‘Severance’ Season 2: Every Theory, Conspiracy, and Secret Unpacked

Severance is finally back after a nearly three-year wait, and with it, three years of a pent-up desire for feverish theorizing.

The Apple TV+ sci-fi thriller follows a group of employees who’ve surgically separated their professional selves from their personal ones—the concept of work-life balance taken to the extreme—only to discover that nothing good can come from not knowing what they’ve been up to all day at the shady corporation that’s hired them.

For a show that’s mostly set inside a dull office space, Severance is anything but boring; each suspense-driven episode features suspicious workers increasingly hellbent on having their questions answered. These range from the obvious and more pressing: What does our company even do? to the more existential: Who even are we?

Of course there are some answers this season. It would be cruel for there to not be, especially after that stunner of a Season 1 cliffhanger. But, as always, there’s also a whole lot more secrecy and speculation. Here’s every Severance Season 2 theory we have, updated with each new episode:

It’s Helena Eagan, not Helly R. on the severed floor

“A night gardener?”

Three words are all it takes to plant a seed out of doubt in macrodata refiner Irving B.’s (John Turturro) mind and, by extension, ours. Helly R.’s (Britt Lower) feeble fable of what she saw out there in the real world doesn’t hold up under scrutiny at all, prompting the first of this season’s major conspiracy theories: It’s not Helly who’s returned to the Macrodata Refinement department like the rest of her severed counterparts, but her outie, Helena Eagan.

Lumon Industries still doesn’t know who Irving and Mark S. (Adam Scott) managed to contact when they were topside, or what they were able to spill about the company. What better way to find out than sending Helena in to spy on the rest of the team?

The evidence: ‘Helly’ points out the absence of workplace security cameras and microphones to her colleagues twice, possibly as a ploy to get them to let their guard down and let her in on their secrets. It also makes sense why Lumon wouldn’t need these cameras and mics anymore—Helly’s their mole now.

When Irving walks off later in Episode 1, too overwhelmed by what he’s seen to talk about it, Helly does seem awfully keen on keeping the group together, and possibly finding out. On the other hand, it’s equally plausible that she’s just too horrified to admit that she’s the daughter of Lumon’s current CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry).

On discovering her outie’s true identity in the Season 1 finale, Helly’s spontaneous recitation of the Lumon Compunction Statement, forcibly drilled into her over and over at work, was finally genuine. Her “forgive me for the harm I have caused this world” plea was a tragic admission; she was pained by all the pain she’d inadvertently put her work friends through. Being honest about who she really is now could cause her to lose them. And then what does she have?

When the others ask her what she saw on the outside, however, ‘Helly’ speaks of a “really f---ing boring apartment,” a description an heiress accustomed to wealth might employ. Even her remark about owning a “Save the Gorillas” t-shirt suggests the derision of a rich person—look at these plebes and their bleeding-heart causes! But for Helly, so desperate to escape her prison all throughout Season 1, even a lame apartment would feel like a luxury. A nature documentary wouldn’t be boring, as she puts it; it would fascinate someone who, until now, had never even seen the sun.

She’s also angered when Mark suggests that innies and outies are essentially the same person. “Speaking for myself, I don’t think we owe them s---,” she says. This could be Helly defiantly distancing herself from the outie version of her, her own worst enemy, but these could also be the words of Helena, someone who once told her innie that she wasn’t a person at all.

‘Helly’ is also oddly subdued when Mark tells her of his plan to stay at Lumon and find its missing Wellness Director Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), an unexpected reaction from the Season 1 spitfire who would’ve leapt at any chance of corporate rebellion. This, though, can be explained away by her having feelings for Mark, and being anxious about him potentially developing feelings for Ms. Casey.

Towards the end of Episode 1, however, there’s a closeup of her hand fumbling for her computer’s power button. Surely after having been subject to the fixed routines of this corporate hellscape day after day, Helly’s muscle memory should’ve kicked in? She should’ve got it on the first try.

The clincher: The file on Helly’s monitor in one of Episode 1’s final shots is called Santa Maria. That’s the fictional town where Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is set—you know, the movie in which aliens replace people with emotionless doppelgangers? Case closed.

Theory status: So far unconfirmed

The macrodata refiners are eliminating human emotion

Since the beginning, the big question looming over the Macrodata Refinement department has been: What exactly are they refining? On the face of it, they’re just sorting digital sets of numbers into five boxes. But this must mean something, right? It must be important, or else it wouldn’t mandate a level of secrecy that requires employees to undergo the severance procedure.

In Season 1, Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) has his own theory: The Earth has become uninhabitable and so they’re cleaning up the oceans for human resettlement. The end of Season 2, Episode 1, however, makes it clear that their task is far less altruistic.

As Mark begins sorting his numbers, the episode cuts to another screen depicting Ms. Casey, who was revealed last season to be Mark’s wife Gemma, or at least a dead ringer for her. The catch: Gemma died in a car accident years ago, Mark’s grief at her loss compelling him to join Lumon in the first place. Are the macrodata refiners refining people? Rather, are they refining severance chips to reduce and eventually eliminate human emotion? It’s plausible—what would appeal to corporate instincts more than soulless corporate drones?

The evidence: One of Lumon founder Kier Egan’s cult-like teachings is that the “Four Tempers”—the emotions of Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice—must be tamed.

Ms. Casey, initially stiff and robotic in Season 1, is immediately sent down to Lumon’s “testing floor” when she begins displaying signs of emotion. Her file says ‘ITNO: 25.0 (BUILD)’, which could mean that this is the 25th time she’s been refined. Each of the five corresponding boxes in her file display amounts of ‘WO’ (woe), ‘DR’ (dread), ‘FC’ (frolic’ and ‘MA’ (malice).

Is Mark now going through her brain and cataloguing her feelings so that they can be erased? Are all the refiners working on other people, or even their loved ones? This would explain why seemingly random clusters of numbers elicit real emotion in them. It would also explain the Season 1 reveal that Mark had finished his first-ever file at record speed: he’s breezing through feelings he’s intimately familiar with. There are five boxes though, and four tempers, and one possibility is that the fifth box is for ‘neutral’ feelings that can be retained.

This theory only prompts more questions: Did Gemma really die in the accident? Is Ms. Casey her clone? Is Gemma in a coma, with her consciousness uploaded to a new body?

Theory status: So far unconfirmed

Lumon is trying to bring people back to life, or at least preserve their consciousness

This theory is admittedly thin on evidence (so far!), but it’s one that’s incredibly compelling.

One of the additions to Lumon’s crew this season is Deputy Manager Ms. Huang (Sarah Bock). Only she’s a child. What is a child doing on the firm’s severed floor? Why is Lumon employing children in the first place?

Ms. Huang mentions that she used to be a crossing guard, prompting speculation that she was hit by a car, fell into a coma, and was then revived as a full-time innie, much like Ms. Casey. And much like Ms. Casey, she has no way of ever leaving. No one would put it past a predatory firm like Lumon to exploit child labor, and this feels like the nifty loophole they’ve found. If Lumon has developed the tech to bring back two people already, what’s to say they aren’t trying to fine-tune it to eventually resurrect Kier, worshipped with fanatical devotion?

The evidence: Jame telling Helena, “One day, you’ll sit with me at my revolving,” in Season 1. What is a revolving? Sounds a lot like he plans to have his mind uploaded into a new body. Ah, the rich and their obsession with trying to live forever.

Theory status: So far unconfirmed