SEVERANCE SEASON 1 REVIEW
This Show Will Make You Quit Your Job, And Question Your Toaster
Let’s begin by stating the obvious. If you watched Severance and didn’t feel at least mildly nauseous from all of the intrusive fluorescent lighting and corporate jargon, you might be a number puncher yourself. Congratulations. You are probably middle management. For the rest of us, Severance season one is a mind melting plunge into what would happen if Lost, Black Mirror and The Office had a baby… Then left it in a soundproof basement with no windows, no snacks, and a copy of the employee handbook written by Satan himself.
If you’ve never seen the show, we need to go over a few things. You’ll often see or hear the terms Innie & Outie. This refers to the Lumon employees that have had their home and work brains severed. Innie, is their work-selves. Outie means we’re talking about the part of them that has never been to Lumon Industries. At home they know who they are, and their life story, but they have no idea what they do at work. At Lumon, their innies have no fucking idea who they are on the outside. Got it?
Meet Mark Scout, a man literally split in two. Outie Mark is drowning in grief, numbed by the loss of his wife and clinging to the sterile routine of Lumon as a form of self-erasure. He doesn’t want to feel better. He doesn’t want to feel anything at all. Severance offers him a legalized dissociation.
Innie Mark starts as a blank slate. He's not grieving, as his consciousness flicks into existence between elevator dings. But that innocence is short lived. Innie Mark begins to sense that something feels way off, and that the world he occupies at Lumon is a sick puzzle with missing pieces, and the person who put him there was... Himself.
You don’t see the cracks until the whole structure shifts. He doesn’t rage. Instead, he peels back reality in a slow and calculated way. Watching him unravel the lie he built to protect himself is utterly heartbreaking. Mark isn’t just looking for the truth. He’s looking for wholeness. And the terrifying thing is… Once he finds it, there’s a chance he might not survive it.
Created by Dan Erickson and directed with eerie, surgical precision by Ben Stiller, Severance is set in the soul sucking corporate purgatory that is Lumon Industries. Despite the massive success of “Severance,” Erickson was far from an industry veteran when the series was greenlit. In fact, he was working as a Postmates delivery driver at the same time he was going to meetings with distributors. He got the idea for the dystopian show from his time as an employee at a door factory, (ahem Dylan).
Mark Scout, our blank-staring hero (Adam Scott), is basically the guy you see in every elevator who looks like he’s been awake since 2007. Innie Mark is stuck in a nightmare sorting numbers for reasons not even his managers can fully explain. The building is a labyrinth of white walls. It looks and feels like a rat maze. His team includes Helly R, (Britt Lower) who shows up, takes one look around, and immediately tries to quit, with a note carved into her arm. There’s also Irving, (John Turturro) a poetic old soul who treats the employee handbook like scripture, but I feel that something is up with him. Every ounce of my being feels that he’s a major player here. I could be wrong. Just a hunch. Then there’s Dylan, (Zach Cherry) the overcompensating libertarian who probably thinks the vending machine is his emotional support system. He’s sarcastic, and brings the comedic relief much like Hurley in Lost.
Episode one does not ease you in. It throws you into the moment where Helly wakes up on that table. The show writers make it abundantly clear, that this is not just about work. This is about the obliteration of autonomy. The innies have no idea who they are, and the outies treat them like hired clones. Corporate America but dipped in horror and sprinkled with cult energy. It’s fucking creepy.
By episode three, we meet goats. Yes, real goats in a sterile office room. No context. No commentary. Just a man feeding baby goats while wearing a badge. It is so absurd that it becomes unsettling. Are they symbolic? Are they biological test subjects? Like, we don’t know anything at all. Are they Lumon’s new meat source? No one knows. No one asks. That is the genius of this show. It does not explain. It confronts. And it lets your mind run wild with paranoia. The offices feel like an escape room where every clue leads you back to your desk and the prize is the illusion of free will.
There is an episode where the team earns a five minute music dance experience for good performance. It consists of strobe lights, a song selection from a very outdated playlist, and Dylan dancing. Which feels so odd to watch. Like, is he happy? Or is his innie just in it? These scenes are not just quirky, they’re weapons. Every celebration at Lumon is like watching a cult try to mimic human joy. The cringe is intentional, and super effective.
