If you’ve yet to hear about Apple TV’s hit show Severance, I’m assuming it’s either because you have absolutely no interest in current popular film or television (and, if so, why would you be reading this article?) or you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months and have only just emerged back into society. If the latter is the case, I’m about to introduce you to your newest tv show obsession.

            The first season of Severance, a wonderfully written and well-crafted season of television, started streaming on Apple TV in February 2022, for which it suffered under the curse of Apple TV (for it being a not particularly widely used streaming service as Netflix for example). I would still argue that had Severance been on a bigger platform, its influence would be so much more impactful than it has already been since the second season started releasing, an episode a week, from January this year. I have to admit that I have only recently jumped onto the Severance train, which meant I was able to go straight from the jaw-dropping cliffhanger finale of season one straight into the first episode of season two.

            For those who had to wait three years between these seasons, you are some of our strongest soldiers and I can only congratulate you for not being in a Severance-induced coma since 2022.

            Now, what is Severance actually about? 

            I’m going to suggest that if you know absolutely nothing about this show and are planning to watch it to see what all the fuss is about… you should go in completely blind. Stop reading this article and hit play on episode one. This is how I experienced the show and I think it’s the best way to do it – having everything hit you at once and slowly learning what on Earth is going on. 

            (Then again, we’re over halfway through the second season and I’m still yet to properly understand what on Earth is going on.)

            For the rest of you, who have either already seen the show and want to know my thoughts, or you simply need to know more before deciding to commit, here’s a brief overview of Severance: Mark Scout (Adam Scott) is an employee at a company called Lumon, whose employees are all ‘Severed’, meaning they have had a chip surgically implanted into their brains so that their ‘outie’ (their out-of-work self) will remember nothing of their work day or what they are actually employed to do other than their role title, and their ‘innie’ (their work self) will remember nothing of their life outside of Lumon. Once Mark’s ‘innie’ has left work, he will remember none of what he does outside of work or what his ‘outie’s’ life is like and will simply reappear the next morning to work another day in the office. It all sounds very dystopian and unappealing… yet most of the Lumon employees seem to think that this is a great deal. That is until Helly R (Britt Lower) joins the Severed floor as a new employee and starts to question what they are all really doing at Lumon. 

            Severance’s premise had me hooked straight away, and the show only becomes more complex once the lives of the ‘innies’ become entangled with the lives of their ‘outies’ in the outside world. I think it’s a really culturally relevant story that questions who is human – and in fact who gets to decide who is considered human or not. Mark S and his team on the Severed floor are constantly treated as secondary to their ‘outies’, who are ‘real people’, and their whole lives revolve around mundane office jobs. It really made me think about how the modern culture surrounding work has become obsessive and dominating, and also about how such technology could be utilised in the real world. What’s to stop people from using Severance so that nobody has to experience anything bad ever? You’re essentially creating a whole person to forgo boring/negative experiences, and the morals behind this are murky at best. This is something else that the show has delved into slightly, but I don’t want to spoil anything.

            The other thing I have to credit Severance for is its incredible set design: both of the Severed building and of the world outside Lumon. The world outside is eerily crafted – the characters have modern smartphones, yet everyone drives cars that look like they’re from the 60s. Its little details like this, and the fact that it’s always snowing (but we don’t know where or when the show is supposed to be set) that add to the uneasy aesthetic of the show. The severed floor is brilliantly crafted to make Lumon feel like a slightly distorted version of an office building – some things, like all the empty space or the intensely lit hallways, are just far enough outside of the norm to make the viewer feel slightly uncomfortable in Lumon’s environment. 

            Now is the perfect time to start watching Severance, as there are enough episodes to binge, but also still quite a few episodes left of the second season so you can join in with the weekly cliffhangers that have everyone on the edge of their seat until the next Friday rolls around.

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