Severance Season 1 Review

Severance (2022-)
Season 1 - 9 episodes (2022)

Watch Severance on Apple TV+
Created by: Dan Erickson
Starring: Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Patricia Arquette, Dichen Lachman
Rated: TV-MA
Watch the trailer

Plot
Mark leads a team of office workers whose memories have been surgically divided between their work and personal lives. When a mysterious colleague appears outside of work, it begins a journey to discover the truth about their jobs.

Verdict
This has such an intriguing premise. It taps into the dislike most people have of their job, but who benefits from this setup? Questions build discontent as the employees begin to wonder what's going on outside the office. This starts with employee caricatures and builds a mystery around it. We know more than the characters, but not everything. Each character has two personalities, their work and their life. The two facets can't share information or communicate. Everything builds to the final episode, but I don't like that this leaves us with a cliffhanger. With modern streaming series, and the propensity for many of them to be binged and not renewed, seasons need to conclude the story or at least the chapter. At least this has been renewed, but I don't know yet whether this can stick the landing.
Watch It.

Review
Jobs can be boring. What if you didn't have to deal with the long hours? A new process manages to split your memories, separating work and life. In essence this creates two personalities that never interact and can't share information. This seems great for the employer because the employee doesn't know if they have a family or what they're missing by working away hours in the basement. The inside the office and outside personalities are referred to as innies and outies.

John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, Adam Scott play Irving, Dylan, Helly, Mark

Mark (Adam Scott) is the newly promoted manager. He's the main character and we get to see him inside and outside of work. It becomes clear why he elected such a process. His colleagues are an overachiever Dylan (Zach Cherry) and extreme rule follower Irving (John Turturro). Their routine is thrown askew when Helly (Britt Lower) arrives, but she soon decides she doesn't want to work in that situation.

A core part of the story is exploitation of employees. This group performs a task that seems mundane. If they do well they get insignificant rewards. Employees that violate rules are subjected to harsh punishments. It seems like corporate brainwashing, and when the balance is disturbed the peace unravels. I'm still not sure if what they do has a purpose. I wonder if there real job is test subjects for this procedure.

I really like the art direction. There is a clear balance and symmetry in images in the first couple of episodes, but that balance begins to tip and that's shown visually.

Zach Cherry, Britt Lower play Dylan, Helly

Mark's two personalities begin to question what they do at Lumon. It's a strange place because there's a near fanatical reverence for the founder, at least from what we see. With the severed employees knowing so little, and the extreme secretive nature about other departments and even number of employees, rumors run wild. Dylan talks about a failed coup, and while that seems wild at first it soon seems that nothing may be too wild at Lumon.

It's the quest for answers that drives the plot of this season. The innies want to know what's outside the walls of Lumon, and even inside. I enjoyed this season a lot. I like this spin on the benefits and downsides of technology. It's very Black Mirror. Episode nine is certainly the peak of the season. Everything leads to this moment and it's a great payoff, but this leaves a lot of questions up in the air. While this has been renewed for a second season, I expect seasons to conclude the story or chapter and gives us an indication of what's next. Season two will be a continuation of the first season due to the questions still looming. Search Party did a great job of concluding a season's stories and giving us an indication of what's next. Severance needs a couple more episodes to conclude the story they started. With the binge model and how quickly audiences tear through shows, along with the sheer amount of content and choice, it's difficult to remember past seasons. Add to that how frequently shows get canceled without any conclusion. As a series producer, it's a gamble to not conclude an arc. As much as I like this show, it's difficult for me to fully rate it when I don't know the answers to the biggest questions. The season is over and I still don't know exactly what's going on. This could have answers the larger questions, and season two could explore what happens when the innies know what's going on or possible that they are test subjects.