Really, what season 2 proves is that Severance wasn’t a great show because it was such a surprise — it was just a great show. And at least in the first half of season 2, its quest to expand its scope hasn’t dulled any of its sharp, strange edges.

Three years is an absurd amount of time to wait for a new season of TV. That’s triply true when the TV show in question is Severance, a series whose near-flawless first season left us on the steepest and sharpest of cliffhangers.

The characters on “Severance” — at least, the “innie” versions of them — don’t experience time like the rest of us. Innies exist only on a subterranean floor in the headquarters of Lumon Industries, a company that splits some employees’ consciousness into a work self and a not-work self.

Lumon employees grapple with newfound information about their alter egos in Apple TV+’s striking, superlative series

Adam Scott stars in the Ben Stiller-produced series about employees of a corporation who've undergone a procedure to separate their work memories from the rest of their lives.

Severance season 2 premieres Friday, January 17 on Apple TV+. New episodes debut on Fridays, culminating with the finale on March 21.

Now, the lauded Apple TV+ drama from creator Dan Erickson returns with a briskly paced sophomore season that refines its many themes into a timely, rewarding, and challenging debate about the power and parameters of personhood.

Season 2 of Severance is premiering years after the first one, so let’s begin this review with a reminder of what the Emmy-winning sci-fi dramedy is about: Set in an alternate universe lush with retro technology,