“Severance” creator has seen all your 'kooky' theories, but says no one has guessed it 'totally right'

Don't worry, answers are coming this season: "There will be some reveals for sure," showrunner Dan Erickson tells "Entertainment Weekly."

Apple TV+ Britt Lower and Adam Scott in 'Severance' season 2

Apple TV+

Britt Lower and Adam Scott in 'Severance' season 2

The Severance boss has a progress report for all your fan theories: Satisfactory, but needs improvement.

Creator/writer/executive producer Dan Erickson tells Entertainment Weekly that he loves seeing everyone's wild theories about what his Apple TV+ workplace thriller means and all its mysteries, but says that, so far, no one has gotten it 100 percent correct.

"I love all of them and some of them are kooky, but the show is kooky, so it makes sense," he says. "I would not say that I've seen anybody get it totally right. We are trying to lay down the seeds of where it's ultimately going, and I do think that people notice that. 'They said this in episode 2, and so I bet that's going to pay off in this way,' and sometimes that lines up a little bit with what we're doing. But I don't think that I've seen anything where I'm like, 'Oh God, they got it. Time to leave the country and change my name.'"

Apple TV+ Zach Cherry and John Turturro in 'Severance'

Apple TV+

Zach Cherry and John Turturro in 'Severance'

Related: Severance cast debunks popular fan theories: 'You are very far off and wrong'

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The showrunner admits that he loves reading Reddit, but he has to "police" himself of how much time he spends reading Severance theories on that site. "I would just do that all the time and spend my whole life looking at people's theories and seeing people's fan art," Erickson adds with a laugh. "And I do, up until the point that it starts to get me in my head. I'll see a theory and I'll be like, 'That's such a good idea, I wish that we were doing that,' but at the end of the day, we know what we're doing and the job is just to continue in that story."

Severance returns for season 2 on Friday after a three-year hiatus left fans with the intense cliffhanger of Innie Mark (Adam Scott) realizing that Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman) is actually Gemma, Outie Mark's presumed-dead wife. He ran to yell to his sister Devon (Jen Tullock), "She's alive!" right as Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tackled Dylan (Zach Cherry) at Lumon, resetting the Overtime Contingency. While the premiere dives right in to the immediate aftermath of that moment, the way the series explores that reveal — and how that information will be handled by different characters — will surprise you.

"It was funny when we got into writing these first few episodes — we talked about a lot of crazy storytelling devices that we could use," Erickson says. "And ultimately, what we thought was the most interesting was let's just watch it play out for both Innie and Outie Mark. We've just really changed the dynamic and we've upended the game, so we wanted to just follow what would be the immediate consequence of what just happened. And we just kind of wrote it the way that we thought it would play out."

There are a lot of questions about pretty much everything that happens on this show, from what Lumon does as a corporation to who each of the employees are outside of the office (and don't get us started on those goats and "scary" numbers!). Thankfully, Erickson promises that answers are coming this season — but expect those answers to raise even more questions. "There will be some reveals for sure, and I always thought that was important," he says. "People deserve some answers, but at the same time, you can take the magic out of something by answering it too quickly or explaining it too completely. And so we were trying to hit that balance... It takes a lot of work, but I'm very happy with what we came up with for season 2."

Apple TV+ Britt Lower in 'Severance'

Apple TV+

Britt Lower in 'Severance'

Related: Severance review: Season 2 is more than worth the wait

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The showrunner isn't ready to spill specifics on what mysteries will be cleared up this season, but he teases that fans will learn more about what Lumon is up to. "We do get to explore other parts of the severed floor that were glimpsed in season 1," Erickson says. "And I think people are going to be excited to see more of that and start to get a sense of the bigger tapestry of what's going on on that floor."

While viewers have no idea what anything means yet, the showrunner promises he's had a plan for everything since the beginning. "Most of the big stuff has been planned out," Erickson says. "I think it's certainly possible to under-plan and find yourself written into a corner. I do think it's also possible to over-plan and be so beholden to what you thought the show was that you're not open to what it is becoming. The big questions, they've mostly stayed the same."

However, Erickson adds that "there are some things that have shifted" throughout the making of seasons 1 and 2. "It's always because we find something that we're more excited about and are like, 'Wait, this is actually even cooler, so now we're going to try to pivot the plan that way,'" he says. "But I wanted to be sure, even when we were first bringing the show to Apple, that I had in my back pocket where I saw it going in the end."

He can't reveal most of what's changed from his original plan during development and filming due to spoilers (of course), but he says that Milchick's role has definitely expanded. "I didn't necessarily expect to fall in love with Milchick as much as I did until his words started coming out of Tramell Tillman's mouth," Erickson says. "All of a sudden we had this character that was unlike anything any of us had seen. In my initial concept of the show, I knew I wanted that character to do something special, but he was written as just Cobel's [Patricia Arquette] second-in-command and it was exciting to watch him develop — we were still writing season 1 as we were shooting the first episodes, so I got to adapt that character a bit and increase his role because we were just so excited about what Tramell was doing."

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That comes into play in season 2 in a big way as Milchick oversees the Macrodata Refinement department in the wake of them implementing the Overtime Contingency and releasing their Innies into their Outies' worlds. Erickson describes the new dynamic in the office with Mark, Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro), and Dylan as teenagers rebelling against their parents.

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"Season 1 was about trying to connect with who you are — I mean that on a literal sense, they are trying to figure out who their Outies are and what their lives are outside of Lumon," he explains. "This season deals with the repercussions of that. How is the company going to respond to you taking that stand? Knowing Lumon, we all know that they're going to see that as a challenge to them and their authority."

The showrunner adds that the MDR Innies were like infants in season 1, and they'll continue to grow and mature this season. "It becomes about finding more nuance in who you are and what's important to you," Erickson says. "That's the personal journey that the Innies are on. At the same time, them as a group are learning to come together and experimenting with how much power they have, and it feels like teenagers starting to push the boundaries with their parents and then, of course, the repercussions of that and what happens to them."

Severance season 2 premieres Friday, Jan. 17, on Apple TV+.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly