Oh Apple, you cheeky buggers. Yes, smack-dab during the middle of the Apple Event that launched the iPhone 14, you will see one of Severance's own innies. Except this time it looks like she's an outie.
And if it wasn't too subtle the first time, Apple had Britt Lower (who plays Helly in its buzzy show Severance) make a second appearance that was much less subtle at the end of the event. Here's her first appearance, which occurs at the 47-minute mark in the Apple event video (which we've embedded further below). Here, she's walking onto the subway car, while the yellow-clad Mary-Ann Rau (Apple's senior engineer for AirPods Firmware) exits.
Lower's first appearance, we'd argue, may have been seen as little more than a neat trick for eagle-eyed viewers. You're not going to have the world of Severance intertwine with an Apple product announcement
Oh, and what was the product? If that matters to you, Lower appeared during a segment highlighting the new AirPods Pro 2, for their active noise canceling. Watch the whole video to learn more if you want.
But, then, after Tim Cook said he was excited by the day's events and wanted to see what we'd do with the company's new iPhone 14 line and its Apple Watch Series 8 (revealed alongside its new SE model and all-new Apple Watch Ultra), we got an unusual one more thing: Helly's aforementioned second appearance.
As we hear chimes that are synonymous with Apple's Severance played again, we see a clip of Lower (seemingly as Helly) waiting to enter the train. This, we want to believe, is a sign of something coming in Severance season 2.
What this could mean for Severance season 2
Of course, beware spoilers for Succession season 1!
Yes, the above may all just be little nods to fans. But that last moment, particularly because of the chime, felt like something different.
As you may remember, Severance season 1's finale let us meet Helly's 'outie' for the first time. This all happened because of the group's work to activate the overtime contingency protocols, thus waking Mark (Adam Scott), Irving (Christopher Walken) and Helly's outies.
Then, Helly woke at a Lumon industry gala, where we learn that she is in fact Helena Eagan. And we learned that Helly won't stay as Helena, because her decision to undergo the mind-altering 'severance' treatment is a major PR stunt for Lumon.
Even though Helly/Helena tries to tell the public about the abuse and mistreatment of innies, Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) tackles her and stops that. Shortly thereafter, Milchick (Tramell Tillman) tackles Dylan and stops the overtime contingency from working.
So, based on all that, and the fact that we don't think such a subway train as seen above is in Lumon Industries' headquarters, we wonder if Helly makes an escape again soon. This may be the least likely possibility, since she's the most publicly known of the three, so her presence on a subway train would be a huge risk.
We hope to learn more soon. Showrunner Ben Stiller has made it seem like Severance is most likely to return in 2024, as Rolling Stone's question about a 2023 return got a non-committal answer of "Possibly, possibly, yeah."
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