Who are you?” says a disembodied voice to a woman in the blue dress. She’s lying on the table in a room that’s both unassumingly bland and eerily unnatural. Coming from an old-fashioned radio system, the voice poses a series of odd, seemingly random questions like “What is Mr. Egan’s favorite breakfast?” and “To the best of your memory, what is—or was—the color of your mother’s eyes?” The lady in the blue dress tries to escape the room, but the door is locked. There’s no other exit in sight. But suddenly the door opens, and a suited, shadowed man stands before her. “That’s a perfect score,” he says.
Thus begins Severance, which unfurls in increasingly bizarre, unsettling ways throughout nine sleek and stylish episodes. Taking the notion of separating your work life from your home life to the literal extreme, it offers a moody, persistently bleak depiction of the influence of tech culture. In the show’s vision of a corporate dystopia, employees are allowed to distinguish and differentiate themselves from their cubicles and the lives they live (or, rather, don’t live) while under the imposing influence of a company’s large, looming surveillance.
The voice we heard at the top of the pilot belongs to Mark Scout (Adam Scott), a hapless suit who enters a leadership position at Lumon Industries. With chunky, commanding exteriors and spacious, impersonal interiors, this utilitarian workplace invites its employees to undergo the “severance” procedure, a brain surgery that dutifully compartmentalizes their work and personal lives. You enter the office space and everything going on outside is memory-holed, and when you step back outside, everything inside is suddenly a blur.
Lumon expects everyone to fall into strict procedure, and loyal lackeys like Mark, who’s still reeling from his wife’s untimely death, find solace within the brightly lit, formalist confines of the company’s retrograde and insular workrooms. Furrow-browed higher-ups like Peggy (Patricia Arquette) speak in dry, foreboding tones, even when they try to be sociable. And friendly icebreaker activities for newcomers carry an air of sullen intensity.
It’s easy to see why sad-eyed Mark, who just wants to turn the world on and off like a faucet, finds his listless job so appealing. As a pair of amusingly dorky co-workers like Dylan (Zach Cherry) and Irving (John Turturro) demonstrate, no workplace is without its comraderies, but Lumon is still a workplace that’s designed to satisfy people’s craving for detachment. Mark has no life outside of work anyhow. Yet, as vividly illustrated by director Ben Stiller, who helmed the first and last three episodes, there’s a real crushing solemnness to this vast enterprise.
There’s a general emptiness to the vacant halls that fill the building, captured in precisely off-kilter shots. It’s all appropriately and achingly artificial, reflecting the limbo state of Mark’s ultimately dissatisfied being. Severance is the rare Apple TV+ series that makes great use of the traditional sleekness that has defined the tech giant’s own visual aesthetic.
As we spend more time with Helly (Britt Lower), the woman from the opening scene who becomes a voice of reason in an office filled with droning subordinates, Severance continues to unravel its own internal mysteries. While the story plays out in some expected ways, the directors and writers, among them series creator Dan Erickson, gradually build a disquieting spell of tension, notably as we glean more intel about Lumon’s nefarious intentions.
Throughout the season, the characters’ growing distrust, of knowing that they can’t fully maintain a life that doesn’t belong to them outside of work, feels timely and relevant. The idea of giant tech conglomerates consuming our lives, whether or not we work under their employ, is admittedly dour stuff. But thanks to its smart, sophisticated direction and sharp performances, Severance is never didactic, and mercifully doesn’t feel like work.
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