anyone seen SEVERANCE yet?

Ha, good point.

Third episode is here.

I’m into the show. Kind of worried it won’t stick the landing but the ride is a good weird time. John Turturro is excellent in a supporting role.

Yes, he is.

This show reeks of THX-1138 to me, especially the visuals. Not sure how on board I am.

I love this show SO much

Stiller is so good at noticing all the dumb mundane bullshit in daily life & making hilarious, scary or just weird & i love it

everyone is great. intro credits freak me out.

i loved the awkward dinner party in the first episode - all that stuff like it was impolite to call ww1 anything but the great war, lol bc ww2 hadnt happened yet & the weird oohs and ahhs around the table

the CONFERENCE CALL in episode 3. where she has to speak but doesnt get to hear the board’s responses bc theyre filtered to her through a functionary with more juice than she has. incredibly perfect.

i'm just going to assume that Michael Chernus's character being named Rickon is a reference to him being Cool Rick in my beloved Patriot

Oh yeah, PATRIOT. Keep meaning to watch that.

Does it bother anyone else that they never seem to do any work? I know it's implied but idk

No.

it's a corollary to them not remembering the work day. when you're actually at work, you only remember hallway conversations and getting coffee

Petey is probably the best super-distressed and disheveled character since William Windom’s Commodore Matt Decker in the “Doomsday Machine” episode of Star Trek: TOS.

otm

Ben Stiller a pretty big Star Trek head so not out of the question he was channeling that somehow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpVOEp3HMjc

Does it bother anyone else that they never seem to do any work? I know it's implied but idk

Loving the increasingly cultish vibe at the office but dreading the inevitable moment this show becomes all about Mark joining the underground resistance.

agree but it is so far handling getting there well, dig the pacing & minimalist vibe

hate this show so much, there i said it

hey, someone has to

I liked the setup, not sure how I'm feeling about the progression so far. The little office world and the cast of bizarre characters is kind of charming, but it's not quite pulling me in and I feel like it needs to start going... somewhere.. soon

Turturro and Walken playing weird dudes that are kind of vibing about the art in their brainwipe prison

Does it bother anyone else that they never seem to do any work? I know it's implied but idk

I assume that the "work" is only an excuse to keep running this experiment. That said, I am finding it all a bit Wes-Anderson-does-dystopian. A lot of whimsy, not a lot of real substance.

the show's kind of reminding me of that amazon one, Homecoming

I hate Ricken so much

Petey’s cellphone has hella battery life

I love Ricken. That actor's played some ridiculous characters in the same vein and I get why that type of guy drives people nuts, but I enjoy that on screen

tbh I don't really see how you have the show without a Ricken-type character.

ricken is so hilarious to me, i love him. feels like there is a lot of Stiller’s humor in that character specifically. like, idk, literary Zoolander. he’s SO oblivious

I can also imagine that writing that book must have been great fun.
I'm enjoying this show more as it goes along. I thought in the beginning that it was boring and I didn't like it, but I've got into its pace now.

I was surprised to discover that there are only two episodes left in the season

that passage from Ricken’s book about “camaraderie” being based on the word “camera” nearly killed me

A lot of these shows seem to have only eight episodes per season.

xpost omg yes we were dying

A lot of these shows seem to have only eight episodes per season.

Yeah, it feels like an artistic decision that will turn out to have some business reason behind it, like eight episodes doesn't count as a full union season, so everyone's salaries don't automatically increase at the start of the next season, or something like that.

Seems clear that the season will end with Mark joining the resistance and with few questions resolved

Hard to argue with.

Although I do think we will probably get a few more reveals about people's, um, Outies.

This is fun, and thanks for the recommendation -- I wouldn't have noticed it without reading this thread.

I'm watching it during covid isolation - which feels a litle on the nose

Only seen three episodes - central cast is terrific. So far, the comic tone feels like it undercuts the dramatic tnsion - but maybe that'll change. And there's too much resting on the mystery denoument.

But it rules as My Little Isolation Show and everyone's lovely company (so far)

New episode is up. Never sure what time it actually drops. At one point I was getting alerts for certain shows.

Tell you one thing: I really dig Patricia Arquette’s nosy neighbor routine despite myself.

Spook too soon maybe

A lot of these shows seem to have only eight episodes per season.

This one has nine.

Loved the reveal at the end of this episode (although was expecting something along those lines but maybe a different character)

Renewed for season two too

Oh, and that defiant jazz reward scene was fantastic

Yes it was

Also Burt's retirement video was straight up comedy

I'm hoping Burt and Irv are actual outie partners.

