Severance creator decodes season 1 cliffhanger ending, season 2 plans

Allow us to save you some time: There’s no need to Google What are the total episodes of Severance?You may be mistaken for thinking that Apple TV Plus has messed with you. Severance’s first season had nine episodes (not 10) of expertly mounting suspicion and intrigue. It ended on the final cliffhanger.

Luckily, creator Dan Erickson was more than happy to talk about it.

[Ed. note: This article, as you might’ve guessed, goes into full spoilers about season 1 of Severance.]

The ninth and final episode is here. Severance’s first season, Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) experienced life on the outside, with Dylan (Zach Cherry) literally stretching to ensure their “outie” state stayed in place. And as they each have a startling revelation — Helly, that she’s a Lumon; Irving, that his work flirt Burt is married; and Mark that his wife is alive — the switch flips back.

Erickson thanks Ben Stiller who encouraged Erickson to close the season. In order to reveal what they learned about their lives outside Lumon Industries, Erickson originally planned one more episode. Erickson is well aware of what will happen in season 2, and he has a plan. Which Apple TV blessedly greenlitOn Wednesday.

“As we’ve discussed a potential season 2 […] it’s a lot of those ideas from those subsequent [episodes], what was going to be episodes 9 and 10,” Erickson tells Polygon. “And we’ve sort of rethought and reconceived it to be kind of the beginning of our season 2.”

Erickson: What do you have to say? SeveranceThe first season leaves many questions unanswered about Lumon Industries and the world it is creating. They are just beginning to get it. We asked the creator for some insight into where season 1 ends in the world. Severance.

As the story grew, did your understanding of the season shift from one narrowly focused to a wider thriller?

Primarily, the season concerns these two worlds merging. Then there’s this man. [Mark]But also, these worlds which have been deliberately separated can inevitably fuse together and find their way.

It was always part of the story that the overtime contingency, wherein the innies wake up from the outside, is a constant feature. And that was always going to be the idea that they’re waking up and they’re having these revelations, that they’re answering this question that was asked literally the first question of the show, which is, “who are you?” And so it was always going to be that, but in my original [outline]The next few episodes of season were going to follow. It was episode 8, maybe. It was then that we would see the effects of this, and it was just going to continue.

Ben Stiller was the director of the original and last runs. [of episodes], he was always sort of the opinion that we should let things breathe, and let the stories happen organically, and not rush to cram too much thriller-y, genre-y plot in it that we’re sort of losing track of the emotional core. […] I remember there’s a meeting where we were talking about the overtime [episode] and he was like, “I think that’s the end. I think that moment when they click back right at the end, like that’s the end of the season.” I was like, “OK, people are gonna be pissed. But OK!”

And he was right because it’s such a powerful fucking ending and it’s such an exciting way to end it and makes all these questions of what comes next.

Three members of the Severance innie gang in the office looking kind of surprised at something off-camera

With what takeaway are you hoping to leave your audience Not just emotionally, but like, how much of Miss Casey’s grander mystery do we have presented to us yet?

My impression is that it’s not much. There’s a lot of questions. Most of which we had answered in our minds when we wrote it, but some of which we didn’t. Like some of which we’ve been subsequently discussing. Is she really being severed? Is she aware of it, or is she a victim? Are they victims? Or was she abducted? Is she being kidnapped? And so that’s a big, big question mark at this point.

There was the part where the supervisors are watching and mention that it’s good Mark and Miss Casey don’t know each other.

Yeah, no, that’s true there is that line, which certainly seems to point it that way.

What was the point at which you began to see Helly as your worst enemy?

It was never the original intention, and it wasn’t until the end of writing season. It was because of that idea. […] she’s just so single-mindedly committed to getting out, and encounters more and more resistance the higher up the chain she goes. And she’s holding out this hope that at least, maybe, that this alternate version of her would have empathy for her. And so this idea that she would reach kind of the end of the line and realize that she’s the ultimate enemy, she’s the one who is keeping herself there — and not only that she’s keeping herself there, but that she’s sort of running the whole show — just seemed like the most heartbreaking and horrific revelation for that character. So we agreed. OK, let’s do it.

