‘Pieces’: 5 burning questions for what’s to come in Season 2

As fans of the sci-fi thriller on Apple TV to cutwe’ve been holding our collective breath for nearly three years since Season 1’s exhilarating finale. Our patience will soon be rewarded on Friday, January 17, when Season 2 returns with the first of 10 new weekly episodes culminating in the season finale on March 21.

On the clearing of Lumon Industries, employees of the Macrodata Refinery team deal with brain chips that have permanently disconnected their working personalities from the rest of their lives. Severance season 1 It featured exciting twists and turns, delicious watermelon bars, a crazy musical dance experience, a very revealing waffle party and a parade of questions.

CNET spoke with series star Adam Scott, director and executive producer Ben Stiller, and series creator and showrunner Dan Erickson via Zoom during the show’s official press day. Our conversation gave us more information about what might happen next for the MDR crew. Below, we’ve rounded up five of the most pressing questions for season two.

It may be counterintuitive, however Stop reading now If you haven’t watched Severance season 1. Major spoilers are below.
Read more: Apple TV Plus review: Small library but top-notch quality

Why did the Macrodata Refinery team decide to part ways?

We know that Mark (Scott) chose to break up because he was grieving the loss of his wife, and Hailey (Brett Lauer) joined because of her familial connection to Lomon, but what about Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry)?

We’ve seen very little of Dylan’s life, but we do know that he lives with his three children, and they seem to have a good relationship. Irving is obsessed with the elevator leading to the test floor and lives a solitary life with a dog named Radar.

When Severance was first introduced, audiences were wondering what it would take to have their brains cut out if such technology actually existed. What kind of trauma or toxic living situation might motivate such a choice?

Each character certainly has their own heartbreaking story behind their decision to break up, and we’ll almost certainly get answers to that question in Season 2.

Is Gemma really alive?

One of the biggest reveals of Season 1 came at the end of Episode 7, Defiant Jazz, when we learn that Ms. Casey — Lumon’s health director — looks exactly like Outie Mark’s wife Gemma (Dichen Lachman), who everyone sees on the outside. The world believes he died in a car accident.

How the hell did Lomon pull that off? Was dead Gemma a fake or a doppelgänger? Does Lomon practice human cloning?

Cast members debunked this latest theory in the aforementioned YouTube video, but it’s clear that Ms. Casey (who only survived 108 hours) is very different from the other severed workers.

One fan theory suggests that Gemma is in a coma from a car accident and that her inner self can only wake up occasionally. But she shows no physical signs of a serious accident.

The real truth about Gemma/Mrs. Casey seems to be one of the biggest writing challenges on the show. This mystery will certainly be addressed in Season 2. According to Scott, it’s a plot point that feeds into his character’s story this season and sparks a conflict between Mark’s psyches.

“He feels like he has to help his partner and somehow get Gemma out the door,” the actor said. “But is this where his romances and love interests are? What’s really interesting about Innie and Outie Mark this season is how closely their interests align. At what point will they come together or drift further apart?”

Why is Harmony Coble obsessed with Lomon Industries?

As the manager of Le Mon’s cut-off floor, Harmony Coppel (Patricia Arquette) takes her job very seriously. It is cult-like in its devotion to Lumon’s founder, Keir Egan, and his nine core principles. The basement of her home includes a shrine to Kier and personal artifacts from her mother, Charlotte.

The chemistry is uninterrupted, as are Seth Melchik (Trammell Tillman) and Doug Graner. However, unlike the two, she maintains a separate persona in the outside world – Mark’s neighbor, “Mrs. Selvig”, who makes awful lavender cakes and constantly messes up Mark’s recycling and trash bins.

One of the running themes of the show’s first season is Harmony’s conflict with Lumon’s board of directors over “reintegration,” the controversial practice of fusing workers’ personalities back together after a brain chip is removed. The Board insists that the reintegration is impossible, while Harmony has direct proof that Betty Kilmer accomplished it (before she killed him).

After keeping Haley’s suicide attempt a secret, the council fires Harmony, who responds by trashing her basement and collapsing out of depression in her shrine, which we now see holding a ventilation tube and a medical bracelet labeled “Charlotte Coppell” with a birth date. Dated March 17, 1944.

Harmony and Mrs. Selvig wear clothes that cover their necks, which is unprecedented. Could Harmony be Charlotte, who has scars from a tracheotomy or other neck surgery? Does she have a personal investment in reintegration?

Coble is a really interesting character. There must be a lot more to her story. We have some unconventional questions we’ve been thinking about: Does Harmony hold a historical grudge and play the long game to get revenge on her mother or sister? Could Lomon be experimenting with life extension techniques? And is Harmony talking so strangely because she’s actually the reincarnation of Keir Egan’s wife, Imogen?!

We could go on, but you get the point. The questions surrounding Harmony Cobel abound, and we’ll almost certainly learn a lot more about her backstory in Season 2.

Why would Irving paint this lobby and elevator?

When we see Outie Irving, we learn that he loves listening to Motorhead and he repeatedly charts the elevator down to the Lumon proving ground. Dominated by thick black, these paintings fill Outie Irving’s home and explain why Innie Irving’s nails were filled with dark dirt.

But what does Ennie Irving have to do with that abandoned lobby and elevator? Did he go to the exam hall or did he lose someone in it? We never saw him in that elevator area in Lomon. In fact, the only person we see using this elevator is Mrs. Casey.

One fan theory claims that Irving has visited the testing room and been “reset” by LeMon several times, which may explain why he has been there for three years, but his badge says nine years.

Irving’s John Turturro personally “debunked” this theory in a dossier Promotional video for the series Severance. Maybe Irving’s trauma from the testing room seeped into his outward personality. Or is Otte Irving trying to send a message via unconscious to Enie Irving?

How much of a sociopath is Helena Egan anyway?

As her storyline in Season 1 made clear, Hailey wanted nothing to do with Lomon. In fact, she threatened to harm herself to escape. Things didn’t go her way. In one of the most brutal scenes of the first season, Outie Helly sends a video message to Innie Helly saying: “I’m a person. You’re not. I make the decisions.”

During the season finale, we discover that Outie Helly is Helena Egan, the daughter of the current CEO of Lumon Industries, Jimmy Egan, and has undergone dismissal as a public relations campaign to ensure the practice of dismissal remains legal. During a Zoom chat with Erickson, there was a quip that Outie Helly may have drunk too much Lumon Kool-Aid.

“Innes feel closer to each character’s true, authentic version of self, in part because they wake up as a little blank slate,” Erickson said. “In a way,[Hailey]represents a more honest version of that person than her outward personality might represent.”

Instead of focusing solely on things inside Lumon, which is how Season 1 was mostly done, it looks like Severance Season 2 will expand its scope and explore the homes and personal lives of MDR outies.

As for the insiders, they will face a collective identity crisis.

“How divided they are is also a question,” Ben Stiller said. “To what extent does this barrier of separation divide their emotions, their feelings, their desires? When you see someone who is much more innocent than the outside person, the idea for me is sometimes of your childhood self, your inner child.”

If you consider that our MDR heroes operate with a childish mindset, their journey may seem even more dangerous. According to Erikson, everything will become darker and more terrifying.

Now that the interior sees a piece of the outside world, what kind of repercussions are on the horizon? “There is no victory without setback and without pain,” Erickson joked.

“We wanted to see what would happen to the characters once they poked the bear,” he added. “What happens when a bear retreats?”