Why you have to watch Severance - Review (season 1) 

The reason Mark has to change timepieces when he clocks into work is because his normal watch has numbers on it, which would trigger the elevator alarm. His severed watch only has lines on it.

Muscle memory is a real thing. Even though Innie Irving didn't learn how to drive, he also didn't re learn how to walk and talk.

Dude I just realized the break room is a double entendre for breaking the employees down, not giving them a break. I feel like my brain just gained a wrinkle 🧠

I also loved the authentic feel of Mark and his sister's sibling-chemistry

29:55 I don't think Irving is painting the hallway to the Break Room. To me he is painting the Elevator that goes down to the "Test Area". Which is where you see Marks wife go. My theory is that once someone has been there for a little while or if they cause some sort of issue the Test Area is where they can wipe that section of the mind or something. But maybe that process doesn't work correctly and some data is left behind hence the underlying memory that Irving has and paints. I'm also really interested to see what else Irving does as his Outie is keeping records of others that work at Lumon as if he's in a group to take them down. But the parallel that his Innie is such a devoted follower. 1:24:58 That baby part reminded me that after Mark finds the baby the other guy runs in and grabs the baby and immediately goes "I found them" and is immediately aiming to get the credit for finding the baby. He gives off an odd vibe way back in the first episodes and comes across like someone who has a load of skeletons in their closet. When he discusses his opposition to the Severence process I immediately wondered if he either backs it elsewhere or is involved himself.

The success of this show is so hugely the work of Ben Stiller, I think you all should have begun with praise for this genius Director. He really knows genres, and mixed them so well (the tension in the last episode was timed perfectly), and so tonally different from his own comedy work, I think this show should win several awards.

"Lumon is communist" are you fucking with me, this entire show is basically a refernece to marx's theory of alienation, turned up to 11. Which is, by the way, a critique of capitalism

This felt like an episode of black mirror made into a show.

Dichen Lachman, who plays Gemma, was on another great high concept show about memory and personality erasure called "Dollhouse." That's a show that starts out looking like it's going to be one type of show -an Episodic about programmable secret agents- but turns into something entirely different and ends up really transcending the genre. Meanwhile, Gemma was also in Altered Carbon, a show that doesn't quite reach its ambitions, but Dichen is the real standout performer on the show.

I really, really, really liked this show. Somehow Apple TV doesn't have the volume but I think always has something legitimately worth keeping the service for. Especially at $5. For me Severance, Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and Slow Horses are worth the $5. At least over Netflix with that cost which I think is pretty notable.

I binge watched the show this weekend and totally thought it was a 10 episode season. I was soo disappointed at the end of episode 9. Great show! I feel like I’m hanging from the cliff! So glad I’m finding vlogs discussing the show to help fill my sudden void.

About the ending: I definitely felt a little cheated. They could have structured the ending a bit different to not have that huge cliff hanger. But, the show is soooo good that I honestly don't care that much. Eagerly awaiting S2.

I loved the ending. It is not an annoying cliffhanger, but a satisfying one. Same for my colleagues. Interesting :D

In my head, all of the Jobs on the Severance floor are made up examples of real Jobs as a test run for when it's out of beta. SO like that is why its so skeleton and there is weird stuff like the goat room.

As someone who has used work to escape life, I saw this series as a huge wake-up call.

Severance is my favourite TV show ever. Also The Northman is great.

How ironic this was made by Apple. I mean, can anyone say they remember being in the offices beneath 1 Apple Park Way (The Spaceship) Praise Jobs!

David was wrong, Riley was right, about the crying in the car. It has nothing to do with him "not wanting to go in".

Maybe I am alone in this, but one of the biggest connection I made with this show was that I have had thoughts like this, while working in a cubicle farm where I was wasting my life away. I had told my therapist multiple times, “can’t I just go on auto pilot while at work and wake up when it’s over?” I never thought far enough to conceptualize the reality of my innie. I loved this show so much, and can’t wait for next season.

