If, like us, you're still reeling from the cliffhanger ending of Severance's most recent series, you'll understand why the finale has been described as "harrowing" and likely be just as eager for the arrival of series 3 as we are. We need to know what happens next! The Apple TV+ series has been a hit with viewers, while critics gave it five star reviews.
Now, the show has officially been confirmed to return for a third series and, thankfully, we won't have as long a wait for the next episodes as we've had with previous series. Fans of the thriller from the beginning (series one launched in February 2022) will remember an agonising three-year wait for series two to drop (from 17th January this year), largely due to delays from the 2023 strikes by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America.
However, Ben Stiller, who directed the majority of the series, including the finale, revealed that the third season shouldn't face the same delays as the series before. “No, the plan is not to [wait three years],” Ben Stiller said on the New Heights podcast. “Hopefully we’ll be announcing what the plan is very soon.”
So, here's everything we know about Severance series 3 so far...
What is Severance about?
WARNING: SPOILERS
In case you haven't seen Severance before, it's a dystopian drama set in a company where employees have a chip implanted in their brain to separate their work and home consciousness. This leads to essentially two versions of each character, known as "innies" and "outies". Innies only know their day to day lives at work and know nothing of their outsides selves. Outies live their regular personal lives with no knowledge of what happens during the working day. It's a gripping and thought-provoking premise, raising countless moral dilemmas which viewers have been hotly debating and analysing.
We're hoping that series 3 will pick up exactly where the second series finale left off with that dramatic cliffhanger. As a brief summary of how we arrived at that moment; Mark, Helly, Irving and Dylan are all Lumon employees who have been 'severed'. In series one, they go to great lengths to override the chips in their brains (which cause the separation of their two lives), so they're able to experience their outie existence, if only briefly.
Through this, Mark discovers that the company's wellness director, Ms. Casey, is actually his outie self's wife Gemma, who has been trapped by Lumon. In series 2, he decides to rescue her from the sinister company and a complicated plot ensues, culminating in a dramatic showdown (featuring a goat called Emile, of course) as Gwendolyn Christie's character Lorne comes to the rescue.
Then, just when we thought Mark and Gemma were about to escape, the finale sees him sprint down the hall away from Gemma, hand-in-hand with fellow employee Helly. Gemma screams after Mark as alarms blare in the background and the episode ends on a freeze frame cliffhanger.
What will happen in Severance series 3?
Shortly after the gripping season 2 finale of the Apple TV+ show, Ben Stiller tweeted on X, "So some fans are asking for Season 3 of Severance. what do you say, @tim_cook?" tagging the CEO of Apple. Responding to Ben's tweet, Tim replied saying, "Season 3 of Severance is available upon request. - Tim C" and shared a teaser trailer, confirming the series will return.
After the dramatic ending to series two, we have a lot of questions for the new season. Firstly, what will Gemma do outside without Mark, and will there be consequences for Lumon now she's free? What's the future of the severed floor - of Mr Milchick, of Dylan? And will Gwendoline Christie be back for series 3 now that the purpose of all those goats has finally been revealed?
We don't know where exactly the new season will pick back up, for instance whether it will be directly from the moment the finale ends or whether some time will have passed since then. But, surely, after everything that has happened, things can't just go back to business as usual ?
Well, the same question could have been asked at the end of the first series, but in season two we found ourselves back down those never-ending corridors. Speaking about this pattern in Rolling Stone, the show's creator Dan Erickson said, "We like to blow up the formula at the end of each season and see if we could bring it back."
When asked about what might be in store for the next season he said, “I don’t want to speak too much about what season three would look like. But I will say that we wanted to do something that blew up the world even more than in the first season. It’s a really valid question that people will be asking: ‘Can the show continue in the format that we’ve been seeing, or is it going to need to transform into something else?'” We'll have to wait and see!
Who's in the Severance cast?
We're hoping to see our favourite characters return for the third series and, perhaps, have an interesting new addition or two. While the full lineup for series 3 hasn't yet been revealed, stars of the cast so far include:
- Adam Scott - Mark
- Britt Lower - Helly
- Dichen Lachman - Ms Casey / Gemma
- Tramell Tillman - Mr Milchick
- Zach Cherry - Dylan
- John Turtorro - Irving
- Christopher Walken - Burt Goodman
- Patricia Arquette - Harmony Cobel
- Gwendoline Christie - Lorne
- Jen Tullock - Devon
- Michael Chernus - Ricken
- Sarah Bock - Miss Huang
- Ólafur Darri Ólafsson - Mr Drummond
- Marc Geller - Kier
Where can I watch Severance?
Series one and two of Severance are available to watch now on Apple TV+. The release date for series 3 has yet to be announced, although the series is confirmed to be in the works.
