I saw something on Twitter with a ton of likes and it made me realize that a lot of people really thought that the full storyline of severance was going to be about Mark finding out that Gemma was alive and reintegrating + getting her out of lumon + courtroom drama taking lumon down + riding off into the sunset together.
No dealing with the ethical shitstorm that is creating a version of yourself that’s just a work slave. We can blame that all on the evil company and remove the main character of any personal responsibility whatsoever. The same main character who heard his innie being tortured and still went to work the next day. The same main character that consistently scoffed at ethical concerns about severance posed to him throughout the show.
Oh and also, the innies that you’ve been following for the whole show? Yeah they don’t exist anymore. Well Mark S technically exists through reintegration but he’s perfectly content being absorbed into his’s outie’s life so he doesn’t really have an identity of his own. They only mattered because they served as a tool to help get Gemma free, so ending their existences is completely fine and ethical.
Wait actually, Helena Bad so we’re going to have Helly somehow figure out how to take over her body full time. Never mind that Helly longs to remember her childhood and wept at not remembering the colour of her mother’s eyes. Never mind that we spent the first half of season two establishing that Helena would like to be more like Helly. Never mind that being deprogrammed from a cult by your own inner child is the most interesting character journey I’ve ever heard of.
Let’s just abandon all the most interesting parts of the show so that the character who won the oppression olympics gets a fairytale ending. She’s my favourite so naturally I don’t want anything interesting to happen to her ever again. And if you do want anything interesting to happen to her other than a fairytale ending you actually hate her.
I genuinely can’t get over how boring some of you people are. If you hate the show just don’t watch it, I’m so tired of these lazy critiques of the ending of season two.
In the first episode of Severance, Mark sits across from Helly in the boardroom and awkwardly announces to her that it’s okay if she’s disoriented because she’s at an orientation, and the first time I watched it I unexpectedly laughed out loud and immediately understood why they chose to have a “comedy actor” play Mark.
The humor on Severance is weird, off-putting, and (at least for me) funnier with each rewatch. The tone the show sets is not just eerie and devastating but also just on the right side of whimsical and ridiculous. The music dance experience makes you wonder what the fuck you’re watching, and Helly hanging herself in the elevator makes you wonder what the fuck you’re watching. Through each tonal shift, both dramatic and subtle, you feel uneasy but safe in the knowledge that this is a real world, these characters are real people, and the subject matter is deadly serious. No matter the shift, I am wholeheartedly in, with a steadfast belief in the realness of the world in which I have been dropped.
Severance could have just been a drama. In the hands of different creatives, it may have been. Without the performance of Tramell Tillman’s Mr. Milchick, the severed floor may have felt like an unrealistic place. Without Britt Lower’s Helly being the first innie we meet, the premise may have unraveled before the end of episode one. And without the performance of Adam Scott’s Mark S./Mark Scout, the tone of the show may well be unmoored.
The show does not try to make Mark Scout a likable guy — he is straightforwardly an asshole — and yet he is compelling and somebody you want to root for much of the time. Most of this has to do with Adam Scott making Mark Scout seem like a) a real guy, b) like his grief defines him and so you pity him more than hate him, c) someone who at some point was kind and funny but has become lost. He says to Reghabi in season 1 that he is “not a bad person,” and the unsure, regretful way he says it is heartbreaking.
Compare this depressed, self-sabotaging alcoholic to Mark S., who is gentle and kind and doing the best he can to be a rule-follower while also finding things he cares about, discovering what it means to be human with his limited existence. The differences between Mark S. and Mark Scout are so subtle that the first time I watched season 1, Petey says the line about Mark’s voice being “different up here, worse,” and I scoffed because I didn’t hear it. Adam Scott’s performance is not one that hits you over the head with its obviousness, not one that allows you to look down at your phone for even a minute for fear of missing something miniscule. His voice is different, in his inflection and register, as Mark S. sounds like a guy who has never raised his voice in his life, someone who has never spoken to anybody other than coworkers and authority figures. His tone is light and professional; Mark Scout’s is heavy, not performative. This is something I did not notice consciously the first time I watched the show, but if someone had asked me what’s the main difference between Mark Scout and Mark S., I would’ve used the word heavy. Mark Scout holds himself like the world has beaten him down. There is a distinct heaviness to him that is missing from Mark S.