The middle stretch of the season slows down but only to give you time to spiral. Dylan finds out he has a child and freaks out. Irving begins painting the same hallway over and over like he’s exorcising ghosts. Helly becomes increasingly desperate, documenting messages to her outie self, failing miserably. And Mark begins to remember things he shouldn’t, like emotions. Which Lumon pretends not to notice, because human feeling aren’t in the handbook.
The Optics and Design department is one of the weirdest rooms in Lumon Industries. Unlike Macrodata Refinement, which at least has the illusion of boring corporate productivity, Optics and Design is just plain unsettling. Its purpose is unclear. MDR employees are excluded. It all feels so isolated and cryptic. It’s a dead-end hallway in the map of Lumon, a place designed to confuse and intimidate. What little we see of it suggests that it functions as a creative trap and a control mechanism. The people in Optics and Design seem to manipulate perception. It doesn’t feel like a workspace. It feels like a warning.
Burt (Christopher Walken) and Irving bond over shared values and whispery hallway banter. They form the kind of office romance that should be cheesy but ends up breaking your heart a little bit, because they are not allowed to love each other outside that space. Burt's interactions with Irving form a poignant subplot that explores themes of connection and identity within Lumon’s constraints. The chemistry between Walken and Turturro is enhanced by their real life friendship, adding authenticity to their on screen relationship. It’s honestly so cute.
Let’s pause and fully unpack the break room. A space where punishment masquerades as therapy. Where you are forced to repeat apologies over and over until the system deems your remorse acceptable. A dystopian confessional without absolution. Every time Helly is dragged back there, the air thickens. And we watch with rage, because we know what she did. She tried to escape. She tried to say no. And that is the highest offense at Lumon. It’s sick and twisted. Makes you think twice about Corporate America for surey sure.
Let’s dip into Wellness. The idea that you can sit in a room and be read cheerful facts about a stranger who shares your body but not your life. It’s terrifying and unhinged. “Your outie likes kayaking. Your outie has perfect teeth.” Great. Meanwhile… Your innie is emotionally combusting inside a cubicle. Self care in the Severance universe is not about healing. It is about suppression.
The soundtrack is perfect. Theodore Shapiro’s score is not just music. It is atmospheric anxiety. It crawls through scenes like a nervous tick. Every chime feels like a threat. Every note stretches tension until it snaps. If music can feel like being monitored, this is it. No grand symphonies… Just a hum in your skull, strings like nerve endings, and dread that crawls under your skin and stays there forever. Haunting, pulsing, eerie, it’s legit so perfect.
The cinematography could be studied in film schools. Every frame is symmetrical, cold, and calculated. Long corridors stretch into nowhere. MDR consists of four desks arranged like a pinwheel in a large empty room. I feel lost watching it. I feel like I can’t get out. That’s obviously how the innie’s feel, and they nailed it for the viewers too. The lighting is hostile. It mimics a kind of soulless cleanliness you may find at the dentist office inside of a prison. The entire building feels like a character. One that watches. One that judges. Eyes in the sky. Eyes everywhere.
Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) begins as the unflinching overseer of Lumon Industries’ severed floor who embodies the company's cold authoritarian ethics. Operating under the alias, “Mrs. Selvig” she embeds herself into Mark Scout's personal life, surveilling him outside of work to ensure his compliance within. She freakishly watches him from her windows, as she conveniently lives right next door.
Her unwavering loyalty to Lumon is deeply rooted in her upbringing; she attended the Myrtle Eagan School for Girls and venerates the company's founder, Kier Eagan. This devotion is symbolized by a personal shrine in her basement, complete with relics like her mother's breathing tube, indicating a complexity of loss and cult like faith.
Her facade begins to fracture, as her obsession with Mark intensifies. We learn that his deceased wife Gemma is also a Lumon employee. This discovery blurs the lines between Cobel’s professional duties and personal vendettas. Her methods grow increasingly erratic, culminating in her dismissal for unauthorized actions, including concealing Helly's suicide attempt and manipulating Mark's outie life in a sick way.
Stripped of her position and purpose, Cobel experiences a crisis of faith. She dismantles her Kier Egan shrine, symbolizing a rejection of the ideology that once defined her. This sets the stage for her unpredictable role in the ongoing narrative.
