From director and executive producer Ben Stiller and creator Dan Erickson comes “Severance.” Mark Scout (Adam Scott) leads a team at Lumon Industries, whose employees have undergone a severance procedure, which surgically divides their memories between their work and personal lives. This daring experiment in “work-life balance” is called into question as Mark finds himself at the center of an unraveling mystery that will force him to confront the true nature of his work… and of himself.
Vanessa Armstrong for SlashFilm:
“Severance” is not a comedy. Those who hear that the show is executive produced/directed by Ben Stiller and stars Adam Scott might make that assumption, but as Apple TV+’s marketing materials keep reminding us, the show is a workplace thriller — no funny business found here.
But “Severance” does have funny moments, as great dramas often do, and it’s also much more than a straightforward workplace thriller. The show, written and created by Dan Erickson, meets the qualifications for that genre with a gripping, ever-escalating plot that leaves you clambering for answers each episode. “Severance,” however, is also a deep character piece and a commentary on capitalism — how much does where we work dictate our lives, and how far will a corporate conglomerate go to achieve their so-called strategic vision?
Mark’s boss at Lumon is Patricia Arquette’s Ms. Cobell, an intensely complex individual who contains multitudes. Arquette is masterful in this role, and I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t get all the awards for her performance. The way she softly says, “Mark,” to Scott’s character, for example, emotes a sinister faux-concern that chills you to the bone.
Arquette is only one of many fantastic performances in “Severance.” Scott’s conveyance of both Marks is uncanny, and [John] Turturro, [Zach] Cherry, and [Britt] Lower also bring nuance to their severed characters. Dichen Lachman and Christopher Walken also touchingly play severed Lumon employees while Tramell Tillman plays another complex and intense unsevered supervisor. Rounding out the impressive cast is Mark’s sister and brother-in-law, deftly portrayed by Jen Tullock and Michael Chernus.
MacDailyNews Take: This one has Lasso-level word-of-mouth written all over it.
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“a commentary on capitalism — how much does where we work dictate our lives, and how far will a corporate conglomerate go to achieve their so-called strategic vision?”
These issues don’t happen in communist, socialist, or even non-profit businesses?
Apple would not exist without capitalism, something Steve Jobs appreciated deeply. Tim Cook has made his mission to destroy capitalism and American freedom. Tim Cook is a practitioner of fascism, where he rents Apple’s business operation and market power to the governments of the CCP and the American Ruling Class under the control of Democrats. Capitalism is a boon to mankind. Fascism is tyranny and the tool of sociopaths. Apple today is as far from free market capitalism as you can get. It’s like a rich trust fund kid who goes to Ivy League schools and soaks up communism because he feels guilty not having done anything to earn what he has. And he’s right. Except for the communism part.
And yet they earn constantly-record-breaking capitalist profits that put poster-boy “bastions” of capitalism in the shade. Maybe a dash of fasco-communo-lefto-libtardic-tyrannism-sociopathy-anti-freedomism can help spice up capitalism, no? Would be nice to add some funk to buttoned-up, slogan-spouting capitalists. 😀