One of the unfortunate things about awards season is that actors submit one episode for consideration, and I believe Adam Scott’s performance cannot be clipped into a three-minute “look how good this acting is” video to be fully understood. For instance, if you take Mark S. yelling at Cobel and Devon in Cold Harbor out of context, it seems ridiculous. He is essentially an adolescent having a temper tantrum because he is being tasked with too many responsibilities, too many things to process about his limited life, and, as stated before, he has never raised his voice like this before. He is not intimidating in the slightest, all angst and no bite. We’ve spent two seasons with Mark S., seeing him go from a scared company man to a rebellious renegade, from a survivor to a lovesick fool, and the childish way he yells here is the culmination of his overwhelming changing circumstances and his personal development.
It’s been said before, but Adam Scott’s ability to play a regular guy is unmatched. Despite having a very interesting, unconventionally attractive appearance that sparks frequent arguments about whether he is hot or ugly — I land on the side of hot, but I think he’s an acquired taste that looks better the more you get to know him — he comes across as “just some guy.” He makes you feel like Mark Scout could be your neighbor, somebody you pass in the grocery store and never notice. There is an ordinariness to his character that makes him relatable and yet isolated, with his demeanor as Mark Scout making him feel like an island. He has a way of imbuing his voice, his posture, and his eyes with a kind of monotony, a deadness that makes you wonder if Mark Scout is ever fully present or if he’s somewhere else in his mind. He is still capable of politeness and jokes and even frustration, but there is a constant fatigue to him, an air about him that he hates himself even as he tries to better his life.
When we see Mark Scout most present and grounded is when he is grieving, and it is not a pretty grief. It is ugly and mean and heartbreaking, but it is when Mark Scout seems the most alive. Our introduction to the character of Mark Scout is of him sitting alone in his car, crying like a baby before work. We don’t know what he’s crying about, and we don’t know him, so there is no earned sympathy, no connection. His cry is ugly and unguarded, not played to the camera or to the audience at all, isolating him from the jump. Adam Scott was given the impossible task of playing an unlikable character with nothing to make us feel for him, nothing to invite the audience in, and yet I find myself loving Mark Scout. Even when he’s being an asshole, even when he is screwing over his innie, I find myself rooting for him. I find myself believing that he can get better, that he can heal.
When he grieves his wife at the tree where she died, it is a softer, sadder, and prettier kind of reverence. He is still isolated, but now we are here with him. We know him. We are alone on his island with him.
Severance was initially put on hold because of Covid, and while waiting with the world at a standstill, Adam Scott lost his mom. When filming began, he was isolated and alone in an apartment away from his family and grieving his mother. While it is tragic to think he does everything to make her proud and that she is not around to see him now, it is extraordinary and a sign of true professionalism that he was able to channel and relate his own grief into his work in such a heartbreaking, respectful manner.
When Mark Scout finds out his wife is actually alive, his performance is unexpectedly beautiful. I had imagined what it would be like for Mark Scout to learn this information, what it would do to a person to find out your two years of grief were wasted, and I think it is nearly impossible to imagine being in his shoes. His reaction is not over the top, not overplayed. He simply gets out of his car and portrays everything he’s feeling in the subtle expressions of his face. He is overwhelmed, confused, possibly elated but also dumbfounded and doomed because he has no way of getting to her. Getting out of the car showed his fight-or-flight instinct, the need to just get away when information is too much to process. As is often the case with Adam Scott, this performance was not the obvious choice nor the most clipworthy choice. It is very difficult to take any part of his performance out of context and understand the level at which he’s performing, as so much of what he does feels less like acting and more like watching an actual guy go through these things. For me at least, the biggest sign of a good performance is forgetting that it’s a performance.
Compare this to Mark S., who is a bit performative in the robotic way he carries himself, the way he speaks, and the less subtle expressions of his face. His emotions are bigger, more simplified, and he comes across as childlike. With everything stripped away and with him confined to an environment where he only ever works, Mark S. is lighter, less reserved, and yet also more scared. He is obviously someone who has learned to comply, that rebellion is not worth the punishment, and that he can try to have a fulfilling half-life by caring about his work and the people around him. Through Mark S.’s innocence and good humor, we can see that Mark Scout could be better because there is a better version of him.
