Severance is the best TV show I’ve watched this year (so far)
Severance was not on my radar or watchlist plan (yes, I have one!) before it came out but Twitter blew up quickly after the first episode dropped and I had to see what all the fuss was about. And I’m so glad I did.
Here’s the set-up: the show stars Adam Scott as Mark, an employee in the Macrodata Refinement division of Lumon Industries. The corporation uses a medical procedure called severance – which separates a person’s work memories from their non-work memories – on employees who wish to undergo the operation.
If you’re severed, you don’t know anything about your personal life and don’t bring in any emotional baggage to work, and at home, you have no recollection of your work or your colleagues. The action kicks off in earnest when Petey (Yul Vazquez), Mark’s best friend at work, shows up in his home life and claims Lumon is up to something.
First of all, what a fantastic concept. I was hooked from the start! I was fascinated learning how the procedure works in practice on the day-to-day, the impact it has on Mark’s colleagues Dylan (Zach Cherry), Irving (John Turturro) and newcomer Helly (Britt Lower), and what they actually do down on the “severed floor”.
Such a high concept could have easily run of steam but creator Dan Erickson cleverly structured it in a way that the revelations just keep on coming and every time they peel back another layer of the mystery. The Lumon employees become gradually more curious about their floor and who else might be down there and “outie” Mark starts digging into Lumon and a possible conspiracy.
Some people may initially find it slow but I think that’s fair enough in the first few episodes as there is so much world-building to be done. We need to understand how severance works before we can get to the juicy stuff. But I was never bored and found the whole thing intriguing always. I rarely looked at my phone, which says A LOT.
This all builds and builds until the last two sensational episodes, which were directed by Ben Stiller (who directs six of the nine episodes). There are a couple of game-changing jaw-dropping twists that I did not see coming at all. I thought this would be a one-off limited series but those revelations require so much exploration and unpacking.
I don’t use the word masterpiece lightly or throw it about often but I think the finale deserves it. How everything came together and the nail-biting way it was edited was simply incredible. The way it ends left my heart pounding. What a cliffhanger! I cannot wait for season two.
All nine episodes available now on Apple TV+