Landscaping in Severance, CO

The cast and crew of Severance are finally returning to the office after months of waiting for production to resume.

Executive producer, Ben Stiller, spread the news about the Apple TV+ series’ return in a quote tweet simply commenting, ‘back to work.” Cast member Adam Scott also teased the Severance season 2 production in a recent Instagram post, saying it’s “lovely being back at the office.”

The news comes after a long waiting period for SAG-AFTRAto reach a deal with AMPTP-owned studios. Now that Hollywood is in the clear, Severance season 2 is back on track. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming season!

Severance is a fictitious psychological thriller TV series that’s focused on a biotech company named Lumon Industries. In the show, Lumon Industries has popularized a procedure called ‘severance’ that separates their employees’ work selves from their personal lives. Essentially, when Lumon employees are at work, they can’t recall anything outside of work, and vice-versa when they aren’t at the office.

The first season of Severance follows Lumon Industries employee, Mark (portrayed by Adam Scott). Throughout the first season’s nine episodes, Mark and his coworkers begin to learn more about the severance procedure, their double-lives, and Lumon Industries’ true objectives – and it all begins to unravel in a mysterious way.

Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Tramell Tillman, Jen Tullock, Dichen Lachman, and Michael Chernus are all part of the main cast in Severance.

Deadline confirmed in 2022 that Gwendoline Christie, Bob Balaban, Merritt Wever, Alia Shawkat, Robby Benson, Stefano Carannante, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and John Noble are part of the Severance season 2 cast.

You can stream season 1 of Severance on Apple TV+. If you don’t already have a subscription to Apple TV+, you can try the platform 7 days free before subscribing for $9.99/month.

Severance season 2 is taking so long because production was halted in the wake of last year’s writers strike.

The cast and crew began filming season 2 on October 3, 2022, with production shutting down on May 8, 2023. Since SAG-AFTRA has struck a deal with AMPTP studios, it’s “back to work” on the Severance set per executive producer, Ben Stiller.

We don’t know much as far as how much progress has been made for Severance season 2, but we’ll keep you updated here once the release date has been announced. Let’s hope it comes soon!

Severance follows the horrors that come with working in an office, so yes, it’s creepy. Just kidding (sort of)!

The surreal tone of Severance definitely makes it creepy. There’s an ongoing feeling that someone – or something – is constantly keeping watch and wants to gain control. This tone, paired with the series’ clean, manicured (yet cold) visuals, chalks it up to be fairly disturbing.

The characters in the show become increasingly aware of this cryptic, surveillant presence, and the building tension definitely adds to the show’s creepiness. It’s also pretty existential, which is the creepiest feeling of them all.

Severance was not canceled. The production was put on pause due last May to 2023’s writers strikes, but it’s up and running now. We are enthused about the show’s eventual return!

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Images via Apple TV+.

Entertainment

Marissa Borges recalls a favorite memory of the big smiles and high energy when advancing to state with her school’s robotics team — a first for her and the team at Severance High.

After three years on the team, Borges looks forward to competing “close to home” for her last run at qualifying for state.

Across the state, 24 robotics teams will flock to Severance High School on Saturday for the final state qualifying competition before the Colorado championship on Feb. 17 at Regis University. The Severance team led by coach Jesiah Jeffers, with one team already qualified for state, will have another go at adding more teammates to the roster.

On the other side of Weld RE-4 School District’s boundaries, the veteran robotics team at Windsor High School has been competing in nearly every state competition since 2011, even making it to the world championship in 2012, according to Windsor coach Steve Cline.

Similar to Severance, two teams of Windsor robotics also progressed to the Colorado competition at a previous competition, but remaining members will take a final run at state on Saturday. At a January competition, one Windsor team won the field competition, and each member received a $30,000 scholarship to Regis University as part of being named the Inspire Award Winner.

Seventy-one Colorado robotics teams — half from public schools and the other half from private institutions — get the opportunity to qualify for state twice with six in-person qualifiers from December to February.

Borges enthusiastically awaits the competition on her home turf because she has been encouraging her family, friends and community members to attend, especially those in elementary and middle school. As a senior, she’s enjoyed introducing the world of robotics to younger students. And she hopes a competition at Severance High School can spark that interest for future high schoolers.

“What I am most excited about is, this is the first step into the STEM world that a lot of these kids will see,” she said.

