Goodbye, Mrs. Selvig

I loved season 1 of severance, and the cliff hanger left me yearning for more. However leading up to the release of season 2, I was mildly cautious that it would not live up to the hype. I assume at worst season 2 would be a fun weekly show to follow along with. I think we've all been misunderstanding what's happening here.

I truly believe we have something special on our hands here. Something that years down the road someone will say "I'm so jealous you got to watch Severance as it released." The way I personally think about the likes of Breaking Bad or The Sopranos.

I truly believe this is Mount Rushmore quality television that we are lucky enough to get to follow along with as it happens.

Adam Scott and Britt Lower are delivering performances on par with the likes of Jeremy Strong and Sarah Snook (this is the highest praise I can give any form of media). Emmy season is going to be glorious for Ben Stiller and co.

Many people complained that the first episode only showed the inside of Lumon, and we didn't see anything about the outside. They gave it a low rating because of that. I was sure that the second one would show the other side, and that that would be a wise decision, since the most important things would surely be there, and it would have been a bad decision to show them in reverse order. Seeing only the inside first (even though that wasn't extremely exciting) increased the doubts and expectations of what would happen outside, and it was the best narrative decision (instead of seeing them interspersed part by part) since that is how the characters experienced the situation. Applause for both episodes.

The second season and episode of severance both respectively share an increase in pace, yet are both dominated by stunning locations and set designs capturing the show's tactile and generic branding type of vintage futurism.

Unlike the first episode of season two, this episode highlights the revelations of the characters lives outside of their work-selves. The more the characters learn about their "innies" at LUMON the more they realize they're even more at odds with their involvement within the company they disappear off into. Even some employees at higher levels who remain lucid throughout their experiences have some reservations about their roles.

There are no wasted opportunities to capture beauty in each shot and the minimalistic nature of each shot reflects the sterility and lack of intuition by the audience and characters alike.

A perplexing emotional sophomore season and episode have me in a place between anxiety and curiosity which almost always with this show, requires some time after each episode to "detach" from, which I find a little ironic.

Great episode. 10/10.

Ben Stiller is a national treasure. Sure, Meet the Parents is a classic. Heavyweights and Dodgeball are both great Stiller flicks. Night at the Museum, also an amazing franchise that is a TON of fun to watch. Add in Tropic Thunder and forget about Zoolander, and I'm making a pretty good case for his body of work.

Severance is Ben Stiller's chef kiss. This show is true art. It's says a lot without saying anything. All the fake smiles, the lies, and the two faced leaders make this a case study for the work environment in today's society. We have become a society built on phony smiles and fake hellos. Our politicians are the easiest examples, but it trickles down to our bosses. We traded trusting our fellow co-workers for a paycheck.

This episode had a great cinematography and recording, perhaps it is the episode with the best artistic direction of the series, that also creates expectations about the second season, which in my case, had been somewhat "broken" with the first episode and made me imagine that the series would take a totally different path from the first season, but they caught my attention with this second episode that complements the first, makes it better and resumes the entire path of its predecessor, making it more interesting and putting, once again, the taste of curiosity in our mouths hungry to know what will happen next.