Now that the second season of the critically acclaimed Severance is almost done airing, I’ve finally gotten around to watching its premiere season. And I gotta say, I’m glad I waited! What a horrible cliffhanger to wait three years on!
I’ll get to that a little bit later. What I’m going to recap now, I’m sure most of you know, but still. It’s my first time around in this strange, dystopian world. We meet Mark on his way to work at Lumon Industries, though going into the elevator he sure seems a lot different than when he gets out. Turns out that’s pretty much how it is for everyone who works on the same floor as Mark. They are part of the “severed floor,” which means they elected to have a procedure that splits their personal brain from their work brain and the swap happens on that elevator ride.
Off-putting as that sounds on its own, you then realize that for each employees’ selves, it’s like they never get a break from it. Could you imagine feeling like you never leave the office? I know it can really feel like that sometimes, but for these employees it’s real life! Also, what the heck are they doing that no one can know about it in every day life? But a point made a little ways into the season is this: essentially, severing a person essentially creates a new life in a body that they have to share. And the Lumon versions of these people don’t get to call the shots.
Mark has been all about this life in the MDR department for the past three years, but then his perspective shifts when his best work friend, Petey, has abruptly quit, and is replaced by a very rebellious woman named Helly. From the moment she wakes up she’s questioning what this hellscape is, and though Mark would like everything to remain as peaceful as it had been, he’s starting to get Helly’s point. The other members of Mark’s team are also starting to play fast and loose with the status quo. My personal favorite is the budding relationship between oddball Irving and O&D head Burt. They are so damn cute together. But O&D coming together with the MDR team definitely shifts things against their overlords Milcheck and Cobel.
And as if it wasn’t bad enough that the severed employees are starting to get wise to the crap going on at Lumon, but at least Mark’s outside self is starting to get the veil lifted, as well. I don’t know that he would have ever started questioning things if real life Petey hadn’t sought him out. Sure, Mark has no clue who this guy is, but he’s acting so strangely that he’s not not going to listen. It probably also helps that Mark knew he had a best friend somewhere out there, where his real life is quite grim. Mark starts poking around, but it’s hard to make much progress when two halves of yourself have information that they can’t share with each other.
Eventually though, the Lumon versions of themselves get the upper hand and get a chance to walk around in the life of their other halves to learn some vital information and make some serious waves. Like I said, the cliffhanger at the end is infuriating, and I give those who tuned in when this season initially aired all of the credit in the world for their patience. Though I’m not sure how many answers we’ll be getting in the second season. This first season moved at an almost glacial pace without revealing much of anything that could have taken place in fewer than nine hours. Still, definitely intrigued to see where it all goes.