Severance // Review #19

Here's an amazing show that no one is talking about: Severance.

Severance is a 2022 Apple TV+ thriller series starring Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Patricia Arquette (who I personally know from one of my favorite movies, Holes), and it is potentially one of the best shows I've seen all year.

I watched the trailer for Severance when it dropped several months ago, and I was intrigued by the premise. Essentially, Severance is about a group of employees who work in the basement of the mysterious company Lumon Industries, only they chose to have their consciousness and memories split into their work lives and their personal lives. This means that when you're at work you cannot remember your personal life, and when you're at home, you cannot recall anything you did at work. This leads to some dark and interesting discoveries about consciousness and the nature of workplace culture as a whole.

Only after recently purchasing a new Apple product did I finally breakdown and start my free trial of Apple TV+ just to watch this show. 

And let me tell you- it was worth it.

To be clear, this show is insane in the best way. I cannot stress enough how phenomenal I think this show is. It's deep in a way that's complex and interesting, and the themes and philosophies that it examines are really incredible. I really liked this show, and I truly think more people should be talking about it.

Everything about this show works (sparing a few questionable line reads from Patricia Arquette, but we'll get to that shortly). I like everything about it from the characters to the sets, but most of all, I appreciate the name of the show for its use of double entendre.

(Get it? Because it's called Severance? It's like when you're fired, but also like the concept of the show- having your consciousness severed? Get it?)

That doesn't mean that this show is without its flaws, because it definitely isn't. However, I felt like this was one of the most exciting shows I've seen in a long time, because of how real it felt and how trippy the concept was.

Let's begin by breaking this down, shall we?

Category 1: Plot- B

The plot of Severance is as follows: Mark, a recently widowed man, lives in a small (Alaskan?) town that is dominated by Lumon Industries, the biggest company around. He works on the basement floor of the building for the Macrodata Refinement team (literally don't ask)- only, he and everyone else who works on the basement floor of this building have been "severed."

To be severed means that everyone who works in the basement offices of Lumon Industries has their consciousness split into two halves. Basically, there is your "work self" or your "innie" and your "real self" or your "outie." Your work self is confined to the basement offices of Lumon Industries, and they have no memories of the outside world or who they used to be on the outside of work. Meanwhile, your real self has no recollection of anything that goes on at work during the day. As far as they know, as soon as you clock in and blink, it's basically time to clock out and go home.

The concept of Severance is an elevator pitch for a show, but unless you're a specific kind of person, this show doesn't sound incredibly interesting. Most people would hear this concept and go, "Okay, yeah, so... It sounds predictable. Like... the company is evil, right?"

Well... possibly. 

It's pretty likely that's the case, but it's not really so black and white.

The show executes everything in a way that keeps you guessing. Even if you think you understand what is happening, more questions emerge to keep you fully engaged in the concept and the characters.

This show follows Mark and the other members of his team in Macrodata Refinement as they attempt to find out what happened to Petey, another severed colleague who was mysteriously fired. Without getting into spoilers for this show (because I really think you should watch it for yourself), once they start digging, it becomes clear that Lumon Industries is up to some truly shady shit.

Category 2: Characters- A-

Now, it's tricky to get into characters and their motivations and everything that makes this show interesting without delving into spoiler territory, and so I'll try to keep this section short (because, again, you should just watch the show). 

If I had to pin it down, I would say that the two main characters of this series are Mark S., the new lead of the Macrodata Refinement team after Petey was mysteriously let go, and Helly R., a new employee that Mark hired (she serves as a proxy for the audience to figure out what the hell is going on down in the basement of Lumon). The other employees in the Macrodata Refinement Division are Dylan, an employee who is obsessed with company perks, and Irving, an employee who is obsessed with following the company rulebook (more on these two aspects later). There are other characters featured throughout the show, but the main four are all in the Macrodata Refinement team (I'm hoping if I say it more it will start to make sense, but no luck.).

Now: imagine working a job you hate, but you're unable to escape it- ever. 

That is what Helly is struggling with, as she realizes that she no longer wants to work for Lumon Industries, and she would like to quit. However, it becomes immediately apparent that she cannot, as only her "outie" is able to quit her job for her, and the company strictly prohibits communication between a person's "innie" and "outie" (see my section on worldbuilding on why details like this are so impressive).

