Omg catching up on St. Denis Medical and just recognized a background nurse from The Pitt! 😂

Watched
– Severance (S2)
– Adolescence
– The White Lotus (S3)
– Death Note

Watching
– Breaking Bad (S5)
– The Last of Us (S2)

Up next
– Six Feet Under (S5)

I only recently binged Severance after season 2 dropped, and it’s been a few weeks, but I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about it. For me, the experience was like eating a beautifully decorated cake with a plump, glossy cherry on top. The decorations are stunning, the cherry is delicious… but the cake itself? It tastes like nothing.

What I mean is: there are some truly striking moments, visually inventive shots, compelling ideas, and a strong sense of atmosphere, but the core of the series feels hollow. It doesn’t seem to go where it needs to go. The entire show is propelled by this central mystery, but that mystery lacks a satisfying or meaningful anchor. It’s not enough to sustain everything built around it.

The plot often meanders, and not in a purposeful, meditative way, just in a way that feels aimless. Great mystery shows can pull off a season or two of that tension, but when they try to stretch it out, the story either becomes dull or pointless. I think Severance would be better off dropping the heavy emphasis on the mystery and evolving into a character-driven drama, where the unknown lingers in the emotional subtext rather than demanding a grand explanation. The constant buildup toward some elusive answer feels like a setup for disappointment.

The symbolism and intellectual posturing also felt pretty flimsy to me. At times, it bordered on parody. Like the whole concept might unravel into a comedy sketch if you poke it too hard.

Adam Scott and Britt Lower are underwhelming as leads, in my opinion. Fortunately, the supporting cast (especially John Turturro, Zach Cherry, Merritt Wever, Sydney Cole Alexander, and Jane Alexander) bring a lot of life to the show and elevate it with their performances.

Ultimately, I think I wanted this cake to not only look beautiful but also taste rich and satisfying. Despite all the praise Severance has received, I feel like I’m in the minority, chewing through the core rather than fully savoring it.

ColtonM wrote:

Severance has always been a character-driven drama, if you’re going into it wanting a mystery show, you’re only gonna be disappointed.

I didn’t go into it with any expectations, it presented itself as what it is. Sure, you could argue that the love story between the characters adds a more drama-driven layer, but ultimately, everything still circles back to Lumon and the mystery at its core. The central question is always: what’s really going on, and how can the characters escape or subvert it?

Take the main character’s wife, we know she’s passed for ten episodes before we get any real information about her. Then we spend an entire season trying to find her. The show anchors itself in this mysterious situation the characters are trapped in, and the power dynamics are built on factors that remain hidden from the audience.

Some might say the relationship between Mark and Helly makes it character-driven, but to me, it doesn’t quite land that way. It feels more like a tool to raise the stakes and add emotional complexity to what’s happening around them, rather than being the emotional core itself.

To me, the show plays out as a story of individuals versus the system. That’s just how its construction came across.

Mindless 20 minute blocks of lols? Thank you Brooklyn Nine-Nine! I wasn’t familiar with your game.

Started it ages ago and couldn’t get through one episode. Now? The brain rot is real. This cast is so good.

I’m afraid we need to return to this level of campiness