I haven’t done this in awhile, but we have been gifted with my new favorite TV show, Severance, and I have felt compelled to talk about the character and storycraft of my favorite episode of the season. If you haven’t watched Severance yet, or haven’t watched up to at least the focus of this discussion, episode 7, “Defiant Jazz”, you should be warned that this will be spoilerific. I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything of the final two episodes of the season, but these things can bleed together a bit so I can’t make any promises.

Now, if you aren’t concerned with spoilers or have watched the first 7 or more episodes of the show then, please, read on. Last warning though, from here on: there be spoilers.

Ok, so first a quick overview of some assumptions I’m working on. Severance is a show that, if it has a flaw, it’s that I think it has pulled a bit of a bait and switch on us. It was marketed, and is often talked about, as being about the horror of exploitative work and capitalism explored through a very-near-scifi setting concept of an America where a technology that can separate a person’s work-self from their personal-life self has been developed. When severed an employee can’t remember their personal life at work or their work life after they leave the office.

Here’s the thing though: I don’t think it’s about that. It is a show of corporate horror and it does include a religious cult obsessed with the purpose work and workers (think Calvinism dialed up to a 13 out of 10) but those things are the how of the story, not the why. Put another way, I think the corporate horror is the vehicle for what the show most wants to explore, not the thing being explored, not foremost anyway.

I also don’t think the show is about the mystery of the work the Innies (the at-work version of severed workers) are doing. The weird work is fun to ponder, but I think it has been clear from very early on that the work is a fiction. The Innies aren’t doing work so much as they are the work. Severance is the work. Though they seemingly don’t know it our protagonists didn’t sign up to work, they signed up to be lab rats and guinea pigs. Why else would already severed and supposedly uncompromisable workers need to have their true work hidden behind layers of bizarre obfuscation? What do you need to hide from people already operating under the most secure NDA conceivable?

So what do I think Severance (the show) is really about?

Consciousness, Identity, Memory. What makes us, us?

For all intents and purposes an Innie’s first day of work is the day of their birth. They have no personal memories. They have no clear memories of the world. They are functional adults and they do have personalities (more on that in a moment). But they are nearly blank slates as people. Their work, indeed, treats them in infantile ways, like children. Who, then, are these people? They aren’t their outies (the non-work and original personality) but how much of their outie’s personality informs their own?

The question is up for debate, but I do think it is one we are meant to consider. Consider: when new hire Helly R is harshly confronted by a video response to her threats of self harm from her outie, who declares her not a person, is it any wonder that the innie version of this cold person would respond to such things by pushing back even harder? Is vengeful zeal and steely determination innate in Helly R? How much of who an outie is spills across the border of severance to inform these new entities in their own personality?

That is the sort of thing I think Severance wants to be really about.

Which, finally, brings me to episode 7, “Defiant Jazz”. I adored this episode above all the others not just because it had some of the finest moments of performance and purely entertaining scenes, but because it pays off an aspect of this exploration of self for two characters so incredibly well. Consider the existence of the severed again. Newly born. No memories. A prisoner performing bizarre work that can’t be understood. You leave each day, but, from your perspective are instantly back. You don’t sleep. You have no life beyond the walls of work. You have no control over well you will return, day after day, or simply cease to exist.

How do you cope? How do you survive? Who are you going to be?

For our primary protagonist, Mark S (played by Adam Scott), you seek the comfort of friendship with your coworkers and the peace of routine. Helly R (played by Britt Lower), being brand new, scared, and angry, has no coping mechanism. Only a desire to put a stop to her situation. Our other two main severed characters though, have established very different coping mechanisms that are largely played for comedy early on, but, as “Defiant Jazz” shows us, are deadly serious and important to them. They are how they have survived and who they have made themselves.

Dylan G (played by Zach Cherry) concocts fantasies of a nearly destroyed world outside of work and the heroic importance of their tasks to humanity’s survival. It’s not so much that he believes them as that he has embraced the absurdity of their existence. The world outside work doesn’t really exist for them so why couldn’t it be a flooded apocalypse? The only thing that really matters in the world he exists in are the company’s grade-school rewards for jobs well done: erasers, finger traps, caricature portraits, melon bars, dance parties, and, the ultimate, a waffle part. Dylan has many of each. He does good work because he craves those tokens of his value. When Helly R is having trouble accepting her existence as an innie he suggests she just needs to earn a few of the perks and she’ll be ok. How could she not? They are his only source of happiness, the only thing that matters.