By season 2, however, Mark S. is no longer scared. He’s seen the outside and wants to help his outie, and he is obstinate and reckless because he fears no consequences. He has learned that there is more to life than what he has been given, and he is driven with purpose toward a goal. Through this, Mark S. is still a bit stiff, a bit obvious in his emotional expression, and terrible at lying. His eye contact is more intense, his face masking a quiet rage beneath the surface. Even so, he has some similar mannerisms as his outie. He does the same kind of sinister smile when he wants to manipulate someone. He stands up when he’s mad. He has the same stupid little fake laugh.
Both versions of Mark are tonesetters for the show’s concept. Adam Scott’s ability to infuse slightly off-center humor and physicality into his performance, subtle shifts in his expressions and demeanor, and his everyman persona ground the world in this off-putting reality. Mark Scout and Mark S. manage to be both unapproachable and unintimidating, assholes and kind. And at the center of this performance, what I think might be the most important reason to make a casting choice like Adam Scott, is a man in love.
Despite very little screentime devoted to Mark and Gemma’s relationship, Mark’s grief and his poor handling of his wife’s death haunt the narrative. On the other side, Mark’s innocent, pulling-pigtails-on-the-playground kind of falling in love with Helly is sweet and a little melancholy. Everyone has an opinion about Mark S.’s choice at the end of Cold Harbor because you can so clearly see reflected in Adam Scott’s minute expressions in that scene that Mark S. is making a choice for himself possibly for the first time in his life, and although he feels bad about it, it changes him.
Adam Scott’s unique ability to play a lover, to have chemistry with seemingly anyone he’s put onscreen with, and to differentiate between an old, lived-in kind of love versus a new, puppy love are essential features of the story. The fact that everyone fights about Mark’s relationships with Helly and Gemma, that everyone cares so much, is due in large part to Adam Scott’s believability as a romantic. From Party Down to Parks and Rec and even to Big Little Lies, it’s obvious Adam Scott should’ve been cast as the lead in every romcom in the mid-2000s and likely would’ve been if his nose was smaller or something (Adam, if you’re reading this, please do not do anything to your perfect nose).
The thing about Adam Scott is that if he read this, he would likely scoff and wonder how anyone could bloviate about him like this, but I do hope he’s learned to hate himself less as he gets older. He was a regular kid from Santa Cruz, on the chubby side until puberty, with teachers for parents. He saw Indiana Jones at a formative age and had pictures of Scorsese and DeNiro in his locker and dressed like Marty McFly in junior high, and he grew up thinking this was the only thing he ever wanted to do. He frequented the video store and read the backs of VHS tapes, stayed up late watching TV on his five-inch black-and-white screen, and pretended like he was being interviewed on Letterman. He spent at least two decades chasing his dream through hard work, grit, determination, obsession, and a steadfast belief that if he just stuck it out he would make it. He did all of this while remaining down-to-earth, not taking himself too seriously and not taking anything for granted. He’s beloved by his peers and spent many years getting to do fun work he enjoyed with his friends, and he became the kind of actor you say “oh yeah, that guy from that thing” whenever you see him in something, and maybe that would’ve been enough.
We’ll never know if it would’ve been enough though, because after about 25 years, he finally, unequivocally got an opportunity he was uniquely positioned for, as it requires not just hard work but good humor, humility, and decades of learning and growing to successfully pull it off. He was given the impossible task of making an unlikable protagonist the center of this massive universe, and I just do not think Severance would be what it is without him. I don’t think I’d be writing this if it were any other actor at the helm.
On a podcast with Scott Aukerman just a few years ago, Aukerman asked Adam where he keeps his awards at home, and Adam answered in a self-deprecating manner, “It’s called ‘empty shelf.’”
Personally, I think it would be a shame for that shelf to remain empty for much longer.
I keep seeing Severance described-- for good or for ill-- as a "puzzle box" show. And I do see why. There's a lot of mysteries; who is X, who is Y, what's the significance behind Z.
