The second season of Apple TV+’s “Severance” concluded recently much like it started — with a harrowing sprint. And for innie Mark, it also ended with a crisis of conscience that led him to make a critical choice in the face of an uncertain future.

Barring the ability to flood the brain with mind-warping flashbacks, here’s a reminder of where the season picked up: Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry) — the “severed” employees who’ve had a chip implanted in their brains that separates their work and personal lives, known as innies and outies — went to great lengths to have their chips overridden so they could briefly experience life as their outies.

Season 2 opened back at Lumon, the eerie biotechnology company that pioneered the controversial “severance” procedure, with innie Mark racing through the stark white hallways in search of Ms. Casey (Dichen Lachman), the wellness director at the company, after discovering that she is actually Gemma, outie Mark’s wife. It set in motion a season where the characters tried to understand why their outies chose to be severed.

The final moments of Season 2 were a nerve- racking bookend to that initial search.

Innie Mark decides to move forward with the plan to rescue Gemma — schemed up by outie Mark with help from his sister Devon (Jen Tullock) and Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette), his scorned former boss. It requires him to complete the Cold Harbor file, the final step of Lumon’s shrouded ploy to create multiple innies of Gemma. Once the file is complete, innie Mark transitions into his outie after an elevator takes him beyond the severed floor, and launches on the quest to rescue Ms. Casey/Gemma before Lumon is finished with her. But in order for them to escape, Mark has to return to the severed floor, where his innie leads Ms. Casey/Gemma to the doors to the hallway. And instead of joining her on the other side, he walks back toward Helly, who is watching in the distance, as Gemma screams for Mark. Locking hands, Helly and Mark sprint down the hall toward the unknown as alarms blare, with the episode closing out on a freeze frame of their run as a red painted image.

“That image, to me, was always there in my head of Mark in the hallway, looking between Gemma and Helly,” says executive producer Ben Stiller, who directed more than half of the series, including the Season 2 finale. “The setup of Helly and Mark’s relationship during the season, then, in Episode 7, the important (flashback) episode that Jessica (Lee Gagné) directed, was so important in creating this backstory for people to experience and to really have stakes in Gemma, more than just an idea of her. That really set up the stakes of this last moment where innie Mark has to make this choice.”

Creator Dan Erickson said the team briefly considered choosing an earlier end point and having a shorter season because of delays compounded by the dual industry strikes, “but we quickly just realized that we felt this was the end of the season. It was what everything was building toward.”

Scott, Lower and Lachman spoke on a video call, and Erickson and Stiller in separate calls. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: Tell me your first reaction to seeing that innie Mark went back with Helly in the end.

Scott: That was thought of always as the end point for the season — is the big choice in the hallway — and it was a matter of figuring out how to get there. There was a general sense of the direction, but as far as the specific puzzle pieces to put into place, that was really figured out after. It just seemed like the logical place to go with innie Mark and outie Mark on this collision course all season. It starts out with their interests aligning and pretty soon their interests start to diverge. But as far as ending the season before he makes a choice, I’m so glad we didn’t end up doing that. I think that the season ends in the exact right place.

Q: There’s that tender scene where Mark S. is back at the computer, on the cusp of finishing Cold Harbor, and Helly is trying to be supportive about moving forward with outie Mark’s plan. It’s a goodbye of sorts. What discussions did you have together about that moment?

Stiller: “It’s a Wonderful Life” — it’s one of my favorite movies. There’s that moment of that phone call where Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart are together, and they’re listening to her ex-boyfriend, they’re together, side by side, and you could just feel the energy between them. For some reason, that image was in my head when I was thinking about the two of them as they’re finishing the file; where they’re focused on the screen, and they don’t know who’s watching them or what, so they can’t really embrace. But I felt like that closeness, that energy, was something that made sense in that moment.

Lower: They’re putting their faces close to the phone, but they’re really just trying to listen to each other breathe. This is their (Helly R. and Mark S.) last moment to listen to each other closely.

Scott: I remember sitting down, and we were really connected, and it just took its own shape as we were doing it. It was certainly a heartbreaking scene.

Lower: We’re in MDR. It was one of the first times we filmed with the lights low. Typically, it’s this very fluorescent light. So the mood was already shifted by the lighting design and just feeling how many scenes we had done in that space — it felt like time traveling. Even Helly referring to the first conversation they had, which is him asking her to name a state that she remembers. She’s referring back to that moment, and she’s also (thinking) this might be the end of her life. It was a really emotional day. Ben was coming over and getting choked up in between takes.

Q: Is there a world where there’s a happy ending for everyone?

Erickson: It’s hard and it’s complicated because with the innie and outie dynamic, it’s sort of a zero-sum game, where however much life one of them has, that means the other has less. Reintegration has been raised as a possibility. But there’s also the question of to what degree does that decimate the identity of each? Who would this new person be and how much would they resemble the innie or the outie? I’m an optimist. I do think that there’s room for a happy ending, but it sure is complicated.

Q: It’s interesting to see the massive culture of forecasting and analyzing around “Severance.” What’s it like to be part of something like that?

Scott: I think it’s incredible. I think it’s so cool that people are taking the time to comb through episodes, not only looking for clues, but they’re not missing anything. They are watching the show. I talked to my dad yesterday, and he said he watches it with my stepmom, and then he watches it on his computer so he’s right up close to it so he can look for clues. I was a huge “Lost” fan and huge “Twilight Zone” person, so I totally get it. I don’t really dive into all the theories and stuff on this, but I have seen some on Instagram, which is usually video of a podcast where they’re really diving into one theory or the other. Also, all of the artwork that people are making, it’s overwhelming and incredible. Whenever I see one on Instagram, I save every single one. To be a part of something that is having this particular reaction is incredible —

Lachman: Because it’s inspiring people to be creative themselves. I don’t know how many opportunities you get to do that — being a part of something where it just spawns this whole culture of creativity.