I'll foment unrest: the reason the show doesn't hold up week-to-week is because its story mechanics are bad. (By this I mean, the actual building blocks of what a story is, setups and payoffs, character arcs, etc.) They don't do the work to earn the stories they seem to be trying to tell. If you just float along with the show based on style and vibes, then I'm sure it's great. If you're actually expecting real storytelling, it's not.
Mark, the lead, does not have a character story in season 2. At all. He has a plot (get Gemma back), but no emotional journey. So, too, with many of the other characters. Innie Mark's choice between Gemma and Helly at the end should have been a grand climactic choice point for the character - and maybe it would have if reintegration didn't end up being absolutely pointless - but instead it was never even a question. There was no reason for innie Mark to go with Gemma, whom he doesn't know. The fact that they even played it as a choice is absurd. He starts the episode saying he wants to live and be with Helly and he ends it in the same place, no arc there. Innie and outie Mark arguing at the beginning should have been the climax to a season-long interplay between the two - asking the question of who's real, who gets to live, who is the priority, how do you decide - but instead it was just a thing that happens, as if outie Mark never considered that his innie would have his own POV. Over and over again, we get these scenes that should be the landing points of long-form stories, but they just... skipped over telling the story.
The show wants all the payoffs, but doesn't do the work to get there. Which is how you get that false finale choice for innie Mark, how innie Dylan proposes to Gretchen after seeing her like 3 times, how outie Burt and Irving are in love after only one dinner. They're not bad end points, but because we didn't see the work to actually get there - building up these relationships so that the choices matter - it all just lands with an unsatisfying thud.
The show is well-shot and well-acted and again, if you're just bopping along with the vibes, then it's probably a fun time. But if you apply any kind of story scrutiny, it falls apart. Which is why it feels so empty at the end of it all.
I think you're right that of course innie Mark wouldn't go with Gemma and it was kind of absurd for outie Mark to expect that, but I think that in itself was something outie Mark probably has to learn the hard way. The Burt and Irving example from the previous episode is the one that really didn't work for me. All the people who said it was so emotional and beautiful but it just rang false for me cuz these two people aren't supposed to remember they're in love!
I didn't even list them all. Cobel inventing severance is also a payoff without a setup. And on and on. This is a global problem with the show. Certain stories may not bother certain viewers, but when you have a consistent problem like this, it'll hit everyone eventually. And unless they fix it and learn how to set up their payoffs, I can guarantee the end of the show will not work. That's the biggest payoff of all. You have to set it up.
Interestingly, in DE's interview, it kinda sounds like he's already warning viewers that the show won't end in a satisfying way. Which is not a good sign.
Thanks for the comments. I'd need to think about your take some more but I think you may have hit on something that has been bugging me this season: I don't have much emotional investment in any of Season 2.
I completely understand why you wouldn't be emotionally invested. I'd contend that it's because most of the characters in S2 don't have emotional arcs; they don't evolve or change based on the things happening. Most importantly, the *lead* doesn't have an arc and he's our emotional hook into the show. (Weirdly, the character with the best arc in S2 was Milchick; he went from a loyal Lumon drone to realizing there was a limit to the mistreatment he would accept, at which point he started pushing back. Good arc!)
Audiences get emotionally invested because they care about the characters, first and foremost. It's why you can feel nothing watching bombs destroy the world while a character missing their morning cup of coffee can be gripping because we know how much it means to them. It's not the scale of events that matters; it's how they affect people we care about. Severance seems to be mostly interested in stylish visuals, with the character stories taking a backseat in S2, either rushed or nonexistent. And so it all ends up feeling beautiful, but hollow.
I think the characters have arcs but maybe they weren't at all satisfying or tangible for you, I can see how they might just fail to work. I don't think it's that specifically for me, I just wasn't invested where the show decided to go. The cult stuff and all of Lumon's profoundly weird elements were not compelling to me. I also found it hard to buy into a few big plot points, especially Woe's Hollow. Beautiful, well-crafted hour of TV but fairly absurd and non-sensical relative to what we know about severance. Fantastical storytelling can be really difficult to sustain over time and Severance lost me with S2.
I think both of you have good points and Season Two was extremely compelling, but the rumored behind the scenes fights about direction and story were evidenced all over the screen.
I liked the finale but also had an unexpected feeling come over me about two-thirds through: I started to hope that I was about to watch the series finale, and the wool had been pulled over all of our eyes.