Had that thought too

I doubt this was influence, but this show reminds me a bit of the film/MST3k episode Parts: The Clonus Horror: clones are raised on a campus with no contact with the outside world as "spares” for the person they were cloned from. The clones are treated in a simple, almost childlike way similar to how the work incentives at Lumon are juvenile things like finger traps, or how they are spoken to at the wellness session. Clones are given a big party when they "graduate”, which actually means they are whisked to a surgical room to have their organs harvested, similar to how Burt’s retirement seems to mean he (the innie, at least) effectively cease to exist, despite it being presented as a joyful occasion. The influential/rich people who commission the clones for parts don’t consider their clones to be actual people, similar to the outie’s attitude to the innies. And, of course, the plot is that the clone protagonist becomes aware of the outside world and finds a way to escape and expose the operation.

I keep thinking there might be some cloning aspect to this show as well and wondering when Petey 2.0 will show up.

Because of baby goats, because Haley R. tries to commit suicide but then the next day only has some bruises, because the guy’s wife dies in a car crash but then lives on as an innie

The only thing about that theory is that you don't want the clones to get old, surely? Young organs are better than old ones, so would you let them reach traditional retirement age before you "retired" them? But it does seem plausible otherwise.

gemma and the rooms was presented obliquely, but it wasn't that hard to infer what was going on

I have no idea what's going on.

pvmic

gemma and the rooms wasn't really a mystery, the mystery was "why is gemma at lumon," and that was introduced in season 1

fair, but I just googled an explainer and I still have no idea what is going on. something about the four tempers? doing something? what does that have to do with his wife? I have no idea.

xpost

the "tempers" are supposedly what guide mark s. toward the correct numbers when refining, but that is just lore for lore's sake. the actual purpose of gemma seems fairly straightforward, she's a guinea pig for a new severance chip that will divide into multiple new consciousnesses instead of the original chip, which only divides once.

what’s the benefit of multiple new consciousnesses?

Ah! I guess that makes sense. Though to what end? And has she been kidnapped? Is she there against her will? Why her? Why Mark? Does the company actually murder people? What is the end goal, some sort of "Being John Malkovich" style immortal vessel?

xpost

i place this under the larger mystery of “why is anyone at lumon?” to which the most satisfactory answer so far is “it’s a cult?”
― 龜, Monday, April 21, 2025 1:12 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The mystery set up in season 1 was why is this supposedly dead person working as a wellness officer at her husband’s workplace.

i don't think the show has fully answered those questions about specifically how or why gemma faked a car accident to wind up in lumon's basement, luckily there are more seasons to come. it is implied throughout that lumon does, in fact, murder people, tho it seems like lumon employees are the only ones who have been murdered so far in the show.

what’s the benefit of multiple new consciousnesses?

― 龜, Monday, April 21, 2025 12:38 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

they haven't quite answered this one either, but there's a lot of chatter upthread speculating as to why. my personal theory is that it would prevent the kind of innie rebellion we've seen in the series so far, by creating multiple innies who don't develop enough awareness or life experience to organize against employers.

bit above the quote was xp to josh

xxpost We don’t know if she was taken to Lumon against her will but she was certainly being held there against her will by the end.

the big cold harbor reveal solves a big mystery... that was introduced just a few episodes before.

Got to agree with others here - the Gemma & the rooms episode may not have answered everything (and indeed, may have raised some further questions) but it was not introducing a mystery, it was a step toward answering questions that had been there since the beginning!

i place this under the larger mystery of “why is anyone at lumon?” to which the most satisfactory answer so far is “it’s a cult?”

It's also a very large corporation that employs a huge number of people in the town. That's why most people are there. The cult/corporation parallels are a large part of the premise of the show - it's maybe not the most original joke but imo they make it pretty funny.

The mystery set up in season 1 was why is this supposedly dead person working as a wellness officer at her husband’s workplace.

Have they even answered that (why a version of her was working at Lumen?)? Why even hazard the risk that Mark would recognize or connect with his thought to be dead wife?

The multiple consciousness thing feels a lot like something to market to people who want to avoid uncomfortable experiences like child birth or flying on airplanes.

xpost Remember that it was Cobel who kept putting Mark and Gemma in the same room. Milchick was even like wtf.

