Severance

Rated TV-MA • Apple TV+

For the first time since Ted Lasso, Apple TV+ has a true watercooler hit. Dan Erickson’s Severance has returned with a second season that sucks viewers in with mystery-box intrigue à la Lost—but resonates themes for today.

Adam Scott (of Parks and Recreation fame) trades his comedy chops for a career-defining dramatic performance as Mark Scout, an employee on the “severed floor” of the Lumon megacorporation. Here, employees labor in a sterile office, their memories surgically split between work and home. Their work selves (or “innies”) don’t remember the lives of their home selves (“outies”), and vice versa. What are they doing, exactly? They don’t know. They trust the company line: The work is “mysterious and important.”

The comedy-gone-drama extends behind the camera, with Ben Stiller serving as executive producer and director of many episodes. Stiller confessed to interviewer Sean Evans over a plate of hot wings that Severance had its origins in workplace comedy, and the concept turned dramatic over time. The show also features familiar Hollywood faces such as John Turturro, Christopher Walken, and Patricia Arquette.

Severance explores the corners of its core concept. What would it be like to literally know no reality other than the office? Can you truly split one person into two? What things exist too deeply to sever? Would these people have different personalities? Different souls? Could they be recombined?

Like all good science fiction, Severance doesn’t merely probe tomorrow. It examines today. Severance is 1984 for the age of surveillance capitalism, when so many of the tyrannies feared from Big Government sneak in via the Trojan horse of Big Tech. There’s an irony in the fact that Severance comes from tech giant Apple, and arguably looks more like an Apple product than any of its other shows.

Other shows, such as Black Mirror, have plumbed similar depths. Severance goes a level deeper. How do we relate to work when humans become numbers? When we cannot see or touch that which we produce, let alone comprehend its effect on our neighbors? In the “mysterious and important” work of Lumon, it’s hard not to hear echoes of Wendell Berry’s omnipresent, undefined economic “objective” and its blind adherents, “having never known where they were going, / having never known where they came from.”

The second season loses some momentum with uneven pacing in its latter half. But a satisfying finale assures viewers that Erickson and Stiller will not leave them mired in unsolvable riddles. There are answers to find, and the answers don’t feel like cheating. The big reveals don’t come from nowhere—they reward keen-eyed viewers. This show cannot be watched with one eye on your smartphone. It demands sharp attention.

Viewers should be aware of frequent foul language throughout the show (including numerous misuses of the Lord’s name) and some surprising moments of violence. The show also depicts several nongraphic sexual situations and features a prominent romantic subplot between two male characters.

Apple TV+ has officially renewed Severance for a third season. The first two seasons are streaming now.