Entertainment
Apple TV’s 10/10 Sci-Fi Show Hit Its Darkest Point Yet in Just 2 Minutes
While Apple TV may not be the biggest streaming service in terms of its library, it does consistently provide high-quality content. From a comedy-drama like Shrinking to an action sci-fi show like Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, the platform covers a range of genres that are well-received amongst critics. One of the best shows on there is Dan Erickson‘s Severance, which currently holds a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes. With so many workplace comedies, from The Office to Abbott Elementary, Erickson puts his own dark spin on the genre with something that feels like a Black Mirror episode.
Severance follows a group of employees at Lumon Industries who have undergone a procedure that mentally severs their personal life from their work life. The employees (aka the innies) only have consciousness of what they do on the job, essentially feeling like they’re forced to work. Meanwhile, the outies (the employees’ consciousness outside Lumon) have no knowledge of what they actually do at the biotech company. If a company had to create this non-legalized procedure, surely it couldn’t be for the greater good. However, the employees seem to enjoy (or at least tolerate) their job. All of that changes, however, when Helly R. (Britt Lower) joins Lumon’s Macrodata Department (MDR).
Helly Reaches Her Breaking Point in ‘Severance’ Season 1, Episode 4
Although the newly appointed MDR head, Mark S. (Adam Scott), tries to make Helly’s time at Lumon as smooth as possible, she’s completely against working there. But when she puts in a formal request to resign, her outie declines. After multiple attempts to escape or send a message to her outie, Helly is sent to the break room, which is anything but the relaxing place it’s supposed to be. Run by Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman), Helly is forced to repeat a statement exactly 1,072 times over two days to break her spirit and any hope of leaving Lumon. While it seems like she’s ready to accept her job, Helly barges into Harmony Cobel’s (Patricia Arquette) office with a paper cutter and threatens to slice off her own fingers if they don’t let her record a tape to her outie explaining why she wants to resign. After Cobel and Milchick surprisingly meet her demands, Helly receives a video from her outie.
While Helly may be fiery, her outie is outright cold in her message. She makes it clear that she is a person and that Helly isn’t. Therefore, she makes all the decisions on their behalf. She even tells Helly that if ever she threatens to cut off their fingers again, she’ll make sure Helly lives to regret it. Hearing from this anyone else is already a lot, but directly from a version of you? It’s heartbreaking to say the least. Feeling like she’s trapped, the final moments of Severance Season 1, Episode 4 see Helly attempt to take her own life in the elevator. Lower shows no level of emotion during those two minutes. If anything, Lower expresses Helly’s determination to escape this tragic situation, whatever means necessary. It’s a truly dark moment that you can’t help but feel truly sorry for what Helly’s endured in just four episodes.
Lumon Putting Up with Helly’s Antics Raises Questions About Who Her Outie Is
In Severance Season 1, audiences only follow both sides of Mark’s lives and see how both of them are on a path to uncover the conspiracies surrounding Lumon. Even though their demeanors are different, they’re both likable protagonists. It’s an interesting choice that, while Helly is the viewer’s POV into this strange sci-fi world, we don’t get to see what kind of life her outie lives until the Severance Season 1 finale — adding another mystery to the show.
Netflix’s 7-Part Sci-Fi Series Is So Good, You Can Start From Any Episode
There’s something for everyone.
Cobel and Milchick make it clear early on in the series that there are serious consequences when an employee leaves their post, but they allow Helly to go by unscathed (for the most part) and still keep her with the MDR department. Even after threatening to cut off her own fingers, she’s still allowed to keep working at the company. Sure, it’s her outie’s choice whether she stays or not, but for her outie to still go in to work every day with the chance that she might be harmed is strange. It shows that Helly’s outie might be more powerful than anyone expects, including Helly herself. This storyline is just one cog in the machine that makes Severance one of the best Apple TV shows to binge through. With the amount of mysteries sprinkled throughout the series, it makes rewatching all the more rewarding as audiences can see what clues the creative team sprinkled throughout to foreshadow big moments.
- Release Date
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February 17, 2022
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Dan Erickson, Mark Friedman
- Writers
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Anna Ouyang Moench, Wei-Ning Yu
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