But the thing is, I personally don't sort it like that, because I don't think there's a Big Single Answer That Will Explain Everything. Or rather, I think there is, it's just that we've already got it, and had it for some time:
Lumon is a bullshit corporate cult with a fucked up ideology.
We've had more of those details of that cult and ideology fleshed out over two seasons. We've seen it as a lampooning both of modern western corporate culture, and also Christian Puritan ideals, and also how the two are interlinked... But the basic concept-- Modern capitalism forces you to literally cut yourself into pieces for work-- has been evident from episode one.
So for me the driving element is not unravelling the grand conspiracy. It's see how the characters respond to it, and how they finally break that system.
Gonna be real with you...the most recent Severance episode encapsulated the issues I've been having with this season. Was it beautiful? Of course. But man :/ there's a lot that didn't work. I just don't think the show works well when it leans too heavily into religion in this way; I don't have a problem with religion being involved, but the dinner at Burt's captivated me whereas this was just...whatever. I had this issue with Cobel's storyline in S1, and I thought the shrine and Cobel singing moment were meh because they were unnecessary and tugged the narrative in a less compelling direction that made the messaging felt less focused.
And I really feel like S2 suffers from this problem where they're extrapolating on obvious things that don't need to be drawn out as much as they were (sometimes we actually don't need to be shown everything) and not following up or through on things that do need development. I don't mind the idea of Cobel being the mastermind behind severance, but we only got hints that she felt aggrieved about not being recognized for her work. Yes, her response to Helena in the parking lot and proprietary connection to the work on the severed floor make sense, but there is literally zero hints of her having a scientific mind at all.
This could have easily been remedied with a line or two here and there in S1 that indicated that she knows more about how severance works on a technical level than a person in her position would. And we would have chalked it up to her being extra obsessive because that's what she's like overall but went "WAIT A MINUTE!" over this episode, the way we were about so many other reveals in this show because the seeds were planted throughout even if we didn't recognize them for what they were or explained away our suspicions with another theory or opinion. Or at the very least, we could have seen glimpses of her in S2 like her muttering about it in the car, but she just disappears for the entirety of the season until the info dump episode last week.
Idk, this episode on its surface should have made me jump out of my seat in extreme excitement over the origin story and the implications this reveal had, but I just went like "...Okay." I feel like S2 is super disjointed, and while some of that was to be expected considering the S1 finale exploding the Lumon door off its hinges so it's only natural that the scope would expand dramatically, it feels like we have a lot of lot of loose threads just flapping uselessly in the wind and we're following none of them in a satisfying way. There are only so many "cliffhanger ending to random jump to unrelated event in the next episode" pocket episodes before the writing gets impacted. S2 is very much a sequel/transition phase between two vital story volumes/seasons feel.
dan erickson couldn’t be clearer when he wrote mark choosing helly.
because choosing helly isn’t just running with the love of his life, or exercising that rare innie autonomy. no, not just that.
it’s about choosing an identity.
where mark scout lacked, mark s. corrected. it’s almost like mark scout’s guilt of losing his wife through his many shortcomings, came into mark s. causing him to correct himself.
where mark scout assumed and almost never listened, such as with gemma from assuming she wanted an ant farm instead of a plant farm, or buying a crib without her information, or assuming how she felt when she was doing those small little activities, or assuming alexa was from minnesota and not montana, mark s. actually listened to helly.
or when he didn’t listen to gemma when she said she was nervous the first time, or when she said “i love you” in the last scenes.
in contrast, mark s. was very patient, and very attentive towards helly from day 1. he made sure she didn’t feel abandoned, or didn’t fall in danger on her first day, or tried to make her feel better through mental health walks, and just comforting her.
when helly said she was nervous, he listened carefully, adding that he was too. or tried to figure out what was wrong with helly(helena) in the ORTBO.
sure, initially he did try to make things back to square one, when dealing with loss of petey, just like how mark scout grieved, by pretending that thing never happened and going back to normal, especially when he said to helly, that he liked the work place attitude before helly barged in, but eventually, he did listen and try to be a better version of mark scout.
where mark scout was defensive over being reprimanded for doing the wrong thing, mark s. actually sat down and gave criticism a thought.