Only 28 teams will compete at the Colorado championship, meaning the odds of advancing to the state tournament are less than 50%, Cline said.

Competitors can expect consistencies in the length of each round — two and a half minutes — and the size of the field — 12-by-12. The scoring objectives and the complex challenges that need to be solved, however, vary each year.

The robotics team starts prepping for competitions in September, meeting three to four times per week in the lab throughout February, according to Jeffers, the first and only coach of the Severance team.

Students build their own robots, program their own robots and compete with their own robots, he said. Students have a lot of freedom when designing their robots, with a few restrictions, such as not using illegal parts and keeping the robot within certain dimensions.

The competition is more than building a robot to solve a problem, according to Cline. Students must also demonstrate soft skills learned from being on the team, such as sharing their team’s journey and how they failed and succeeded when crafting their robot.

Robotics also provides experience running and managing a project and meeting deadlines — a one-of-a-kind high school experience.

“I think it’s genuinely one of the best things they can do in high school as far as preparation for something post-secondary,” Jeffers said.

Since students do all their own work, Jeffers views his coaching title as more of a “project manager” who helps students troubleshoot problems and points them in the right direction during the engineering process to ensure they are on track to compete.

Cline added new members can learn a lot from coaches. However, by the third year on the team, his goal is to “just roll the balls out on the court,” indicating there’s nothing left to teach the more experienced and self-directed students.

Unique groups of students

When Cline took over as coach, he and the former coach laid down future goals for the school’s team with the main objective of creating an equal opportunity for every student.

“We’re very proud, at Windsor, that we try to open it up to everybody,” Cline said. “We are not a private team where you have to live in the right neighborhood, you have to know the right parents or in some cases, have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to participate.”

Any student can join the two school’s robotics teams, even if they lack prior experience or have never taken any of the robotics curriculum. The overlap between robotics students and who joins the team at Windsor High School is pretty high, Cline added, but not every student is alike.

Both coaches love that their teams have an assortment of all levels of students.

Cline looks at the different paths robotics team alumni took after high school, such as studying engineering at a post-secondary institution, getting a two-year degree or certificate and jumping straight into a career.

Jeffers also believes his team is unique based on their wide range of skill levels such as math and programming. Some have never taken a robotics course with him, while others have taken all his robotics courses.

The differences among the students can create challenges in communicating and finding ways to work as a team, but it’s “a fun challenge to have,” he said.

Borges has appreciated working with a diverse team. Her time with the robotics team can be summarized with the motto, “If I am the smartest person in the room, I am probably in the wrong room.”

She’s happy her team has helped her grow, something she will strive to find in her next chapter at a university where she plans to study environmental engineering.

“I think that since I am on a very diverse team with students that have so many different skills and ideas, I am able to now understand that I work so much better with a team,” Borges said.

The robotics competition will take place from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday at Severance High School, 1200 Hidden Valley Parkway. The action will heat up at 12:30 p.m., and the championship rounds will begin around 3 p.m.

Unlike the employees of Severance’s Lumon Industries, the creative team behind the Apple TV+ drama have ostensibly not received a procedure siloing their work and personal lives. According to a new report from Puck, dislike between the series’ co-showrunners Dan Erickson and Mark Friedman, not to mention extensive script rewrites and episode costs in the $20 million range, have led to delays on season 2.

The initial report of behind-the-scenes unrest came from Puck’s Matthew Belloni, Severance’s second season has been “plagued for months by pricey problems, including scrapped scripts and the dreaded showrunners who don’t speak to each other.” Erickson is a first-time series creator who penned Severance’s pilot; Friedman, a veteran writer-producer with credits on AMC’s Dispatches From Elsewhere, Fox’s Wayward Pines, and more.

Puck reports that the pair “ended up hating each other” during filming for season 1. Friedman apparently wanted out ahead of season 2, but Severance executive producer and director Ben Stiller—who previously collaborated with Friedman on 2014’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb—reportedly coaxed him to stay after Stiller came up empty-handed in the search for a replacement.

On Friday, a source close to the production disputed the report, telling The A.V. Club that Severance’s second season remains on schedule without major changes in the budgets. The source also said that Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman, and House Of Cards creator Beau Willimon—who was recently tapped to assist the series on season 2 and beyond—have been working together without issue.

