Severance: Series Premiere

  

Created by: Dan Erickson

Directed by: Ben Stiller, Aoife McArdle 

Starring: Adam Scott (Mark Scout), Zach Cherry (Dylan), Britt Lower (Helly), Tramell Tillman (Mr. Milchick), Jen Tullock (Devon), Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey), Michael Chernus (Ricken), John Turturro (Irving), Christopher Walken (Burt), Patricia Arquette (Harmony)

I discovered this series halfway through its first season (which is where it's at as I write this), and I could not be more compelled. 

My professor for "Writing for Performance" casually mentioned this series as one she's watching during class introductions one day, and I'm so glad she did. I caught up just about as fast as my TV ADD would allow me and now I'm actively craving more. 

The show is about a fictional company (Lumon) that practices a medical procedure called "severance" on many of its employees: it severs their day-to-day memories so work and personal live are separated. When at the office, the main character Mark has no memories or knowledge of his personal life whatsoever. Likewise, at home, Mark has absolutely no idea what he does or feels at the office. 

This concept alone is fascinating and Severance takes it a step further with great characters and a fascinatingly dark and depression world. And, just as it should, Severance uses the concept as a psychological study on what might happen if severance were a thing. 

Lumon's picturesque but impressively depressing campus

First off, as one might expect from a company that uses such an extremely procedure, Lumon is sketchy. It starts off sketchy from ep one and gets so much worse as the episodes go on. For one thing, none of the severed employees have any idea what they actually do at work, even while at work. They understand their literal workday and how to do their job. But they have no idea what the data they're sifting through means, where it comes from, what it does, or how their sifting works. They just do it. It gets a significant degree worse when we realize in the first ep that Mark's boss is effectively spying on him when he's outside the office and another degree worse when we see subtle ways that management (none of whom are severed) go out of their way to keep their severed employees from contacting themselves or connecting any dots. But to me, the worst thing about Lumon was in the most recent ep (5, and skip the rest of this paragraph if you don't want spoilers) when an employee attempted suicide to escape the job and, when her attempt failed, Lumon sent her right back to work the next day. 

Mark's ominous boss in her notably color-muted office

I entered the show thinking I could expect normal business procedures to apply to Lumon, but given all that, the company seems a lot more like a prison than a business. In fact, the show acknowledges it--the first ep is ironically called "Good News About Hell" because it's quoting dialogue from the ep itself, but I now realize it's rather unironically acknowledging that Lumon is hell. 

And just as in any well-written show, the core characters offer an appreciable diversity of perspective and personality. The core team of Mark's department has four members and a supervisor: one follows the rules religiously, one follows the rules but is vocally rebellious, one actively breaks rules and tries to leave Lumon, and Mark himself used to follow the rules but, as the series goes on, begins to see the red flags and quietly rebel. The show is seen primarily through Mark and Helly, the actively rebellious employee. Through her rebellion and Lumon's brutal backlash to keep her in line (and another factor that I won't spoil), Mark realizes the company he works for isn't that great. 

Helly, probably the most interesting character in the show, as its voice of rebellion

Mark, Irving, and Dyan in their department

The series has a very depressing tone to acknowledge the soul-crushing world Mark is trapped in, so keep that in mind if it could be triggering for you. But I think it's the best series to air so far in 2022 and it has magnificent potential!