Seth Milchick (Tramell Tillman) the freakish supervisor under Cobel, who administers rewards like the Waffle Party and punishments such as time in the break room. Unlike the severed employees, Milchick retains his memories outside of work. Granting him a continuous awareness that he leverages to manipulate the innies effectively. His interactions are creepily cheerful yet menacing. He enforces compliance with a smile that rarely reaches his eyes.
Milchick's loyalty to Lumon is unwavering, yet his actions suggest a deeper complexity. He exhibits moments of genuine emotion, such as visible frustration when confronted with the innies' burgeoning autonomy. These glimpses hint at internal conflicts, suggesting that his allegiance may be driven more by a desire for control or personal advancement than true belief in Lumon's mission.
Helly R is not just a new employee. From her first day, she challenges everything around her. She refuses to fall in line and demands answers in a place built on silence. Her presence causes disruption, not just within her team but across the entire system. There is a reason she matters. There is a reason we need to know who she is. The story doesn’t work without her, and neither does Lumon.
The season finale is chaos in slow motion. The innies manage to wake up in their outie bodies for a brief window. And what they do with that time is everything. Dylan becomes a legend, as he holds two switches, straining with all his might. He does this for his coworkers, so they can finally live a real moment. Irving searches for Burt. Helly discovers she is the daughter of Lumon royalty. And Mark finds out that his wife, the one he is grieving, is alive. And she is Miss Casey. From the wellness room.
The episode ends with Mark screaming a name, and the screen goes black. Suddenly everything you thought you knew collapses. The system is breaking. The rebellion has begun, but the cost is still unknown.
TALK ABOUT A MIND FUCK
Severance is not just a series. It is a thesis on identity, on labor, on the dangerous fantasy of compartmentalization. It asks what happens when we separate our pain from our purpose. What happens when we let a corporation have the power to rewrite our memory? It offers no easy answers… Only more questions.
And yes, this show will absolutely make you think of Lost. The strange rooms. The cryptic leadership. The slow burn mystery, the lingering trauma. But where Lost often spiraled into mythology for mythology’s sake, Severance keeps its questions grounded in emotional truth. It begs to ask why you’d keep showing up to a job that kills you a little every day… And what you’re willing to do about it.
If you have not seen Severance, I envy you. You get to experience it for the first time. You get to meet Mark and Helly and Dylan and Irving before they crack open.
And if you have seen it? Watch season 2, and then watch it all over again. There are clues. Details. Hints tucked into dialogue and background paintings. Whether you are an innie or an outie, there is a part of you that knows something is wrong. That you were not made to grind. That your worth is not measured in productivity. What the hell are they producing anyways? What happens when they bin the numbers? We still don’t fucking know.
Final verdict. Eleven out of ten. It kept me watching, waiting, wondering. And that’s what a good story will do. It will make you ask the best question any writer will ever hear… What happens next?
Quick Character Breakdown:
Helly R: The chaotic neutral of our hearts. Helly does not accept the system. She resists from the beginning. Her pain is raw and her courage is unmatched. She is the audience’s rage personified. And when we find out who she really is? The betrayal cuts deep.
Dylan: Started as a comic relief gremlin. Ended as a tragic hero. Dylan is the character who most clearly illustrates the consequences of severance. His love for his kid is the thread that pulls at our heart strings.
Irving: An old soul in a sterile cage. Irving believes in Kier, in Lumon, in routine, but love cracks his surface. Burt becomes his rebellion. His art becomes his scream. His descent into the truth is one of the most compelling arcs in the show.
Harmony Cobel: HR in the streets. Cult leader in the spreadsheets. Cobel is terrifying because she believes she is helping. She is a true believer who cannot see that her house of worship is on fire. She is a villain, and a victim. She’s a fucking mess.
Burt: Sweet, soft-spoken, and used as emotional bait. Burt’s role may seem small, but it looms large. His connection with Irving is the show’s quiet heartbeat. A reminder that even in the coldest places, love can still show up. And we love that.
Milchick: The most terrifying party planner in television history. Every smile is a red flag. Every dance move is a warning. Milchick is entirely dead inside. A corporate stooge with fake ass charisma and zero soul.
