Nearly three years after one of the most aggressive cliffhangers in recent memory, the mysterious Apple series is about to flip the switch again and finally answer the fates of the core characters.

It’s been quite a while since we last saw Mark S. (Adam Scott), an employee at the mysterious company Lumon Industries, which uses a surgical procedure called “severance” to separate people’s home lives from their work lives. Season 1 ended on a cliffhanger in April 2022, leaving viewers eager for the next chapter.

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.