As Severance continues to work on a second season, there’s still no official timeline for when fans might get the next chapter of the story. Apple TV+ is already planning a third and fourth season for the series. Even with season 2 still unfinished, the streamer reportedly hopes to get a third season written ahead of a probable WGA strike.

[Update 4/28 4:38 PM ET]: Responding to a version of this report in The Daily Beast, Ben Stiller tweeted, “No one’s going to the break room. We’re on the same really slow schedule we’ve always been on. Same target air date we’ve always had. Love our fans and each other and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible.”

After a report claimed that behind-the-scenes issues were delaying Season 2 of Severance, executive producer Ben Stiller cleared the air on Twitter, saying the Apple TV+ series’ sophomore outing is on schedule with the “same target air date we’ve always had.”

Stiller’s tweet on Friday, April 28, came after Puck News’ Matthew Belloni reported (per The Daily Beast) that Season 2 was behind schedule because of script issues, increased production costs, and tension between co-showrunners Dan Erickson and Mark Friedman.

Belloni claimed Erickson, the creator of Severance and a first-time TV producer, and Friedman, a veteran TV writer, and producer, “ended up hating each other on the first season” and that Friedman even quit the show before Stiller roped him back in for Season 2.

Also involved in the production, according to the report, is House of Cards creator Beau Willimon, who’s helping plot the trajectory of Severance’s second and third season.

Citing a source close to the show, The Daily Beast reported on Friday that Season 2 is on schedule and that Erickson, Friedman, and Willimon “are working together without issue.”

Apple TV+

And when a Severance fan account tweeted The Daily Beast’s reporting, Stiller chimed in. He didn’t dispute the reports of tension between Erickson and Friedman, per se, but he did deny that the Season 2 production was behind schedule.

“No one’s going to the break room,” he tweeted, referencing the in-show punishment for Lumon Industries’ Macrodata Refinement employees. “We’re on the same really slow schedule we’ve always been on. Same target air date we’ve always had. Love our fans and each other, and we all are just working to make the show as good as possible.”

Related

Severance, which racked up 14 Emmy Award nominations and two wins for its first season, stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, and Christopher Walken as Lumon Industries drones whose work lives are severed from their personal lives, with Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman playing their supervisors.

For Season 2, Gwendoline Christie, John Noble, Alia Shawkat, Merritt Wever, Bob Balaban, Robby Benson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, and Stefano Carannante have joined the cast.

“We are thrilled and delighted to be back on set for the exciting second chapter of Severance,” Stiller said in a statement last fall when Season 2 began filming. “Though we don’t know how long we’ve been gone or who we are outside, we are told people enjoy the show, and we couldn’t be happier. Praise Kier!”

TAMPA, Fla. - A Lakeland man accused in the January 6th Capitol riots, along with four co-defendants, has been granted a rare separation from the others in his case.

Joshua Doolin has been charged with two misdemeanors: trespassing and disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds. His alleged coconspirators – Michael Perkins, Joseph Hutchinson, Olivia Polluck, and Jonathan Polluck, who remains a fugitive – face charges of assaulting law enforcement.

MORE: Prosecutors believe four Lakeland defendants could be helping accused Capitol Riot fugitive

Doolin claimed he would not get a fair trial if he was grouped with the others and D.C. District Judge Carl Nichols agreed.

Defense attorney Bjorn Brunvand, who is not connected to this case, also agreed.

"It makes perfect sense, what the judge did in allowing severance in that particular case," explained Brunvand.

In court documents filed in February, Doolin said he believed a jury would convict him on evidence linked to the others.

Previous: Accused Capitol rioter wants to cut ties with Lakeland group before heading to trial

Federal prosecutors said accused Capitol rioter Joshua Doolin wants to cut ties with his co-defendants. There were four others in a Lakeland group accused of being at the Capitol riot, and one is still on the run.

"He's charged with two misdemeanors, basically trespassing and being disorderly on the Capitol grounds. The others are charged with assaulting law enforcement, so the concern is if there is testimony about the others assaulting law enforcement, that will spill over on his case and therefore won't get a fair trial," Brunvand explained.

Earlier this year, Doolin's attorney announced his client was ready for trial and now will go at it alone.

"It’s rare that cases are severed in the federal system but his appears to be a case where it was absolutely appropriate and I would have asked for the same thing," explained Brunvand.

Doolin's trial is set for Septembe12, 2022. His codefendants are scheduled for trial in January 2023.