This post contains spoilers for "The Break Up" Season 2 Episode 1, "Hello, Mrs. Kobel."

In the opening minutes of Season 2 "The Farewell." at the premiere, Mark S. (Adam Scott) walks into Lumon Industries' macro data refining office and practically grinds to a halt: His co-workers have been replaced by three new faces. "Who are you people?" Mark asks, mirroring the audience's confusion at seeing Bob Balaban, Alia Shawkat and Stefano Caranante instead of Britt Lauer, Zach Cherry and John Turturro. As we quickly learn, these new people apparently came from a different MDR department at another branch, seemingly giving us an insight into just how expansive Lumon's operations really are.

Apparently, Mark is not thrilled with this new development. He tries to frame Balaban's character, ends up communicating with the mysterious board and angers Milczyk before finally, about 20 minutes into the episode, he is reunited with Haley R., Dylan G. and Irving B. finally the show starts to feel like its old self again as the audience settles back into slightly familiar territory and Mark fills them Mrs. Casey's big twist since the end of season 1. It's a fascinating story decision for the writers to make, given the fact that viewers have been away from this series for nearly three years.

In a recent interview, I had the chance to speak with Severance creator/showrunner Dan Erickson about his approach to structuring this premiere episode in this way, putting Mark S. and the audience in an unexpected scenario and let us feel the change of the country. a little under our feet. Here's how Erickson explained the decision:

"On a kind of fun mischievous level, we wanted people to wonder, 'Oh my God, is this the new cast of the show?' Will this be a show for these characters? And we wanted to create characters where, on some level, you're okay with that, because these are really fun (the actors are Bob Balaban and Alia and Stefano, and they all play off each other so well and they're foils). for Mark in a way we've never seen before."