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.

While “Severance” has a wonderfully creepy-compelling premise, it’s a concept better suited to a movie than a multi-episode TV series.

After more than two years between seasons, Severance returns with Season 2 on Jan. 17 on Apple TV+. Created by Dan Erickson, Severance follows a group of workers at Lumon Industries who have agreed to the "severance program," where your non-work memories are separated from your work memories, thus giving you an "innie" and "outie" life.

The employees can choose to undergo a “severance” procedure, which means that outside the walls of Lumon, they cannot remember their work day, and when they’re at work, they cannot remember their outside lives.