Loving two people at the same time is complicated. It becomes twisted when the two people you love are each loved by two separate parts of your very being. In a recent Vanity Fair interview, Severance’s executive producer and director Ben Stiller assures us that the second season will explore how an Innie and an Outie can love two different people, and what happens when they do.
At the end of Severance’s first season, Mark’s Innie, which only exists within the cubicle confines of mysteriously nefarious company Lumon, reaches the outer world and discovers his Outie has a wife. While Outie Mark (Adam Scott) was under the impression that his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) was dead, Innie Mark knows she’s alive after seeing her photo because Gemma is the silently tortured Ms. Casey, the Wellness Counselor from the Severed building, who appeared in previous episodes. The only problem is, Innie Mark had already begun an office romance with Innie Helly (Britt Lower). Stiller says the second season will unravel the tangled web of this interdimensional love affair.
“Is Outie Mark going to find out that Innie Mark knows? And how is Outie Mark going to deal with that? At the same time, I think we’ve sort of developed a relationship with Innie Mark and Helly on the inside that feels like it’s going somewhere. So there’s a natural tension that’s growing there between Outie Mark’s interests and Innie Mark’s interests.”
In the world of Severance, hugs have to pre-approved by higher ups and communicating with yourself (well, your Innie sending messages to your Outie) can be met with strict punishments. So, an Innie uncovering a insidious connection between the outside and inside worlds will undoubtedly have some unsavory consequences in a season where series creator Dan Erickson says “things get darker.” The Innies gained enlightenment of their existence. But, at what cost?
“The information that has come out into the world that Mark’s wife is alive—if that is actually something that people believe and follow up on, it would have ramifications, obviously, for Lumon going forward,” Stiller explains. “And if Lumon somehow gets exposed, what would happen to the lives of all these Innies who, basically, only exist in Lumon?”
Stiller will probably propose more questions for us to consider on his and Scott’s Severance podcast when it premieres on January 7, ten days before the show itself returns on the 17th.