Helly R. (an "innie") (played by Britt Lower) attempting to leave a message for her "outie" self so that she can quit her job. SPOILER- it doesn't work.

I mentioned previously that Mark is a widow who is presumably working in the severed floor of Lumon to pass the days without having to think about his wife, and to ignore his obvious grief. However, despite that, Helly is easily my favorite character because she is the most sympathetic of the basement crew. Since we spend most of the show with the characters at work, we get to know Helly's innie very well, whereas we rarely see how she is on the outside world. 

Helly's innie truly hates her job and ergot, her existence. Since her "innie" can never leave the office, she becomes depressed and listless and even (SPOILER) suicidal. It is this desire to escape her mundane and awful experience that makes her the most sympathetic of the bunch, and this honestly shines a light on the immorality of severance as a concept. If part of you is unable to escape, then really, who is this program helping?

I mentioned previously that everyone who works in the basement floors of Lumon were severed, and therefore unable to remember their outside lives when they were at work. This is only technically true. The supervisors who work in the basement are not severed, and they are free to keep their work and home lives intertwined. However, because they live in the same town as the other employees, as you can imagine, this can cause some interesting experiences. The two main supervisors in this show are Ms. Cobel, Mark's boss, and Mr. Milchik, her second in command and the supervisor of the basement floor.

It immediately becomes clear that they know more than they are letting on, especially Ms. Cobel, and it becomes especially clear that they are up to something. (Again, I know that was vague, but I really don't want to give anything away.)

My only gripe about this entire show, really, is with Patricia Arquette's Ms. Cobel. Somehow she was hard for me to get a read on as a character. This is mostly because some of Arquette's acting choices read as strange to me. I know that Severance is a mystery/thriller show with multiple twists and turns throughout, but Ms. Cobel just struck me as off in this show for some reason.

Perhaps that was intentional to make her the weirdest person on the show, but I could just never take Patricia Arquette seriously when she was acting angry or yelling at people for being bad at their jobs. I also had a bit of a hard time understanding her character's motivations in the series, especially regarding Mark. Maybe her unclear motivations were a writing choice more than an acting one, but out of everyone in this phenomenal cast, I always felt a little weirded out by Patricia Arquette's performance and character on this show.

Everyone else? 

10/10. No notes.

Category 3: Themes- A+

This show dives into so many themes within its limited 8 episode run, so I'm not entirely sure where to begin. Perhaps I’ll start with my favorite theme of the show.  My favorite aspect of the entire show is the concept of your memories or lack thereof making you into different people.

Mark and Helly’s innies are shown to be wildly different from their outies, mostly because they have no memory of what their life was like in the outside world. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that outie Helly seems to be cold and unfeeling (which would indicate that this is how Helly truly is) while innie Helly is emotional and expressive with her feelings. Conversely, Mark’s outie is a grieving widow who uses work to escape his reality. At work, Mark is unburdened with thoughts of his lost wife, and more curious about what is going on in the outside world. 

The pull of Severance for me is the idea that you can have two different versions of yourself that exist completely independent of one another that will never and have never truly met. The difference between the two is that one of them has memories of the outside world, while the other doesn’t. With this in mind, how would we really know which one is the “true” version of you? Are you meant to be the way the outside world made you, or are you meant to be the way you are when you’re severed from all of that? Something about this concept trips me up to think about, and I love considering the implications of what that means from a moral perspective.

There’s a lot to be said about memories shaping your personality and perspective on the world in this show, especially regarding Helly’s character. 

There is also an additional layer to unpack with the show regarding why someone would want to work in a severed environment like Lumon in the first place. For some in the show, it may just be to create an effective work-life balance so you never bring work home with you, but the deeper meaning of why someone would want to be severed in the first place can get muddy. 

For example: Mark.

It becomes very apparent in episode one that Mark uses the severed program to pass his days without truly living them. He just wants to avoid thinking about his wife. He would find it easier to clock into work and have time pass and then clock out than to spend all day having to grieve about his wife. Innie Mark has no idea that outie Mark even had a wife, and so he is using the severance program as a sort of time-lapsing experiment where he gets paid to work a job he has no memory of.

