In ‘Severance’ Heaven: Reflecting On The Apple+ Series Post-Emmy Win
(ANALYSIS) Apple TV’s sci-fi drama “Severance” was the most-nominated show at this year’s Emmys — and for good reason.
This past Sunday’s ceremony marked the end of the awards (technical categories were presented on Sept. 6 and 7), and the show boasts eight wins of its 27 nominations: Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (One Hour), Outstanding Music Composition for a Series, Outstanding Title Design, Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Contemporary Program (One Hour or More) and Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour).
Despite losing Best Drama to “The Pitt,” “Severance” still made television history — Tramell Tillman, who plays antagonist Seth Milchick, won Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and became the first Black actor to do so in the awards’ 77 year history.
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Season 1 saw “Severance” as a critically recognized, but not widely watched show. Season 2 transformed it into the water cooler show in the first part of the year, with data that suggests that viewership increased over 200% between seasons and drove new subscribers in large numbers to Apple TV+.
The series boasts a chillingly unique premise: Workers at mega-corporation Lumon have the opportunity to undergo a surgery which renders them into two, an “innie” who works from nine to five and an “outie” who lives a regular life outside of work — all to manufacture a twisted work-life balance and preserve confidentiality around work. It also boasts talented performances, intricate writing and technical skill.
For those that love to pick apart episodes of prestige television for the entire week after they air (or is that only critics like myself?) “Severance” is great — its critiques of careers under capitalist systems are as fascinating as its looks into family structures, addiction, love and more. A sort of bread-crumb style of writing lends itself to developing theories and looking for clues about what’s coming next for characters in the story.
For those that love to be entertained by television with dynamic characters and twists and turns, “Severance” is also great — there’s fun in the elaborate mysteries the show draws out, many of which have been left unresolved for future seasons of the show.
Because it’s my job to pick shows like “Severance” apart, I can say with confidence that one episode in the past season posed the most philosophically interesting question on religion I’ve seen a show ask in years.
It comes mid-season in the episode “Attila,” among ideas developed across the season about human dignity, autonomy and what would compel someone to sever their mind into two in the first place.
There’s a somewhat fraught dinner shared between Burt, who was recently fired from Lumon, Fields, his husband, and Irving, also recently fired from Lumon and whose innie shared a romance with Burt’s.
Complex, yes, but the point is: Burt reveals he underwent the severance procedure because he “was guided to Lumon’s door by Jesus.” He felt as though, due to his past actions, he’d not go to heaven — until his Lutheran pastor preached on the church’s stance, which is “that innies are … complete individuals with souls that can be judged separately from their outie.” Burt felt hopeful at the possibility of redeeming his soul — or at least half of it, or the possibility of creating a new soul — and so accepted the call.
It alludes to a lot of things, including the church’s role in public life, and most of all it’s a really interesting thought experiment about religion under the lens of a specific set of sci-fi functions. Outside the bounds of traditional Christian standards of forgiveness, is it possible to create a new soul with a clean slate? What would it mean for one half of your soul to go to heaven if the other half wouldn’t? How can a part of you be complete with full autonomy when its entire purpose is to remove autonomy from individuals and make them mindless shills for a company?
If you had the opportunity to give yourself a second chance — midway through your life — what would you sacrifice in order to start over?
It’s a one-off conversation that speaks more to the building autonomy of the innies throughout the season than it does any of the questions above. I don’t anticipate future seasons will delve further into the religious angle of severance procedures.
But it does propel forward important questions about the way we think about death in the modern era; it even reveals how we feel about the possibility of forgiveness.
If nothing else, it speaks to how thorough “Severance” is — it’s not every day a fictional world concerns itself with the way its characters might make it to heaven.
Jillian Cheney is Religion Unplugged’s Senior Culture Correspondent. She writes about film, TV, music, art, books and more. Find her on Twitter @_jilliancheney.