Severance Season 2 is one of the first highly-anticipated TV premieres of 2025 – but also one of the most bittersweet. It’s been three years since Season 1 premiered on Apple TV+, which might as well be an eternity in the modern TV/streaming marketplace and culture. As such, the deeper developments and subplots of Severance have likely been forgotten by many viewers. Here are 10 quick FAQs about the deeper lore and reveals of Severance Season 1 you need to remember before Season 2 arrives and starts to build on them.

Obviously, SPOILERS FOLLOW!

10 Things to Remember About Severance Before Season 2

10. There’s A Cure For Severance (Sort Of…)

Dr. Regabhi (Karen Aldridge) was a former Lumon Industries scientist who worked on the severance process. She eventually became opposed to the process and left Lumon; however, she had secretly developed a process called “reintegration” and used it on Mark Scout’s (Adam Scott) work friend Peter “Petey” Kilmer (Yul Vazquez) to re-merge the two halves of his personality. The process isn’t perfected: the strain of reintegration eventually led Petey to experience a painful and ultimately fatal cognitive decline. In the show’s premiere episode, Mark was promoted to take Petey’s place as department chief of the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) division.

9. Dr. Reghabi Killed Doug Graner

It speaks to the unique nature of a show like Severance that a murder is only a minor detail in the seasonal storyline. Dr. Regabhi eventually reached out to Mark through Petey’s phone (S1E6) and set up a meeting at her new college lab. Lumon’s severed floor head security officer Doug Graner (Michael Cumpsty) followed Mark to the meeting, where he was taken out by Regabhi (S1E7). She was last seen working to get rid of Graner’s body.

8. Bert Had to Go

One of Severance Season 1’s best character arcs saw MDR team member Irving Bailiff (John Turturro) spark a workplace romance with severed Optics and Design division head Burt Goodman (Christopher Walken). When Irving and Burt’s growing intimacy got noticed, the latter was retired from Lumon. Season 1 ended with Irving’s “Innie” finally making it out of work and finding Burt, only to discover his new flame is already happily married. It’s uncertain if Burt’s storyline will continue from there, or if Irving’s storyline gets refocused.

[WATCH: First 8 Minutes of Severance Season 2]

7. Dylan is FATHER

Dylan G. (Zach Cherry) got the least bit of solo character focus in Season 1, but what we did learn about him hit hard. The competitive and diligent Dylan was revealed to be a loving father of three. Expect to see that story arc expand in Season 2.

6. Rogue Harmony

Lumon’s severed floor manager Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) kept the reigns by controlling everyone’s perspective. However, Harmony’s fixation on Mark (both at work and outside, posing as his neighbor Mrs. Selvig) ultimately cost her her job. If that wasn’t enough, Mark managed to get word to his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) that Harmony and Selvig were the same person during his “innie’s” escape from Lumon. Harmony now has a big target on her back, as someone whose secret is out, and knows too much.

5. Senator & The Severed Wife

Two recurring characters in Severance Season 1 were Senator Angelo Arteta (Ethan Flower) and his wife Gabby (Nora Dale). Senator Arteta was getting funding from Lumon, and subsequently backed political policies that favored severance. Devon befriended Gabby and learned that she had been severed so that she would not remember the pains of pregnancy and childbirth with her third baby. Though they only had a minor presence in Season 1, the Artetas represent some pivotal elements of the larger storyline that will probably come into greater focus – as hinted by their appearance in the finale, where Gabby introduced “Helena” to her husband Angelo.

4. The Face of Lumon

Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) is the “Board Liasion” for the severed floor of Lumon – in other words, she’s the main PR spokesperson for the program, as well as the mouthpiece for Lumon’s shadowy board. Natalie appeared sporadically throughout Season 1 in TV talk show clips and in person. Now that we know Helly is really the mastermind of a mission to prove severance to the world, it stands to reason that she’ll be needing more of Natalie’s help, soon.

3. The Terror of the Testing Floor

Irving B. has one main hobby on the outside: painting. However, Irving B. is revealed to have a dark fixation with his artwork: painting and re-painting the testing floor at Lumon as a dark, nightmarish hallway of doom. Getting to the bottom of why this image is so important to Irving seems like it should be on the Season 2 agenda.

2. Gemma Is Being Tested

One of the biggest reveals of Severance Season 1 was that Mark’s wife Gemma Scout (Dichen Lachman) was not only still alive but had been right in front of Mark’s (and our) face the entire time!

Gemma had been severed into the full-time identity of “Ms. Casey,” Lumon’s Wellness Counselor. In one pivotal scene late in the season, Harmony Cobel puts Mark and Gemma in a wellness session together, hoping to expose Mark as possibly being reintegrated like Petey. When Mark and Gemma don’t remember each other, Harmony has Ms. Casey sent down to the dreaded Testing Floor. Why Gemma is part of Lumon’s full-time severed division is a big mystery (against her will, or….?), as is the question of what’s happening on that Testing Floor.

1. “Overtime” Isn’t the Only Contingency Option

The “Overtime Contingency” was an option the MDR team discovered and activated, which allowed their severed work personas to be activated in the outside world. However, Overtime Contingency wasn’t the only option on the list the team discovered at Lumon – maybe in Season 2 we’ll find out more about what those brainchips can really do.

Severance Season 2 premieres on Apple TV+ on January 17th.