I think it comes from a mix of wanting to see the boldness of it (a mystery show where everyone is expecting a cliffhanger, ending without any advanced warning from the producers or network and thus not priming the audience for a series finale) and also some fatigue with the usual mystery show cliffhanger song and dance.
It was a great, if uneven season, overall. An excellent show - and yet still, probably because I rewatched the first season just before and also let myself get too hyped by Alan’s season preview, it was a bit of a step down. Everything through Woes Hollow was on par with season one though.
Last bit - I’m not alone in noticing this - but it seems like it’s Helena and not Helly R in the hallway at the end, based on the small smirk she sends Gemma’s way (“Helly R is never cruel”). Doesn’t seem to matter in terms of Marks decision to stay though
Completely agree about wondering if this was actually the end partway through! And where season one set up so many interesting possibilities, I kind of left this finale wishing they had just wrapped it up instead of doing more of a cliffhanger…season one’s felt so earned and this one felt dramatically less so.
I think in general the finale was pretty great in giving us *some* answers and the Mark and Gemma reunion. I was concerned after the penultimate episode, which felt so rushed and crammed because they took so much time with the backstories of Gemma and Cobel. The thing that went over the worst for me in that episode was the Irving-Burt farewell, because it felt so final despite us still having so many questions about how outie Irving would remember his love for Burt and vice-versa.
But I was incredibly impressed by the two Marks communicating with each other via camcorder. That was just excellent writing. And then we saw an echo of that with outie Dylan writing to his innie. I think this stuff is the best Severance has to offer cuz it’s so innovative but also so very human. Like, I want innie Mark to do what his outie asks him to do and later to leave with Gemma, but it rings true that he would buck against that and go with Helly, that he wouldn't want to give up his own life (even if they aren't really thinking that thru - after all, they can't stay on the severed floor forever).
I think the biggest problem with Severance season 2 is that it was introducing story ideas that will have ramifications in season 3, while the audience expected them to be a big part of season 2 - re-integration is of course the big one, but also chipping away at Milcheck's loyalty, the anti-Lumon group that Irving is apart of, revealing Cobel as the true brains behind the severance procedure ...
I think when all is said and done, assuming the show maintains its generally high level of quality, that season 2 will be regarded the same way season 2 of The Wire is looked at - not at the same level of 1 and 3, but laid out the groundwork for the rest of the series.
Yes! This is exactly what I thought at the end of the finale. I think season 2 did an excellent job at setting up the scene around reintegration not being the solution we thought it could be in season 1. I kept expecting Milchick to full turn on Lumon in the band scene but his character is not that impulsive so it makes sense to have his rebellion be a slow burn. We shall see if season 3 delivers!
I can’t recall a more disappointing sophomore season than Severance S2. I loved S1 so much that I rooted for it to win over great seasons of Succession, Better Call Saul and Euphoria. And up to this season, I considered it the very best show Apple TV has ever released. After last night’s all-over-the-place finale and a dark and convoluted season, the love is mostly gone. While there were those who complained about Lost feeling like it was making things up as it went along, this show makes it nearly impossible to believe the writers have any satisfying answers up their sleeve.
Watching Severance and the Pitt reminds me of two earlier shows, obviously ER for the Pitt and Lost for Severance. The Pitt manages to be different enough from ER despite the Noah Wylie of it all, that I can just enjoy it as a good show. Severance has great production design and performances that are great as well, but the mystery box element of it is starting to remind me of Lost when they invented new elements just to add more seasons to the show. I wouldn’t say severance is there just yet, but I really hope there is an overall plan at this point and the show can set up the elements in a way that makes some sense. Elements like Milchik are wonderful in their own, but the main story seems to have been dragged out for another season. Gemma and innie Mark should have left the building and Dylan seems to have returned for plot purposes only. Now things can be course corrected for season three, but I think at some point they will have to leave the building and sort out the larger Eagan world. Devon also went from hating lumon to trusting Cobel/ Selwig which again seemed more for plot than logic.
The finale left me a bit cold. Plenty of action, sure, and I enjoyed it. But also...
We got a few mechanistic answers like MDR is defining tempers...ok? What? How? Why? Does that mean that Irv and Dylan and Helly are also doing that for someone? Many more questions raised than answered, which is always frustrating.
What is Jame Eagen and his weird culty family up to? I appreciated Erickson's comment in the interview that he's saving Lumon's big mysteries, but completely unexplained cryptic behavior from Jame is again more frustrating than entertaining.
What are Helly and Mark planning to do together? A semi-triumphal joining of forces and running away to their destiny doesn't really work for me when we know they have nowhere to run to.
