[This story contains major spoilers from Severance season one.]

Severancereturns to Apple TV+ this week, after nearly three years away from the screen. Dont remember what happened in Dan Erickson and Ben Stillers riveting drama that combines the mysterious intrigue ofLostwith the corporate nonsense ofThe Office? Well, you should really do something about that! If you dont have time to rewatch season one (which youre strongly recommended to do before hitting play on season two), we got you covered. Heres all you need to remember beforeSeverancecomes back online. Severancefocuses on Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a widower who copes with his grief by completely shutting it down for an entire nine-to-five work day. Hes severed, which means, a chip in his brain blocks Mark from accessing his memories at work. He clocks in, then clocks out, as if nothing happened at all. Except, somethingdidhappen: Mark S. took over. Thats the name of Mark Scouts innie, the term the mysterious Lumon Industries uses to describe the severed employee while theyre at work.

When the series begins, Mark S. is the newly minted manager of Lumons Microdata Refinement department, responsible for mysterious and important work that so far makes little to no sense to the characters, let alone to the viewers. Mark and his colleagues (including John Turturros Irving, Zach Cherrys Dylan and Britt Lower as Helly, the latest member of their team) spend their work days staring at computer screens, identifying numbers that make them feel scared and submitting them into boxes. Why are they doing this? Its a central question leavingSeveranceseason one, with no clear answer promised in season two.

If Lumon sounds really shady as a business, thats becauseLumon is really shady. In fact, the entire world ofSeveranceis a little off. The story takes place in the unidentified state of PE, in Lumons small corporate town known as Kier, which takes its name from Kier Egan, the companys much ballyhooed founder who died long ago but is immortalized in the Severed floor of LumonsPerpetuity Wing, a veritable wax museum featuring all of the most important Egan relatives and oh, they also sometimes host waffle parties here, and by waffle parties I mean orgy-adjacent dance parties with a side order of a waffle. Got all that? Cool, me neither!

Theres the mysterious OD department, Optics and Design, headed by Christopher Walkens Burt, who may or may not have presided over the disembowelment of an earlier MDR team. Theres the dude who feeds and raises goats, for reasons entirely unknown. Theres the Wellness Center, headed up by Dichen Lachmans Ms. Casey, a vacant and almost zombified woman who is vacant and zombified because shes supposed to be dead? Turns out,Ms. Casey is Gemma, Mark Scouts wife, who allegedly died in a car accident some years ago, yet somehow lives in the depths of Lumon. If all the various ways Lumon treats its employees wasnt enough of a red flag, the fact that they have a hold on Marks dead-but-not-dead wife should be a positively bloody flag.

Tramell Tillman, Zach Cherry, John Turturro, Britt Lower and Adam Scott in Severance season one. Everett Over the course of the season, the innies become increasingly skeptical of Lumon, to the point of outright revolution. The core four refiners stage a daring escape using the Overtime Contingency, a protocol that allows Lumon to wake up innies outside of work in case of emergency.We learn about its existence when middle-management Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman) activates Innie Dylan at Outie Dylans house, allowing Innie Dylan to learn he has a son in the outside world. Normally a dedicated employee, Dylan furiously rebels, biting Milchiks arm during a music dance experience (youve seen the GIFs), and telling his workmates about what he saw. Everyone agrees: Lumon sucks and the Innies deserve a chance at a bigger life just like the Outies, so thats what theyre going to go out and grab.

In the final episodes of the season, the operation commences. Dylan holds down the fort at Lumon, running the OTC while Mark, Helly and Irving visit the outside world. Mark and Helly share a kiss before things go down, and Irving hopes for some love of his own, as he plans to seek out his office crush Burt. Helly, meanwhile, contends with the startling revelation that shes an Egan, which means her Outie is likely responsible for her Innies suffering in a more hands-on capacity than she couldve ever imagined. Then theres Mark, who wakes up at a book-release party for his brother-in-law, Ricken Lazlo Hale (Michael Chernus). Marks shocked to wake up face-to-face with his boss, Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who very much shouldnt be here at all, but is at the party because shes been spending the last however long pretending to be a woman named Ms. Selvig, who just so happens to live next door to Mark, because well, stalker much?

During the party, Ms. Cobel figures out that Marks innie is online, and she desperately races back to Lumon to shut the refiners excursion down. With any luck, perhaps, she might get hired back by Lumon, having been fired from the company just an episode earlier for her weird fixation on Mark and her equally mysterious fixation with reintegration, a theory positing severed employees can merge their two selves. (As an aside: early in the season, Mark Scout learns all about this from Petey, an old colleague he doesnt know at all; Petey claims Lumon is evil, that hes undergone reintegration, but ends up dying a few short days later. As a legacy, Peteys arrival in Marks life has led Mark to question Lumons practices, even seeing some of their shady dealings up close and personal including but not limited to murder via baseball bat to the brain. Just normal office things.)

Whether Cobel gets her job back or not, we dont know. What wedoknow is shes able to get word to Milchik, who manages to shut down the OTC, but only after defeating the ridiculously strong muscle man known as Dylan G. The season closes with Irving outside of Burts home, pounding on the door; Helly at a gala for the Egans, where she shocks the audience by decrying severance; and Mark with a photograph of his outies wife Gemma in hand, recognizing her as his colleague Ms. Casey, and bellowing two chilling words: Shes alive!

And scene. Thats it. Nearly three years after one of the most aggressive cliffhangers in recent televised memory,Severanceis about to flip the switch again, finally answering the fates of Mark, Helly, Dylan, Irving and the rest. Old mysteries will get solved, and new ones will arrive on the scene, with a small army of internet sleuths at the ready to solve them all. So get comfortable, folks. For the next 10 weeks, we have a lot of microdata to refine.

Severance season two releases with two episodes on Friday. The 10-episode second season drops new episodes weekly, Fridays on Apple TV+.