Three years is a long time to wait … especially for all of us non-Severed people. I mean, fine, you can argue that the entirety of “Severance” season 1 probably should’ve dissuaded anyone of the notion that there’s any real “upside” to being an innie. Well, say what you want about those Lumon employees, but the ability to flip a switch and suddenly fast forward to the moment when season 2 finally arrives sure would’ve come in handy during this lengthy layoff, wouldn’t it? The Applet TV+ series was a casualty of the duel strikes that hit the film and television industries, but it’s now ready to put such unpleasantness behind it and kick viewers in the face with even more dark, dystopian, and downright bizarre office place shenanigans in its sophomore season.

Of course, all that downtime should’ve provided ample opportunity for the more forward-looking pencil-pushers among us to re-watch the debut season and refresh themselves on all the tiniest tidbits that stirred up so many fan-theories the first time around back in February 2022. For those who spent the intervening years not doing their homework? Apple will be providing a comprehensive recap of season 1 prior to the premiere of season 2 (which, for your convenience, I reviewed entirely without spoilers for /Film here). But even that doesn’t quite address all the nuance, world-building quirks, and dramatic plot turns that defined what truly was one of the most thrilling installments of any television series in recent memory.

That roller coaster story, following Mark S. (Adam Scott) and his Severed colleagues Helly R. (Britt Lower), Irving B. (John Turturro), and Dylan G. (Zach Cherry), culminated in a breathtaking cliffhanger that seemed to shake up the board for good. What led up to that momentous event and what do you most need to remember for when season 2 begins? Gather ’round for a little team-building exercise, because we’re going to dive deep into the finer details of “Severance” season 1. Praise Kier.

When it comes to preparing for season 2 of “Severance,” it’s probably best to start right with the basics.

The world-building approach of “Severance” is as imaginative as it is, well, weird. There’s the actual Severance procedure, obviously, which somehow splits memories based on geographic proximity to work into “innies” and “outies” — and which we’re told is completely irreversible (although poor Petey, the former Lumon employee played by Yul Vazquez who abruptly left the company early in season 1 and ultimately ended up dead, might be proof otherwise). Even beyond that, however, consider the Bizarro World of the Severed Floor that marches by the beat of its own drum, waffle parties and dance sessions and all. You have the entire department of Macrodata Refinement (MDR), where all we know is that employees like Mark S. and his friends are tasked with looking at endless blocks of encoded numbers, separating each one based on how “scary” they feel compared to harmless ones, and organizing them into digital bins for reasons unknown. Or take the sinister Break Room, a mind-breaking torture chamber run by Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) for anyone unfortunate enough to get caught breaking the rules. And how about Optics and Design (O&D), the other department run by kindly old Burt (Christopher Walken), whose existence hints at many other teams that have been sequestered from one another?

Looming large over all of this is the specter of the unseen and ever-silent Board, superior even to floor manager Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), and the menacing Eagan family dynasty (going back all the way to the 1800s) that’s responsible for this nightmare to begin with due to their fanatic, cult-like devotion to the founder and quasi-religious figure Kier Eagan. Now that we know that Helly R. is actually the innie of Helena Eagan, daughter of current Lumon CEO Jame Eagan (Michael Siberry), there’s no telling what’ll happen once (or if) the rest of our innie heroes find out the truth for themselves.

Once “Severance” dropped us into this idiosyncratic world, viewers were quick to ask one all-important question: Just what kind of a person would voluntarily sign up for horrific life on the Severed Floor that they’ll never be able to remember? As it turns out, only an extremely damaged one. When we first meet Mark Scout, he’s preparing to go to work in the morning by having a depressing sob session in his car. We eventually find out that his wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman) tragically passed away in a car accident two years prior, leaving Mark desperate enough to spare himself of the pain for eight hours a day — even if it means undergoing a procedure considered to be a politically, ethically, and morally controversial choice. By the finale, however, we find out along with Mark’s innie that his wife has actually been alive all this time, kept secret in Lumon as her innie self, known as Ms. Casey, works as a wellness counselor for the other employees … Mark S. included.

