'Severance' Creator on Season 2 Finale and the Show's Future
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'Severance' creator Dan Erickson talks about Mark, Helly, and Lumon, the show's intense fandom, and a possible third season.

Warning: Season 2 finale spoilers here!

This is an interview with the show’s creator. I’ll post my opinion on it in the thread.

  • vaguerant@fedia.io
    0·
    3 days ago

    I have similar feelings. I think different parts of the audience want different things out of the show. Of course I’m invested in the mysteries and want the answers to them, but my enjoyment isn’t necessarily tied directly to those answers. Mostly I’m interested in the characters’ arcs: things like Ms. Cobel, Mr. Milchick and Natalie’s discomfort with Lumon, Mark S’s developing sense of a self distinct from his outie, Helena Eagan’s jealousy toward Helly R. Those are all elements of the show which are fascinating to me regardless of any underlying mysteries.

    The writing is excellent as are everybody’s performances. This show has some of the most expressive eye work in the game–the scenes between Milchick and Natalie are tours de force. I was never really a fan of Lost at all and I think part of that was that the focus was more often on the mysteries than the characters. Also, there’s no way to say this politely, but Lost didn’t have any performers on the level of Tramell Tillman, Patricia Arquette, Jon Turturro … you get the point. I’m happy to be on the ride.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      2 days ago

      The writing is excellent as are everybody’s performances. This show has some of the most expressive eye work in the game–the scenes between Milchick and Natalie are tours de force.

      If you’re examining scenes divorced from the show, I agree with you. One of the things that attracted me to the show was the fantastic casting and acting. This worked in season 1 because the characters knew as much about what they were doing as the audience, which was not much.

      The reason this falls apart especially in season 2 is that big things have happened which should dramatically affect a human being, and our characters mostly shrug it off with “that was weird, I guess we should go back to what we were doing before”. The treatment of the Season 1 finale on Season 2 was unforgivable.

      • Mark found out that his Outie’s wife was essentially being held hostage by the entity that controls Mark S’s very existence. That should have a profound effect on someone and he went back to work.
      • I don’t think we ever saw Helly R telling Dylan or Mark about what she saw during the OTC event.
      • Dylan didn’t get to experience the OTC, so he gets let off the hook.
      • Irving was the only one that reacted as a human would to the OTC. He lost the love of his life, fought for truth knowing oblivion would be the reward, and he did it anyway.

      I remember watching the screen after the OTC finale in S2 E1 when Mark S is awake again on the severed floor and thinking “okay, shit is going to go down. He’s been lied to all this time. A normal human would be pissed beyond imagination.” Instead after a conversation with Milchek where Mark S backs down, Mark S goes back to work. WTF?!

    • Carnelian@lemmy.world
      0·
      3 days ago

      Thank you for articulating it! Yeah the show has me on the edge of my seat. Re-watching it with some new people and actually that’s been incredible, too. The nuances of everyone’s performance, as well as the significance of small details, has been blowing my mind.

      Spoilers below!

      Tap for spoiler

      One thing for example is I noticed Irv’s outie pounding cups of black coffee late at night. I think as a deliberate sleep deprivation tactic, to try and break the severance procedure and leak information between the two of them. He actually somewhat seemed to be experiencing a mild form of re-integration sickness, seeing the black paint overtake the office.

      That’s been on my mind, and I’m so sure we’ll be hearing more from him. Ms. Cobel seemed genuinely surprised at the mention of his paintings, and during the Cold Harbor scene they were extremely interested in whether or not the severance barrier would hold.