I want to like “Severance.” I really do.
The first season was bizarre, but not bizarre enough to drive me away. That puts it in the same category as the first season of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks.” They both existed in odd worlds that weren’t completely different from ours, and thus didn’t fall into the fantasy category of anything based on the works of JRR Tolkien.
But having watched four episodes of season two of “Severance,” I’ve begun to wonder if I’ll have to bail out soon.
I get the feeling that the show’s creator, Dan Erickson, and executive producer/director Ben Stiller were talking one day about “Lost,” the ABC show that debuted two decades ago. One of them mentioned that it had a lot of mysteries that went unsolved, characters unexplained, and scenarios which popped out of nowhere. The other agreed, but felt it wasn’t dense enough with WTF? moments, so they decided to make a show that was.
“Lost” had a core cast of over a dozen characters, but it was made at a time when network television could afford to be big and broad, unlike our current streaming era, where budgets and seasons are much smaller.
“Severance” centers around five (and a half, if you count Patricia Arquette’s Mrs. Cobel, who may or may not return at some point) people — four employees of the peculiar Lumon corporation, plus their boss. That small band of humans dealing with their life working in an underground office kept season one rolling along.
But in season two, Erickson and Stiller have thrown in an entire room full of goats grazing in an indoor hillside — and the staff that takes care of them. Last week, the show left its office climate for a crazy outing that began on a frozen lake and included close-to-real copies of the employees pointing the way through a forest. Along the way, they were told this was a team-building exercise, and shown an average-height waterfall that was proclaimed by their boss as the tallest in the world. This, and the confusing actions of one of the team, led a colleague to keep shouting “What The Fuck??”
It was the only time I’ve been able to relate to anyone on the show. It’s fine when viewers know more than the characters in a TV show or movie — or vice versa — but when neither of us gets it, I start having that old “Twin Peaks”/”Lost” feeling.
I try to get a better understanding of each week’s “Severance” by reading recaps and analysis by reviewers I trust, but even they don’t seem fully sure what we’re witnessing. I’ll be patient a little while longer, hoping that over the next couple of episodes (of the six remaining in this second season), we will learn the answers to something — anything — which explains what is taking place in the “Severance” world of innies and outies.
But, more than ever, Erickson and Stiller are testing my commitment to their show.