The last episode of Severance’s first season had one of the best cliffhangers of all time. After activating the “Overtime Contingency Protocol”, Mark and his ‘Innie’ co-workers became conscious on the outside just long enough to make the harrowing conditions within Lumen known to the world. They’re trapped inside Lumen’s labyrinthine offices, forced to perform banal tasks and tortured if they step out of line.
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This would have been an earth-shattering, world-changing revelation, and the fact that we had to wait three years before the next season only made those final moments even more captivating. But by the end of the first episode of season two, Mark and his co-workers are all back at Lumen, the status quo completely reset.
Puzzle Box Shows Have Been Around Forever
I’ve always loved these kinds of ‘puzzle box’ shows. Lost started when I was 14 and ended my Freshman year of college, and it became appointment viewing for me from the very first episode. Lost wasn’t the first show about people trapped in a weird and magical place (check out The Prisoner from 1967) but it certainly cast the mold that many shows have been trying to replicate ever since. Wayward Pines, Under the Dome, Yellowjackets, Colony, The Leftovers, and From have all tried to recapture this mystery and intrigue of Lost to varying success, but none of them have been able to capture the zeitgeist quite like Severance.
Part of the reason it’s so hard to follow Lost’s formula is because of the way it ended. For six seasons it built up countless fascinating mysteries that seemed as though – or at least people hoped would – all come together in the end as part of an answer to the show’s core mystery: what exactly is the island?
But in the end, Lost’s writers either refused or were unable to tie everything up with a pretty bow. Countless mysteries were left dangling, never to be answered. All these years later people still wonder where the polar bear came from (because the animal testing labs weren’t enough of an answer, apparently), and what the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 really meant. The fact that so many of Lost’s mysteries went unexplained left the audience feeling burned and unwilling to get invested in another fantasy mystery in the same way for fear of getting burned again.
Severance is the first show like Lost to really break out, and I suspect that’s because it’s just too compelling to ignore. It’s sci-fi hook – the idea that one could sever their work self from their life self is oddly grounded and relatable in the way that the best Black Mirror episodes are. But what drives it are the questions. What is Lumen’s purpose? What is Ms. Cobel’s plan? Why is there a room full of baby goats? It’s fantastically absurd and psychologically terrifying in a way that draws you in. You desperately want to know what all of it is building up to, but of course, deep down we all know it probably isn’t actually going anywhere.
It’s Okay If You Don’t Understand Everything
Lost’s lingering questions never bothered me. Writers and filmmakers will often brush off any kind of ambiguity as being “open to interpretation”, which most people believe to be code for bad writing, but part of what makes Lost so successful is that we’re still talking about it 20 years later. These shows are always about the journey, not the destination. That’s why Severance was able to hold our attention despite having a three-year hiatus. Yes, we want to know where it’s going, but what really matters is how much fun the ride is.
I don’t expect Severance to explain what the goats are for, or how putting scary numbers into aquatic-themed files is productive, or why waffle parties look like a weird Eye Wide Shut orgy. With each new episode I get more questions and fewer answers, and that’s just fine with me.
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