As a person who gave birth (purposely unmedicated), I absolutely feel it's important to be "aware" through the process. Especially the pregnancy part. It's all part of the bonding process and if we don't interfere with how nature set things up, important body chemicals are passed between mom and baby to facilitate breastfeeding, bonding, non-verbal communication, etc. Those chemicals promote well-being in both mom and baby and fast track healing and growth. Severance for pregnancy/birth sounds like a nightmare to me. Nothing good can come from further distancing yourself from your newborn - we're meant to be connected & conscious of one another in order to be effective caregivers. "Detached" moms are historically not a good thing for helpless dependent humans

This series reminds me a lot of the two series The Good Place and Upload. If you haven't seen either of these, they are well worth watching. All three are excellent.

Communism is not about bureaucracy on a larger scale. Quite the opposite, it is about bringing democracy to the workplace. Not even the USSR was a good example of the ideals of communism, because they never actually managed to go beyond the first step towards it (or what they thought was the first step, because each country would have a different path towards it based on their own situation). The big difference is that the USSR tried to create communism from the top down, and that is why they had a lot of bureaucracy. The "Marx look" of Kier Eagan is just how a lot of people looked like in the 19th century. That hair and beard were very usual fashion choices for people of the time, specially intelectuals, even if a lot of times men would have either one or the other (the hair or the beard). So as someone that is an enthusiast of fashion history his look did not surprise me in the least because of the amount of men I've seen with the same look at the same time he would have lived.

Tramell Tillman was amazing as Michick

I think the biggest thing you all missed is the fact that Irving isn’t painting the break room he’s painting an elevator that goes down to the Lower level Petey was talking about… we see marks wife go into this elevator when she gets Introuble and the only indication we get is the arrow points down when the door closes

I just wanted to tell “GROW UP!” At the guy complaining that not enough questions were answered…. Like why?? Would you want them all answered……. Then there’s nothing left to look forward to. I get it’s scary because it /could/ go in a bad direction but that’s not a fair way to judge an in progress body of work. lol. The show had an exceptional balance of questions and answers and unraveling new mysteries to discover.. that’s how tv shows survive, that’s why they exist in this format…

The Stanley Parable of Apple+

Dylan’s visit from Milchick still puzzles me. Milchick had to be physically at Dylan’s home, so I wonder who the two people were holding the levers for the OTC to work? Why doesn’t Lumon have mirrors? It seems like the innies were all captivated by their own reflection or image… Irving’s innie could’ve possibly been awake before…but I wonder if he’s considered “insane” to the outside world. Ms. Casey said he had some affinity for the insane. I think they’ve got a special connection. The senator’s wife seemed to already know Helene. I sensed she either helped the senator’s wife with severance or Helene is having an affair with her husband. The show is so brilliant, there could’ve been multiple attempts to escape and because the outies don’t share the experience, they keep themselves held captive. Severance could occur to someone over and over again. What the hell…

Dichen Lachman was in Dollhouse too. There are a lot of parallels between that show and Severance too.

I'm as intrigued by the unknowns as I am with the ethics. Love everything about it. Love how relatable the truly bizarre scenario actually feels in terms of a work/life split. So many of us have had jobs that we can morally justify because we are "helping" our customers, while at the same time, understanding that much of the economies we all support involve human exploitation on some level. It really is genius.

I agree with Riley that there are so many things t explore with the story to address, like the Goats, Lumen's goal, the nature of the job that MDR, Irvin's Innie's goopy visions, Marc wife, the end goal why Petey was reintegrated, the story of the group trying to reintegrate the severed, the other sections or divisions on the severed floor, the stories of the non-severed who are working on that floor. just so many stories, directions, perceptions and possible spin-offs that Severance can lead to..

I love the opening theme, i love the idea and the whole first season. It could have been better, it could have been even deeper with mysteries, but what we got was a solid 9.5/10 for me. Very well made show, which is rare nowadays. Lets hope it doesn't end like Lost, or it will lose me.

Fucking loved this show. Everything was spectacular

such a good show my goodness just finished watching it, can't wait for season 2. Oh and my gosh they keyboards in the show are so awesome! Wonder if ltt could do a video about them: "The good and bad Mechanical Keyboards in tv and film"

Re Moon-Knight accent, it's a fake accent in-universe too, so it makes sense to be kinda bad.

