Mild spoilers for Severance and for Fringe.
Before I talk about Severance, I'd like to talk about Fringe, a sci-fi show that ran on Fox from 2008 to 2013.
Fringe was fucking excellent, honestly. Like Severance, it was a show about an unraveling science-fiction mystery. Clear influences are in X-Files, Twin Peaks, Lost, the Twilight Zone, and a little bit of House. The show started as a monster-of-the-week which laid the foundations for a massive sprawling mystery.
The show was so well-enjoyed by such a niche group that Fox kept it alive for a few seasons, despite its low ratings, because they wanted to see how it ended.
What was cortexiphan? Who were the Observers? Where is William Bell? What is Massive Dynamic's goal? What is the pattern? What does the ZFT say?
For Fringe, the sci-fi and the mystery took center stage. You watched the show because you wanted to find out what happened next. Fringe was a show about a sci-fi mystery.
Severance... Is not that. Severance is not a mystery show.
Severance is not a mystery show. Severance is a human drama, and the mysteries in Severance only serve that human drama. And the well of mystery only goes so far.
What is Lumon's end goal? What is macrodata refinement, really? What does Lumon control and not control? What crosses the severance barrier? What is the exports hall? Why goats?
Season 1 started by expanding the world of Severance, slowly, introducing three questions for every one answered.
Season 2 has that world contracting, with reveal after reveal answering those questions.
The latest episode, Sweet Vitriol, was excellent: Unladen with reveals, we revisit Harmony Cobel, learn about her character and motivations, and the human drama develops all the finer.
I love Severance, but I'm worried that people will be underwhelmed by the end. I think there's relatively little left to reveal.
And it's not just that the mystery well is running dry. With every question, all the thousands of theories collapse to just one answer. Every question answered necessarily shrinks the world of Severance.
Severance is a show about human drama. The mystery only exists to serve that goal. As the well of mystery dries up, and the thousands of theories collapse to one canon truth, I think people will grow disappointed. But I'm loving it.
lynn OP wrote
Addendum: Severance is a 'normie' storyline but I love it anyways.
The thing about Severance is the sci-fi gimmick makes familiar human drama interesting.
I'm someone who consumes queer culture and balks at the mainstream, etc, yada yada. I'm so tired of "Good Guys Beat the Bad Guys", "the Guy Gets the Girl", etc. I love stories that aren't like every other story. I love stories that don't just subvert expectations, but don't even pay any regard to expectations in the first place.
Which makes Severance... Almost odd for me to like? It's very widely acclaimed -- it's even more mainstream than Star Wars right now, I think. And the main character is just a middle-aged white dude who misses his wife. There was even a "dead wife montage", for Petes sake!
That's a normie as it gets, on the face.
The thing is the Severance gimmick makes it interesting. Seeing this familiar human drama forced to contend with the obtuse and obfuscated rules of the universe is fascinating. It gives you a lot to chew on.
And it helps that the writing is delicious. Everyone on the show does everything so very well. I think I'd enjoy the show even if the music was mid, the cinematography was atmosphere, and the acting was stilted. But it's none of those things. It's very easy to appreciate the craft.