This Apple TV+ series just got even weirder: NPR

To understand the second season of Resignationit’s worth remembering an important point from the first: when the characters undergo a procedure that “cuts” their memories so that they can only remember what happens at work when they’re in the office, it essentially creates two consciousnesses – two different people – living in the same body.

This means, for one of them, that their only reality is a brightly lit, sparsely furnished office with cubicles, where they perform meaningless tasks in a windowless room for eight hours each day – separated from the other employees who work there mysterious Lumon Industries on a special floor for “cut off”.

The longer disconnected people spend in their jobs, the more different the person inside the office, known as an “innie”—becomes from their “outie” or the person outside. And it all happens inside Lumon, a place with a cult-like internal culture that reveres its founder, Kier Eagan, as an almost divine figure.

If this all sounds like mind-boggling complexity, you’ve found out why Resignation originated as an eccentrically surreal, immersive puzzle box of a series when it first debuted on Apple TV+ three years ago.

Now, during the time when some series debut and are gone, Resignation is back with a second installment more gloriously weird and deftly assembled than the original season.

Make the most of fan anticipation

This time, the show’s producers — including executive producer/director Ben Stiller — knew fans would be waiting for their work. And they’ve made the most of that anticipation and made a second installment that expands on the mysteries hinted at in the first season.

(Pro tip: I highly recommend watching at least the last episode from the previous season before diving into the new episodes. Here is a great detailed summary. Also Stiller and star Adam Scott have a podcast which can help you catch up.)

And here’s a summary provided by Apple TV+:

Last season, three of the “innies” found a way to briefly retain their memories outside the office by sneaking into the outside world. Adam Scott’s character, Mark Scout, realized that a woman he knew as a manager in the office was also the wife of his “outie” and believed to be dead.

Another “innie”, Helly Riggs, played by Britt Lower, realized that her “outie” was the daughter of the company’s CEO and a descendant of Kier Eagan. Just as she told the attendees at a company event where desperate “innies” feel inside Lumon, their consciousness was shifted back to their outer selves and the episode ended.

This season starts some time after that moment. Mark learns that he and his three rebellious associates are world famous – his superior gives him a newspaper report that looks like a CIA readout, with every other sentence blacked out as some kind of evidence – and Lumon has instituted reforms to make the “innies” life better.

But the questions remain. Is Mark’s wife still alive and inside Lumon somewhere? Why is Helly, whose outgoing personality helps run the company, such a rebel in the office?

What is Lumon really trying to achieve with the severance program? Why does the new assistant manager help run Mark’s department like a little girl? And why does the company have a room with white walls and a sod floor, filled with grazing goats, overseen by a character played by Game of Thrones alum Gwendoline Christie?

Like I said: gloriously weird.

Leans into absurdity and visual style

Resignation tells its story with a bold, absurdist flair, fueled by stark visuals developed by Stiller. One moment Mark is hurtling through an endless series of white, featureless corridors trying to find the rest of his team, with a slick jazz score adding to the tension – the next he’s stuck in a team-building exercise with his new supervisor, where a second employee asks “Why are you a child?”

Her response – “Because of the time I was born” – epitomizes the dry humor and relentless commitment to the bizarre premise that animates the entire series.

I’m not sure they really explained how “innies” know English and have a modern vocabulary, but they can’t remember what heaven looks like or if they have families outside.

But if you can appropriately suspend disbelief, Resignation‘s strange storytelling keeps the characters – and viewers – off balance, deepening the mysteries at the show’s core.

The series also brilliantly satirizes all the things we hate about corporate culture: heartless managers with ruthless methods; thankless, often harmful tasks required of middle management; and meaningless corporate jobs that everyone thinks they excel at—even when they have no idea what they’re actually doing.

In the end, ResignationThe second season cleverly refines its story of people working in a corporate office that often feels like a prison, steeped in devastating secrets and hidden agendas, where being fired is analogous to an execution and freedom feels like a vague fantasy .

Can’t imagine why this series resonates with so many fans in this day and age.