Why Severance Is Such a Brilliantly Dumb Show

For the past week everything has been Severance. I find myself saying “it’s just like when Mark finds out ___” atleast once per conversation, and opening every conversation with “are you caught up on Severance?”. It’s the first time I’ve been able to participate in conversation about the Current Show of the time, and Severance, with all its intrigue and deep lore has provided tons of material. I’ve been watching theory videos between every episode and it feels like everything is a reference to Severance. It’s a show that does an unbelievable job at everything: behind a facade of a sci-fi show of intrigue, it’s actually a balanced show that does a little of everything: romance, action, suspense, character development, cliff hangers, twists, payoffs.

To me the real trick of Severance is how it packages what’s actually a pretty simple story into an intense investigation. Despite being a story about just a handful of well developed characters, it has people imagining the entire world it’s set in. For example, we’re told Lumon is this gigantic international megacorp with fingers everywhere, but the whole show has a relatively small cast of characters. Scale is created using faceless people at parties and architecture, but not actually shown.

What really gets me is how the show gets the full benefit of epic scale, while also being fully character driven. A counter example would be Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. In Tenet, some of the characters threaten the stability of the world because of their petty squabbles. It’s not necessarily unbelievable, but rather it feels mundane and arbitrary instead of epic and fated. Severance rarely feels like that: although the characters act with incomplete information, they mostly respect the grand narratives. Because of the dramatic irony created by being severed, none of the characters ever have the full picture. The actual timeline of events is pretty simple, but understanding individual characters is complex and rewarding.

Art by Jodie Wei: www.instagram.com/p/DHovMzuSF-U

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed is going down theory rabbit holes. There are so many inexplicable notes to make, from each characters subtle actions, responses, or lack of responses that keep me paying attention. The show has so many touches that make it rewarding to pay attention. What has really surprised me is how outlandish so many of the theories are, compared to how simple the actual story is.

Another particular type of incorrect theory I’ve noticed is trying too hard to connect the dots. This is when people make theories that try to combine unexplained phenomena: for example saying Cobel is someone’s parent or person X is related to person Y, etc… People try too hard make connections within the known world. Meanwhile sometimes there are simple explanations that are just out of reach. For example, in season 2 there are a couple episodes that take place outside of Kier, PE. There were so many theories leading up to those episodes that just vanish when you realize, oh these people were just from a different place. There is no grand conspiracy, that’s just how they are.

I felt this way a lot when the Elden Ring DLC came out. Elden Ring is one of my other favorite pieces of media specifically because it also has “deep lore.” The game developers (with the help of George R. R. Martin) created lore with thousands of pages worth of characters, stories, lore, and world building. The game itself only uses a fraction of the existing lore, but the world feels realistic because there is an underlying logic that is felt even if not explained. Ironically, it’s the imperfect unexplained gaps that make the world feel real. It feels very natural to try and bridge these gaps, connect the dots, and satisfyingly complete the puzzle, but Elden Ring and Severance routinely provide simpler solutions. When the Elden Ring DLC came out, I felt dumb because rather than trying to shoehorn the story into the unfinished bits of the existing story, there were whole new chapters to learn about. I still want to know more about Godwyn and why he had to die.

On the other hand, I’ve been happy with how much the show has been giving the audience. With the exception of MDR’s mysterious work, the show has been willing to give explanations to some of the puzzles and unexpected behavior, in ways that feel satisfying if you were paying attention. Think back to when you learned about Irving and radar. It was not super hard to spot but probably felt really good.

Severance also misdirects about its own philisophical premises. Although it seems like its gonna be a show about work-life balance, it rarely touches upon that. Before watching the show, you might expect to grapple with the ethics of the decision to get severed, but the show almost never does. The one time Mark mentions work-life balance was one of my favorite moments of the show because of how unexpected it was. In contrast, the in-world philosophy starts with people who have already been severed and does contrived philosophy from there: do innies have souls, can innies cheat on their spouses, etc… None of these in-world philisophical discussions feel tangible to me, compared to discussions about AI ethics, etc... It reminds me a little of this Instagram page that answers real questions about whether things are haram. It’s fun and entertaining, but is it as serious as it feels?

I’m worried all these things I’ve said sound like criticism. It’s my attempt to deconstruct why I love the show so much. I think it’s beautiful how much they’ve packed into the show and I’ve left most of the cliff hangers feeling satisfied. I’ll even say that I was one of the few people at the S2 finale watch party I went to who was happy with the ending. I’m so excited for season 3.

Saw these amazing posters by reddit user jjlendel, one for each episode

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1jfwszg/severance_episode_posters/
https://www.jjlendl.com/shop/lumon

Blog Notes: Yesterday I called this a blog, but I doubt I’ll be narrating my days. I have too much to say. Rather it’s a blog because I’m writing it for my own satisfaction, not for a particular audience. Day 2, and I’m already writing into the AM, but I’m happy I got this out!