Severance

Review by Daniel Tessier

Severance is that rarest of things: a series that's both so powerful and original that it blows away your expectations. I think myself lucky that its original release passed me by: production delays caused by successive writers' and actors' guild strikes in the US meant that the second season wasn't released until almost three years after the first, which ended on a stunning cliffhanger. Even watched with the first season already fully available, and the second season airing weekly, Severance is a relentlessly gripping drama that continually subverts expectations.

It's a high concept drama, with a simple but fascinating central conceit from which everything expands. A powerful yet mysterious company called Lumon has created a procedure which severs a worker's mind into two. When an employee signs up for severance, their workday mind is kept separate, their memories of their inner and outer lives never intersecting. The original, or “outie,” goes to work and then immediately wakes up having finished the day, happy to rest and collect the pay check. Meanwhile, their “innie” attains consciousness every morning, works through their day with little understanding or knowledge of the outside world, then clocks off at five... only to immediately wake again the next morning, unaware of their outie's downtime.

It quickly becomes clear that the innies are effectively imprisoned in their workplace, with virtually no way to influence their fates. This would be horrific enough if Lumon weren't also a bizarre cult, with its own arcane rules and a code of conduct that it enforces on the innies through psychological torture. Meanwhile, the purpose of the Lumon's work remains opaque, adding a layer of mystery that only becomes more puzzling the more is revealed.

Severance is the creation of Daniel Erickson, who wrote the pilot script back in 2015. This was recognised by 2016's Blood List, an annual vote by industry professionals on the best unproduced horror and speculative fiction screenplays. This only hints at the complex mesh of genres that Severance involves, incorporating dystopian science fiction and existential horror, but also thriller, mystery, romance and psychological drama, with a dose of the blackest workplace comedy you've ever encountered.

Erickson submitted his script to Ben Stiller's company Red Hour Productions, with Stiller immediately falling for the script and beginning a drawn-out production process that eventually led to Apple TV backing a full series order. Stiller acts as a creative force on the series both as executive producer and its primary director, directing eleven of the nineteen episodes produced so far. While a long-established director, Stiller's reputation for broad comedy wrong-footed me into expecting something less from him. His direction of Severance is astonishing, a triumph of composition and carefully constructed symmetry that places the viewer in the widest vistas and the most claustrophobic prisons with equal impact. There are long stretches where virtually nothing of incident happens... and they're still among the most incredibly tense scenes of television I've ever seen.

Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, Big Little Lies) carries much of the series as Mark Scout, and his innie, Mark S (the innie's being given only a partial identity). Like Stiller, Scott is best known for comedy work, but here gives a deep, powerful performance as the central character who has to come to terms with the truth about severance, from the perspectives of both his innie and outie. We explore the grief and trauma that led Mark Scout to undergo a procedure that would leave his mind cut in two; and the growth and developing awareness of Mark S to his place in the world and what life has to offer. Scott gives a stunningly heartfelt performance as both versions of Mark, who are subtly distinct while being recognisably aspects of the same person.

Britt Lower (Unforgettable, Man Seeking Woman, Future Man) is perhaps even more impressive as Helly R, the newest recruit to Mark's team in the nebulously named Macrodata Refinement. Helly is dumped on a desk with her memory severed, Lumon's charming method of induction, with Mark present as a disembodied voice to interrogate her and then introduce her to the team. While Mark is, effectively, the first person Helly meets, from Mark's perspective Helly is just the latest person introduced to his small world. Yet Helly's presence is the catalyst for huge upheaval on the Severed Floor, thanks to her determination and outright refusal to accept her fate. Helly exhausts every possible opportunity to force her captors to release her, before attempting suicide, and even then is unable to escape.

The other members of Macrodata Refinement are Dylan G (Zach Cherry – The Most Dangerous Game, Duncanville, You) and Irving B (John Turturro – The Night Of, The Name of the Rose), the four of them acting as each other's entire world for much of their existence. While Irving is a true believer, parroting Lumon's scripture-like procedure, Dylan is mostly driven by the various company perks that can be won by productive workers. Cherry and Turturro get to present more depth to their characters over time, and we get glimpses of all four of the team's external lives as we explore more of the world, although only Scott and Lower truly make their different selves distinct.

This is just the tip of an exceptionally impressive cast. Turturro is better known as a film actor and is joined by fellow Hollywood big hitters Christopher Walken and Patricia Arquette. Walken downplays his usual eccentricity as Burt G, the head of the Optics and Design department, who shares an unexpected and gentle romance with Irving. Arquette portrays Harmony Cobel, the manager of the Severed Floor, as close to a central antagonist as the first season gets, but far more complex and layered than this suggests. Arquette gives an intense and often quite bizarre performance as Cobel, whose motives remain fluid as her standing at Lumon changes.

Lesser known actors also make huge impressions. Tramell Tillman (Godfather of Harlem) is astonishing as Seth Milchick, the Deputy Manager who personifies the smiling corporate face of Lumon. He'd be another character it would be easy to hate, if it weren't for both the unexpected complexities of his character and Tillman's remarkable and charismatic performance, not to mention his impressive dance moves. Jen Tullock (Disengaged) impresses as Mark's serious sister Devon, who sometimes seems to be the lone sane character in this world. Michael Chernus (Orange is the New Black) plays her self-help guru husband, whose idiotic platitudes trigger an awakening on the Severed Floor (a plot thread left dangling partway through season two). Dichen Lachman (Dollhouse) appears as Ms Casey, Lumon's Wellness Counsellor, whose importance to both Lumon's work and the characters' lives is slowly revealed to be far more significant than expected.

With Severance, Erickson, Stiller and their fellow writers and directors have created an alternative world that's all too plausible. In the capitalist world we live in, where companies often have more rights than individuals, it's all too easy to imagine a future where individuality itself is commodified. Severance poses weighty philosophical questions concerning the nature of the self, but whether the innies are separate people to the outies or not, their existence remains entirely commodified and at the whim of their employer. Lumon embodies the worst of corporate culture: the faceless power of the board; the meaningless perks offered to employees whose subservience the company relies on to exist; the mindless drudgery of so much modern employment, where work seems to exist for no reason other than to justify middle management. The four employees in Macrodata Refinement spend their days sorting sets of numbers, with no idea of what they represent or why they are doing it. Meanwhile, Lumon – a literal family concern, run by a single bloodline – insists its employees are family, while denying them autonomy, love and true connection.

Erickson has listed Being John Malkovich, Lost, Black Mirror and Sartre's No Exit as among his influences when writing Severance, and viewers will recognise elements of these as well as comedic influences such as Dilbert and The Office. The increasingly surreal situations and environments also evoke the inescapable Village of The Prisoner. The world both within and beyond Lumon's walls is gradually explored, becoming stranger and more complex the more we see. Even more bizarre are the opening titles, yet they're clearly deep with meaning and I found myself watching them closely for clues as to what might really be going on at Lumon. It's undoubtedly one of the most unpredictable series I've seen in a long time.

The second seasons ends on a stunning cliffhanger that would, nonetheless, work as a powerful open ending should it have to. Fortunately for its fans, Severance was renewed for a third season immediately after the second completed its release. Here's hoping that there's not another three year wait before we get to see where this remarkable series is heading, but even if there is, it'll be worth waiting for.