Severance, but one episode at a time (Season 1, Episode 1)
Trying to relive the glory days where there was no binge-watching
I really don’t want to watch Severance. I don’t know what is holding me back, but I just don’t want to watch it! The only reason I’m going to force myself to watch it is because I’ve listened to Ben Stiller’s (the director) interview with Conan and it seemed interesting enough.
To take initiative, I’ve decided to watch an episode a week and then review it. I’ll probably do it on Sunday nights just so I can feel something again since Euphoria Sundays ended over two years ago. So this will probably be a Monday morning weekly check in of how I’m enjoying Severance.
Okay, without further adu, here is Season 1 Episode 1 (“Good News About Hell”) of Severance.
Authors note: I did watch this on Sunday but then didn’t have time to send out on Monday. Just pretend it’s Monday or something.
Recap of Episode
Welcome to Lumon Industries! You won’t remember what you ate for breakfast today :)!
Well the show starts off with a bang: woman trapped in room, unconscious on table. How’d she get there? Who knows. Who is she? Who knows! Not even she knows.
That’s the whole thing about Severance. The employees don’t have the access to any memories about their personal lives when they go to work. When they leave work, they don’t remember anything about work, including who they work with.
Back to the episode. All we know about this situation is that Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott, but that’s his Parks and Rec character in case you live under a rock) is speaking to this woman from a 1970’s-looking radio. (This really reminds me of the TVA in the Loki series.) The woman passes a test, seemingly to be a part of the team.
Flashback to that morning: Mark (Adam Scott) is sobbing in his car, he is quite upset! He walks into this giant building and then goes allll the way down. You can see a tonal shift via camera lens change, which I thought was cool. He does a whole lot of walking. Walk, walk, walk, walk. Walk.
All that walking pays off because Mark gets promoted! Woohoo! Someone else got fired, which makes Mark get a little weird. The boss lady is giving him rather cryptic answers to any of Mark’s questions. Hmmm…
Regardless, Mark goes and he interviews that lady from the beginning of the episode. She passes, as we know, and then she joins the team. Don’t worry, she does put up a fight and she hits Mark in the head with something and he needs a bandaid, sad.
Helly R., the new colleague, is forced to sit and watch a video from two hours prior. This was filmed pre severance, and she is giving her consent to the operation. Real time Helly is very confused, and you know what, so am I.
Helly R. asks something along the lines of will I ever leave? Mark responds with something along the lines of “well, you always want to come back.” Has she been there before… Probably!
Mark leaves work, phew. That place was giving me the creeps. He readjusts into his personal life and finds a letter on his windshield saying he slid and hit his head on accident, not that Helly hit him. He didn’t even remember he got hit in the head with something. This process of severance is no joke.
The second half of the episode is about Mark’s personal life. He has a sister, and some friends. We do learn that Mark had a wife but she died. His sister believes he agreed to the severance operation to cope with the death of his wife. This could explain the random sobbing that took place that morning.
He also is having this ongoing war with his neighbor who continuously puts his trash bin in Mark’s spot. This’ll come back later.
Anyways, Mark goes to this dinner party with his sister (who’s name I didn’t catch), and her friends. They have some rather terrible conversation but then his brother-in-law exposes that Mark takes part in the severance. It gets ratherrrr quiet there.
After the dinner, Mark goes to bed in a racecar bed. Sick. He gets up in the middle of the night and finds a man just staring at him in his sister’s backyard. He is kinda un-phased by this honestly.
The man then finds him the next day and says he is a colleague from work. Mark’s like tf, what happened to your severance deal? It’s not fully disclosed. But he gives him a letter saying that he knows a lot and that there are weird things going on. If he wants to know, he’ll tell him.
(I also think that was the colleague who was fired but I’m not sure.)
Mark’s like okay. He goes home, and his neighbor’s wife is out there telling him such nice things. She is apologizing for trashcangate as well. Uh oh. ITS THE BOSS LADY!! It seems like she recognizes him…
The end.
My thoughts and feelings
I was a bit bored when it first started. Mark just walks for like 50 seconds at the beginning, and that is an artistic choice that for sure means something, but it was a lot of just walking.
I always find it hard to follow the first episode of a show with a convoluted plot because they are always just getting right into it and I have no idea what anything means. There was 10 minutes of that. Lots of exposition that will def come back to haunt me.
I do think I could be drawn in. I enjoy a mystery, especially one that involves Adam Scott! I also have a theory that first episodes are always the worst episodes of the entire series, so I’m excited for the next episode.
I did have a slight inclination to keep watching, but I just turned it right off. It isn’t leaving me begging for more yet.
Okay! That was the first episode of Severance. Next Monday I’ll have the second episode!
Tootles. <3
Ps- The green floors of the subterranean office remind me of a putt-putt course.
