The primary season of “Severance” was top-of-the-line standalone TV outings of the streaming period, all the way in which right down to its unimaginable conclusion. However it at all times felt like a tricky act to observe. Whereas the tip of that award-winning season opened doorways to dozens of thematic hallways, which one would the writers take? And would they go too far down the rabbit gap of their very own surreal idea? The solutions are “all of them” and “for now.” The primary six episodes of season two of “Severance” really feel like a author’s room with a well-deserved mandate to get as inventive as attainable, embracing deep ideas however dropping some relatability and human emotion on the journey of three lengthy years between chapters on this story. I nonetheless drastically admire “Severance” only for current, but it surely’s a present weighed down by its personal concepts for the primary half of this season, a program that has misplaced a step by making an attempt to do an excessive amount of.
“Severance” took place within the wake of the pandemic, making its idea of a real work-life steadiness extremely well timed. It had a “Black Mirror”-esque query at its core: Would you undergo the “severance” program your self, endlessly dividing your work and residential lives in a method that theoretically made each higher? Adam Scott stars as Mark Scout, a person who chooses severance partly due to the current loss of life of his spouse, solely to find – SPOILERS – that she’s not really lifeless, and nonetheless an worker of the mysterious Lumen Industries. On the identical time, creator Dan Erickson launched us to different Lumen staff, together with the gregarious Dylan (Zach Cherry), new worker & potential love curiosity Helly (Britt Decrease), and buttoned-up Irving (John Turturro), who fell in love with the pinnacle of Optics and Design, Burt (Christopher Walken). Overseen by quirky company servants named Mr. Milchick (underrated season one asset Tramell Tillman) and Ms. Cobel (Patricia Arquette), the Lumen staff burst from their confinement on the finish of the primary season, resulting in a battle between their “innies,” “outies,” and the powers which have put all this chaos in movement.
The second season of “Severance” is essentially in regards to the repercussions for that insurrection as Lumen, led extra by Milchick right here than anybody else, set about placing our core quartet again in place. The outie model of Mark S. continues to be making an attempt to determine easy methods to get to a spouse that he has been severed from whereas the innie one continues that quest from the opposite aspect and grows nearer to Helly. Her outie was revealed to be a serious Lumen energy participant, including a complete new layer to her character and arc, whereas Irving struggles with the emotional fallout of discovering that Burt’s outie is married. Innie Dylan questions every part round him now however will get an opportunity to be taught just a few issues about his outie life, partnering him in scenes with the unimaginable Emmy winner Merritt Wever. I really like these shifting moments as a result of they’ve such a relatable excessive idea in that it’s like being given a window into an alternate actuality whereby one model of Dylan will get to witness one other. They’re easy, grounded, and exquisite, the place this present reaches its potential excellent steadiness of idea and character. Who wouldn’t need to see one other model of your self?
Sadly, a lot of the remainder of season two of “Severance” struggles to stay as grounded. With out spoiling, issues get bizarre this yr, particularly in a fourth episode by which the quartet are despatched on a piece retreat that solely Lumen might organize. It doesn’t assist that Arquette and Walken are minimal presences within the first half of this season, though I do admire the elevated screentime for the good Tillman, who nails Milchick’s pretentious method. In a single scene, Milchick is admonished for utilizing too many large phrases along with his staff, and it felt like a meta mirror of my emotions about a lot of this season, one which values large concepts over human emotion. In an period when a lot TV is bereft of any thematic ambition, it feels churlish to criticize one for making an attempt to do as a lot as this season of “Severance” is trying, but it surely’s a steadiness and the scales are out of whack sufficient that I too typically questioned why I ought to care – a sense I by no means had in season one. It’s additionally a present that’s a bit too in love with its pregnant pauses, calling consciousness to its “heavy concepts” as a substitute of weaving them into the material of the present.
Will that change within the again half of the season? It very simply might. All of my considerations about too many thematic free threads might disappear because the writers tie them collectively, making these episodes of set-up really feel stronger in hindsight. I’m not quitting “Severance” but, however I received’t blame anybody who begins on the lookout for different work.
Six episodes screened for evaluation. Premieres on Apple TV+ on January 17th.
