Thoughts on Season 2’s Behind-the-Scenes Drama and Story Choices

There were reports before Season 2 came out that there was some drama behind the scenes. Apparently, the two show creators had disagreements about how the second half of the season would play out, and they ended up bringing in a third person (Beau Willimon) to help flesh out the rest of the season and shape the arc for Season 3. Along the way, there were also several scrapped scripts and rewrites. Some of this is expected and normal, but it’s interesting to consider how it may have affected what we got.

To me, this makes a lot of sense. The first half of Season 2 felt like a natural continuation of Season 1. But somewhere along the way, things shifted. For me, this was around episodes 5-6 after the ORTBO. The first thing that stood out was how in episode 5, one of the big plot points was Mark developing trust issues—he wasn’t sure if Helly was herself or if she was still Helena. But then, in episode 6, that entire plotline was just dropped. It felt like we were missing a scene because suddenly Mark trusted Helly again with no real explanation. I was willing to let that slide as a minor issue, but it definitely felt off.

That said, Severance on a bad day is still better than 99% of shows right now. But the second half of the season does feel somewhat disconnected, like there were three different visions for how it should play out, and they all had to compromise. Some plotlines are given a ton of time to develop naturally, some plot points though do feel dragged out, but other plot points feel rushed or undercooked. It’s just a pacing issue really, not the story itself, which has always been amazing, and why I keep coming back.

My hope is that this pacing issue compromise was necessary to get them through to Season 3 and was just an unfortunate byproduct of them having to rework the second half of the season. According to reports, part of the issues they faced in S2 were related to how it connects into S3. Ben Stiller has also confirmed on the podcast that they do know how the entire story will end, but some of the specific plot points leading up to that ending are still TBD. In other interviews, he mentioned that part of the reason Season 2 took so long was that they had to make some key decisions about the overall story, but that going forward, things should be smoother because there’s now less to figure out. Reading between the lines, it seems like after Season 1 ended, there were some disagreements about how Seasons 2 and 3 should unfold, but with Beau now involved, maybe they have a clearer picture.

We’ll see how the S2 finale plays out. Hopefully, it makes some of the season’s odd choices click in retrospect and I will be able to forgive some of the pacing issues of this season. One of the best things about Season 1 was how everything came together when looking at the bigger picture. Fingers crossed we get that same kind of payoff.