Severance review: Macabre and charming in equal measure, this show feels like thrilling high art

You’ll notice right away that the world of Severance is a strange one. I’m not even talking about the fact that in this world, one can undergo a procedure wherein one’s work memories can be surgically severed from one’s personal memories - that is the conceit of the show itself, and we’ll get to that. No, I’m talking about how the world of the show feels like it is stuck in an unpleasant place between the past and the future. You’ll see this outside of the ‘workplace’ in the esoteric social practices people follow. Like a ‘no dinner’ dinner. Food, it seems, is merely something that comes in the way of meaningful conversation. So, friends meet at a home for dinner, but there’s no actual food served. Hunger is only a state of mind, perhaps. Or sample one of their new-age parenting ideas. Changing the beds of children while they are growing up can be a traumatic experience. So, populate their room with three beds suited for different ages right up top when the child is little, and let the young one switch to the appropriate bed as and when they are ready for it. I don’t know if stuff like this has already found its way into the world’s hipster neighbourhoods, ready to spread outward (looking at you, truffle fries). But if it hasn’t already, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to imagine we’ll get there soon. (A part of me hopes that watching the commentary play out casually in Severance will make people realise that we’re all headed down a dark path.) The workplace we see in the film is even stranger. Lumon, the corporation that conducts the severance procedure on their employees, seems like it should be at the cutting edge of technology, but their office is mostly retro. Employees use CRT monitors with VGA graphics, doing puzzling tasks that even they don’t fully understand. I don’t even know if the nomenclature I’ve used is correct, that’s how long ago that stuff went obsolete. The office itself is a minimalist, endless array of passages leading to different departments, which rarely get to interact. Employees are incentivized to work for prizes like an individual, personalised, after-hours ‘waffle party’ for being the best performer in their department for each quarter. Solo party, mind you. Just the winner and waffles. Created by Dan Erickson, with episodes directed by either Ben Stiller or Aoife McArdle, Severance is a fresh, disarming, slow-burning thriller. Visually, the show seems like the rogue lovechild of a movie each by Wes Anderson and Yorgos Lanthimos. It’s vibe also reminded me of Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Emma Stone-Jonah Hill show Maniac. Not every show lends itself to the weekly episode format in this age of binge, but you get why Apple TV+ shows, particularly this one, is better off spreading out its release. The show often gets too intense to binge, in a good way.

Severance hits the ground running. Mark S (Adam Scott) works at Lumon, as a Macro Data Refiner. He is abruptly made head of his department of four, when his work bestie Petey resigns out of the blue. In his place arrives a brand-new employee, Helly R (Britt Lower). Through her, we get to see what severance actually means. Basically, once you get the procedure done, your ‘perceptual chronologies’ are altered. So, you completely forget what happened at work the moment you leave the office in the elevator. It essentially means that there exist two versions of you - the ‘outie’, the regular you who lives a life outside, but has absolutely no clue of what you’re actually doing at the workplace. And for the ‘innie’, life is just back-to-back to 9 to 5 shifts that begin and end at the elevator. Seriously, writers need to stop giving corporations ideas. While the severance procedure is a controversial, polarising topic in the outside world, the company pitches it as the perfect tool for ensuring ‘work-life balance’. Never mind that the person is pretty much dehumanised, because while they are full grown adults, they have no concept of the world outside of their office. They wouldn’t know, for instance, if their ‘outie’ chose to sever their memories because the world outside is a dystopian hellscape, or whether they even have families. As Helly wonders when she first awakens after her severance – was she grown in a lab? Is she livestock? If you had to look for symbolism and make connections for what all of the bizarre occurrences on the show are truly talking about deep down, you’d find loads of it. But you can sidestep all of that altogether and just spend your time unabashedly curious about what’s going on at Lumon, as Mark and his team begin to demystify their non-lives. Simultaneously, the outie Mark also begins to realise that something fishy is on at Lumon. Mark’s department of four is pure gold - the characters as well as the actors playing them. Newest recruit Helly already has something off about her - she’s a rebel from the moment she awakens, unaware of anything at all about herself. The other two, Dylan (Zack Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) are gleefully on board with their soulless existence of monotony. On the surface of it, the mechanism of the show indicates that it’s just not possible for the outie and innie to have any contact with each other, unless the company chooses to make a rare exception. Yet, the two Marks are also clearly on a breathless collision course. Even as this plays out over the episodes, the mysteries at Lumon only thicken. This show is all questions, with barely any answers. Gorgeously shot, with frames you’re unlikely to forget in a hurry, Severance mixes up moods beautifully; it is hauntingly macabre in some bits, oddly charming in others. Even in that relatively austere but intriguing Apple TV lineup of shows, this one stands out as a winner. I cannot wait for season 2. Severance is streaming on Apple TV+

Pradeep Menon is a Mumbai-based writer and independent filmmaker.