The Mark and Gemma reunion is obviously meant and framed as touching, a huge emotional payoff...except we barely know Gemma and we're more invested in Mark and Helly. So it felt hollow.
I'll still be eager to tune in to the next season, hoping to get some payoff. But Season 3 needs to be better to hold my interest.
Funnily enough, I’m not particularly invested in Mark/Helly this season, namely b/c I’m not even sure if she is Helly or Helena, and also
b/c poor Gemma tortured for months gets her husband back, only to watch him leave her. Brutal — and I think they have good chemistry. I like Adam Scott as his outtie this season more than his innie — the sort of naïveté (not quite the right word) of the innies got on my nerves a bit this year.
I think Severance is a few notches above most of what's on TV these days, but I have to agree that this season was a bit frustrating in the second half.
Too much time spent on diversions and not enough focus on the main characters - it made a number of things not feel earned, like really all the innie relationship beats. Plus the "bottle episode" would've been better if we'd checked in on Ms. Cobel/Selvig a bit more during the season - and it still seems strange Mark's sister would be so gung ho to bring her into their situation.
The Gemma episode was great, but again, felt like it was done at the expense of time for the other characters and ongoing story.
All that said, the finale was pretty gripping as you'd expect, and hopefully the momentum keeps up moving forward. It's still appointment viewing for me in spite of some hiccups.
I watched the Severance finale yesterday and had a lot of positive and negative thoughts that I was ready to get off my chest. Then I watched last night's episode of The Pitt and I don't even care anymore.
The Pitt is my favorite thing on TV right now and last night's episode was incredible. There was so much payoff after 11 hours with these characters - seeing Dr. King take on a leadership role (& my gosh her excitement when she saw Langdon), seeing Dr. Mohan make quick decisions, seeing the hospital administrator not only give Dr. Robby what he needs but anticipate what he needs. That's just to name a few. I loved seeing our non-ER doctors struggle with the on-the-fly nature of the ER. I loved the department briefing. I loved Dr. Robby always teaching even in crisis (him taking a beat to instruct Javadi on what to do when on the helicopter pad).
After the episode ended my husband and I debated if the shooter is David, and realized it'll be satisfying either way. Either David is not the shooter and we are relieved and happy for his Mom and Dr. Robby, or David is the shooter and we feel their agony and the payoff of this threat for the whole season. It's a 'mystery' with only 2 outcomes and we know both of them. We're just waiting to see what happens. Compare that to the constant debates for Severance and White Lotus, where we as an audience can go down wild theory rabbit holes and sometimes do feel let down by the resolution of the mystery.
It was a gripping episode that had me on the verge of tears from the start until the end - not because I was sad but because I was caught up in the emotion and tension of what was happening. Despite the chaos, the episode seemed quieter than normal. A lesser show would have added music and noise to add to the drama. But the quiet was so powerful.
The finale was incredible! But the season as a whole was far inferior than the first. A year from now, when I'll inevitably do my rewatch, most likely, I'll watch season 2 premiere, Wow's Hollow and Cold Harbor and I'll be fine. All the rest was pretty much forgettable unnecessary filler episodes. Also, I think the writes are putting themselves in a corner that they might not be able to get out from: a high-up was murdered on the severed floor, equipments destroyed, rebellions aplenty on several departments, etc. The logical thing from a megacorp like Lumon would be to send down a dozen of unsevered armed soldiers and arrest everybody. But it won't happen. If they start new season with Mark S coming out of elevator and Milkshake saying "good morning refiner of the century!" I'll just leave. There is no room anymore for MDR, O&D, Burt G, Wellness Center. It's all chaos now. The show has to become a totally different one, otherwise, there is no stakes and it would become a boring/predictable show. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't see a good future for Severance.
I think that’s where the revelation that Cobel invented the severance technology comes in.
She helped Mark free Gemma so that the minute things went off the rails, she marches in to the board with her unique bona fides and demands control of the operation. Drummond is dead, Milchick has been humiliated… who else can fix this disaster than the genius who you shunned?
I bet S3 starts there and then we see entirely new ways they will attempt to use the innies to achieve their goals. I agree that MDR is now pointless. They also obviously can’t let Mark back out to the real world knowing what his outie is trying to do. I wonder if he gets moved to the Testing Floor as the new Gemma and we will follow his anguish there.
I'm happy Severance is over because having it and The Pitt both airing together has made my Thursday nights fairly stressful. I even had this weird decision-making process each week with which to watch first, i.e. how do I want my evening to end up.
