One of the best shows on Apple TV+ is Severance, a show with an intriguing premise and star studded cast. Mark, who is grieving the death of his wife, decides to join a program called Severance that severs one's brain into two parts, one for work and one for personal life. People with severe memories. When at work and in the real world, they areinnies.
Mark hopes participating will allow him to forget about his troubles for eight hours and return to normal life with his family and friends.
The finale hasSPOILERS ahead of it.
The ultimate way to achieve a healthy work-life balance is through the Severance program. No severed person takes their work home with them. They forget everything about the office once they get into the elevator and go to the lobby. They forget who they are in the real world when they hop on the elevator and rise to the severed floor. You don't know about your sick family members, troubles with the spouse, worry about kids, or that you live alone. You look and act the same inside the office, even if you don't know who you are. You are two different people, one of whom is a prisoner to the other.
As Mark goes through the motions in his mundane day-to-day job, working in a nondescript room doing seemingly nonsensical, boring micro data refinement work on an ancient computer, he begins to question what is really going on. Peter, a former colleague and work friend of his, approaches his doubts in the real world. It's puzzling that Petey seems conscious of bothinnie andoutie. Mark doesn't know who Petey is, but he can't help but feel like he is. The tension starts to build in this moment.
Mark sees more and more signs that something is amiss when he meets Helly, a new co-worker who goes to drastic measures to convince her to leave.
Mark, Helly, co-workers Dylan and Irving discover that Lumon can be activated in the outside world if necessary. In the finale, it all comes to a head.
Edge-of-your-seat tension is defined by the last 15 minutes of the final episode. The performances and delivery style, with the camera flipping back and forth among the three characters, is fabulously shot and wonderfully acted. The author of a book about control and humanity that Mark had been secretly reading at work is actually his brother-in-law. He is thrown when he meets his boss at a party called Mrs. Selvig in the real world. She is not only his sister's birthing coach and his next-door neighbor, but Mark gets the feeling that she isn't actually severed.
Helly is completely shocked to discover that her outie is the daughter of the CEO of Lumon. She used her marketing skills to promote the program. Irving discovers that he is a lonely painter with a dog and that his crush is already in a relationship.
If you have ever watched a TV show and felt the need to scream at the TV, this is the kind of episode to get such a response. It's enough to make you break into a sweat when you watch Mark waste time telling people what's really going on.
You feel the anguish of each character as they wrestle with the revelation of who they really are and what their lives are like outside of the office as the scenes flip back and forth. Dylan holds on for dear life and the clock adds a sense of urgency to keep theinnies aware for as long as possible. It isn't easy seeing as he has to contort his body to reach the required series of buttons, not to mention the severed floor supervisor who is on his way to stop Dylan.
This show is a psychological thriller and it needs a shocking twist or cliffhanger to deliver the goods. While Helly makes it in time to reveal some harsh truths to a confused crowd, viewers are unsure if Mark was able to accomplish his mission before the clock ran out. His wife isn't dead, but rather working as the severed floor, and he is very sad. This proved that the Severance program worked well.
When Mark is mid-screaming to reveal this fact to his sister, the screen cuts to black. Did he reveal it in time? Fans still talk about it.
If there wasn't already confirmation of a season 2, fans would have been angry. There is still a lot of story to tell and questions to be answered.
What is Lumon's goal, and what are the implications of severing people outside of the work/ home life experience? The state Petey was in when Mark saw him is not being discussed. Early severed subjects may be used for a program that will be used far more widely. What happened to Mark's wife? Do you mean Ms.Casey?
It was worth it for the nail-biting, exciting, frantic final episode, even though it was a slow burn through a few of the episodes. A season finale is supposed to draw viewers in and keep them wanting more. Severance's finale achieved this better than any other I have seen.
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