Apple TV+'s thriller returns with more sci-fi creepiness, nuanced social commentary and black humor. And perks like fruit leather.

The Apple TV+ workplace drama deepens the lore, explores the Innie-Outie conundrum, and fully establishes itself as the series to beat right now.

Taking the idea of work-life balance to extremes, the sardonic and surrealist thriller “Severance” on Apple TV+ envisions a dystopian corporate world in which employees of a company called Lumon Industries have a chip implanted in their brains that severs their memory in two.

Fortunately, “Severance” returns to Apple TV+ on Friday, and its makers seem to have used every second of the absence productively. The season takes new turns while remaining the most ambitious, batty and all-out pleasurable show on TV, an M.C. Escher maze whose plot convolutions never get in the way of its voice, heart and sense of humor.

Apple TV’s Severance is back at Lumon Industries after a three-year wait and a thrilling Season One finale. The second season of the workplace sci-fi series, which stars Adam Scott, Britt Lower, and Patricia Arquette,