It's time for a 'Severance' performance review
And the broader internet split the Apple TV+ show reflects
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The opening sequence of Severance took months to film, and the actors performed live in a glass box at Grand Central Terminal in New York City. The show has pulled some big moves in a Hollywood reliant on special effects, filming in New York’s eerie, snow-kissed Minnewaska State Park for Episode 4, “Woe’s Hollow,” and Canada’s beautiful, cliffside coast Newfoundland and Labrador for Episode 8, “Sweet Vitriol.”
Some reports even say the second season of Severance cost $20 million an episode. And you know what?
It’s paying off.
According to Apple TV+, the science fiction TV series has become the streaming service’s most watched show ever.
Severance makes it clear in every scene that detail and intent mattered to the creators. The show is well-crafted and complex with likable (and unlikable) characters who keep me seated every week.
A show like Severance is ripe for internet fodder. Though relatively slow-paced, every detail of the show is meticulously thought-out, perfect for screenshotting and overanalyzing. Even a 15-second ad sent fans scrambling. The elusiveness of said details make the show even more enticing, which leads to a delayed gratification treasure hunt, making every episode that much more coveted.
The plot and worldbuilding are put through the lens of black comedy, which Oxford Dictionary describes as a “work that deals with tragic or distressing subject matter in a humorous way.”
Severance’s take on the modern push for work-life balance helps its allure. Fans are able to see themselves in the concept of “innies” and “outies” – who you are at work versus who you are home. If you could, would you separate your work self from your personal life self? It’s an ethical, moral, philosophical dilemma unbearably relevant right now.
If the message wasn’t clear enough, Severance’s parody of corporatism is like a blazing gun in Season 2, Episode 5, “Trojan’s Horse.” In it, the manager of the severed employees receives a performance review that includes critiques like “Uses Too Many Big Words” and “Incorrect Use of Paperclips.”
One Reddit user commiserated with Corporate America’s nitpicking, mentioning a boss who kept track of every time they were one minute late.
“I think the brilliance in Severance relies heavily in reproducing the everyday ‘surreal’ situations of office jobs and similar work environments in general,” another Reddit user said. “I'm always checking boxes with a bunch of dialogues and situations that look and sound absurd on the show but in fact happen frequently in these jobs.”
The internet’s “innies” and “outies”
In Subreddits like r/Severance and X communities like “Severance Fans,” theorizers dive deep into the tiniest details of the show. It seems fruitless, at first (this word on this paper might mean this thing), but some theories seem to have merit, like this Cold Harbor theory or this system functions theory.
Of course, where serious fans show up, so, too, does the ridicule.
There are two internet “laws” related to this. The first is Cunningham's Law, which states, “The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer.” The second is Poe’s Law, which states “without a clear indicator of the author's intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.”
Cunningham's Law brings about correction and Poe’s Law brings about misinterpretation.
It’s common on Reddit to have two diametrically opposed groups, one for the serious fans and one for the serious fans that want to make fun of the “serious” fans. These communities often start with r/okbuddy or r/circlejerk to differentiate from their well-intended counterparts.
So, one could say there is an innie group and an outie group – those who are in on the joke and those who are out.
The Subreddit r/okbuddyseverance acts as a check on r/Severance’s spiral into ridiculousness.
In a now deleted post, an r/Severance user wrote, “The Severance world is surrealist. It's odd, fantastic, dreamlike, even nightmarish. There are elements that are bizarre, kafkaesque. There are elements of magical realism…Understanding this very basic fact is imperative to understanding the show.”
An r/okbuddyseverance user screenshotted it and wrote “new copypasta alert.”
(Quick review of copypasta: the word is used as a nod to messages that are copied and pasted repeatedly until they lose their meaning. I wrote an explainer about it here).
The Severance post is reminiscent of a Rick and Morty copypasta that starts with, “To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head.”
Statements like these may have been posted with genuine motivation to help the community, but others see them as simplistic, patronizing, or fake deep.
Sometimes, the innie group makes fun of the outie group who mistake the innie group’s content as part of the outie group’s. (Whew. You might have to read that again). The two types of fans can go ‘round again, ‘round again, mistaking each other’s content for their own in an endless circl – I’ll cut myself off there.
Let’s head to Refinement
I’ve always been fascinated by the duality of man as a central theme in art. I saw an X post about how we’re in the “year of the doppelganger” with the rising popularity of media like The Substance, Mickey 17, and Arcane.
“Specifically the doppelganger deployed as a means of gaining capital (social, financial, cultural),” the X user wrote, “to represent a world in which we must gather the most lucrative aspects of our selves and market them as a commodity to employers, social media etc.”
Shows like Severance take the concept literally, using a physically split self to demonstrate the person we are and the person we’re capable of being.
There’s something to be said for treating other’s with dignity and respect – whether that’s intended audiences, employees, or even other versions of yourself. The creators of Severance are going out of their way to respect their audience’s intelligence. To assume it, even. This feels just as rare in Hollywood as not relying on special effects. Audiences respect authenticity, and when audiences are respected, they respect back.
The show’s second season has been immaculate, filled with Easter eggs1, suspense, and societal commentary. Even the marketing has been intentional and rewarding. We’ll see what theories the most recent episode proves or disproves, and if that will lead the two types of fans to split further. I highly recommend you get into Severance if you haven’t yet.
Severance’s season finale airs March 21 with an expected run-time of 76 minutes. Let Kier guide (the showrunners’) hand.
Read my last story here: Yes, we *are* all just Sims living in a simulation
My weekly roundup:
🎶 What I’m Listening To: Darkwave
🎞️ What I’m Watching: Also, The White Lotus
🔎 What I’m Reading: In case you were curious what my “🤫” was over the past couple weeks, I wrote a book review on “Deep Cuts” by Holly Brickley
⚠️ What’s On My Radar: Just when you’ve forgotten about Club Chalamet, she’s back
Read the full Gen Z Dictionary here.
Easter eggs: hidden secrets in media