Apple TV+ show Severance has reached over three billion streaming minutes since season two launched this year.
The new episodes have been on air for the last five weeks, and new figures from Nielsen confirm the programme is proving to be a massive hit.
The most watched week came from February 10 to 16 when episode five dropped, with 681million minutes streamed.
The week of January 20, when episode two launched, is the only other one to clear the 600m mark, with 662m, while the other weeks have hovered in the 500m minutes range.
Meanwhile Nielsen noted that 60% of the watch time has been people tuning into season two, with 40% for the first season, showing people are still discovering the sci-fi thriller.
Ben Stiller’s series has been met with huge critical acclaim, and fans have praised the dystopian workplace drama, which cost $200,000,000 (£159.9million) to make or $20m (£15m) per episode, according to Bloomberg.
The series focuses on a group of colleagues at Lumon Industries who have undergone ‘severance’, meaning their brains are split between their work self and their selves who is at home.
The second season of the show has been met with high praise, but a new nugget of information about the season’s final episode has startled and confused fans.
Dexerto reported that the Australian Government has given the finale -season two, episode 10 – an MA 15+ rating.
The Australian Classification Board has given this rating because of ‘strong violence and blood and gore’.
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For context, every other episode of Severance has been rated M for Mature in Australia.
The only exception to this is season two, episode 8, which earned an MA 15+ for ‘strong drug use’.
Additionally, the episode is the longest in the Apple series, with a run time set at 76 minutes.
The episodes are typically around 45-55 minutes long, meaning fans are in for a much longer episode to cap off the season.
Fans who saw the classification on Reddit were excited by the news and had some theories about what the rating could be indicating.
Redlancer_1987 commented: ‘With strong violence and gore. Somebody not making out of the season alive…’
‘I have a sad feeling the blood and gore is related to either miscarriage or childbirth in the cold harbor room,’ said PuddingCat.
‘Can’t believe this finale is going to be bloody and brutal! So curious!,’ starsdonttakesides commented.
Stiller has reached out to none other than Barack Obama to appear in the series as the voice of the Lumon Industries building – a character who appeared in an animated sequence on the show.
The role was thankfully filled by another great actor as none other than action star Keanu Reeves voiced the role.
On Jimmy Kimmel Live, he said: ‘There was one person that I asked before [Keanu Reeves], and he said no: President Barack Obama.’
He recalled that the email read: ‘Hey Ben, big fan of the show, love Season 1, can’t wait for Season 2. Don’t think I have time in my schedule to make this happen.’
Severance is available to stream on Apple TV Plus with new episodes released on Fridays.
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