Kier Eagan: The myth. The statue. The overlord no one asked for. Kier is the looming presence over every scene. A CEO turned deity. His words are gospel and his ideology is poison.
Quick Episode Guide Breakdown:
Episode 1: Good News About Hell. We meet Mark and get introduced to the concept of severance. Helly wakes up and immediately regrets everything. We learn that the people working for Lumon are basically waking nightmares with keyboards. Outie Mark is grieving, innie Mark is confused, and the audience is nervously laughing while clutching their coffee like it can protect them.
Episode 2: Half Loop. Helly tries to escape and the team gets a waffle party explained which is not as fun as it sounds. The break room makes its terrifying debut. The vibes are immaculate in the worst possible way. This is where the tone says buckle up.
Episode 3: In Perpetuity. We get a museum to Kier Eagan that would make any cult leader blush. History is rewritten in real time and the MDR team continues their awkward stumble toward sentience. Dylan remains chaotic. Irving remains fanatically loyal. Helly keeps trying to claw her way out.
Episode 4: The You You Are. The team explores further and we learn a little more about the mysterious departments. Helly makes another grand exit attempt. Mark meets a mysterious woman who seems a little too interested in his grief. And everything begins to feel more dangerous.
Episode 5: The Grim Barbarity of Optics and Design. Irving and Burt become the show’s softest, slowest burn. A gay romance so tender it could crush a tank. Also, the MDR team learns about the other departments and realizes maybe they are not alone after all.
Episode 6: Hide and Seek. Dylan’s moment where he discovers he has a child and suddenly the show goes from unsettling to emotionally devastating. This is the turning point. The innies begin to understand they are being lied to, and the rebellion seeds are officially planted.
Episode 7: Defiant Jazz. A music dance experience so awkward it should be studied. Helly’s repeated trauma becomes too real. The team gets closer, but the cost is high. Dylan becomes the MVP. Again.
Episode 8: What’s for Dinner? Tension builds. Secrets are bubbling under the surface. Outies start to get suspicious. Harmony Cobel begins to unravel and everything feels like it is just seconds from exploding. Also goats.
Episode 9: The We We Are. The finale. A masterclass in television. Innie Mark wakes up at a party and discovers the truth about his wife. Helly gives a speech that almost kills her career before it starts. Irving finds Burt’s address. Dylan holds the switches. While all of us hold our breath.
Severance gives the same brain itch as Lost. A group of people trapped in a weird place. A controlling force. A mythology that makes no sense but feels extremely important. Characters peeling back layers of their own trauma. Lost had the island. Severance has Lumon. Lost had the Dharma Initiative. Severance has Macrodata Refinement. Lost had Ben Linus. Severance has Harmony Cobel. The comparisons are not just fun. They are accurate.
Season two picks up where the tension left off and drags it even deeper into the unknown. The questions get louder, the consequences sharper, and the walls around Lumon start to close in. Loyalties shift, secrets crack open, and nothing can be trusted… Not memory, not identity, not even the people standing next to you.
If season one asked what happens when work and life are severed… Season two asks what happens when the truth starts bleeding through.
Keep watching. It only gets stranger.
At the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards, Severance received 14 nominations:
Outstanding Drama Series
Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Adam Scott)
Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (John Turturro, Christopher Walken)
Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (Patricia Arquette)
Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series (Ben Stiller)
Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (Dan Erickson)
The series won two Emmy Awards:
Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score)
Outstanding Main Title Design
Writers Guild of America Awards
In 2023, Severance won:
Best Drama Series
Best New Series
Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards
At the 2nd Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards, Severance led with 12 nominations and secured five wins, including:
Best Streaming Drama Series
Best Writing in a Streaming Series (Drama)
Additional Recognitions
The series also received nominations from:
Golden Globe Awards:
Best Television Series – Drama
Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama (Adam Scott)
Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series (John Turturro)
Independent Spirit Awards:
Best New Scripted Series
Best Lead Performance in a New Scripted Series (Adam Scott)
Best Supporting Performance in a New Scripted Series (Tramell Tillman)
Saturn Awards:
Multiple nominations, including Best Streaming Horror/Thriller Television Series
WATCH SEASONS 1 & 2 OF SEVERANCE ON APPLE TV+