Is it me or have they've been styling Mark S. to look more and more like a young Jack Nicholson? Those eyebrows, those cheekbones, that hair.
I don't love some of the sub plotting that got us to this week of The Pitt but WOW, that was quite an episode! Dr Shen was a fun respite from the incredible tension and even he was losing his sense of humor by the end of the hour. What happened to Myrna?
Severance S2 was well-made, some great acting, I enjoyed some of it and not other parts and I'm going to assume what it has become just isn't as appealing to me as it is to others. I'm no longer into the Lumon cult, I hated watching Gemma being tortured, and while I think I get the point of Cold Harbor, the getting there has not worked for me. I did enjoy these characters having to barter with their innies and vice versa but they clearly made a huge tactical error telling Mark S. their plans. It was a great plot twist.
My read was that Cold Harbor is an experiment to see if a person's innie can suffer all the bad things in life no one wants to deal with while their outtie incurs no mental/emotional repercussions of said bad things. So anyone can be severed from the inevitable pains and trials in their life, likely at a huge profit for Lumon.
I think the explanation of Cold Harbor was spelled out pretty clearly - when I saw the crib I understood, they wanted to see if her deepest trauma would be unearthed despite severance. And then they actually said it out loud. So I think they provided that answer successfully. I just think there are a lot of other questions they haven't answered and probably never will, like why did outie Burt and Irving remember their love for each other as innies?
Sure, but I'm not sure what value that has, it's clearly something important to them. However, the repeat dental visits, signing the thank you's, having a birthing center for innies, and then they keep saying that if successful, this new process will change life for everyone on Earth led me to think to it's not really about the innie at all. For instance, I can imagine Lumonized dentist offices where a root canal isn't an anxiety-inducing experience because you, the outtie, never experience it or flying on Lumonized planes where the entire flight, turbulence, cramped seats, is literally not the outtie's concern.
"My read was that Cold Harbor is an experiment to see if a person's innie can suffer all the bad things in life no one wants to deal with while their outtie incurs no mental/emotional repercussions of said bad things. So anyone can be severed from the inevitable pains and trials in their life, likely at a huge profit for Lumon." <-- ohh this is an excellent theory!
I know there are parallels to Lost but this season of Severance ended up in a weird way reminding me of Legion with setups, inventive episodes, and resolutions that kind-of sidestepped actual main events that had to have occurred yet were glossed over.
We slow-binged S1 the week or so before S2 began. I really wish I’d been able to follow along with discussion here but life stuff nixed that despite us largely watching it weekly on time. S2 launched with the kind of reversion to status quo that often bugs me but enough came out of it at first that I allowed it; the way they’ve blown things up even further with the S2 finale has me very skeptical about where we go in S3 even though, and maybe slightly because of, how Alan’s interview with Dan Erickson acknowledged the board getting scrambled. There was some undeniably great stuff this season but, arrrrghh, like Alan noted while the severed floor may be large and byzantine it’s not some infinite world where Mark and Helly can just settle down in their own corner away from it all.
The moment well-intentioned Mark said “Helenny”… Oof.
Loved the Severance finale! Sure, the season felt more frustrating, mostly because they jumped into reintegration so early on and my expectations for what that would mean were way off. The finale really gets the emotional core of the show and that matters most. As we get more answers, I will say they are leaning more towards “because they are a cult” and less towards sci-fi and I find that less interesting.
I watched the Severance episode through screeeners. I'd been watching weekly but when I saw this one was 75mins I decided to watch the screener. I thought it was fantastic. I think I went through every possible emotion. Screaming for them to get out, laughing at the absurdity of the the awards show, screeching when Gwendoline Christie did the deed etc. As a huge fan, that finale felt quite final. I'm not entirely clear what season 3 will look like. I'm not entirely clear what I want from it. I won't say anything more because I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but as an episode of television, it blew me away. The Pitt is my favourite show though. I can't believe we're reaching the end. I love these people.
A funny little moment I enjoyed in the Severance finale was when Mark, trying to get into the Cold Harbor room, threatens Sandra Bernhard with the bolt gun, apparently not realizing it needs to be reset and loaded with a fresh explosive charge before it will fire again.
The Pitt Crew is an excellent name 😂. I'm kind of mad I didn't think of it myself. This last episode of the Pitt was so intense and I also loved seeing the energy of Dr Shen. I'm not a doctor but I also see these different types of people in urgent situations. You have the ones that need to move around frantically and the ones who seem way too chill but end up being pretty efficient too.
