ougghmysevramnce

[ougghmysevramnce]

^^

what i don't understand about people totally writing off helena as evil and nothing more is 1) this show is filled with characters with so much nuance and so many layers. every single one of them actually, and 2) you can't believe "love transcends severance" with burt and irving and mark and gemma and then separate who helena is from helly. the central storyline of the show is not creating a clone of yourself who later wants their own agency, it's severing a part of yourself. innies and outties are not different people. that's why outtie mark was still pulled to petey in s1 and why innie mark still felt grief over gemma even when he didn't remember her. why innie irving was attracted to the art on the severed floor, as outtie irving is an artist, and why innie dylan came up with huge ideas about who he could be outside because outside he felt like a failure. whatever you like about helly, her kindness, smarts, humor, strong-headedness, feeling of entrapment are all a part of helena. they're the same qualities reacting with different external factors, and as reintegration is a part of the storyline, to a degree they are the same person

[ougghmysevramnce]

what i don't understand about people totally writing off helena as evil and nothing more is 1) this show is filled with characters with so much nuance and so many layers. every single one of them actually, and 2) you can't believe "love transcends severance" with burt and irving and mark and gemma and then separate who helena is from helly. the central storyline of the show is not creating a clone of yourself who later wants their own agency, it's severing a part of yourself. innies and outties are not different people. that's why outtie mark was still pulled to petey in s1 and why innie mark still felt grief over gemma even when he didn't remember her. why innie irving was attracted to the art on the severed floor, as outtie irving is an artist, and why innie dylan came up with huge ideas about who he could be outside because outside he felt like a failure. whatever you like about helly, her kindness, smarts, humor, strong-headedness, feeling of entrapment are all a part of helena. they're the same qualities reacting with different external factors, and as reintegration is a part of the storyline, to a degree they are the same person

[ougghmysevramnce]

The cast of Severance (Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower) took over a glass-walled replica of the Lumon Industries office at the Grand Central Terminal in New York, USA. For over two hours, they stayed in character as their "innies," working at their desks, doing yoga, and engaging in other office activities, just like on the show

[ougghmysevramnce]

thinking about how I hope in the end that Severance is a treatise on grief and how you cannot run from it, you cannot bury it, you cannot hide from it, you can only in the end accept it.

It's been two years since Gemma "died," and Mark has tried everything but accepting her loss.

Alcoholism? Check. Getting severed to avoid choking on her ghost? Check. Moving to a new house and keeping her memories boxed in the basement? Check. Not even bothering to unpack her ashes and put her in an urn or a cemetery? Check. "She's not dead, she's just not here."

He shoves her in a box in the basement surrounded by boxes of her hobbies. He tears up her photo in little pieces and tapes it back together with whiskey on his breath. He cries in the car before work until snot runs down his face. He spits on other people's grief and wields his own like a weapon, pretending that he isn't bleeding.

It's a core part of him. It's always been there. Maybe it goes far back, to Fern Scout who's been dead so long Mark can't remember the color of her eyes. It's there in Mark S too, ripping up Petey's photo and his map with grim denial. "Irving isn't dead, he's just not here."

Mark can't bear grief in any form. So when scraps of puzzle pieces scream that she's alive, he runs into the maelstrom of reintegration without thought, without care, without telling Devon, self-destructive to the core. Because if he could kill the grief, that monster stalking him in the dark or at the bottom of a bottle, then maybe he'd finally be okay.

But I don't think we'll ever get to see the Gemma he once knew. I think she's lost, a ghost stalking Lumon's halls, never to escape. Or maybe she does escape -- but only as Ms. Casey, someone who never loved him, a different person altogether.

And maybe Severance will say, you have to accept this, or you'll die. Grief isn't an enemy. It's a part of you, like your innie, like your outie. It breaks you apart.

And you can put yourself back together again, if you only face it.

[ougghmysevramnce]

Sorry if I'm distracting you from... From what? From looking for your wife.

2.04: "Woe's Hollow"

[ougghmysevramnce]

Somehow Mark’s Dead Wife ™ backstory moves me more than any other example of the trope ever has. I think part of it is that his grief doesn’t compel him to revenge or anything cool and action-oriented, it just breaks him. Him sobbing in his car before coming into work in the first episode lets him be pitiful in a way that I find incredibly endearing. The way his eyes fill with tears when he sees Gemma in the hallway and hears her voice again really strikes me with how unafraid Severance is to show the depth of Mark’s love for her. It doesn’t feel perfunctory like many other examples of this trope often do, and even though we don’t know that much about Gemma, you can still feel moved by their relationship

[ougghmysevramnce]

Adam Scott vs. Patricia Arquette | Hot Ones Versus

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2.03: "Who Is Alive?"

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Parks and Rec but it’s Ben Wyatt in Severance

[ougghmysevramnce]

i think there are like 4 separate worlds in which people are watching severance and which inform their expectations for/analysis of the show.

there’s a world where it’s a sci fi thriller. the people living in this world are theorizing about lumon’s secrets, trying to predict twists and turns and big sci-fi reveals

there’s a world in which it’s a dark corporate satire. the people living in this world care more about the broad political moxie of the show and resent the people in the above world for valuing action over theme. (I tend toward this one myself)

there’s a world in which it’s a convoluted and cerebral dissection of selfhood. it’s a character drama, but the key character tensions exist within one body. its primary concerns are identity, grief, fragmentation, and alienation.

the divide between these is exemplified in Gemma: in the first world, Gemma is a key part in a mystery; in the second, she’s a woman whose life has been stolen and exploited by a company in order to run absurd corporate mental health sessions; in the third, she’s the grief that caused mark to split himself in half, resurrected

and then there’s the world of the Lumon-themed ziprecruiter ads. a world where it means nothing, where the setting is costume. in this world Severance is a show made by Apple. it is a vessel for ads, a bottom line, a property. in this world, people post about how nice it would be to be able to forget all they do at work, just like in Severance! people fantasize about vacating their bodies in surrender to capital, and that is the magic sold by the show. and the posts are engagement, are word of mouth, are a way to show Ziprecruiter, hey, look at AppleTV’s popular show! use product to sell product. nothing more. that is all it is. it is absolutely and completely nothing.

and to the show, all four worlds are reality

[ougghmysevramnce]

[ougghmysevramnce]

S02S05 - Trojan's Horse

[ougghmysevramnce]

what did they mean by this

[ougghmysevramnce]

S02S05 - Trojan's Horse

[ougghmysevramnce]

S02S05 - Trojan's Horse

[ougghmysevramnce]

S02S05 - Trojan's Horse

[ougghmysevramnce]

S02S05 - Trojan's Horse