With the new season of Severance now streaming on Apple TV+, fans are slowly getting answers to the tantalizing questions that were left unanswered during the 3 year wait after Season 1. The first two episodes of Season 2, “Goodbye Mrs. Selvig” and “Hello Ms. Cobel” provide us with the same plot, but from different perspectives. The first episode takes place in the basement of Lumon Industries where the severed employees are kept, while the second episode reveals the truth behind the lies the managers fed us during the premiere.
The episodes seem to work really well together and so we thought we could pay that off in the second episode,” said showrunner Dan Erickson as he shared his thoughts with The Hollywood Reporter. There was just a lot of dramatic tension to be built, and then we realized that he could pay that off in the second episode.
After episode two, Erickson stated, “There was just a lot of dramatic tension to be built upon, and thereafter, we could pay that off in the second episode.”
The plan has thus far worked for the show. From the information that was sent to Deadline, we learn that the first season of the show earned Apple $200 million, half of which was received in the 12 months after the end of the season finale.
“Every season there is a balance to achieve, you solve some issues, but that only opens the door to larger mysteries waiting to be discovered,” he said.
Parrot Analytics has much more insight on the incomings and outgoings of Apple’s shows. As it stands, however, there has been no comment made – on their end. Also, the estimate is that the second season of Severance cost around $200 million, so Apple will account for the cost before considering how much he profits. I understand that number is VERY high. But still, Severance made them a lot of money, so maybe they will make it somehow.
Also, it is important to remember that Apple does not disclose figures, which means the dollar value associated with ‘audience demand’ is very hard to gauge. As it seems, funding does happen, but it remains vague and often the highest estimates are well out of context. The low range estimates will put apples head over holes always because they only need to make less than $1:200 million to show profit.
When Adam’s Scott’s jokes about cocaine cross the line
In the very first scene of the second season of Severance, Mark S. (Adam Scott) has an almost out-of-body experience when he is seen running around the immaculate white hallways of Lumon. At the end of the world he is in, he has just gotten off work but it looks like he was at the outside world, the first thing he already knew he was in. He appears to be running hard all the time and it seems like he won’t be the only Scott Adam will be working with this season. During his latest appearance on Seth Meyers, Scott said, “I had a concussion at one point,” which he declined to specify how he got. “I got it. It happened.” This year, Mark is likely to perform a stunt or two.
Scott recounted, “A short while after, I developed this unending nosebleed, which aggravated me.” “It was disgusting and disheartening, but what can one expect from someone in the entertainment industry that suffers from unceasing nosebleeds? At some point, it’s natural to assume it’s cocaine. We know this.”
What Scott gets at is the fact that cocaine is a drug the public knows about. And so is the heavy usage of it in movies for comedic purposes. “And so, I was rather overcompensating making way too many cocaine jokes. For certain, by the closure of the day, everyone believed it was some sort of drug related issue.”
Scott had to be admitted in the ER for that issue, and executive producer Ben Stiller took a photo of the very uncomfortable procedure. The video is available above.
The same issues exist within the show which is why there tend to be a lot of loose ends to clear, one being what happened to Mark’s wife Gemma, whom he believed to be deceased. She did in fact show up on the dismembered floor as Ms Casey but one still does not know whether she remembers who she is or where she was headed to when she was walking inside the lengthy and dimly lit corridor at the end of season 1.
Erickson appears to have dropped a hint when he said, ‘You’re going to get a sense of the reality that Gemma has been living in, and more of a sense of the experiences that she has had.’ “There is just a glimpse of this we saw, and I think people will be really interested to see what we have.”