I'll foment unrest: the reason the show doesn't hold up week-to-week is because its story mechanics are bad. (By this I mean, the actual building blocks of what a story is, setups and payoffs, character arcs, etc.) They don't do the work to earn the stories they seem to be trying to tell. If you just float along with the show based on style and vibes, then I'm sure it's great. If you're actually expecting real storytelling, it's not.
Mark, the lead, does not have a character story in season 2. At all. He has a plot (get Gemma back), but no emotional journey. So, too, with many of the other characters. Innie Mark's choice between Gemma and Helly at the end should have been a grand climactic choice point for the character - and maybe it would have if reintegration didn't end up being absolutely pointless - but instead it was never even a question. There was no reason for innie Mark to go with Gemma, whom he doesn't know. The fact that they even played it as a choice is absurd. He starts the episode saying he wants to live and be with Helly and he ends it in the same place, no arc there. Innie and outie Mark arguing at the beginning should have been the climax to a season-long interplay between the two - asking the question of who's real, who gets to live, who is the priority, how do you decide - but instead it was just a thing that happens, as if outie Mark never considered that his innie would have his own POV. Over and over again, we get these scenes that should be the landing points of long-form stories, but they just... skipped over telling the story.
The show wants all the payoffs, but doesn't do the work to get there. Which is how you get that false finale choice for innie Mark, how innie Dylan proposes to Gretchen after seeing her like 3 times, how outie Burt and Irving are in love after only one dinner. They're not bad end points, but because we didn't see the work to actually get there - building up these relationships so that the choices matter - it all just lands with an unsatisfying thud.
The show is well-shot and well-acted and again, if you're just bopping along with the vibes, then it's probably a fun time. But if you apply any kind of story scrutiny, it falls apart. Which is why it feels so empty at the end of it all.
I think you're right that of course innie Mark wouldn't go with Gemma and it was kind of absurd for outie Mark to expect that, but I think that in itself was something outie Mark probably has to learn the hard way. The Burt and Irving example from the previous episode is the one that really didn't work for me. All the people who said it was so emotional and beautiful but it just rang false for me cuz these two people aren't supposed to remember they're in love!
I didn't even list them all. Cobel inventing severance is also a payoff without a setup. And on and on. This is a global problem with the show. Certain stories may not bother certain viewers, but when you have a consistent problem like this, it'll hit everyone eventually. And unless they fix it and learn how to set up their payoffs, I can guarantee the end of the show will not work. That's the biggest payoff of all. You have to set it up.
Interestingly, in DE's interview, it kinda sounds like he's already warning viewers that the show won't end in a satisfying way. Which is not a good sign.
Thanks for the comments. I'd need to think about your take some more but I think you may have hit on something that has been bugging me this season: I don't have much emotional investment in any of Season 2.
I completely understand why you wouldn't be emotionally invested. I'd contend that it's because most of the characters in S2 don't have emotional arcs; they don't evolve or change based on the things happening. Most importantly, the *lead* doesn't have an arc and he's our emotional hook into the show. (Weirdly, the character with the best arc in S2 was Milchick; he went from a loyal Lumon drone to realizing there was a limit to the mistreatment he would accept, at which point he started pushing back. Good arc!)
Audiences get emotionally invested because they care about the characters, first and foremost. It's why you can feel nothing watching bombs destroy the world while a character missing their morning cup of coffee can be gripping because we know how much it means to them. It's not the scale of events that matters; it's how they affect people we care about. Severance seems to be mostly interested in stylish visuals, with the character stories taking a backseat in S2, either rushed or nonexistent. And so it all ends up feeling beautiful, but hollow.
I think the characters have arcs but maybe they weren't at all satisfying or tangible for you, I can see how they might just fail to work. I don't think it's that specifically for me, I just wasn't invested where the show decided to go. The cult stuff and all of Lumon's profoundly weird elements were not compelling to me. I also found it hard to buy into a few big plot points, especially Woe's Hollow. Beautiful, well-crafted hour of TV but fairly absurd and non-sensical relative to what we know about severance. Fantastical storytelling can be really difficult to sustain over time and Severance lost me with S2.
I think both of you have good points and Season Two was extremely compelling, but the rumored behind the scenes fights about direction and story were evidenced all over the screen.
I liked the finale but also had an unexpected feeling come over me about two-thirds through: I started to hope that I was about to watch the series finale, and the wool had been pulled over all of our eyes.
I think it comes from a mix of wanting to see the boldness of it (a mystery show where everyone is expecting a cliffhanger, ending without any advanced warning from the producers or network and thus not priming the audience for a series finale) and also some fatigue with the usual mystery show cliffhanger song and dance.