sure, mark s. was an asshole sometimes when reprimanded, like how he behaves during irving’s funeral or when helly tried to knock something in him when pointing at petey’s map but then he shredded it, but later on, he did seem to make amends with helly and the team later on.
this isn’t difference between innie and outie.
it’s mark scout’s guilt transcending severance and correcting mark s.’s wrongs.
mark wasn’t just choking on his wife’s ghost. he was choking on his guilt, his guilt of not listening, assuming, and pushing his desires over someone and sidelining them as a person.
it wasn’t love that transcended severance.
it was guilt.
mark s. was born out of mark scout’s guilt.
and this guilt was what corrected mark s. when mark scout’s habits started to show. it’s almost as though mark scout was atoning through mark s., correcting his past errors through new relationships, this time with helly.
helly makes mark realise his true identity and grounds him, being a part of the correction of mark scout’s wrongs. in a ways she makes mark s. create an identity apart from mark scout.
it happens slowly, throughout seasons 1 and 2. it’s like when helly entered, mark realises his new identity(innie) in correcting the guilt of his previous one (outie)
by the time mark s. saves gemma. all the guilt had been washed. all of mark’s previous mistakes had been corrected.
when mark is at the equator, between helly and gemma, all the guilt of mark scout’s habits had been corrected.
when he looks at gemma through the door, he isn’t just trying to see a connection towards his supposed wife. but he’s trying to find any string attached to his outie, any responsibility. he’s seeing if there’s any guilt left.
instead he sees a stranger. not only in gemma but his outie too. he sees nothing. he realises he owes his outie nothing.
nothing for gemma transcends because there is no guilt left anymore for mark to go to her. there are no strings for him to be attached to his outie.
he’s free from the burden of guilt from his outie. he’s severed. again.
the equator isn’t just a choice between helly and gemma.
it isn’t any love transcending at all.
it isn’t transcending of any kind at all.
because there’s nothing left. no love, no memories, no guilt. and that’s what makes gemma a stranger.
the equator is severance.
when mark chooses helly, despite reintegrating, he severs from gemma.
he severs from his duties to his outie. he severs from his memories to his outie. he severs from the reason of being born. he severs from his outie.
when he chooses helly, he chooses a new identity. an identity apart form the guilt of his outie. an identity which is completely mark s. an identity that completely belongs to him.
he severs from the guilt and emptiness he was born because of, and he chooses the identity of the fullness and love of helly, he chooses the reason of living, hence severing from his outies
in this way, he passes the test of cold harbor.
not because he feels nothing for gemma. but because, he’s turned all the guilt and shortcomings of mark scout, into the building of an identity for mark s. because there’s nothing left of his outie in him. because now, he’s truly severed.
and this time it’s his decision.
when he chooses helly, he doesn’t just choose love, or freedom or autonomy.
he chooses an identity. an identity which won’t have anything of his outie transcend.
an identity that is purely mark s. made of helly’s love.
hope this doesn't get taken in bad faith but the whole "of course imark feels nothing for gemma because that's what he's created to do" kind of misses the mark for me (no pun intended)... i get what it means but also it's just... untrue?
not even talking about how imark feels about ms casey... but are we forgetting he sculpted the tree gemma crashed into out of clay in the wellness session? the way he says "it's a nice name, gemma" in the s1 finale? when he sees the wedding photo and there's tears in his eyes? during the ball game in s2 when he tries to think of something about him and the wedding photo flashes in his mind? the fact that every day he stares into her soul and feels stuff? he does feel for gemma, whether or not it's romantic is a different conversation in my opinion... i just think distilling him down to being created to not feel anything for gemma is just narratively false and also kind of a disservice to who imark is as a character. it's why in the s2 finale, he looks back at gemma 3 times and there's clear conflict on his face. i think if he'd just turned and walked away it would fit the not feeling for gemma sentiment better. but it's intentional that he stands there for quite some time before making the decision, and that's why it's heartbreaking when he does choose his own existence over whatever feelings he might have her.
Been watching Severance and I am very much hooked. This season 1 scene in particular though....this scene.....it is on my brain and i keep doodling it.
I have ambitions of making a comic out of it. It depends on whether my obsession lasts long enough for me to find the time...
Severance art is below but trigger warning/spoiler. Proceed at the risk of seeing a badly drawn mark