Aside from the themes of grief and memory, there are also several other themes that have to do with workplace culture, such as corporate structure and the importance of company policy and productivity above all else while at Lumon, including basic humanity (see my section on world-building for more on this). Some of the employees even form an unhealthy attachment to their work, indicating an ironic lack of work-life balance, in which your work is your entire identity. Ms. Cobel and- to a lesser extent- Mr. Milchik are especially guilty of this in the show. (In fact, we rarely, if ever, see Mr. Milchik outside of the office environment.)

Believe me when I say that the themes are where this show really shines, because there is a lot of food for thought packed into this show, especially regarding the morality of splitting your consciousness. 

It’s really strange. When I first started watching this show, I didn’t understand why people would want to be disconnected from their consciousness for work, until I realized that there are a lot of events in my own life that I would want to be present for, but not remember. 

The only thing is, for some part of me, that would be all I would remember.

Category 4: Worldbuilding- A+

The thing about Severance is that about 80% of this show takes place in the basement offices of Lumon, which is insane to think about.

There are several departments in the show that have all been severed. The main characters that we follow throughout the series are Helly, Mark, Dylan, and Irving. They work in the Macrodata Refinement Division. However, even though everyone on the Macrodata Refinement team is meant to organize a set of numbers on a computer everyday, it is unclear to even them what their job actually does for the company. Brilliantly, it is never disclosed exactly what it is that Lumon Industries does or even what Mark and his team do, leaving it intentionally ambiguous to keep the viewer guessing. 

Much of what goes on in Lumon Industries is a mystery, surprisingly, but not in an annoying or unsatisfying way. It is a mystery in a way that keeps you coming back for more, wanting answers.

One thing that becomes immediately clear during the first few episodes of this show is that the company wants to keep the "innies" and "outies" from communicating with one another in any way that isn't approved by the company. In the lore, the only way that an innie can send your outie a message is to approach Mr. Milchik or Ms. Cobel and have them record a video of you to be shown to your outie once off work. Your innie is not allowed to communicate with your outie, and you cannot transmit any written messages out of the Lumon basement for your innie to communicate with your outie. Essentially both parts of yourself are walled from each other. Only when your outie quits or retires do you ever get to see your "other" self. 

It is clear that they do this to keep the company's privacy protected and to ensure that the severed program remains secured, however, it quickly becomes a moral issue within the context of this show when the innies begin to wonder what the company doesn't want them to know about on the outside.

Outside of the obvious but restrictive rules (like the "innie" and "outie" communicating concept), there are some worldbuilding aspects in this show are just so insane to think about. For example, because everyone who works in the basement offices (sparing Ms. Cobel or Mr. Milchek) has been severed, they have no memory or concept of other relationships, religions, or events outside of the workplace. That makes them incredibly susceptible to workplace indoctrination.

For the innies, workplace culture becomes a cult. The employee handbook that was given to the innies when they began working at Lumon is meant to be used as a sort of Bible, with the Lumon founder, Kier Eagan, operating as a God-like figure. The innies are meant to religiously abide by the handbook, and obey the wishes of the CEO scribed within. Because the innies have so little else to latch onto, this becomes their religion, and workplace culture becomes synonymous with godliness. This becomes a core personality trait of Irving's innie.

The innies are also incredibly susceptible to false narratives and fictional information about and within the company due to their lack of consciousness outside of the basement. In an attempt to keep certain departments blind to one another, Mr. Milchek has provided two departments with false histories of violence and cannibalism regarding each other (which sounds wild out of context). 

The break room is another spectacular form of worldbuilding that is also a very fun double entendre. Ironically, the company break room is not a place where you want to go, the break room is a place where you are sent after disobeying company policy. In this universe, the break room isn't for taking breaks, it is where you go to be broken down.

A scene of Mr. Milchik (Tramell Tillman) in the Break Room that could've just as easily been ripped out of a horror film. OMG.

The company is also filled with artificial perks for meeting quarterly goals (Which will sound familiar to you if you've ever worked in a company environment where bonuses are available), like waffle parties, and "Music Dance Experiences" where you can listen to music and dance around. Again, this reinforces the cult feeling of being rewarded for doing something that wasn't initially made clear to you with arbitrary and useless perks. However, because it is all the innies know, they happily accept them. Dylan, the last member of Mark's Macrodata Refinement team, is especially susceptible to these perks.

