When the second series of Severance came to a dramatic and bloody conclusion last week, the same question must have been on every viewer’s lips: ‘Blimey! What the hell was that all about?’
If you think I’m exaggerating, here’s an extract from that final episode. A woman is pushing a young goat down a long corridor until she meets a large bloke with a beard. Goats are just one of the eccentric features of Severance.
The following dialogue is typical.
Woman with goat: Mammalians Nurturable brings an offering.
Large bloke: Has it verve?
Goat woman: It does.
Large bloke: Wiles?
Goat woman: The most of its flock.
See what I mean? Severance is undoubtedly the most baffling series since David Lynch’s Twin Peaks had us all scratching our heads in the early 1990s. There are times when the audience is required to suspend its disbelief to such astronomical heights that Elon Musk was probably on standby to organise a rescue mission.
Just when you think you’ve grasped something, a dozen more puzzles spring up to keep you guessing. Why do people spend so much time running down dazzling white corridors? What does Lumon, the mysterious company at the centre of the series, actually produce? Why do their computers look like a 1980s job lot from eBay?
Adam Scott returns to the office in Season 2 of ‘Severance’
Just when you think you’ve grasped something, a dozen more puzzles spring up to keep you guessing. Why do the computers look like a 1980s job lot from eBay?
And yet it is the most talked-about series of the moment, having racked up 622million minutes of viewing time across its two series. Corners of Twitter are dominated by fan pages feverishly discussing the cast and the plot.
The Business Insider website describes it as ‘the buzziest streaming show of the year so far’.
And last week, central London was brought to a standstill as actors from the show staged a surprise parade past Tower Bridge, Big Ben, and the London Eye to promote the show’s second series. One fan lamented on TikTok: ‘We would have appreciated a notice to be able to call in sick – I mean plan annual leave – to attend this’.
Despite its cult following, however, there’s a good chance that you won’t even have seen Severance, which first premiered in February 2022. It streams on Apple TV, which doesn’t make the top ten of streaming services, but reported a 126 per cent rise in subscriptions in January in anticipation of season two.
And so it has been a slow burner in terms of popularity. If it’s passed under your radar, here’s a brief summary of the plot.
Do you remember Angela Rayner’s plan to separate work and leisure time? The idea was eventually dropped, but before the election she mooted making it illegal for employers to contact their staff outside of working hours.
In Severance, Lumon’s method of achieving the same end is infinitely more fiendish. Employees have a computer chip inserted in their brains which ruthlessly divides their work and home lives.
At work, where they are known as ‘Innies’, they have no memory of the outside world. At home, so-called ‘Outies’ can’t remember anything that happens at work. The transformation occurs in the lift on the way to and from the office.
At home, severed workers can’t remember anything that happens at work, and visa versa. The transformation occurs in the lift on the way to and from the office. Pictured is main character Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott
This transformation was filmed, by the way, using a technique called dolly zoom pioneered by Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo and used to great effect by Stephen Spielberg in Jaws.
The hero of the series is Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott from the sitcom Parks & Recreation. Mark chose severance after the death of his wife and now runs Lumon’s very dreary ‘Macro Data Refinement’ department.
His team of four sit in front of their screens all day, looking for numbers that emotionally unsettle them. (I told you Severance was odd). When they find unsettling numbers, they drag them into a digital bin.
This turns out to be very significant and there is a reason that Mark in particular is working on this bizarre-sounding project. To explain further would spoil the show for new viewers.
Another main character is Mark’s colleague Helly, played by Britt Lower, who was named after the actress Britt Eckland and who played ukulele at a circus between seasons one and two.
Patricia Arquette plays Harmony Cobel, who is Mark’s boss and his neighbour when he is an ‘Outie’. And double Oscar-winner Christopher Walken, the actor of choice for ‘enigmatic’ roles, is a Lumon department head.
They were nearly joined by a very big name indeed. Barack Obama was asked to voice a Lumon training video, but couldn’t spare the time. The role went instead to Keanu Reeves.
Just one of the remarkable features of Severance is that it was created by a completely unknown writer. Dan Erickson was inspired by a job he hated: cataloguing door parts in a factory. ‘I caught myself in this fantasy where I wished I could just skip over the next eight hours of my life,’ he explains.
There is no doubt that this complex, richly-layered programme is replete with mystery and hidden meanings. There are probably as many theories as viewers
His idea found its way to Zoolander star Ben Stiller, who is the show’s director and executive producer. The result is one of the most original shows of recent years. As The New York Post gushed: ‘In this age where too much entertainment feels made by committee or made by algorithm, this is a rare show that feels like a singular creative vision.’
It’s certainly an ideal show for the digital age. Fans have been feverishly swapping conspiracy theories online, and debating what exactly it’s all been about.
‘I’m amazed at how incredibly detail-oriented our audience is,’ says Stiller. ‘It’s really satisfying. I feel people pick up on the smaller things.’
No detail is overlooked, even down to the number plate on Mark’s car. Sharp-eyed viewers spotted that it featured the motto ‘Remedium Hominibus’, which is Latin for ‘a cure for mankind’. And why doesn’t the plate feature a state name, as is usual in the US? Does this prove, as some viewers claim, that Severance shows an alternative American reality? Who knows.
There is no doubt that this complex, richly-layered programme is replete with mystery and hidden meanings.
The show is almost designed for obsessives: There is so much to unpick. What is the meaning of the art that decorates the imposing, modernist Lumon building? And what is the significance of the colours red and blue, a recurring motif that appears throughout the series? Why do goats feature so heavily? What really is the show’s wider meaning?
Ben Stiller, who is currently working on season three, is enigmatic on the subject.
He suggested in one interview that it’s about the struggle to understand our lives, while in another he said it was about dealing with grief.
There are probably as many theories as viewers. ‘Severance’s principal subject is theft – of time and memory, of identity and humanity,’ says the Left-wing New Statesman magazine.
Others claim it’s about life in a cult, or that it examines what it means to be human. Or that it’s about work-life balance, or an attack on corporate culture.
Inevitably, there are even people who think it’s about the Nazis. But there are people who think everything is about the Nazis.
For me, the most convincing theory comes from an anonymous contributor to the Reddit forum. ‘It finally dawned on me,’ they wrote. ‘Severance is not about one thing, about one grand narrative. The story is just a vessel for a bunch of themes, and you will focus on whatever theme occupies your mind’.
That said, there is perhaps one universal message from the show, and it’s this. If you think your own job is dull and frustrating and that your managers are incompetent bullies, then count your blessings – it could be a whole lot worse.
