On March 20, Apple TV released the finale episode of Season Two of “Severance,” the hit TV thriller created by Dan Erickson and directed by Ben Stiller. If you wish to keep the final episode mysterious and important, know this: it was excellent. If you wish to know more…
Spoilers ahead.
“Severance” mostly follows the lives of four employees who work for a company known as Lumon Industries. Their work is so secret that they must all undergo the titular Severance procedure, which splits their consciousness into two parts — an “Innie” who exists only at work, and an “Outie” who lives the rest of their life.
Outies have no memory of what they do at work, and Innies have no memory of anything except work. They don’t remember their childhoods, addresses, friends, significant others or even — as the show hauntingly reminds us — their mother’s eye colors.
The show mostly centers around Mark Scout and his Innie Mark S. Mark Scout decided to become severed to cope with the grief of losing his wife Gemma in a car crash. Mark S. works as the head of macro data refinement — a department that sorts numbers based on how they make the employees “feel” — alongside Irving B., an artistic yet lonely man, Dylan G., a goofball dedicated to accumulating “work perks,” and Helly R., the newest member of the team who is obsessed with “quitting” her job and freeing herself.
Together, the four of them embark on a journey to better their lives, discover who they are and understand exactly what it is they do when they’re at work.
The second season of “Severance” was just as strong as the first. Firstly, the performances were excellent. Adam Scott was able to truly shine this season, portraying equally complex and similar and yet distinct and nuanced characters in both Innie Mark and Outie Mark.
Dichen Lachman as Gemma gives a similarly gut-wrenching performance as she undergoes misery after misery. Gwendoline Christie gives an astonishingly tender and vicious performance as a severed goat-wrangler protecting her kids — baby goats. Everyone is at their best; it is the strong acting that allows the strange world of “Severance” to feel real.
Speaking of the strange world, “Severance” Season Two did not shy away from the strong aesthetic and visual vocabulary it had in its first season. Too often, as the plot of a show becomes more complex, little details about set-dressing and color-grading are forgotten. “Severance” remembers, keeping its cool color-tone and vaguely anachronistic sets throughout.
Even though the technology of the “Severance” world seems more advanced than ours, it resembles technology of the 1970s: thick, chunky and made from white plastic. Even the cars are retro. Our characters have the technological power to cleave their consciousnesses in half, but still rely on phone booths, trains and CRT TVs.
In the world of “Severance,” it is perpetually winter and perpetually twilight. All of it serves to tell the audience, “This isn’t how it should be.” I adored this about the first season and was glad to see the motif continued.
Season Two was slightly slower paced compared to Season One, with a few episodes that stepped away from the main action of the show to highlight the lives and histories of our main and side characters. I enjoyed this, though others disagree. It prevented the action from feeling rushed and overwhelming, and deepened my connections to the characters and therefore the story.
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I must highlight Gemma again, not just for Lachman’s incredible acting, but for what Gemma brings to the narrative. When first introduced, Gemma was Mark’s dead wife. In Season One, we learned that she was still alive, but inexplicably trapped by Lumon, unbeknownst to Mark and his family.
Gemma seemed like all dead wives at first. She was beautiful. She was sweet. He loved her so much. But now she’s gone, and her absence matters more than her presence would have. Oh well.
When we meet Gemma, however, she is one of the most lucid and autonomous characters we know. Unlike much of the rest of our cast, she knows what life is like both under Lumon’s thumb and free. She fights to be back with her husband with wisdom and out of love. Despite her imprisoned status, she’s one of the most active and self-possessed characters we have.
Gemma is such an excellent twist on the “dead wife” trope; her character is elevated beyond an idealized, passive corpse. She’s arguably the character who fights the hardest and gets the farthest this season.
The Season One finale left audiences wondering what was going on. There was a distinct aura of tension and confusion. Season Two, however, left audiences to ponder, “What are we going to do now?”
Our trapped characters are free, our free characters are trapped. Many of the big questions have been answered, but the path ahead is entirely unclear. Season Two tied up a lot of loose ends, but ended in a state of pure emotional toil.
As much as I liked the second season, I have some reservations about the next season. One of the initial appeals of the show for me was the theme of alienation and dehumanization caused by modern work culture. I’d hate to lose that as the show seems to pivot to focus more on interpersonal drama — particularly the bizarre love triangle between Mark, Helly and Gemma.
But the groundwork has been laid for a season that deals with both, equally. Despite my concerns for the future, I trust Stiller and the rest of the “Severance” team to deliver. Season Two was excellent, and I look forward to more.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