It was a great, if uneven season, overall. An excellent show - and yet still, probably because I rewatched the first season just before and also let myself get too hyped by Alan’s season preview, it was a bit of a step down. Everything through Woes Hollow was on par with season one though.
Last bit - I’m not alone in noticing this - but it seems like it’s Helena and not Helly R in the hallway at the end, based on the small smirk she sends Gemma’s way (“Helly R is never cruel”). Doesn’t seem to matter in terms of Marks decision to stay though
For what it's worth, Britt Lower has since said it was Helly and not Helena in that last scene.
Completely agree about wondering if this was actually the end partway through! And where season one set up so many interesting possibilities, I kind of left this finale wishing they had just wrapped it up instead of doing more of a cliffhanger…season one’s felt so earned and this one felt dramatically less so.
I think in general the finale was pretty great in giving us *some* answers and the Mark and Gemma reunion. I was concerned after the penultimate episode, which felt so rushed and crammed because they took so much time with the backstories of Gemma and Cobel. The thing that went over the worst for me in that episode was the Irving-Burt farewell, because it felt so final despite us still having so many questions about how outie Irving would remember his love for Burt and vice-versa.
But I was incredibly impressed by the two Marks communicating with each other via camcorder. That was just excellent writing. And then we saw an echo of that with outie Dylan writing to his innie. I think this stuff is the best Severance has to offer cuz it’s so innovative but also so very human. Like, I want innie Mark to do what his outie asks him to do and later to leave with Gemma, but it rings true that he would buck against that and go with Helly, that he wouldn't want to give up his own life (even if they aren't really thinking that thru - after all, they can't stay on the severed floor forever).
I think the biggest problem with Severance season 2 is that it was introducing story ideas that will have ramifications in season 3, while the audience expected them to be a big part of season 2 - re-integration is of course the big one, but also chipping away at Milcheck's loyalty, the anti-Lumon group that Irving is apart of, revealing Cobel as the true brains behind the severance procedure ...
I think when all is said and done, assuming the show maintains its generally high level of quality, that season 2 will be regarded the same way season 2 of The Wire is looked at - not at the same level of 1 and 3, but laid out the groundwork for the rest of the series.
Yes! This is exactly what I thought at the end of the finale. I think season 2 did an excellent job at setting up the scene around reintegration not being the solution we thought it could be in season 1. I kept expecting Milchick to full turn on Lumon in the band scene but his character is not that impulsive so it makes sense to have his rebellion be a slow burn. We shall see if season 3 delivers!
I can’t recall a more disappointing sophomore season than Severance S2. I loved S1 so much that I rooted for it to win over great seasons of Succession, Better Call Saul and Euphoria. And up to this season, I considered it the very best show Apple TV has ever released. After last night’s all-over-the-place finale and a dark and convoluted season, the love is mostly gone. While there were those who complained about Lost feeling like it was making things up as it went along, this show makes it nearly impossible to believe the writers have any satisfying answers up their sleeve.
Watching Severance and the Pitt reminds me of two earlier shows, obviously ER for the Pitt and Lost for Severance. The Pitt manages to be different enough from ER despite the Noah Wylie of it all, that I can just enjoy it as a good show. Severance has great production design and performances that are great as well, but the mystery box element of it is starting to remind me of Lost when they invented new elements just to add more seasons to the show. I wouldn’t say severance is there just yet, but I really hope there is an overall plan at this point and the show can set up the elements in a way that makes some sense. Elements like Milchik are wonderful in their own, but the main story seems to have been dragged out for another season. Gemma and innie Mark should have left the building and Dylan seems to have returned for plot purposes only. Now things can be course corrected for season three, but I think at some point they will have to leave the building and sort out the larger Eagan world. Devon also went from hating lumon to trusting Cobel/ Selwig which again seemed more for plot than logic.
The finale left me a bit cold. Plenty of action, sure, and I enjoyed it. But also...
We got a few mechanistic answers like MDR is defining tempers...ok? What? How? Why? Does that mean that Irv and Dylan and Helly are also doing that for someone? Many more questions raised than answered, which is always frustrating.
What is Jame Eagen and his weird culty family up to? I appreciated Erickson's comment in the interview that he's saving Lumon's big mysteries, but completely unexplained cryptic behavior from Jame is again more frustrating than entertaining.
What are Helly and Mark planning to do together? A semi-triumphal joining of forces and running away to their destiny doesn't really work for me when we know they have nowhere to run to.
