The Apple TV+ series Severance shows a world in which office workers have their minds split into two different people, one who only remembers what happens at work and the other who only remembers what happens outside of it. The show is inventive and science fiction author John Kessel loves it.
After we watched the first episode, I said to my wife, "This is one of the smartest shows I have seen in a long time." I think it is a classic.
David Barr Kirtley, host of Guide to theGalaxy, says that Severance is his favorite show of the last year or two.
Sara Lynn Michener likes the idea of using robots or clones for unpleasant tasks in Severance. Who are the people who are disposable? This show is trying to create a concept out of splitting yourself into two parts, and having that side of yourself be something that you sort of kick aside. It's really frightening.
Anthony Ha is worried that the show may be stretching its story out over too many episodes.
The complete interview with John, Sara, and Anthony can be found in Episode 509 of Geek. Check out the highlights from the discussion.
John Kessel was a critic of Franz Kafka.
We watched a whole season and still don't know what they do. They are rounding up numbers and removing them. I'm wondering if this is a metaphor. Is this connected to something else? The cult and the great founder are intriguing to me. It reminds me of The Trial. You don't know who the people in the castle are or what they are doing up there. There is a lot of metaphorical stuff going on here that is very interesting to me.
Sara Lynn Michener was on the show.
This show has a fantastic performance byPatricia Arquette. She plays two different characters. She has two different characters and two different names because she is high enough up at the company that she can do that. She dresses completely differently than her other character and comes across as a crazy cat lady because of her work persona. It's a wonderful performance by Arquette because she captures both sides of this crazy person.
Anthony Ha is on set design.
The visual style is more about older style of work than it is about newer style of work. My parents went to look at the offices. It is a cubicle farm as opposed to a bunch of desks. I think there is an emotional logic to it, because if they all had laptops and sat down and immediately started using the internet, it would kind of destroy the whole purpose of severance. It is supposed to feel like a nightmare of office life, as opposed to a realistic representation.
David Barr Kirtley is a character.
There is a constant idea that the characters are going to escape somehow, and I don't see how that works. It seems like if the program were shut down and the chips were turned off, they would all die. It makes sense that we would rather all be dead than at work for the rest of our lives, but I feel like that idea gets pushed to the background in the show. They don't just want to die. I'm not sure what it is that they think is going to happen, but it seems like they have some hope of escaping.
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