry and John Turturro that the group has become the “face of drug reform.” severance pay” and a parade of apologies ensue. There’s a questionable cartoon presentation that assures everyone that “Lumon is listening,” a weirdly sexual explanation of Ms. Cobel’s alter-ego, and a big question mark over Helly’s (Britt Lower) lies. .

Audiences have waited nearly three years since the thrilling finale of 2022’s first season, but this return has also raised even more questions: Why is Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock) a child? Where is Mrs. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) or Gemma (Dichen Lachman)? And what is this series of visits for foreigners? Plus, we’re still waiting for an explanation for this room of goats.

Creator Dan Erickson has all the answers. And he knows you’re tired of waiting. “I’m very conscious of not wanting to string people along,” he says.

But good things come to those who wait. This is the jewel of Apple TV, the belle of the TV ball which rode a pandemic and several Hollywood strikes before finally landing a perfect 10 on its return – already revealed to critics, the series obtains a score of 95 % on Rotten Tomatoes.

Erickson wrote the Breakup pilot in 2012 while holding one of those jobs that could make the layoff process attractive. In 2016, the storyline became the first TV show to appear on Bloodlist, where it found its way to Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Productions.

The sale was Erickson’s first big victory: Breakup It was his first time on a TV set. But make no mistake, he is a master of his craft and an expert in world building. “It’s always about piling mysteries on top of each other,” he says. Everything will come together eventually – even those goats!

Below, Erickson chats with The Hollywood Reporter about the production of season two, Lumon’s real-life thoughts, and all the big mysteries he can’t wait to solve.

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Breakup the first season ended in April 2022. How long after that did you start working on the second season?

We had been working on it for a while before the first season came out, but it was more in an unofficial capacity. We were working on it in the hopes that it would get a good response and we would get a second season. At the time it came out, we had started creating (season two), but we hadn’t started writing scripts yet.

There’s this back-and-forth that follows a finale like the one at the end of last season: How many unanswered questions do you answer in season two, and how many new ones do you ask?

For me, it’s always about piling mysteries on top of each other. Think of a pyramid where in each season you answer certain things, but that opens the door to a larger mystery beneath. I’m very conscious of not wanting to string people along or make them feel like there aren’t any answers to be had, because that’s not fun. But at the same time, you can over-explain something and take the wonder out of it. I think the key is that each answer opens a new door and there are new wonders to explore.

As a creator, how far in advance do you know the answers?

I know the big answers. The really big stuff I’ve known all along. There are gaps along the way as to how to get there. I’ve had the chance to talk to a lot of other showrunners, people who have done this before, and the thing they have in common is that it’s a tightrope. You can plan too much, and if you plan too much, your show may end up losing some of the spontaneity that makes it exciting, and you may feel like you’re just trying to check boxes. If you under-plan, you risk finding yourself in a corner and not knowing how to get out. It’s a balance.

Have any of the answers changed from what you knew all along?

Certain things. These aren’t the biggest questions. The biggest mysteries have remained fundamentally the same. The details change and the details change, but most of the time it’s the same thing. My current explanation regarding goats is not totally different, but slightly different from what it originally was. You want to allow yourself to move around a little with that spontaneity within the plan you previously established.

The first season filmed during COVID. Was the return for season two very different?

It wasn’t that different right away because when we returned, the productions were still very cautious. We were still masked when we returned and these restrictions gradually eased as the season progressed. But it was so wonderful for me, having literally never been on a TV before COVID. I felt like I was experiencing for the first time, in a way, the camaraderie that you feel by being able to go talk to people, and even go out afterwards to have a drink with someone and do a debrief. None of that we were able to do in the first season, so it was really wonderful for me.

The first season came out at a particularly interesting time for Hollywood: we had the pandemic and then the strikes. Given your unique background when you entered this world, how has all of this affected your approach to work?

This affects him a lot. These things work their way through the text of the series quite organically. We didn’t really know when we were doing the first season what going back to work was going to look like when the world finally started doing it, and what it was going to look like coming back to the office after working remotely. working for so long. This experience influenced the way we wrote season two. And then in the same way – all of these things are linked – this experience of returning to work changed the way people talked about work and talked about how much of ourselves we owe to our employer and what we should wait in return. It’s not a straight line, but I think these kinds of conversations have led to things like strikes and the reevaluation of what work should look like. So this made history. Season three deals with many of the issues we encountered in the real world while making the first season.

Season three or season two?

Sorry, I expressed myself incorrectly. Season two dealt with many of the issues encountered in real time in the first season. But when we think about continuing the series – if we are able to do it – we can’t help but think about things like strikes, and what it was like to be on a strike line, and what that it was to be fighting for a better situation. This can’t help but affect our thinking as we continue to think about the series.

Lumon’s response to the group’s termination of severance resonates so much with the same corporate jargon we hear all the time in our universe. Did you have any sources?

Yes, we looked at how whistleblowers had been treated in the past by companies or, in some cases, governments. Anyone who speaks out against the misdeeds of a powerful entity often has a period where they fight you, and then there’s a period where they try to assimilate you, or co-opt your rebellion and make it part of the corporate story. Maybe it’s sometimes sincere to a certain extent, but it always struck me as a very specific type of manipulation. At the end of the day, a company like Lumon wants to be a good person, and there’s a sense that even this rebellion – she takes credit for it. They say, “We are grateful. We are grateful to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror. For me, it’s hard to take something like this at face value when we all know that what the company really wanted was for this behavior to never come to light.

What led to the decision to start with innies?

I had always wanted to play a little more with the format. I was interested, from the first season, in doing an entirely innie episode. I thought it was an interesting way to play with tension, especially starting with the innies because there’s so much we don’t know because the characters don’t know it. We don’t know how much time has passed. We don’t know why they all came back. There was just a lot of dramatic tension to create.

Do you have a question (or answer) that you’re most excited to share with audiences this season?

That’s a very good question. I think you’ll get a sense of the reality Gemma lives in, and a better sense of the experiences she’s had. We’ve only seen a very small part of it, and I think people will be excited to see what we have there.

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Breakup is now streaming the first episode of season two, with new episodes airing Fridays on Apple TV+.