[S2E01] It's crazy how much Lumon appears to be struggling.

In Season 1, we get a lot of clues that severance isn't as popular as Lumon would like. Things like everything on the severed floor being like twice as big as it needs to be, all the empty offices, and how there seem to be only three managers for the entire floor. One episode into the new season, and they've turned all of that up to 11.

They've had plenty of time since the Macrodat Uprising to make sure everything is perfect, maybe not 5 months like they said but it's clearly been a while. And who are the new employees they've hired? They transfered in 3 rejects from a different MDR, an MDR that never once hit quota. One's well past normal retirement age, another barely speaks english, the third is mostly fine from the short glance we get at her but she seems to be the sort of annoying chatterbox who distracts people while they're working. They had to promote Milkshake to Cobel's position, and replaced the only other manager position with a child, which is weird enough even the innies point it out. We still have no idea what's going on with Graner's position.

These aren't a part of the grand illusion they're selling Mark S on. Even if they had a reason to fake it, an innie wouldn't have the same reaction as us. There's also things he's never shown, like how Milkshake's home screen still hasn't been changed, and the family visiting center that hasn't even started construction.

When Mark S makes a lot of trouble, that would normally get an employee fired, they decide instead to pull all the stops out to suck the collective MDR dick. The animated intro scene is incredibly light on actual changes, instead spending the entire runtime just complimenting the Macrodats. Helena Egan even agreed to go undercover, do all the boring work herself since her innie couldn't be trusted, to make sure the rest of the MDR team gets back to work.

These are not the actions of a trillion-dollar company who got some bad press. Lumon is desperate to keep up an air of normality to the innies so they won't rebel again, because they can't afford to replace them. Like the great Dr Ricken Hale said in his hit book "The You You Are": Their job needs them, not the other way around.