Severance just feels like a 2020’s Lost. You can get swept up in whatever’s happening episode to episode, but it seems pretty clear that the goal of the show is more to keep the plot moving forward and you invested than it is to tell a specific story. I remember being so stoked about the show’s premise when I first heard about it. I was excited about the potential of exploring stuff like personhood, identity, self-knowledge, and the moral implications of such a severed life, while also touching on how capitalism can get so out of control that it compels laborers to voluntarily opt-in to this extreme form of alienation. And it’s not like the show doesn’t touch on that stuff. But, man, I was so bummed when they introduced the work and it was so abstract and mysterious, and then all the real philosophical questions took a back seat to mystery box shit like, “OMG, what’s the deal with the goat room!?” That kind of shit worked better with Lost because the show couldn’t set any expectations with its concept because it was basically mystery boxes all the way down. To me Severance ends up being more annoying because it’s failing to deliver on the promise of its concept. I don’t know—I guess I’m going to keep watching, but I kinda wish a slightly different version of me could do that dirty work.
