đź“— -> Severance
I’m writing this after watching Severance season 2. Spoilers throughout.
Personal Thoughts
Enjoyment
I’m personally a sucker for the mystery show format (I was gotten by Lost in Space, From, im forgetting other ones but I also loved Sherlock and Elementary). The building intrigue is just so fun to me. Here, it continues on and I really like the expansion.
- The new characters are fun
- Exploration of the ridiculousness/dreaminess of Lumon is enthralling
- Character development is also fun, particularly fleshing out the characters we see as more info is uncovered
Super enjoyed watching it, especially with the pronounced visual styling that makes even the slower moments entertaining. When it got to the end of the season, I was completely bought in and on the edge of my seat for more (I understand that’s the formula and I’m uniquely a sucker for it, but they did it fantastically well!).
My favorite moment of the show was Chikhai Bardo. Getting to flesh out Gemma as a character, as well as some of the more nefarious aspects of Lumon made a lot of the rest of the show fall into place for me. It was kind of similar to the house burning scene in Manchester-By-The-Sea, where everything you felt like you understood what you were watching until it finally clicks in seeing the pain. After that, I finally got Adam Scott’s performance. I only knew him from The Good Place, and assumed he was doing his same stilted awkward character but I understood he was coming from being broken as an angle after this episode. It also pulls of the chemistry between the Gemma and Mark a lot better than I expected, I understood how he could be broken after what he went through.
So far, we understand why 3 of the characters were severed, but we haven’t been exposed to why Irving chose to be. (Mark wants to forget, Dylan wants to hold a job, and Helen is a publicity stunt). We likely won’t get an answer to this, I heard Irving (John Turturro) was written out because he didn’t want to continue with the project.
I am a bit worried they’re biting off a bit more than they can chew though. Hopefully they get all the runway they need, but they’ve really been digging a big backlog of questions to start making good on.
View of themes
My favorite part of this season is Ms. Huang. At the beginning I didn’t take her entirely seriously and I’m sure I missed parts of her arc as a result, but she stands as a fantastic contrast to the innies. Despite being a literal child with no life experience, she still stands dominant against the innies who have even less life experience to speak of. A delightful contrast that really brings out how helpless they all are against Lumon.
Also fun explorations of self, autonomy, growth, etc.
Themes
Broad themes
Sense and definitions of self
Requirements for autonomy
Personal growth, taking charge
Corporate life
Obsession
Value of life / experience
Interesting spins on themes
The value of experience was one of the more thought provoking things they did for me, fun to reflect on. Especially as I talked about with Ms. Huang, fun.
Motivations
Work as a whole
I’m not sure, I assume it was intended to be a jab at corporate Americas, 9-5s, corporate slavery, and ridiculousness in bureacracy. That’s my read of it.
Characters
Mark S
A broken man looking to move on, and forget by force if he has to. Unsuccessfully.
Helly R/E
Milchick
Ms. Huang