The Severance New York pop-up is an awesome tie-in to the Season 2 plot
When Apple TV+ dropped a glass-walled cabin in New York’s Grand Central Terminal on January 14, it seemed like a standard promotional stunt, in this case for season 2 of its hit workplace sci-fi drama, Severance.
Then three of the stars of the series appeared, in character. Instead of posing for selfies or signing autographs, they walked into their glass-walled office at Lumon Industries and performed all the mundane tasks of a typical workday.
They sat at their computer terminals, sorting cryptic numbers that “didn’t look right” into various digital piles. Mark Scout (Adam Scott) tidied up their space using a carpet sweeper. Helly Riggs (Britt Lower) stood over his shoulder to solve a tricky problem. Dylan George (Zach Cherry) was both strangely focused and goofball, as usual.
Lumon’s management team – Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette) and Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) also made appearances at the pop-up.
But what they were actually doing was filming another Severance trailer – and it’s deeply meta.
Think inside the box.#Breakup Season 2 — Premieres Friday on Apple TV+ pic.twitter.com/5hdSFMy7hv
– Apple TV (@AppleTV) January 16, 2025
Like the series, this activation was both familiar and deeply strange – and it ingeniously fits into the premise of the show’s second season.
For those just joining us, Severance offers a world in which a company called Lumon offers workers the ability to separate their personal lives from their professional lives. The character work spent much of Season 1 planning how to escape Lumon and discovering what their personal lives were like. Spoiler alert: they succeeded, with very mixed results.
In the first trailer for Season 2, it’s revealed that their escapade turned their non-workers into celebrities. While this comes as a surprise to the characters, it explains why the notoriously jaded New York commuters were cheering and taking pictures of them. The phrase “bringing a story to life” has become literal.
Find out what happens next when Severance Season 2 premieres on January 17.