Been wanting to discuss Severance but friends/family aren't finished so: 1) Really enjoy the week to week release model for a show like this. 2) I think by far the most interesting thing about the concept is that they aren't forced to stay, in that it is their (outtie only though) choice to stay. It really does put it more in a morally grey area. A worse show would have made it more straight dystopian and it'd be more black and white. 3) I think Helly only naming Delaware at the beginning may be a joke about how basically the state is known mainly as where most US corporations have their essentially fake headquarters for tax reasons 4) Between Severance, Altered Carbon, and Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey) has found herself quite a lane cast as people with multiple minds in one body or one mind in multiple bodies. Quite a niche type-casting lol 5) I think it's interesting that during the Overtime protocol Turturro's innie was the only one not focused solving anything while his outtie is the one investigating Lumen 6) it was also interesting that after Burt's retirement had the whole thing about death, they made a point to make his real life appear to be very happy that actually paints the retirement in the opposite light (and adds to the moral greyness of Severance, it seems like it could be a legitimate good choice from the outtie perspective) 7) Riley if you like Ricken in this you'd really like his character in Patriot, hilarious in a similar manner

I completely disagree with the take that every season should close all of the mysteries. If you wanted to watch something that completely tells a story- watch a movie. I hate when tv shows answer all of the questions too quickly because then you get invested in characters and want to continue to watch them but they have to makeup stuff that doesn’t even make sense to fill the space. They perfectly set it up to have a fulfilling second season that isn’t a convoluted plot. I feel like they have a story in mind and they know how they are telling it. If you go into it having to answer every question in case you don’t get another one that is when you get Pretty Little Liars-- and no one wants that.

Irving is painting the corridor to the testing floor elevator where they send Casey/Gemma. I thought it was the breakroom corridor before we saw the testing floor corridor, but the show frames the corridor and the elevator with the red down arrow very intentionally. Edit: This hardly a critique of communism, communism is a moneyless stateless organisation of society. And socialism is just the idea that the means of production should be owned by the people. Stop using socialism and communism to define authoritarian regimes like the USSR. Authoritarianism is not a prerequisite for socialism and is incompatible with communism. The whole idea of using severance to remove the bargaining power and the ability to make choices of your workforce is peak capitalism. It’s a capitalists wet dream. Your workforce is effectively incapable of ever organising. Especially because it also strips all decision making information from the outtie, and they are the ones making the decisions for both identities. It completely removes meaningful agency from both the outtie and the innie. Also compensation of the worker becomes completely perverse. Earning your outtie more money means nothing for the innie, so you start rationing basic human experiences and threatening psychological torture. And then you also never have to properly compensate the outtie, because they have no idea what work they’ve actually done. Also losing 8 hours of your day is just terrifying even as an outtie, because even when you’re working for 8 hours in the real world, you can still dream and aspire, think about other parts of your life. Once severed the company now owns those 8 hours completely. Which again, is something capitalists would kill for. Which is also adds to the book quote “the boss owns the clock on the wall, but you own the hour”. Because the outties give up their ownership of those hours.

I interpret them hearing things in the break room as them nearly dozing and accessing their outtie memories

45:45 - Come on Riley, the goats were so obviously not ready!

god damn the cinematography in this show is outstanding!

The work described in this show is so apt like people don't always enjoy their work and sometimes its absurd to themselves. This show takes that to a next level of metaphor that is so hilarious, looking at numbers and putting them in a box.

37:00 There's at least one strong critique of specifically capitalism: the severed workers have no idea what the company does, and definitely no idea of how their work contributes to it. This alienation of workers from their work via subdivision of tasks and extreme specialization of labour was the invention of Henry Ford, to support the efficiency levels required by capitalism, and persists to this day in the real world of private sector work. You know, or so I'm told... I don't work in the private sector. 😛

I feel like the question of what is it that they actually do is a bit of misdirection. It's more likely that they really are just menial things and the real product is them. They are simply testing the limits of the Severance procedure and the tasks are meant only to research the results of it. It's recursive work.

