Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2024-02-02 10:29 am
rionaleonhart) wrote2024-02-02 10:29 am
Entry tags:
Good News About Hell.
For a long time, I was vaguely aware of Severance but had no idea what it was about. I kept getting it confused with Succession. My general impression was 'some sort of business thing I have no interest in'.
I was very surprised when I learnt the actual concept; I think it was from a Dreamwidth entry one of you posted a few months ago, although I'm afraid I can't remember who it was. (EDIT: Found it! It was this post bysholio.) It turns out that it is, in fact, some sort of business thing I'm very interested in.
The basic concept of Severance: your memories are divided between work and home. When you're at home, you remember your home life, but you have no idea what you do at work. When you're at work, all you remember is work. Where were you born? Do you have family; do you have friends outside this place? You don't know; all you can remember is work, and these corridors, and a handful of colleagues who know as much about the outside world as you do. You've essentially been divided into two separate people, and one of them is living a life of intense confinement and isolation.
I've seen workplace comedies; I've seen workplace dramas. Severance is workplace psychological horror, and it's one of the most compelling shows I've ever watched.
A few stray thoughts:
- There are some understated horror aspects that really lingered with me. Your severed self becomes pregnant at work, so you eventually realise you're pregnant with no memory of how it happened. Your boss lets herself into your house without your knowledge and pokes around.
- Helly trying to hang her other self in the lift was VERY DISTRESSING. (It was such a 'holy shit' moment when I realised she was going to the lift and it hit me that she wasn't planning on suicide; she was planning on murder.)
- I was also very struck by poor Mark's reaction when he found her, and by how he was bundled into the lift without knowing whether she'd be okay. It'd be terrible for anyone, of course, but Mark S had no psychological preparation for this at all; I doubt it had ever even crossed his mind that one day he might end up faced with this kind of personal emergency or tragedy. He only exists to work; his entire life is supposed to be macrodata refinement. This isn't macrodata refinement at all!
- I love it when Irving and Dylan are trying to suggest ways to cheer Helly up. Leave inspirational handbook quotes around the place for her to stumble on! Give her workplace perks! They're genuinely worried and want to help, but they have no concept of how to cheer someone up because their entire life is work. I find it very endearing.
- Also endearing: the fact that, although Mark has no respect for his brother-in-law in the 'real world', his severed self found Ricken's terrible book genuinely inspiring.
- The slow-motion 'rebelliously walking down a corridor' sequence was incredible.
- 'I want to know what this waffle party is,' Rei commented, in the leadup to the waffle party. That wasn't a question that had been on my mind at all; surely you just got waffles? Seemed like a weird, lonely 'party' if only one member of the team could attend, but I assumed you just got waffles. But it turned out that the waffle party was, in fact, much weirder than I could have imagined.
- Dylan was the character in the MDR team I took the longest to warm up to, but he was such a hero in the last episode! I was rooting ferociously for him. Also, it's incredibly cute that he requested a glass portrait of the team and used it to encourage himself.
- This is the perfect show if you love characters developing intense bonds in isolated circumstances. Irving/Burt: great. Mark/Helly: great. In a show with a different concept, I'd probably consider Mark/Helly underdeveloped, but I can absolutely believe they'd be drawn to each other; they've gone through such intense experiences while also being close to the only people in each other's lives.
- I'm speculatively casting glances at a Mark/Helly/Dylan/Irving OT4 and nobody is surprised.
I've been watching Severance with my housemates, and we were all silently riveted to the screen during 'The We We Are', the last episode to date. Holy shit. I think that's the tensest episode of television I've ever sat through.
If you want to weird yourself out, the title sequence is incredible and well worth a watch.
I was very surprised when I learnt the actual concept; I think it was from a Dreamwidth entry one of you posted a few months ago, although I'm afraid I can't remember who it was. (EDIT: Found it! It was this post by
sholio.) It turns out that it is, in fact, some sort of business thing I'm very interested in.The basic concept of Severance: your memories are divided between work and home. When you're at home, you remember your home life, but you have no idea what you do at work. When you're at work, all you remember is work. Where were you born? Do you have family; do you have friends outside this place? You don't know; all you can remember is work, and these corridors, and a handful of colleagues who know as much about the outside world as you do. You've essentially been divided into two separate people, and one of them is living a life of intense confinement and isolation.
I've seen workplace comedies; I've seen workplace dramas. Severance is workplace psychological horror, and it's one of the most compelling shows I've ever watched.
A few stray thoughts:
- There are some understated horror aspects that really lingered with me. Your severed self becomes pregnant at work, so you eventually realise you're pregnant with no memory of how it happened. Your boss lets herself into your house without your knowledge and pokes around.
- Helly trying to hang her other self in the lift was VERY DISTRESSING. (It was such a 'holy shit' moment when I realised she was going to the lift and it hit me that she wasn't planning on suicide; she was planning on murder.)
- I was also very struck by poor Mark's reaction when he found her, and by how he was bundled into the lift without knowing whether she'd be okay. It'd be terrible for anyone, of course, but Mark S had no psychological preparation for this at all; I doubt it had ever even crossed his mind that one day he might end up faced with this kind of personal emergency or tragedy. He only exists to work; his entire life is supposed to be macrodata refinement. This isn't macrodata refinement at all!
- I love it when Irving and Dylan are trying to suggest ways to cheer Helly up. Leave inspirational handbook quotes around the place for her to stumble on! Give her workplace perks! They're genuinely worried and want to help, but they have no concept of how to cheer someone up because their entire life is work. I find it very endearing.
- Also endearing: the fact that, although Mark has no respect for his brother-in-law in the 'real world', his severed self found Ricken's terrible book genuinely inspiring.
- The slow-motion 'rebelliously walking down a corridor' sequence was incredible.
- 'I want to know what this waffle party is,' Rei commented, in the leadup to the waffle party. That wasn't a question that had been on my mind at all; surely you just got waffles? Seemed like a weird, lonely 'party' if only one member of the team could attend, but I assumed you just got waffles. But it turned out that the waffle party was, in fact, much weirder than I could have imagined.
- Dylan was the character in the MDR team I took the longest to warm up to, but he was such a hero in the last episode! I was rooting ferociously for him. Also, it's incredibly cute that he requested a glass portrait of the team and used it to encourage himself.
- This is the perfect show if you love characters developing intense bonds in isolated circumstances. Irving/Burt: great. Mark/Helly: great. In a show with a different concept, I'd probably consider Mark/Helly underdeveloped, but I can absolutely believe they'd be drawn to each other; they've gone through such intense experiences while also being close to the only people in each other's lives.
- I'm speculatively casting glances at a Mark/Helly/Dylan/Irving OT4 and nobody is surprised.
I've been watching Severance with my housemates, and we were all silently riveted to the screen during 'The We We Are', the last episode to date. Holy shit. I think that's the tensest episode of television I've ever sat through.
If you want to weird yourself out, the title sequence is incredible and well worth a watch.