Outside of Lumon, in the real world with outie Mark, it becomes clear that the idea of "severing" people's consciousnesses is controversial. It is becoming a political movement for activists who view it as morally wrong. (After all, some part of you is forever trapped in the place where you decided not to be mentally.) However, there are still talks about putting it into schools, and other workplaces next if the severance program goes well in the Lumon basement. SLIGHT SPOILER. The most jarring use of this technology, though, was when the pregnant wife of a politician wanted to use the severed program to forget the pregnancy and childbirth of her third child. Her husband was a known supporter of the severance program in government.

(SLIGHT SPOILER: The morality of the severed program becomes even more muddy once it is revealed that there is a such thing as an "overtime contingency," which I won't get into for risk of ruining the last couple episodes of the show.)

The world of this show is so fully realized, and all of the political and social discourse about this program feels very real. Everything about this world feels intentional and well-thought out, and so I can't help but admire all of the details in this show that really flesh it out for me. 

Other shows should really be taking notes.

Category 5: Cinematography- B+

I'm not usually one to comment on the cinematography of TV shows, but multiple episodes of this show were shot like a movie, and framed in a way to make the viewer feel unsettled or intentionally anxious. Many of the shots in this show are downright gorgeous. The cinematographer and director of this show really had a good time with it.

The craziest thing, though? Ben Stiller directed most of the episodes for this show. 

Emmy Award winning actor Ben Stiller, everyone.

Yes, that Ben Stiller.

I'm just going to say it: despite this show being a thriller, there are multiple scenes and elements of this show that could have just as easily been in a horror show. (See Mr. Milchik's gif above) The director of a show sets the tone, and the tone of this entire series is uncomfortable uncertainty. You can tell just from a few shots of the show that something isn't right, even if you don't know what it is yet.

Take this scene from episode two for example, where Irving (John Turturro) sees black goo falling from the ceiling above his cubicle.

This scene could have just as easily been in a horror movie, and yet, it wasn't. Even still, this show isn't meant to be horrifying or even scary- it's supposed to be intense and unsettling. Like Irving, the audience has no idea why he's seeing dark goop falling from the ceiling. Is it a side effect of being severed? Is it all in Irving's mind? Is there really something wrong with the basement floor? Nobody knows, which makes it all the more anxiety inducing. 

The cinematographer for Severance also deserves their flowers for making this show look incredible while sticking to the unsettling vibe. Everything about the set feels claustrophobic while also feeling never-ending. The basement offices of Lumon are constructed like a maze of white hallways, and everything from the lighting to the starkness of the office help to create a feeling of being trapped.

The show's cinematographer, Jessica Lee Gagne, did an interview where she spoke about all of the different elements that went into building a world like this. She discussed everything from filming in the maze of hallways to capturing the "severed" look for the characters. You can listen to that here.

I always love when a show is good, but when it looks amazing and is well directed, that makes it even better.

Category 6: Originality- A+

This show had a hell of a story that I just couldn't believe wasn't based on a book or a previously existing idea. Severance is so interesting because it's timeless in its messaging and its execution- nothing feels dated. This show feels evergreen. It could have come out 30 years ago or yesterday. So few things about this show are explicitly stated, leaving much of the show open to interpretation or quiet subtext. That's why I really thought that this show was a book that was adapted for TV instead of its own original concept (in a good way, not in the way that YA movies are adapted from books).

I thought this show was so smart and interesting that someone else had to have written it in novel format before Apple TV+ got their hands on it. 

But no.

This was a 100% original idea from writer Dan Erickson, and I have to give him his kudos for creating something so delightfully strange and unique that I couldn't help but talk about it.

As I mentioned before, the concept of the show itself sounds interesting on its own, but only as an elevator pitch. It takes someone with a very clear vision to make something so unsettling and yet so introspective that it literally made me reconsider the ethics and morality of workplace culture.

I can't help but be impressed by the level of creativity, thoughtfulness, and just plain ingenuity that this show displays. Everyone delivered on this project, but the writing was where this show really shined. Without the originality of the concept and the masterful understanding of the world, this show wouldn't have stood a chance. 

Overall, I really love Severance. I thought it was amazing, and now I can't wait for season 2 so I can get all of my questions answered. It is easily an A-tier show. I would personally recommend Severance to everyone I know, especially if they hate their jobs- just to show them that things could be a whole hell of a lot worse.

Now that that's over, we have all been awarded a five minute "Music Dance Experience."

Party on, y'all. 

Thank you for reading.

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