Helly and Mark looking at each other in front of the office elevator

It’s an exciting to have this sense of: She’s now the only person whose outie will never pull her out of that the way other people’s might, but she’s also the only person who is kind of invulnerable, a little bit, to the threats that [Mrs. Cobell]It’s up to them. Cobell just straight up has to threaten everybody else in her little gang or whatever, but she can’t do anything to Helly.

She can’t. But at the same time — and as we’ve talked about how a potential season 2 might play out, that’s something that we’ve talked about — […] but just this idea that like, yeah, she’s invulnerable. [With] other characters, they can’t beat you, they can’t lock you in a dungeon for months, because they have to keep up appearances for your outie. Helly’s outie might think otherwise. Her perspective might see both the good and the bad in this revelation.

Tell me about Irving’s arc, and what you think about leaving his story, in a way, the most unresolved of any innie who’s on the outside there.

It’s true he doesn’t get a lot of resolution, and if anything that last episode provides more unanswered questions for him. He could seek Burt in overtime, which would make it interesting if he had a way to locate him and then go after him. Then, we get this happy but heartbreaking discovery. [Burt]’s got this loving husband or partner and life on the outside.

Then we discussed the question: When does that end? Is he going to leave or does he just turn around? Or does he decide to leave Burt for a happy life? Or does he decide “No, screw it […] I need to at least tell him that I’m here and I love him and I care about him and that we had something?”

Yes, I know it was difficult to decide to leave it at that point. Irving is important to me and I want the door to be open for him. It was, however. No, it’s this; this leaves him in such an unsettled, vulnerable placeIt was interesting for him to imagine the next step in his journey.

John Turturro as Irving staring off somewhere outside

But, then again […]He awakens in his apartment. And he’s got all this weird, like Lumon research stuff that he’s doing. It’s almost overtaken now by the Bert question. But there’s this question of like Is he up to anything? And I think I was really interested in this idea that the company man — the Ultimate company man — realizing that his outie might not be on the same page; he might be doing something very different from what he’s doing.

The question was left open to our imaginations. And what is that image that he’s drawing, and what is the significance of that, and what’s he going for? It’s so funny, because, like my tendency with the scripts is to sort of sometimes awkwardly lay everything out. Ben does a great job of reversing that tendency. He’s like, This seems to be the sweet spot., [or] we’ve answered enough that people aren’t just going to be furious at us. But there’s, there’s still going to be this sort of burning need to know more.

Did you have a sense of what you wanted Christopher Walken’s Burt to be doing? That was always the art or did it fall under the Art Department?

At first, it seems like it’s just internal. It’s like, you hang the art for this office, and I think that it’s sort of hinted at that there may be the ones creating the finger traps and cubes and stuff — but it’s all internal. But we talked about this idea that there’s been distrust intentionally seeded between the departments, and that each of them has a secret thing that they’re doing that the other departments don’t know about, that they don’t even necessarily understand what it is like.

Three characters looking at a piece of art in the art department of Lumon Industries

It just became: Well, if optics and design, the corporate paintings, are the cover, what’s behind that? And what’s in that universe, but expanded and more mysterious and different? So yeah, we have them producing these strange objects that we don’t know the purpose of. We the writers have a sense of where it all comes together, but it’s certainly not clear yet at this point in the story.

Is this the last we’re supposed to see of Christopher Walken’s character? What does retirement look like looking like this?

I won’t say. I will say that when we wrote it we didn’t know. We were not aware of it when we created it. maybe we’ll see him again, maybe we won’t.

You worked out the ending with Ben Stiller, but once the actors slotted into their roles and you’re like Oh yeah that’s Mark, that’s himDid it alter the course of your life?

