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.

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.

Severance Season 2 premieres Jan. 17 on Apple TV+, with a new episode every week. Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness.

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

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.

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.

Three years after its home-run debut, which layered mysteries upon mysteries so that even answers begat further tantalizing questions, Severance finally returns for its sophomore run. (Well, it will shortly;