Imagine you arrive at your job and enter the elevator at 9 a.m., you blink and it is now 5 p.m. and you are free to go home to enjoy the rest of your life.

You are unaware of what it is you do at work, who you work with, if you even work at all, but you have nothing to fear because there is nothing to know, you don’t remember anything. 

Now, imagine you end your work day and head for the elevator around 5 p.m., you blink and it is now 9 a.m. the next day and you return to work without feeling like you ever really left. 

You are unaware of what it is you do outside work, who you live with, if you even live with anyone, but you have nothing to fear because there is nothing to know, you don’t remember anything. 

This is the reality of the characters in “Severance,” which is, for my money, the best television show of the decade thus far. 

The plot follows Mark, played by Adam Scott, who leads a team of workers who have undergone the ‘severance’ procedure, dividing their memories between their work and personal lives, effectively creating two separate people who live completely separate lives. 

One of Mark’s colleagues disappears from work and appears to him on the outside and explains to him that nothing is what it seems at Lumon, the mega-corporation that created the severance program. 

As the season unfolds, Mark and his colleagues descend further and further down the rabbit hole in search for what exactly is going on at Lumon and who exactly they are outside of work. 

The show is a bit slow at first, taking its time to establish the tone and setting, but once the ball gets rolling, it truly does not stop, building and building to a season finale that is among the single best episodes of television that I have ever seen. 
The show is captivating and tense, wonderfully shot and expertly acted, it is truly one of the best original stories I’ve encountered in any medium.

A unique blend of science fiction and thrilling drama set against the backdrop of a dystopian corporate America that fills every scene with a sense of underlying dread and mystery that commands you to keep watching to see what happens next.

 
The second season just premiered a few weeks ago and new episodes release every Friday, so now is the perfect time to binge-watch the first season so that you can follow along with the new releases as they come out. 

Categories: Arts & Entertainment