The Apple TV Plus series Severance might be the best show currently on television and the fact that it’s over should definitely leave its fans wanting more. The program, which centers on the idea that a work-life balance can be attained through the Severance process has spent the first season mostly going out of its way to be as weird as possible. The tone changed in the season finale as it prepares for a Severance Season 2
The season finale, titled “The We We Are,” changes tone because it has to but also because it ramps up the drama and the excitement and the edge of the seat thrills that are injected into the final installment of the year that make it the perfect complement to everything that came before it. The episode is moving quite fast, it is in fact on a bit of a ticking clock that if the viewers listen closely, can be heard throughout the story. The almost subliminal story devices help to ramp up the feeling that something big is about to happen while the actual plot makes the audience wonder if the Apple TV series is going to pay that big thing off.
“The We We Are” kicks off just seconds after Severance’s eighth episode left off, with Burt, Helly and Mark out in the world and Dylan having just kicked off the Overtime Protocol that allowed the three innies to actually wake up in their Outtie bodies. All suddenly being thrust into a life they don’t understand and places they don’t know, there’s a rather understandable confusion that comes over all of them as they start to realize where they are and what’s going on around them.
Mark and Helly are lucky enough to wake up in the middle of two different parties. That gives them the opportunity to try and find someone to talk to about what is going on in Lumon Industries. However, it soon becomes obvious that the task is not going to be as easy as the Innies might have thought. This episode of Severance does a very good job of throwing interesting roadblocks in front of both Mark and Helly while they try and figure out who they can trust and who they should talk to about their desire to bring the company down.
All of these roadblocks come into focus as that massive ticking clock just keeps running down throughout the episode and that allows for the tension to ratchet up every time something seems to redirect the Innies from what they need to be doing in order to shed light on the firm. Then of course, there’s Burt who awakes alone in his own apartment and instead of going to look for someone to tell about Severance, he decides he wants to try and figure out what his Innie is all about.
In the process of going through his personal documents, it turns out that Burt might not just be the weird painter who makes nothing but black goo creations but something quite a bit more important in the long run. This does also offer the first real plot point that seems to have a bit of a hole around it as the show hasn’t depicted him doing literally anything else when he comes home then paint those odd paintings. It’s certainly possible that the gaffe is intentional as there are certainly enough twists and turns when it comes to Severance that it seems likely that the hole will be explained away and will be paved over in the first few episodes of the second season. Still, as a stand-alone episode there are some problems showing an aspect of Burt that didn’t seem to really be there at any other point.
One of the things that this episode does very well is to take the premise of a story like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and turn it on its head. The basic idea of that story has been done over and over again and obviously usually features characters that have managed to have their personalities injected or inserted into someone else’s body. For the most part, there’s usually some kind of sinister plot that is putting everyone in danger. There’s also the fact that it usually is a completely different person that is learning how to kind of blend in with the life of the body they’ve taken over.
When it comes to this episode of Severance, the person that is inhabiting these bodies is both a different person that is alien to the world they’ve just entered, but it’s also Mark going into Mark’s body. It’s Helly going into Helly’s body. It’s Burt waking up in his own body. There’s certainly a plot at work, but it’s only sinister from the eyes of people that are trying to keep Lumon going. And when the real plans of Lumon are hinted at late in this episode, it becomes quite clear which is really actually a sinister plot.
The finale of Severance handles that in a way that’s quite interesting as Mark especially figures out first who his sister is, who Ricken is and who the people around him at the party are. It’s pointed out by Mark’s sister that while he keeps referring to his Outtie as “him,” she makes it very clear that they are the same person or at least are sharing the same body. That seems like it’s going to be important moving forward, especially since none of the people that work at Lumon feel that way. They’ve been trained to think as their other personality as another person.
All of this is happening as that ticking clock is now joined by Mr. Milchick, being tipped off about what’s going on in the Lumon security room; is desperately trying to make sure that Dylan is pulled away from the controls. In what is a master class in how to really dial ratchet up the drama in the final moments of the season finale, the episode ends with all three Innies trying one desperate act as they appear to feel their time is almost up. However, Severance also handles this well because it’s not a plot hole that they seem to know things are coming to an end, it’s much more about getting the information out there they know is important. Now it’s going to be a long wait until Season 2.
The entire first season of Severance is available on Apple TV+ now.