After a three year sabbatical, the severed workers of Lumon Industries are returning for Season 2. Directed by Ben Stiller, the dystopian thriller premieres with two new episodes this Friday, Jan. 17 on Apple TV+.

While “Severance” has a wonderfully creepy-compelling premise, it’s a concept better suited to a movie than a multi-episode TV series.

Fortunately, “Severance” returns to Apple TV+ on Friday, and its makers seem to have used every second of the absence productively. The season takes new turns while remaining the most ambitious, batty and all-out pleasurable show on TV, an M.C. Escher maze whose plot convolutions never get in the way of its voice, heart and sense of humor.

Severance Season 2 will delve deeper into corporate culture and the concept of a work-life balance. The sophomore season of Dan Erickson’s thriller series, which centers around a surgical procedure that separates the work self from the off-hours self,

The acclaimed Apple TV+ series is making its long-awaited return. A second season was filmed over three years.

It’s been quite a while since we last saw Mark S. (Adam Scott), an employee at the mysterious company Lumon Industries, which uses a surgical procedure called “severance” to separate people’s home lives from their work lives. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger in April 2022, leaving viewers eager for the next chapter.

The sci-fi series was hailed as a dark, timely satire of office life—but its return is bogged down by abstract ethical conundrums and rote emotional ones.