My number #1 hitpick and payoff I can't believe noone mentioned: Helly reciting the sorry monologue from the break room to herself in the mirror at the real world gala.

If you enjoy short stories and you loved Severance, you will adore George Saunders, especially “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline”, similar tone and themes, absolutely awesome writer.

Ah finally!! I’ve been wanting you guys to watch this show

In regards to the watch: they have to wear clothing without logo and words, and the watch that outie Mark wears is a Komandirskie watch; a Russian brand that usually displays different Russian holidays on the face. Mark’s specifically shows Paratrooper Day which is huge in Russia and was probably given to him as a gift by Gemma

47:45 Actually a lot of the base idea seems at least partially inspired by the case of "Benjaman Kyle" and others like him who HAVE in fact experienced both profound but also quite specific memory loss, especially in relation to the "self".

I loved this show. All my friends are saying they love moon knight and I'm watching severance at the same time and I'm just like hell na it doesn't compare, severance is on a whole nother level

I truly hope people watch this after have been watched the whole series, as all the most important plot points are methodically spoiled in the first 3 minutes of the review. Severance on,y works if you do not know all those important points. BEWARE!

There is so much I could say about this incredible show but you guys as always summarized it very well. I absolutely loved this show and how a brand new "high" concept can also be handled in an entertaining way. I am very glad this didn't take the Devs route. Which was a good show but thematically I'm more on board with Severance. Also this was better written and executed. I think that Mark may be holding the picture frame as he ran out and says "She's alive!" which could help his sister piece things together later. My theory, let's see though.

One thing I love about the show that I don’t hear a lot of people touch on is, why do we work? We work so we can have all the things in life that give us pleasure. Vacations, house, televisions etc. but they don’t get to enjoy that. So instead all the little benefits is what they have to look forward to, the finger cuffs, the egg table etc.

How am I just finding this now? Bless you for making content that lasts for an hour-and-a-half about his series!!!!! hahahaha I don't think Lumon is a sole proprietorship, but that would be hilarious

Wow had no idea you guys had this spinoff podcast talking about movies. Really cool!

Severance is a revolving restaurant. Whether that's a compliment or criticism depends on how you feel about revolving restaurants.

11:02 that’s really good. He’s not sad to go to work, he’s said about his life. Didn’t think about that til now, great job

29:53 i believe that irving is drawing a different hallway, we see it when gemma is fired and gets sent back to "testing"

I’m suspicious of Ricken. There is a knitted or maybe stuffed goat on the dresser in the baby’s room with the three beds. 🤨

mormonism, Scientology, high control, cults. The references are abundant.

Regarding remembering things like driving a car, etc. Even amnesiacs remember how to carry out tasks they learned before, like walking and talking, etc., which they did many times before losing their memory. There is the famous case of a man who cannot form new memories beyond 20-30 seconds but can play the complex piano pieces he learned before his illness.

Guys, if you liked this one, get a hold of Escape at Dannemora. Also directed by Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette doing an even more impressive performance where you can hardly identify her. It's also a limited miniseries, so David will love it!

When Helly comes out of the break room and she's all frazzled looking and they ask her how many times she had to read the thing and just the way she says it makes me bust out laughing every time I see it.

Severance is simply amazing

I just finished this show as this notification came in. Crazy timing

Great reviews, I really enjoyed the show too. Can you guys do an episode on the show "From" on EPIX? It's a newer show but I don't hear a lot of people talk about it but it's extremely well done and has a lot of mystery like severance but in a different setting.

The numbers theyre working with on their screens is gonna lead to something REALLY fucked up

My man said “peppy mache” made my day

i dont always agree with david but hes absolutely right about the ending for the season.

