If last week's episode of Severance looked a bit familiar to some Canadians, that's because it was filmed in the Bonavista Peninsula, located on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland
Bonavista was standing in for a town called Salt Neck, the hometown of Lumon's Harmony Cobel (played by Patricia Arquette). In the show, Salt Neck is a company town that has fallen on hard times since the closure of Lumon's ether factory.
"The thing about the terrain in Newfoundland is it's rugged and beautiful, but it's not the scale — it is not like somewhere like Iceland or Greenland or something like that, where it's gigantic mountains," episode director Ben Stiller said in the latest episode of The Severance Podcast [via CBC]. "It's a little bit smaller, but it's still as beautiful in its own way."
Stiller wanted the location to appear to be northeast of Kier, the main town in which Severance is set. Cinematographer Jessica Lee Gagné apparently suggested Newfoundland, having worked on Fogo Island in the past.
Actor Adam Scott said, "It has a vastness to it."
Arquette added, "It's so difficult to get to, and so difficult to live there, that it's very locked in its own time. And it had this sort of difficult terrain to survive in."
Bonavista's Bicycle Picnics Café was made over as the show's Drippy Pot Café. TV crews were reportedly in town for a month, and, since it was filmed in May, they had to ship in snow.
Read our review of Severance's second season here. The show still has two more episodes to go in Season 2, which will wrap up later this month.