Ben Stiller’s “Severance” has found itself in TV’s biggest spotlight as its second season comes to a close. It’s become Apple TV’s biggest draw and is currently beating the lauded “Ted Lasso” in streaming numbers.
While I love the heartwarming atmosphere of “Ted Lasso,” “Severance” is on another level in terms of its worldbuilding and patience with releasing key details.
The season finale was stocked with crazy moments, important explanations and plenty of lingering questions. Instead of going through the whole 75-minute episode chronologically, I wanted to touch on my favorite parts of the finale as it relates to the character performances, Stiller’s directing and the narrative elements.
The characters in “Severance” make the show. The split nature of the main cast makes the performances all the more impressive. I think the best example of this is in the very beginning of the episode where Mark Scout (Adam Scott) is talking to himself with the help of Devon (Jen Tullock) and Cobel (Patricia Arquette).
The way Scott is able to switch between the personalities of Mark Scout and Mark S. is really impressive, especially toward the end of their conversation where it gets more combative. While I can’t talk about every actor, even though they deserve to be mentioned, there are three other performances that truly floored me in this episode.
The first is Dichen Lachman, who plays Gemma. I think her best moment of the finale came at the very end, as she’s screaming for Mark S. behind the locked hallway door. Her desperation is palpable, and in an interview with TV Insider, Lachman said that she couldn’t pull herself together after they cut.
She talked about how she’s normally good at taking a deep breath and controlling herself after a scene, but it’s clear she put all of her emotion into her final seconds on screen. The added fact that Gemma probably doesn’t know that Mark S. is severed only leans more into how scared she must have been.
In the same video as Lachman, Gwendolyn Christie, who played Lorne the shepherd, said she hadn’t done a real fight scene since her time working on “Game of Thrones.” Christie leapt back into the action like it was riding a bike, making the fight between Lorne and Mark S. against Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) one of the most intense pieces of the episode.
The last character performance I want to touch on is Tramell Tillman, who plays Seth Milchick. For the entirety of season two, we see Milchick get circles run around him by the innies, while crumbling under the extreme pressure of the Lumon board. It makes Tillman’s reactions more nuanced, which is why it was so fun seeing him bite back at the animatronic Kier’s mean jokes and lead choreography and merriment in their routine. Milchick is a character who is clearly growing sour toward Lumon, and I can definitely see him joining the main crew in a similar role to Cobel next season.
I don’t think it would be crazy to already call “Severance” Ben Stiller’s magnum opus, but it wouldn’t be nearly as revered without his expert directing. I think this was best put on display in the opening scene of the episode as well. The way innie and outie Mark’s conversation is shot is full of intentional techniques that explore Mark’s psyche further.
Stiller shoots each Mark at a different focal length to distinguish between them and their traits. Outie Mark’s face is bigger to show his trustworthiness and initial kindness towards innie Mark, and innie Mark’s face is narrower to symbolize his paranoia.
The way their exchange builds through the shot is genius. Going from the transitions of Mark flipping the camcorder to them superimposed in their chairs across from each other visualizes their relationship in a way the audience has never seen.
Color was a big factor in the aesthetics of the second season. It’s full of calming blues and whites, from Woe’s Hollow to the ORTBO tents to the severed floor itself. When the alarm sounds on the floor after Mark breaks out Gemma, the fierce red colors flood the frame. In my eyes it really brings out the hellish imagery that Helly R. references toward the beginning of the finale as well.
Lastly, creator Dan Erickson’s writing and story is what has pushed “Severance” to become so renowned. In hindsight, it’s clear that the purpose of season two was to explore Mark and Gemma’s relationship more with the ultimate goal leading up to breaking her out. They obviously accomplished this well, but there were many little details that made me appreciate their relationship so much more. Gemma’s motif with Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” evokes a physical reaction in me every time I hear it. I won’t lie, tears were shed when this song played for the first time in season one. The parallels drawn between Mark and Gemma’s relationship to Orpheus and Eurydice really get me too. The iconic Greco-Roman myth perfectly encapsulates their current situation.
The other big parallel that made me stand up and cheer was Dylan G.’s faceoff against Milchick. The reprise from the season one finale totally worked for his character, and the fact that both times he greets Milchick with a “f*** you” is so satisfying.
Erickson, Stiller and the whole cast have poured their essence into this television show, and their passion is infectious. Between all its different themes, “Severance” is the perfect storm of cult religion, labor and bioethical debate. If any of these are interesting to you, “Severance” is an experience you will not forget.
