anyone seen SEVERANCE yet?

I'm not going to get super invested in the puzzle box parts of this. Seems like they're just a device to keep the viewer hooked. The show seems much more successful as satire and character study than as a sci-fi mystery.

It reminds me a bit of the Leftovers, where the answers ulitmately were less important than the other stuff in the show.

OTM, although I guess I am allowing myself to indulge in some speculation now that the show is over so as to have a soft landing instead of a crash.

Sorry if I posted this before, but the Testing Floor keeps making me think of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C4PsXoFslM

The painting of the departmental massacre was fucking hilarious

Did someone post the theory yet (apologies in advance) about how Burt and Irving had connected in the past and had to be separated and the myth of the massacre was created to keep them apart?

I had the idea that a revolt had happened in the past and now it was thought best to keep the departments separate so that conspiracies were less likely to form

But yeah, that may have had something to do with Irv's outie's obsession with the hallway

ha I guess there was a parallel in the Lumon people believing all the bullshit from Kier's writings and the innies finding inspiration in Rickon's book

the myth of the massacre was created to keep them apart

this feels too targeted to me but then lumon apparently orchestrated the fake death of mark's wife so who knows

the myth of the massacre to me was just a really effective way of keeping the departments siloed off from each other so they'd never talk. i don't know if i talked about this in previous posts but my favorite thing about this show is it's a straight up depiction of what it feels like to be an office drone

Yes to this last. Even the MDE was some crazy distillation of many an office holiday party: kinda fun in some ways but also kind of off and creepy and menacing.

yeah exactly

i had this feeling at the beginning but i dont quite know how to word it … but severance definitely taps into the uneasy “horror” off office life. i wouldnt say it’s remotely the same as jordan peele’s movies but it reminds me of that ~feeling~? there is something about that pervasive sense of dread that they have in common idk

Yeah, it captures an airlessness of some offices really well. Especially offices in failing companies, where half the floor has already been let go so the rest of you are just kind of stranded in a huge space.

this feels too targeted to me but then lumon apparently orchestrated the fake death of mark's wife so who knows

idk, i suspect she was really in a car accident, but lumon harvests braindead people or people in comas to be exclusively innies that they can turn on when they want to. i feel strongly that his wife does not have an outie. when she was saying goodbye to mark after getting "fired" she said that when she was watching Helly was the longest she had ever been awake. like how would that work unless she was in some sort of cold storage holding chamber or something, for use whenever they needed her?

anyway i agree with everyone that the satire of office culture and tech demagoguery is the real strength of the show, more than the scifi trappings

idk, i suspect she was really in a car accident, but lumon harvests braindead people or people in comas to be exclusively innies that they can turn on when they want to

i did think twice after making this post and sorta think thi sis the case

THE LEXINGTON LETTER hints at staged car accidents but that could be a red(d) herring.

the air of everpresent dread feels a bit more like the early scenes in the matrix, or maybe the films of alan pakula, than anything like peele, imo. tho the brain-altering horror and social commentary aspects do feel like his style

there’s something so nightmarish about the fact that the innies are constantly awake for work - like, I know I’m at my most stressed out when I start having dreams about my job, and that just makes me even more stressed and tired because it makes me feel like the work day never ends. terrifying.

***LINK ALERT!***
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a39661737/severance-ending-explained-showrunner-interview/

that's interesting that the show runner actually wanted to progress further. i guess not knowing they'd get a second season affects the calculus. but i was actually surprised they went as far as they did; was expecting the season to end with helly at the microphone, about to speak, leaving the cliffhanger as to whether it would be her innie or outie self speaking. as it is, i am definitely concerned that with some of the biggest tensions of the show busted through, it won't be quite as compelling, along the lines of westworld post-season 1. but i'll have faith based on what they were able to accomplish thus far

how would the coma theory work if the body couldn't physically walk around etc? does it go hand in hand with the clone theory?