Have they even answered that (why a version of her was working at Lumen?)? Why even hazard the risk that Mark would recognize or connect with his thought to be dead wife?

― Josh in Chicago

1: Because they wanted a test subject
2: Because they wanted to test whether strong emotions would permeate through the barriers provided by the severance procedure.

Honestly, this is not a show problem - they provide the answers pretty clearly to a lot of these questions.

The multiple consciousness thing feels a lot like something to market to people who want to avoid uncomfortable experiences like child birth or flying on airplanes.

― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, April 21, 2025 12:47 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

right, but you could theoretically have the same innie for those experiences, if you weren't worried about the innie fighting against this arrangement

i suppose that's the logical outcome of a cinematographic approach where the aesthetics are starting to be an end rather than a mean.

The tyranny of "everything must serve the plot" has been thankfully erradicated from literature and cinema discourse, if we get out of tv as well I'd say that's a cause for applause.

The multiple consciousness thing feels a lot like something to market to people who want to avoid uncomfortable experiences like child birth or flying on airplanes.

― Iza Duffus Hardy (President Keyes), Monday, April 21, 2025 1:47 PM (thirty-three minutes ago)

or writing christmas cards?

(ok i understand the subtext there is maybe being in a loveless or worse abusive marriage is something you'd want to be severed from and that they're trying to test...)

We know that writing thank you cards was one of Gemma’s pet peeves, so I figure Lumon used it as one of the unpleasant things to test on her severed personalities.

2: Because they wanted to test whether strong emotions would permeate through the barriers provided by the severance procedure.

was there evidence that strong emotions could overcome the severance procedure 1.0?

I’m not sure if they tested them specifically against the person’s worst fears or whatever.

Like we’ve seen them put severed people into a sanitized office space and a goat pasture is all.

maybe the goat people outies have capraphobia?

Honestly, this is not a show problem - they provide the answers pretty clearly to a lot of these questions.

A lot of the discussion around this show reminds me of when Life On Mars first started and there were all these 'theories' - is he in a coma? is he back in time? is he in a parallel universe? The answer is yes, he's in a coma, which was alluded to all the way through iirc.
All the 'have they cloned people? I bet they've cloned people' makes me wonder what/how people are watching.

(To be fair they actually did have those semi-clones on the ORTBO)

the goats and the clones in the ORTBO episode to me pointed to some kind of clone or replicant style thing being possibly one of the goals of all of this. There isn't that much evidence for it, and it could be a misdirect, but they've definitely planted the idea.

I do feel like the goats may have been a quirky thing they put in season 1 without a real idea of where it was going to go. I don’t have a problem with shows making things up as they go along.

Well, the goats do show up again as sacrifices, right? Dunno why, though.

was there evidence that strong emotions could overcome the severance procedure 1.0?

― 龜, Monday, April 21, 2025 2:30 PM bookmarkflaglink

well, we never did get to find out why Petey sought reintegration

I'm most of the way through S1 now, this show is haunting as fuck. The theme song just randomly plays in my head throughout the day. Amazing but probably not the best for my mental health.

learn to play the theme on a keyboard, its fun and turns all times into

There’s a Toyota commercial I’ve been seeing constantly lately and I swear that’s Britt Lower in it. Pre-Severance maybe?

Possibly. She's definitely done commercials

throwback to britt lower on her grind making verizon commercials pic.twitter.com/Sa3km0VLVD

— emma :) (@mckinnonssnl) March 10, 2025

Jerry = Mark
Elaine = Helly
George = Dylan
Kramer = Irving

https://www.scoringnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/worlds-collide.gif

Finally finished S2 and then waded through the entirety of this thread. Think I'm going to rewatch the whole thing.

My wife and I watched the first 6 eps of s1 and, after all the hype, I think how mid it was made her actually angry. The characters feel like sketches for the most part, and the mystery drip-feed is not her type of thing. Not a problem in shows like Twin Peaks or the Leftovers where the characters are actually interesting and the mystery is an excuse to spend time with them, but Severance feels so focused on the goings-on that it's never going to be satisfying. Also she's extremely visual, so I think alternating between intentionally terrible office lighting and scenes so dark you can barely see anything (on our tv anyway) is a big turn-off, lol.

We read the wiki summaries of the last 3 episodes which finally make it sound like a more interesting show, but I think the requirement to keep returning to some sort of status quo would annoy me.

it's not mid lol

Far from mid. If it's not for you, it's not for you. But saying the characters are like sketches, I would struggle with that.