Regarding why the work has to be secret, I think from a top-down perspective it's meant to be an exaggerated version of bullshit corporate jobs in the real world, it's supposed to evoke the pointlessness that many of us feel or have felt at some point in our own working lives. The corporate propaganda trying to convince you it's actually important and making a difference in the world rings true as well. From a bottom-up perspective, I think there are 3 main in-universe reasons that Lumon might have to keep the work secret. One possibility is that the work is genuinely pointless. It seems that Lumon's main product is severance itself, not the output from their own severed workers, so it seems plausible that it's all a test of severance. Certainly the ratio of workers to supervisors says "experiment" more than it does "workplace". If that's the case, of course Lumon can't tell the workers the work is pointless, because they'd behave differently and mess up the research. Second possibility could be that Lumon are telling the truth, and that it really is easier to do MDR if you don't know what it is, for some weird mystical reasons. And the third possibility is that whatever they're doing is something sinister enough that the employees would refuse to do the job if they knew what it was. Petey at least seemed to think that was a possibility, and he probably knew a fair bit more than we as the audience do right now. Personally I think the work is pointless, because that works best as satire, but the sinister explanation is also very plausible. Lumon actually being serious about the "unimpeded intuition" thing is a distant third for me.

"the multibillion corporation is actually giving sociailst vibes" lmao

Dude have you guys never seen anyone hit on the head suffering from amnesia?? They can talk and drive and all that with light knowing who they are and sometimes have a completely different personality. So this is actually theoretically possible… come on guys you are smarter than this

1:06:37 - he was holding their wedding photo before he got severed

When they talked about whether the things they heard from Ms. Casey were true or not I remembered that mark put petey's phone in a box with "camping" written on it. I can't think of any reason for that shot except to confirm that mark actually did like camping

I think miss cobel wants to reintegrate to remember her mother. I think they either keep her permanently severed or permanently the other way and she only met her in one version of herself.

One show which definitely benefited for me from waiting a week for the next episode was HBO's Chernobyl. I wonder if you're going to review that eventually. It's a very short season, but easily makes me forgive HBO for the horrible ending of GoT. :)

35:05 This isn't capitalism gone wrong, this is capitalism working as intended. Complete corporate control to pursue profits by any means, the complete exploitation and alienation of workers by capitalists is the goal.

My theories for Severance season 2: (*These are just for fun, please feel free to correct or adjust anything) Cobel's dead mother's innie is stored in a severance chip that Cobel wears on her neck (at the beginning of E6), she wants to resurrect her dead mother with reintegration, which is also Kier's version of Lumon - Resurrection and Eternal Life, but The Board just wants it for power and politic. This explains why she worships Kier, despises The Board, lost her mind when she got fired, and yet tries to save Lumon in the end. The severance procedure basically creates another you, with the main flaw being the lack of memories, which is what Kier and Cobel are trying to overcome. Cobel is actively trying to see if innie Mark has feeling for his outie wife Gemma or if outie Mark has feeling for his innie best friend Petty. If either version of Mark does have feelings, that means memories can be shared between innie and outie, therefore it's possible for her dead mother's innie(in the severance chip on Cobel's neck) to restore memories. The dark hallway where Ms.Casey "lives" is a storage for consciousness, it contains the innie consciousness of all the Lumon founders and Ms.Casey. Probably involved Irving's father, hence his obsession to find and investigate it The baby goats are probably animal test subjects used to host the consciousness of another human innie. Young goats' brains have not developed enough, that's why the guy with baby goats said "they are not ready yet". Ms.Casey might be a human test subject. Their goal is to migrate the consciousness of all the founder's innie onto another human, therefore archives Resurrection and Eternal Life.

O don't think I have ever been this excited about a TV show... I cannot wait till season 2

I thought yes, before watching this podcast.. SEASON 2!! ? !

The reason Cobel hid the baby was to cause panic and hopefully keep Mark from sharing too much. She obviously knew he'd ask his sister why she was there which would make her freak about giving her the baby.

I hope they review Better Call Saul.

The long walk in the opening mirrors Alphaville.

The thing about why they remember some things and not others has to do with how memories work. There is a great video that breaks down all the different types of memory and in particular what the severance procedure affects. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-duGfOLzCWmM.html To summarise, it is the memories tied to one's sense of self, not learned memories that tell us how to function and speak nor muscle memories that we use to do things like work a machine.