We don’t receive nearly the same level of insight into the interior lives of Mark’s coworkers when they’re off the clock, but it’s clear that each of their personal lives are all but bleeding into that of their innies. Irving B. experiences horrific hallucinations of oil drowning him at work, which we learn in the finale is a residual, subconscious holdover from his outie’s hobby of creating oil paintings that, disturbingly, reflect certain elements from the Severed Floor. More importantly, his wholesome romance with Burt finally awakens him to a life beyond work. When Dylan G. undergoes the “Overtime Contingency Protocol” in a later episode of season 1 (used by Mr. Milchick to awaken employees at home in an emergency), his inadvertent discovery that he has kids and an entire family of his own shakes him to his core. And as for Helly R., well, the knowledge that her outie is none other than the future inheritor of the company that’s currently oppressing them is sure to haunt her. Remember, she previously attempted to die by suicide when her outie refused to accept her resignation from Lumon. Now that we know why, there’s no telling what Helly (or Helena, for that matter) may do with this information.

Seriously, what is up with Mrs. Selvig? The season 1 premiere of “Severance” took great pains to establish Harmony Cobel as Mark’s chilling, almost sociopathic boss who has fully drank the Lumon Kool-Aid … until, in its final moments, it threw the twist at us that Cobel lives right next door to Mark’s outie under the alias of Mrs. Selvig. Was this evidence of the company going to every length to spy on its own employees, or was there something else going on? Undercover as Mark’s quirky old neighbor, Cobel obviously took an unhealthy amount of interest in him — but, bizarrely, she also legitimately seemed to care about his well-being. Yes, she’s a straight-up Kier fanatic who’s built a literal shrine in her basement and seems to have been born and raised into the Lumon cult from a very young age. She even uses her Selvig persona to worm her way into Mark’s family, posing as a nurse/lactation expert to help Mark’s sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and her flighty novelist husband Ricken (Michael Chernus). But what exactly is her endgame here?

Season 1 doesn’t fully resolve these questions, though we see Cobel progressively becoming more obsessed and ineffectual with every episode as the innies rebel against the system. Distracted by her personal investigation into former employee Petey and her suspicions that he somehow “reintegrated” his memories between his innie and outie personas before his death, Cobel seals her own fate. By the time Mark’s coworkers are spending their workdays wandering the halls of Lumon rather than actually refining their macrodata and Helly R. mounts her suicide attempt, Cobel has fully lost any semblance of control she once had. When the Board finds out that she’s neglected to report Helly’s near-death experience and that she’s been paying visits to Mark’s sister, she’s abruptly fired despite her decades of service to the Eagans.

Undeterred, she shows her loyalty once again when she realizes that the innies have made contact with the outside world in the finale and attempts to contain any damage they might cause. It remains to be seen what her fate will be in season 2, but it’d be wise to expect the unexpected when it comes to Cobel.

Forget those unexplained baby goats, that perfect replica of Kier Eagan’s house just parked at the center of the Perpetuity Wing, or even that unbearably creepy painting of O&D enacting a coup against the rest of the Severed Floor (which proved to be a red herring, another of Lumon’s attempts to keep the various departments suspicious of one another rather than uniting as one). The entirety of season 1 had been inexorably building to our innies finding the courage and inspiration — with a little assist by Ricken’s self-help book making its way onto the Severed Floor and subsequently blowing the minds of our heroes — to finally strike back at their employers.

At various points, each of them find their own motivating factor to “burn this place to the ground,” as Irving B. so memorably puts it. The forced retirement of Burt provides this turning point for Irving, while Dylan’s oh-so-brief glimpse of his other half’s life does the same for him. For Helly, the most outspoken activist against the blatant wrongs committed against them, their long-awaited plan and her burgeoning romance with Mark S. are the only things keeping her going … and, yes, the latter culminates with a passionate kiss just before they take the plunge with their boldest act against Lumon yet. When it comes to Mark, however, he receives a final push by his outie. While all this has been going down at Lumon, Mark Scout was contacted by his old friend Petey on the outside, came into contact with rogue ex-Lumon employee Reghabi (Karen Aldridge), who knows how to reintegrate the innies, and even stole a security key card that would allow his innie to access certain areas on the Severed Floor.

With everything in order, the innies strike back with their plan to activate the Overtime Contingency and blow the whistle on Lumon. While Dylan stays behind to keep his fingers on the switches before Mr. Milchick can shut him down, Irving sets off to find Burt’s outie, Mark discovers that his late wife is Ms. Casey and is actually alive, and Helly crashes her outie’s Lumon-sponsored gala by revealing the truth of what goes on inside. Fans will finally see how this cliffhanger gets resolved when “Severance” season 2 kicks off January 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.