Severance (season 2)

Five months after the jaw-dropping finale of Severance Season 1, we’re thrown right back into the unsettling world of Lumon Industries. Mark and his coworkers, who briefly got a taste of life beyond their corporate prison, now face the fallout of their shocking discoveries. This season peels back even more layers of Lumon’s eerie control, forcing its employees to confront the disturbing reality of their dual existences—one as obedient worker drones, the other as clueless “outies” kept in the dark.

Severance (S2:E1-5) Review

So far, season 2 of Severance justifies a binge of the first season for those who haven’t already seen it and a weekly reminder to watch Season 2’s next episode for those who have. Simply put, it’s the best thing currently streaming.

Quality conspiracy thrillers are as dependent upon excellent performances and thoughtful direction as they are hi-concept, and Severance has all of the above in spades. However, ultimately, they are only as good as their final payoff/reveal, and while, so far, the creatives behind Severance have done a masterful job of parceling out gripping reveals, that only beg more questions, only time will tell if it’s a genuinely well-thought out slow burn mystery like (most of) The X-Files or an aimless fart literally blowing smoke like Lost.

In the interim, what we have is a show with a commanding cast, brilliant design choices, and tight, natural, and economical dialogue that bends audience minds with its almost miserly grip on grand revelations.

Adam Scott, who many still only know as the doting straight man to Amy Poeller’s compulsively people pleaser in Parks & Recreation, leads a stellar cast as Mark, a man deeply wounded by the recent death of his wife, and who is looking for a means of escaping his pain without facing it. Scott, whose dual personas receive the lion’s share of screentime, seamlessly transitions between his two, for all intents and purposes, different characters, presenting us with one of the series’s most compelling questions, “Are we the sum of our memories: or biological reactants that respond to exterior stimuli like little more than sophisticated lab animals?”

The rest of the cast is a mixture of relative unknowns and heavy hitters like John Turturo and the legendary Christopher Walken. Yet, whether or not you recognize them from their respective bodies of work, each one, both supporting and core cast members, is nothing short of perfect

With at least one more season to go before we find out exactly what is going on, Severance is a gamble, but so far, it’s one worth taking.

WOKE ELEMENTS

You Gotta Have More Gay Cowbell

• In the first season, it is revealed that both John Tuturo’s and Christopher Walken’s characters are gay. They share a very chaste office romance that consists of little more than furtive looks pregnant with longing. It didn’t take up much time, and the “romantic” elements added nothing to the narrative, but they were there and, therefore, noteworthy nonetheless.
  • As of episode 5 of this season, their relationship is mentioned twice more, and Walken’s character is briefly reintroduced at the end of the 5th episode. Again, the romantic aspect of the relationship adds nothing to the story, and although the two actors have chemistry, it doesn’t come across as the amorous variety. This makes the relationship all the more distracting.
  • Their gayness exists for the sole purpose of bolstering the idea that homosexuality is biological rather than a product of one’s environment.