Finally getting to listen...I see you all just decided to ignore the Twitter poll again...cool, cool cool cool

The only thing I didn't like in this show was how long it took Milchik to cut through Dylans tie on the security room door. I thought that a strong big man like Milchik could easily kick the door open, or cut through the tie much quicker than he actually did. I think they should have come up with something a little more believable that would give them more time than just a tie.

It is so weird watching people get this close to the point and not realize what the show is about. Lumon started in 1866 was began on a philosophy that was already around where one group of people is completely OK with the suffering of another group of people because they don’t see them as real people. What do you guys think the show is about? I’m so confused.

David is right. The ending was a betrayal.

The interesting bit about Cobel\Selvig is that we still don't know if she's severed or not. Because who says that you need to follow the format of 9 to 5 like the office workers. She could be a long term severed working in a different time base. Or even something completely different using a separate functionality of the severed chip.

Severance runs a very real risk of getting shittily convoluted like Westworld. Which was perfect for one season with a bit of a cliff hanger... Season 2 was almost cool... There was so much squandered potential, and now it's just awful. Severance needs to go the same route as The Leftovers.

There are so many unanswered questions in this show, like Im really so concerned about the Ricken & his friends. They were so damn weird to me

High concept means that it is possible to give a short high-level summary. Low-concept means that it requires a low-level, granular explanation. Similar to high and low-level programming languages.

That WW1 bit, for me it was the sister's friends trying to include Mark in the conversation, and the best they got was this ridiculous/obvious fact, but they went along with it to include him.

The bad accent is intentional and part of the story. It's actually kinda tragic and has to do with domestic violence.

man i know when yall do a show its gotta be good lol

@20:45 - It's actually more of a parallel than a contrast - far too many workers are effectively unable to report problems, either without being punished by their employer or because there is literally no one available to report their treatment to! No, the average American worker is, to varying degrees, a victim of a significant amount of criminal or malicious behavior, perpetrated by their employer. Almost all temp employees, app-driven "gig" workers, entry-level retail staff, and _definitely_ any MLM "entrepreneurs" endure all manner of things that, in a remotely fair and just society, could be easily reported to a person or agency that would enforce proper employee compensation and employer compliance with fair laws. However, effectively, most Americans, being taken advantage of by dollar-driven employers, are unable to report their issues to anyone who either cares to, or even can help. Of those lucky ones who could actually receive official help, most are unable to do so without serious risk of retribution. Reporting abuse exposes one to loss of future promotion, or myriad other discretionary advantages controlled by the boss. Cutting scheduled hours, being scheduled in abusive ways (closing the store, then getting up early to open; or being assigned only 2 or 3 hours every single day with no days off) leaving them just like gig app workers - exhausted and without much pay beyond what goes toward expenses, like getting to work and doing the job (like fuel and maintenance, for drivers)... and there is of course outright wage theft, mandatory overtime, work far above and beyond what was agreed upon before starting employment, dishonest app algorithms, making staff pay for stuff that the employer mandates, like uniforms, laundry, or vehicle maintenance, and all kinds of despicable schemes that take advantage of employees while staying technically not illegal. It's incredibly common for the contemporary American worker - because if you complain, there is _always_ the threat of then being fired (for any tiny reason, because then it isn't retaliatory employer behavior), or the job subsequently being made so unpleasant to attend that it becomes untenable or unbearable to continue showing up. You can always be replaced. The employer nearly always has the upper hand, in every negotiation.

Of course is a critique of capitalism, the corporate class controls the workers(slave is a better description) who are trying to break free and that corporate infrastructure is looking to for more power through the state, Lumen is trying to implement severance everywhere. But you are seeing communism because of the look of the building???

You all should definitely watch Flirting With Disaster, with Patricia A. and Ben Stiller.

it made me sleepy mostly and warped my dreaming, I guess I'm looking forward to season 2. It's not Dollhouse, but it's got a body from it and some dna

The idea of the elevator being able to detect written language and codes seems like a lie to me.

About retaining skills with no memory... Clive Wearing is very interesting in this regard and I think it's entirely possible.