The Mark and Gemma reunion is obviously meant and framed as touching, a huge emotional payoff...except we barely know Gemma and we're more invested in Mark and Helly. So it felt hollow.
I'll still be eager to tune in to the next season, hoping to get some payoff. But Season 3 needs to be better to hold my interest.
Funnily enough, I’m not particularly invested in Mark/Helly this season, namely b/c I’m not even sure if she is Helly or Helena, and also
b/c poor Gemma tortured for months gets her husband back, only to watch him leave her. Brutal — and I think they have good chemistry. I like Adam Scott as his outtie this season more than his innie — the sort of naïveté (not quite the right word) of the innies got on my nerves a bit this year.
I think Severance is a few notches above most of what's on TV these days, but I have to agree that this season was a bit frustrating in the second half.
Too much time spent on diversions and not enough focus on the main characters - it made a number of things not feel earned, like really all the innie relationship beats. Plus the "bottle episode" would've been better if we'd checked in on Ms. Cobel/Selvig a bit more during the season - and it still seems strange Mark's sister would be so gung ho to bring her into their situation.
The Gemma episode was great, but again, felt like it was done at the expense of time for the other characters and ongoing story.
All that said, the finale was pretty gripping as you'd expect, and hopefully the momentum keeps up moving forward. It's still appointment viewing for me in spite of some hiccups.
I watched the Severance finale yesterday and had a lot of positive and negative thoughts that I was ready to get off my chest. Then I watched last night's episode of The Pitt and I don't even care anymore.
The Pitt is my favorite thing on TV right now and last night's episode was incredible. There was so much payoff after 11 hours with these characters - seeing Dr. King take on a leadership role (& my gosh her excitement when she saw Langdon), seeing Dr. Mohan make quick decisions, seeing the hospital administrator not only give Dr. Robby what he needs but anticipate what he needs. That's just to name a few. I loved seeing our non-ER doctors struggle with the on-the-fly nature of the ER. I loved the department briefing. I loved Dr. Robby always teaching even in crisis (him taking a beat to instruct Javadi on what to do when on the helicopter pad).
After the episode ended my husband and I debated if the shooter is David, and realized it'll be satisfying either way. Either David is not the shooter and we are relieved and happy for his Mom and Dr. Robby, or David is the shooter and we feel their agony and the payoff of this threat for the whole season. It's a 'mystery' with only 2 outcomes and we know both of them. We're just waiting to see what happens. Compare that to the constant debates for Severance and White Lotus, where we as an audience can go down wild theory rabbit holes and sometimes do feel let down by the resolution of the mystery.
It was a gripping episode that had me on the verge of tears from the start until the end - not because I was sad but because I was caught up in the emotion and tension of what was happening. Despite the chaos, the episode seemed quieter than normal. A lesser show would have added music and noise to add to the drama. But the quiet was so powerful.
The finale was incredible! But the season as a whole was far inferior than the first. A year from now, when I'll inevitably do my rewatch, most likely, I'll watch season 2 premiere, Wow's Hollow and Cold Harbor and I'll be fine. All the rest was pretty much forgettable unnecessary filler episodes. Also, I think the writes are putting themselves in a corner that they might not be able to get out from: a high-up was murdered on the severed floor, equipments destroyed, rebellions aplenty on several departments, etc. The logical thing from a megacorp like Lumon would be to send down a dozen of unsevered armed soldiers and arrest everybody. But it won't happen. If they start new season with Mark S coming out of elevator and Milkshake saying "good morning refiner of the century!" I'll just leave. There is no room anymore for MDR, O&D, Burt G, Wellness Center. It's all chaos now. The show has to become a totally different one, otherwise, there is no stakes and it would become a boring/predictable show. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't see a good future for Severance.
I think that’s where the revelation that Cobel invented the severance technology comes in.
She helped Mark free Gemma so that the minute things went off the rails, she marches in to the board with her unique bona fides and demands control of the operation. Drummond is dead, Milchick has been humiliated… who else can fix this disaster than the genius who you shunned?
I bet S3 starts there and then we see entirely new ways they will attempt to use the innies to achieve their goals. I agree that MDR is now pointless. They also obviously can’t let Mark back out to the real world knowing what his outie is trying to do. I wonder if he gets moved to the Testing Floor as the new Gemma and we will follow his anguish there.
I'm happy Severance is over because having it and The Pitt both airing together has made my Thursday nights fairly stressful. I even had this weird decision-making process each week with which to watch first, i.e. how do I want my evening to end up.
