Ope Pardon, No. 36: In Too Deep

It is my humble but firmly-held belief that Severance is a good show, but not a deep show — possibly not even an interesting show.

Let me repeat that first bit: Severance is a good show. I think Severance is very good. Great, even. Certainly a lot of fun. Incredible set design. Impressive performances. Iconic line deliveries. Cool camera work. Please don’t try to convince me Severance is a good show, a point on which we already agree.

However! With all due respect to Dan, Ben, Britt, Adam, Tramell, Dichen, Patricia, John, et al., as well as to the noble and frankly very fun field of semiotics, the nonsense I have seen on these social media streets — including out of the mouths of those involved in the show’s creation— about what certain scenes, details or plot developments capital-M Mean is absolutely asinine.

I am committed to writing this as a spoiler free post but I will permit myself two explanatory stories:

(1) Over the last four weeks or so, I would occasionally encounter Severance tweets, especially fancam and ship tweets, before seeing the episode. They would often gush about some emotional moment or grand displays of whatever. How it proved this or that about this or that. During this period of time I was also watching Severance…not on Apple TV+ and the disparity between what I had been primed to expect and what I was watching was so severe I questioned whether there weren’t scenes missing from the episode I was watching. There were not.

And then less confusing but more vexing:

(2) After seeing several posts comparing the plot of season 2 to the myth of Persephone, an analogy that does not match up on more than three minor points of comparison, I saw several posts correcting the Persephone posts saying it actually parallels the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, an analogy that also, ultimately, does not hold up on any meaningful level.

The proliferation of this type of media analysis (?) is concerning on two levels, beyond the fact it is annoying. The first being remedial media literacy and visual comprehension — the ability to see and hear a story and accurately process what you’ve seen — and the second being unchecked confirmation bias and the inability to develop coherent arguments based on what you’ve seen and not cherry pick the interpretation you want.

Orpheus going to the underworld to fetch his wife is a lay-up for Severance theorists, and him turning around is in an extremely important part of the myth, but in order to convincingly argue Severance is telling a Eurydice story, it is also extremely important from what and to whom he is turning and everyone’s respective motivations and fates. You might also want to consider what themes are usually associated with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth and whether any of those themes have ever once come up with respect to the show you are discussing. In short, you might consider whether you have an argument to make before making said argument.

Listen, I am aware that the Severance creators and stars have been giving quotes that encourage these reads and fan the fan flames that every gesture means something more. Notably creator Dan Erickson who gave a series of interviews that dropped shortly after the finale where he seemed to be yes and’ing his way through every fan theory and (presumably unintentionally) kneecaping the possibility of a remotely solid logic to the world he created and/or of a satisfying resolution to the matrix of relationships the show has introduced. (He, and many of the show’s fans, also seem to betray a startling unwillingness to entertain that basic logical cause-and-effect thinking might inform a character’s behavior — Occam’s razor has no place on this show, why ever would someone leave a room in which they were trapped through an open door if not because love cut through the cloud of their lobotomized brain??)

But Dan is not alone here in encouraging navel-gazing where there is nothing but fluff. Beloved episode 7 director Jessica Lee Gagné revealed (!) that in the final scene of season 2, the red light represents love (groundbreaking!) and eagle-eyed fans gushed that said red light lights fall on the object of our erstwhile protagonist’s affection as his attention shifts. I mean, okay?

It is, on every semiotic, narrative and thematic level, elementary and no number of “did you catch this” tweets will convince me otherwise. Do you know why? Because even if you mount a convincing argument that Severance is doing X, Y and Z subtextually, the message everyone is building to, anyway you slice it, is — and I am not kidding here — love is real.

That’s a rad message, right on, my dudes, but there is no nuance there. No depth! There is an alternate reality, or perhaps simply an alternate social network, where the Severance heads have fixated on cults, capitalism or theory of the self to project their galaxy brain ideas and this is admittedly more interesting but not that much more so.

Mostly because the show (or its fanbase, but the creators seemed to have hitched the former to the latter so I will say the show) has seemingly abandoned everything other than love as a thematic interest. It’s not even all that interested in different types of love! Or the moral or ethical questions that might arise from love! It is not even willing (yet?) to grapple with what it means definitively for one person to love two people. The most vocal fans, in particular, seem constitutionally incapable of seeing love as anything other than romantic and binary (he loves her, he loves her not).

Severance is not a worse show for making these decisions, decisions that most shows would consider stage direction (Marks looks at the door; Helly’s eyes widen) and yet decisions that fire up the few neurons of its disciples. It’s not even really a less emotionally resonant show for these decisions. If you had to pick one theme to go all in, you could do worse than picking love. But you cannot convince me there is profundity here.

All of this, I want to stress again, is not necessarily a problem. Severance works incredibly well on at least two, possibly five, different levels — none of which include nor need to include social commentary, visual symbolism or, dare I say, romance. And yet, these motherfuckers persist to post.

My most generous read on this — the read that does not conclude “this show has attracted the dumbest people alive” — is that this, whatever is happening with the Severance fandom, is a reflection of a desperate desire to find meaning in…something, anything! I think people want, maybe even need, what they are watching to mean something because that will mean that their investment, their feelings, their lives, even, are also meaningful. They need it all to matter. So much doesn’t seem to matter anymore. France had a whole two-round democratic election last summer that did not matter. It makes sense, then, that people would search for answers from a show that by its nature and mystery box framing invites inquiry.

I won’t go so far as to suggest fans’ particular obsession with the show’s relationships and their worryingly intense need to prove love exists in a gesture or a glance is reflective of anything to do with modern society’s deeply estranged relationship to empathy and affection or even the much-reported loneliness epidemic. The irony would be too great and I have far too little faith in people’s intelligence to extend my already-generous read that far, but you are welcome to connect those dots. Still I do think there is something to the fact that lots of people seem to be clamoring desperately to find depth in popular media, to find a deeper meaning, even if they lack the capacity to really conclude anything interesting once they dig in (or the wisdom to recognize when there is nothing more there).

In any case, the thing about Severance being a good not deep show is that it doesn’t really matter. It’s entertaining! I truly believe they have absolutely fucked themselves by making does love transcend severance the central question, but that’s a future problem!

For now, Severance remains a stylish, idiosyncratic, well-acted, cleverly-directed, Easter-egg-laden, frequently funny, two-season dystopian drama — good for 1-3 conversation starters, which are, to my mind, the following:

(1) under what conditions would you do a severance? specifically what reality do you want to avoid and what job would you want on the severed floor?

(2) what on earth is the deal with security at this place?

(3) Tramell!!

Anything other than that I am not interested. I do not want to hear, see or think a single thought about Severance. I want to watch Severance in a vacuum. With no contact or knowledge of the outside world. Severed, if you will.