Severance Ep 1 & 2 Recap
Good News In Hell & Half Loop
Severance spends much of its first episode explaining its world to you, and it doesn’t do it in an overbearing way. The closest thing to an exposition dump you get is a very well executed “no dinner dinner” scene. What could be a crushingly self serious show, plays a darkly comedic hand that rounds out an already good execution of the premise.
At that dinner we find out an answer to a question that would no doubt be raised by anyone who watches this. Why would anyone subject themselves to this procedure? We find out that Mark’s wife died two years ago and in a moment I found a little heavy-handed Mark’s sister Devon (Jen Tullock) mentions that locking away the rest of his life for 8 hours everyday is not the same thing as healing.
Earlier that day, Mark(Adam Scott) finds out his best work friend, Petey was fired and we begin to get a glimpse of what it must be like to exist in that space. Someone can be ripped away from you and you have no way of knowing what happened to them.
Supported by Irving(John Turturro), Mark tries to onboard Helly as she tries to find her bearings on the Severed floor. The show begins to hint at it’s possibly absurdist nature when Helly asks to leave and is led to a stairwell to exit and repeatedly walk back into the office.
At the end of the day Mark finds a note on his car explaining the scar on his head that came from Helly throwing a speaker at his head. The note is a lie. It’s accompanied with a VIP pass to Pips bar and grille.
After No-dinner dinner Mark finds Petey(Yul Vasquez) in Devon’s backyard. They meet up later at Pips where Petey introduces himself and hands Mark a card explaining everything in detail. Mark goes home and it’s revealed that Mrs. Selvig(Patricia Arquette) who has been on the phone with him many different times is actually Ms. Cobel his boss from work.
Episode two gives us more context into somethings that happen in episode 1 in a really interesting way. We start with Helly’s outtie at the initial phases of the severance procedure.
And we get a really brilliant explanation for what happened at the other end of the door when she tried to leave in episode 1. One of the best things about this show so far is how it chooses to hand out information. We could have easily seen this in episode 1 but attaching it to her overall entrance procedure just works so well.
Helly’s day two begins with a party where we find out some more things about what severance actually feels like, the fact that you don’t perceive nights or weekends. They have a welcome party for Helly where things take a dark turn when Mark mentions that he is worried about his best friend that disappeared with no explanation. Helly decides she does not want to work there anymore and writes a note to her outtie that is quickly detected. This leads to Mark having to spend sometime in the “break room”.
Mark is on a date with his sisters midwife(Nikki M James) when the encounter protesters from the Whole Mind Collective who are against Severance. It was mentioned in Ep 1 briefly that there was some congressional going on with respect to severance and this is a clever way to bring up it societal impacts. Mark does not take kindly to their implying that the decision he made to sever his mind was forced on him.
Selvig makes an appearance at Mark’s place to offer him peace cookies.
Mark decides to take the day off and visit the address Petey gave him. Back at the office the others are wondering about his whereabouts. The show flexes it’s absurdist muscles again where Irv begins to hallucinate some black goo coming on his console, he ends up screaming and having to get a wellness check.
Mark meets up with Petey who gives him some more information about what goes on down there. He plays him a terrifying recording from the break room.
Whatever happened in the breakroom could not be as dark as what passes for wellness on the severed floor. Doling out pieces of information about the outtie to the innie and then asking them to refrain from enjoying it. That entire scene was so perverse and just flat out evil.
Petey is Dying
Bits and Bobs
The opening sequence is so creative and well done.
The show manages its tone very well finding spots for bits of comedy. I hope Dylan gets fleshed out over the course of the season and does not just exist for comic relief.
Who is the dude carved into that wall?
“A handshake is Available upon request” ???
“The Freedom to Serve Kier” ????
Milchick scares me
Coming into the show, I assumed that severance would be a secret but it makes way more sense that it’s public and controversial.
This is probably the least interesting part of the show to me but I have to ask, What the fuck does Lumon do?
The first few episodes have done a pretty good job of introducing the world and the characters. The production design is excellent, especially the sterile design of the Lumon spaces. The score is sparse and fitting. I’m very excited to see what questions the show continues to ask and how it goes about answering or not answering them.