Sort of. They've got some reanimation technology they've been working on we haven't seen yet. Maybe they IV in some magic egg extract and voilà, Dr. Strangelove can walk!

when she was saying goodbye to mark after getting "fired" she said that when she was watching Helly was the longest she had ever been awake. like how would that work unless she was in some sort of cold storage holding chamber or something, for use whenever they needed her

well, it seems she must live at Lumon, otherwise people would run into her on the outside, right?

Yes

I wonder if and when they will tell us how the mechanics of this works. If they staged a car crash? took her comatose body? from the Kier Hospital, owned and operated by Lumon family or cronies thereof? whose body was at whatever memorial they had. I was a friend of Harry Lime.

Harry Lumon I should have typed.

The Crisis of Faith in the Modern Office.

wonder if Gemma has two "innies" - each consciousness has a set geographical space linked to it, but they could both be within the Lumon complex. one would still need to sleep, but I guess not much else?

Yes, this kind of thing seems to be possible. But then why do they really need the outies at all if that is the case? I suppose they have to keep up appearances.

They need to test the applications requiring outies, e.g. anesthesia

Good one! Part of me still entertains the idea that all the outside stuff is also still under Keir’s (Keir Dullea’s?) umbrella so everything is still part of the testing and they didn’t really escape after all and it was intentional that they found Ricken’s book but then that is ultimately too much of a kind of “it was all a kooky dream!” copout and really unsatisfying.

binged this last night (unwisely) after being bombarded by the name on the front page for a month. Thank you ILX, so great. Ricken's book was my favourite plot device. Not just because "haha funny" (which it was), but also for the sweetness of seeing these innie's in this childlike state. No ironic distancing, no sense of superiority. Very sweet to see this dumb-ass text overcome its dumb-assess to help "free the prisoners" and I like the morality of it all. The show gives Ricken a big pat on the back and tells you it doesn't matter if you're an idiot, if you are at least sincere you can still do something right.

Think y’all are underestimating Ricken but I can say no more.

Finale title reminds me of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXDtdV3_hEs

Ricken accept's Marks 180 a bit too easily

I know I make you feel lesser than

grateful that the forehead mole atop ricken's part is not a ploy but an actual feature of the actor

because it's honestly kind of hypnotizing

You're sure it's not some kind of INSERT THEORY HERE?

The show gives Ricken a big pat on the back and tells you it doesn't matter if you're an idiot, if you are at least sincere you can still do something right.

this is the Zoolander doctrine iirc

(come to think of it, I can hear Zoolander in most of Ricken's lines lol)

^ same

he’s literary Zoolander <3

Couldn't stomach him in the first episode, got giddy every time he appeared in all future episodes. The Ted Lasso effect.

Zoolander doctrine is great. Never realised how much I rate Ben Stiller humour till now

ben stiller is solid as long as i'm not reminded of his lack of a neck

Great set up of cliffhanger. Made me laugh at conclusion or set up of needing several. Very well done.

I hope mystery just deepens further. & there is no easy out.
Super creepy connotations of so much of this.
Wondering if gala event is going to have audience who will see Helly's comment as more than amusing anyway. Or was it being live televised. Will see what knock on effect will be.

Anyway worlds within worlds and fun things like that. Will see how far refractive that goes in next season I assume.

Funny also to be watching Ricken actor playing John's brother in Patriot at the same time I was watching this. Somehow missed that before but somebody on a podcast was proselytising it as the best thing ever over the last couple of weeks so I grabbed the 2 seasons. & it is really good. From about 7 years ago a govt agent placed in a firm to give him cover for foreign work and messing things up badly. Comedy drama. Very black comedy.

Thread on Patriot here

https://www.atlasofwonders.com/2022/03/where-was-severance-filmed.html

Just caught up. The finale was the most goddamn exciting, fun thing I’ve watched in forever. Amazing cast too.

And nice, for a change, to watch something thrilling and tense that didn’t depend on the threat of ultraviolence to create tension.

yes!

Thirded.