In keeping with the style of season two, I will present my thoughts on the Severance finale in a random and disjointed way.
I loved the conversation between iMark and oMark. Season one never fully delivered on the most fascinating part of its premise—what it means for one person to be two people. Season two did. The Marks trading home videos with each other was such a creative way to make the first innie-outie interaction happen.
I loved the emotional awareness from oDylan in his letter to iDylan. I think of iDylan as the Hurley of Severance. He sometimes speaks for the audience, and we can relate to his ability to find simple joys in a strange situation. So it hurt to see him so despondent at the end of episode nine. I also didn’t like how they made oDylan seem like such a lout for most of this season. His letter saying he’s comforted knowing his innie is down there was really sweet. But…
I think this storyline (and a few others I’ll mention in a minute) might have been the victim of rumored conflict between Severance creator Dan Erickson and writer Mark Friedman. They apparently couldn’t stand each other in season one and had to grin and bear it to get through the much delayed, heavily re-written season two. Beau Willimon (House of Cards guy) came on to fix the later half of season two and will take on a more prominent role in season three. Good. Pretty much everything after the ORTBO was a mess. Beautifully made, but a mess.
The love triangle between iDylan, oDylan and his wife might be an example of this. What was this, like six scenes in the entire season? It feels like we saw an abbreviated version of something they meant to explore more deeply. Ricken’s book project with Lumon could easily be another. That had one or two scenes at most? The only one I can remember is the one with Natalie.
Irv’s season two arc also felt stunted. Why give him a mystery phone conversation in episode one and not resolve it? That seems like a very odd string to leave dangling until season three. They also just kinda aborted his entire season after the dinner at oBurt’s house. Why go through all that—including Burt accidentally (?) revealing he worked at Lumon before being severed—then drop it for two episodes? And then not really address any of it when you put Irv on a train to somewhere Burt can’t know. I can’t help but wonder if that was initially meant to be something much different than what made it to our screens.
I loved Drummond. He was a good character and one season feels like the right amount of time for him to be part of the story.
And actually what was with having two character-centric episodes in a row? I can’t remember any show I’ve ever watched that took back-to-back detours like that. It took us out of the season’s natural momentum and actually de-emphasized iMark’s completion of Cold Harbor. Mark didn’t go to work from episodes seven through nine. That’s three installments of the show where he made zero progress on what we were told would be the greatest moment in the history of the planet Earth. You couldn’t make it less dramatic if you tried.
Ms. Huang is another character who seems like she should have been more impactful to season two’s outcome. What was the point of her really? I can come up with two possibilities. She might have been a way to help the writers work Milchick into a simmering rage (more on him shortly). Or she might have been a timely example of the way Lumon exploits children. I’m fine with either. But shouldn’t she have, like, done something tangible? In the end she mattered exactly zero to the four refiners.
Now let me vent on something I really hated about the season two finale: Milchick. My favourite storyline this season was the way they kept pushing this character closer and closer to his boiling point. Think of all the indignities he endured at the hands of Lumon: Not taking Cobel’s name off his computer, being put in charge of a child intern, a humiliating performance review, those weird paintings with massive racial undertones, being mocked by a puppet and being constantly looked down on by Drummond. That scene of him growling “Grow. Grow.” at himself in the mirror was tremendous.
So why did they trap him in the bathroom for the most important parts of the finale??? That’s like benching your best player in the fourth quarter, and I think it sucked drama out of Mark’s dash to the testing floor.
Speaking of that, I think the whole “Gemma is gonna die when Cold Harbor is finished” thing was a little underwhelming, too. I never felt a moment when Gemma’s life was truly in danger.
Imagine this instead:
There’s no stupid goat sacrifice. Drummond and the dentist watch Mark complete the Cold Harbor file. Drummond leaves the observation room and goes to get the gun and bullet from the gun and bullet dispenser. He starts the long and winding walk to the room where Gemma is taking apart the crib.
Meanwhile, Mark has broken free of the marching band and makes a mad dash to the elevator…with Milchick on his tail because Milchick is not stupidly trapped in the john. Mark turns a corner and runs smack into Brienne of Tarth taking a goat to…who gives a shit where because the goats are stupid. Oh no! This gave Milchick time to catch him. But have no fear! Brienne kicks the shit out of him so Mark can get away. Another indignity for Seth.
Who will get to Gemma first—Mark to save her or Drummond to end her? Cut between Drummond marching toward Gemma’s doom and Mark frantically trying to find a room that says Cold Harbor. oMark gets there first but wait! He can’t get in. Don’t worry. Sandra Bernhard is there as the nurse we met in Gemma’s episode. She’s low on Lumon’s totem pole but knows who this is and what it means that he’s standing outside this door. He looks at her. She looks at him. A beat. No words are spoken. Will she let him in?
Yes! Mark convinces Gemma to follow him. Gemma is saved! Not so fast. Drummond is waiting outside the door. Fack! No worries, nurse Sandra Bernhard needles him in the neck from behind because she hates what Lumon did to Gemma down there.
I don’t know. Maybe the pacing wouldn’t work. But, geez, there’s got to be a louder ticking clock on Gemma’s life than vague insinuations that she would die if Mark completed the file.
So here we are at the end, which I mostly loved. iMark stood at the end of the hallway covered in blood (By the way how weird was it to see so much blood on this show? And the color red.) having played his part in freeing Gemma. Now he faced the unfair choice his outie thrust on him: Follow Gemma out the door or turn back to the life he wants with Helly?
In the moment I saw this going either way. A heroic sacrifice of himself so his outie can reunite with his wife. An entirely justified decision to take control over his life and stay with Helly. His choice to stay divided the fan base. I’m not mad. Agency is one of this show’s core themes. Innies have almost none of it. They can’t even decide when they exist. I’m happy iMark got that choice and won’t argue with his decision.
We don’t know when season three will land (it’s in development) but we won’t have to wait as long as we did for season two. Hopefully we will get something worth trying to write coherent blog posts about.
The Wandering Lostie 