It was only a small part of the story. The majority of story beats were the same. Patricia Cobell was the one character I believe that had the greatest change as we worked together with him. [Arquette]’s character, just because it was like we had a lot of conversations with Patricia and sort of what makes her tick.

These conversations were a big part of what gave her character the cultlike quality. In contrast to her previous scripts where she was more practical and less interested in corporate mythology than she is now, this script shows that she has become a much better pragmatist. The more Patricia talked with us, the more like we became. OK, no, this is there’s something really exciting and scary and sad in this in this sort of lifelong cultist character. That changed the story. We are trying to honour that idea.

Cobell putting her face very close to someone and staring intensely at them

Rickon and Devon holding their baby and talking to an incognito Harmony Cobel, who’s dressed as a nurse

Do we think Patty feels a special connection to Mark? Does she seem like another Lumon who is a bit too cultish in her ideas?

It is possible that she has a special relationship with Mark. And I don’t think it’s entirely Lumon based, that’s what I’ll say. I think that she’s — without giving away too much of what we’ll see — there’s a professional interest for sure. And obviously, we’ve seen that there’s some sort of experiment or something happening with him and his wife, and sort of observing them. But I think that you can see it in her eyes that it’s become about more than the job. And there’s another sort of strange motivator drawing her to Mark.

Is there a greater cult mentality to all of this and is it more than just devotion to work?

NXIVM is a subject we have read extensively. This is a list of all the different cults that we have read. Further back, there are religious groups, and other organisations that can be oppressive at times.

But it’s a spectrum! Because on the other end of that spectrum is Starbucks; the Starbucks employees are sort of taught the philosophy of Howard Schultz and all this stuff, and they’re sort of partners in Howard’s vision. It’s really interesting to me the messy line between those two things. On one end is NXIVM and the other end of Starbucks, where it’s like, you’re sort of buying into a cult of personality […]It is to culture and the idea of a family. When obviously, you’re not going to be treated with that kind of love and respect. It’s not going to be returned to you, necessarily.

One of my inspirations is me. BackroomsThe idea of unlimited office space is a great concept. I’m interested to know how you went about fine-tuning what this group stumbles upon as they wander the halls of Lumon Industries; what felt like Oh yeah, that’s exactly rightIn terms of strangeness?

Backrooms is a sub-genre in liminal horror. This idea of infinite space and nightmare logic makes it so terrifying. I find it so terrifying that you can be trapped in a world where logic prevents your escape.

Workers at Lumon Industries staring at their supervisor (not facing us) kind of scared

Then, what do they see? […]My impulse is sometimes to think like nightmare logic. Like, OK there’s screaming baby goats now. And then there’s these other sort of horrifying things. However, this was something that Ben and other people wanted to discuss in order to be sure everything was being held in a real world that could be justified.

And that even down to things like, “Why the hell does Helly wake up on a table? Why not just have her like, wake up sitting in a chair?” or, you know, “Why is Mark a disembodied voice instead of being there in the room with her?” And we talked about this idea of like, psychologically, we almost want to make her feel like the building is a person, like the building is speaking to her, Lumon is speaking to her from on high. That was the best thing about Ben. He can do anything without this level of control. […]It must be broken down rationally. And you’d have to go through and figure out what it all means. It was both nightmare logic mixed with tight corporate logic, which we then had to invent.

Now tell me more about the goats. What role do goats have in this?

Ahh, the goats. Truthfully, the idea for goats was not in my head when I wrote them. I was thinking, “What is a strange, disturbing but funny thing to look at?” It was a placeholder for a time. That’s what I was thinking. Well, we’ll figure out what that’s going to be. We’ve solidified since then a lot of what’s going on, and a lot of what the next few reveals are going to be, assuming that we can get another season. It turned out that the goats actually worked quite well. I don’t think we have seen our last goat on the show.

#Severance #creator #decodes #season #cliffhanger #season #plans