Roush Review: ‘Severance’ Just Keeps Getting Wilder and Weirder

Severance

Matt's Rating:

Whose mind is it, anyway?

Questions like this — as well as “Who are you?” and “What’s happening?” — come with the territory as the trippiest series of 2022 (yes, 2022) returns after a ridiculously long absence to dazzle and mystify us all over again.

Severance, for those who may have forgotten, is a sci-fi thriller by way of a surreal workplace satire, with creepy and disorienting echoes of David Lynch and Jordan Peele in the curious DNA concocted by series creator Dan Erickson and frequent director/executive producer Ben Stiller. Mesmerizing in its strangeness, the show only gets wilder and weirder in Season 2. As with many puzzle shows (think Lost), it’s probably best not to dwell on the answers, which inevitably are less satisfying than the brainteasing ride. Let’s just say that even in those many moments when I was scratching my head, my mind was also being blown.

Once again, we’re in the blinding white hallways and sinister dark corridors of Lumon Industries, a monolithic institution where employees in the subterranean and nebulous Macrodata Refinement (MDR) office have opted to separate their “outie” real lives from their “innie” cubicle existence. The first season memorably ended with the walls temporarily coming down, with shattering results.

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That’s especially true for department head Mark S. (a droll Adam Scott), who now believes the wife he believed was dead is alive, trapped in a fake corporate personality. He’s the first to return to Lumon after the so-called “overtime contingency” event, and what and who he finds at the MDR desks deserves (like so many other plot spoilers) to be a surprise. Eventually he’ll reconnect with rebellious love interest Helly (Britt Lower), whose “outie” is Lumon’s high-ranking heir apparent, and his fellow office mates Irving (a mournful John Turturro) and the ambivalent Dylan (Zach Cherry), but even a team-building exercise outside of the office can’t restore the disembodied equilibrium they once enjoyed.

Their search for the truth leads to betrayal and emotional confusion — I wish I could explain how wonderful Merritt Wever is as someone who gets to know both sides of a severed Lumon soul — with deep dives into a warren of myriad narrative rabbit holes that often left me as befuddled as Elmer Fudd.

“The work is mysterious and important,” a Lumon strongman ominously insists midway through the season. It’s a mystery for sure, as is everything within the numbers-crunching Lumon cult.

You might need a reality check after watching.

Severance, Season 2 Premiere (one episode weekly), Friday, January 17, Apple TV+