Is it me or have they've been styling Mark S. to look more and more like a young Jack Nicholson? Those eyebrows, those cheekbones, that hair.
I don't love some of the sub plotting that got us to this week of The Pitt but WOW, that was quite an episode! Dr Shen was a fun respite from the incredible tension and even he was losing his sense of humor by the end of the hour. What happened to Myrna?
Severance S2 was well-made, some great acting, I enjoyed some of it and not other parts and I'm going to assume what it has become just isn't as appealing to me as it is to others. I'm no longer into the Lumon cult, I hated watching Gemma being tortured, and while I think I get the point of Cold Harbor, the getting there has not worked for me. I did enjoy these characters having to barter with their innies and vice versa but they clearly made a huge tactical error telling Mark S. their plans. It was a great plot twist.
My read was that Cold Harbor is an experiment to see if a person's innie can suffer all the bad things in life no one wants to deal with while their outtie incurs no mental/emotional repercussions of said bad things. So anyone can be severed from the inevitable pains and trials in their life, likely at a huge profit for Lumon.
I think the explanation of Cold Harbor was spelled out pretty clearly - when I saw the crib I understood, they wanted to see if her deepest trauma would be unearthed despite severance. And then they actually said it out loud. So I think they provided that answer successfully. I just think there are a lot of other questions they haven't answered and probably never will, like why did outie Burt and Irving remember their love for each other as innies?
Sure, but I'm not sure what value that has, it's clearly something important to them. However, the repeat dental visits, signing the thank you's, having a birthing center for innies, and then they keep saying that if successful, this new process will change life for everyone on Earth led me to think to it's not really about the innie at all. For instance, I can imagine Lumonized dentist offices where a root canal isn't an anxiety-inducing experience because you, the outtie, never experience it or flying on Lumonized planes where the entire flight, turbulence, cramped seats, is literally not the outtie's concern.
"My read was that Cold Harbor is an experiment to see if a person's innie can suffer all the bad things in life no one wants to deal with while their outtie incurs no mental/emotional repercussions of said bad things. So anyone can be severed from the inevitable pains and trials in their life, likely at a huge profit for Lumon." <-- ohh this is an excellent theory!
I know there are parallels to Lost but this season of Severance ended up in a weird way reminding me of Legion with setups, inventive episodes, and resolutions that kind-of sidestepped actual main events that had to have occurred yet were glossed over.
We slow-binged S1 the week or so before S2 began. I really wish I’d been able to follow along with discussion here but life stuff nixed that despite us largely watching it weekly on time. S2 launched with the kind of reversion to status quo that often bugs me but enough came out of it at first that I allowed it; the way they’ve blown things up even further with the S2 finale has me very skeptical about where we go in S3 even though, and maybe slightly because of, how Alan’s interview with Dan Erickson acknowledged the board getting scrambled. There was some undeniably great stuff this season but, arrrrghh, like Alan noted while the severed floor may be large and byzantine it’s not some infinite world where Mark and Helly can just settle down in their own corner away from it all.
The moment well-intentioned Mark said “Helenny”… Oof.
Loved the Severance finale! Sure, the season felt more frustrating, mostly because they jumped into reintegration so early on and my expectations for what that would mean were way off. The finale really gets the emotional core of the show and that matters most. As we get more answers, I will say they are leaning more towards “because they are a cult” and less towards sci-fi and I find that less interesting.
I watched the Severance episode through screeeners. I'd been watching weekly but when I saw this one was 75mins I decided to watch the screener. I thought it was fantastic. I think I went through every possible emotion. Screaming for them to get out, laughing at the absurdity of the the awards show, screeching when Gwendoline Christie did the deed etc. As a huge fan, that finale felt quite final. I'm not entirely clear what season 3 will look like. I'm not entirely clear what I want from it. I won't say anything more because I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but as an episode of television, it blew me away. The Pitt is my favourite show though. I can't believe we're reaching the end. I love these people.
A funny little moment I enjoyed in the Severance finale was when Mark, trying to get into the Cold Harbor room, threatens Sandra Bernhard with the bolt gun, apparently not realizing it needs to be reset and loaded with a fresh explosive charge before it will fire again.
The Pitt Crew is an excellent name 😂. I'm kind of mad I didn't think of it myself. This last episode of the Pitt was so intense and I also loved seeing the energy of Dr Shen. I'm not a doctor but I also see these different types of people in urgent situations. You have the ones that need to move around frantically and the ones who seem way too chill but end up being pretty efficient too.