What if you could split your work life from your real life? Switch off your brain and give control to someone else? In the show “Severance,” you can do just that.
Created by Dan Erickson and directed mostly by Ben Stiller, Severance gives you a glimpse into how hell can be as simple as your work life. We follow Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a severed worker for Lumon Industries, who works as a Macro Data Refiner. The severed Mark, or “Innie Mark,” has no idea what the normal Mark, or “Outie Mark,” is like or what is happening outside of Lumon. What the severed employees come to know is told to them by the company. Still, it consists of minimal information, such as small things about their Outie or whatever is in the company handbook, which they treat as a bible to Kier Eagan, the founder of Lumon. Erickson brings horror and mystery to the standard office life by hiding the truth, even when it is right in front of you.
Severance follows a format similar to that of shows like “Stranger Things,” where it starts normally but starts to show cracks into something hidden by what’s normal. Where Severance differentiates itself from shows like that is how they structure the stories. When Mark is outside of Lumon, we follow main story one, but when he goes to work, we follow main story two. Both stories are the same overall story and come together at the end, but they have different secondary stories that aren’t complicated, so you can easily follow along with both main stories. This is a unique way of telling a story that I don’t see much nowadays on TV.
Severance also uses contrast throughout the show to show the differences in the stories. For example, in Main Story one, it is usually nighttime and shows the dark and grittiness of the real world. Mark’s hair is unkempt. Meanwhile, in Main Story two, Everything is neat and sterile, but there is a creepy emptiness to the severed floor, and Mark’s hair is nice and neat. This contrast appears all over the shows in both seasons.
One last thing about Severance is its aesthetic. While most of the outside stuff is modern and present-day, the severed floor has an office style similar to the ‘70s or early ‘80s style of how everything is presented. From how the computers are styled, similar to the Commodore PET, to the way people dress, it makes you feel familiar, but it furthers the feeling of eeriness of the severed floor.
This show is now one of my new favorites, and I am excited for the third season. I would rate this show a 9 out of 10, and have recommended this show to everyone I know.
