Severance – Season 1

Story and Plot

Rating: 5/5

Our entrypoint into the story of Severance is through the perspective of Helly, a newly ‘severed’ employee. Waking up with no personal memories but all of her general knowledge and skills in place, Helly learns that her existence will be dedicated to the work of macrodata refinement for the Lumon corporation on their dedicated severed floor. She’s introduced to her reality by Mark, a severed employee of several years. Mark introduces her to her new coworkers, explains the responsibilities of the job and talks up the perks, concluding that “there’s a life to be had here”.

Helly emphatically does not take well to the condition forced on her, lashing out at Mark, her other colleagues and even herself. And while she eventually acclimate somewhat, she sparks interest in curiosity in her coworkers about themselves and their limited environment. Helly is contrasted by Mark, whose life outside of the severed floor we see the most of throughout the first season. Unlike Helly, Mark seems to be at peace with his severed life, even appearing to enjoy his work and the small perks used as motivation. In departing the severed floor and transforming from his ‘innie’ to his ‘outie’ persona, you can see him become visibly more unhappy. As demonstrated in the following scenes from his life, Mark is battling some demons. As a severed employee, with no memory of his time at work, he gets to escape them for eight hours a day.

This all changes when someone claiming to be his severed persona’s best friend makes contact with Mark. Peter, or Petey as his innie is known, reaches out to Mark in need of help. He’s undergone a controversial procedure known as reintegration in order to recombine his innie and outie personalities, and is suffering from severe side effects. Mark humors and shelters this stranger, learning that not everything at Lumon is what it seems. Between Helly’s discontent as a driving force, innie Mark’s growing affection for his new coworker combined with outie Mark’s personal life set the stage for the most intriguing and compelling sci fi drama in recent years.

Worldbuilding

Rating: 5/5

Set firmly in the uncanny valley, Severance unfolds in a world similar enough to ours to be familiar while different enough to have a distinct feel and aesthetic, as if its timeline diverged from ours in the recent past. There’s no exposition, instead we see it tangentially as the characters move through it. Often, I find myself pausing to study details such as the license plates, signs and documents just to get a little bit more insight about the setting. And while this approach doesn’t build a world that’s always comprehensible, it does succeed at creating one that feels immersive, detailed and lived-in. As much as I love a good exposition dump, I think that would spoil a lot of the mystery and intrigue of the series; the showrunners clearly want us to learn about the setting in a way that keeps us guessing, much the way the story does.

Acting

Rating: 5/5

The acting in Severance is some of the best I’ve seen recently. Led by Adam Scott and Britt Lower, the cast put in some great performances. Many of the cast, including Scott and Lower, essentially portray two distinct characters: that of the severed characters inside and outside personas. The changes in facial expressions, mannerisms and personality traits really serve to distinguish the innies and outies, and Scott especially nails these subtleties. Unsettling performances from other actors, such as Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman, serve to build up the mystery around the influential Lumon corporation. Portraying non-severed Lumon employees who manage the severed workers, Arquette and Tillman lend their talent making the company seem simultaneously mundane and strange. 

Visuals

Rating: 5/5

The attention to aesthetics and visual detail in Severance is impressive and exhaustive. The retro-futuristic office on the severed floor in the Lumon office complex is strangely warm and inviting, but surrounded by a maze of fluorescently-lit white hallways. The lack of outside facing windows separates this area from time and space, as well as the outside world. Away from the severed floor, the outside world is often more dimly lit and illustrated in colder tones. Details, such as the cars all seeming to be makes from the 80’s/90’s, adds an extra layer of anachronism and oddly, estrangement. With little in the way of world building exposition, the art direction is solely responsible for not just the atmosphere of Severance, but our perception of its world, and it does so beautifully.

Final Thoughts

Severance flew under my radar when it first aired. In some ways I regret that, as watching it now for the first time, it’s some of my favorite television, sci fi genre aside. However, given the lengthy time between first and second seasons, it may have been for the best. I definitely wouldn’t have been frustrated by the 3 years between seasons given the cliffhanger on which the first season ends. Watching it now for the first time works well as I can just segue right into the currently airing second season, which as of the first few episodes is shaping up to be equally as compelling as the first.