This post contains spoilers for “Severance” season 2, episode 1, “Hello, Ms. Cobel.”

In the opening minutes of the “Severance” season 2 premiere, Mark S. (Adam Scott) walks into Lumon Industries’ Macrodata Refinement office and practically skids to a halt: His co-worker friends have been replaced by three new faces. “Who are you people?” Mark asks, mirroring the audience’s confusion at seeing Bob Balaban, Alia Shawkat, and Stefano Carannante instead of Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, and John Turturro. As we quickly learn, these new folks apparently came from a different MDR department at another branch, seemingly giving us a glimpse into how expansive Lumon’s operations truly are.

Obviously, Mark’s not thrilled about this new development. He tries to frame Balaban’s character, ends up communicating with the mysterious Board, and angering Milchick before, finally, about 20 minutes into the episode, he reunites with Helly R., Dylan G., and Irving B. at last and the show begins to feel like its old self again as the audience settles back into somewhat familiar territory and Mark fills them in on the big Ms. Casey twist from the end of season 1. It’s a fascinating story decision for the writers to make, given the fact that viewers have been away from this series for nearly three years.

In a recent interview, I had the chance to speak with “Severance” creator/showrunner Dan Erickson about his approach to structuring this premiere episode in this way, dropping Mark S. and the audience into an unexpected scenario and letting us feel the ground shift beneath our feet a little. Here’s how Erickson explained the decision:

“On just a kind of fun mischievous level, we wanted people to wonder, ‘Oh God, is this the new cast of the show? Is this going to be a show about these characters?’ And we wanted to create characters where, on a level, you would be okay with that, because these are really fun [actors]. It’s Bob Balaban and Alia and Stefano, and they all play so well off each other and they’re foils for Mark in a way that we haven’t seen before.”