Iriving B (played by John Turturro), on the other hand has embraced, fully and completely, the other thing the company offers it’s severed employees for meaning: religion. Lumon, the company they work for, was founded by Kier Eagan. He is, effectively, a holy icon of it’s employees. He is “The Founder”, the employee handbook, full of his philosophy and mantras is the holy book, and, for innies, so far as Irving B is concerned, he is basically god. Irving never states this explicitly, but it is quite clear. The handbook is his bible, The Founder’s words his only compass in life and, as he says, Kier Eagan and his descendants are the entire reason they, the innies exist. In effect he was given life because of Kier and he is a faithful follower. If the severed office is the Kier Eagan Garden of Eden he is happy to remain obedient and in ignorance. For what it’s worth he supposedly thinks their work involves censoring bad words from movies, but honestly I don’t think he cares at all.

Obviously Dylan and Irving have found very different coping mechanisms. One has embraced what little materialism is offered him and cynicism. The other, faith. They are played for a disturbing comedy, they nitpick each other and they come off as simple children at times. As we learn in “Defiant Jazz” though, that’s not really the case. The have been offered a torturous unbroken existence of absurdity and a couple paths to embrace to make it bearable. As we see in this episode, they are lying to themselves, but deep down, they know they are. They’ve made peace with their imprisoned existence in the ways they could.

But what happens when they can’t lie to themselves any more?

At the end of episode 6 something happens to Dylan that should be impossible: he finds himself outside work. Middle management supervisor and troubleshooter Mr. Milchik has woken him in a closet of his outie’s home full of clothes for a quick interrogation about a stolen keycard. This is disturbing enough for Dylan, but then his son bursts in to hug him, the last thing that happens before Milchik turns off the “overtime protocol” that woke him.

This, as we should realize but probably don’t right away, is literally world shattering for Dylan. He survives by believing there is nothing of value outside of finger traps, erasers, and waffle parties. A son? A child who loves him? A family? How could an eraser and a funny caricature possibly be his everything once he knows, absolutely knows there is so much more out there? At work the next day all he wants is information about his kid, but he’s put off by Milchik. Even worse, Milchik tries to smooth over the group’s collective problems with a dance party for Helly R (in an absolutely fantastic scene – Tramell Tillman, the actor who plays Milchik is unbelievable). Dylan doesn’t even want to participate, but when taunted by Milchik he absolutely snaps in the face of the worthless and cruel offer. He jumps Milchik demanding his son’s name going so far as to even bite his terrified supervisor.

Irving, on the other hand, has an even crueler shattering of his chosen illusion. Over the course of several episodes he has been slowly developing a sweet romantic relationship with Burt G (played by Christopher Walken), the head of another department. Irving is clearly interested in Burt and a relationship but pushes back at first because he is afraid he is violating the word of Kier, who calls for platonic relationships only. When Burt G, a fellow true believer, and possibly more knowledgeable one, tells him of of Kier meeting his wife at work Irving finds himself warming up to the possibilities. What could be better than two faithful adherents to The Founder finding peace and happiness in one another and their shared dedication?

When he discovers that Burt is to be retired, most likely as a response to their two departments fraternizing and breaking too many rules, his world is as shattered as Dylan’s. His response is verbal, not physical, but no less cutting to Milchik and every severed employee witnessing the outburst. Faithful Irving, we realize, knows exactly what his existence really is and he knows that retirement, from the perspective of an innie, is death. It’s as good as murder. He has been a loyal adherent of the faith for six years and when, for once, he reached for something for himself, and only after squaring that desire with his beliefs in Kier, he finds the person he reached for is not only being taken away from him but actually killed for their actions. It’s been said that their is no greater fanatic than a convert. In a disillusioned Irving, Lumon may find there’s no greater danger than the apostate.

It’s a truly fantastic episode with particularly standout performances by Tramell Tillman (whose true character: a middle management bully who enjoys his power over his subordinates but who is something of a coward at heart is also brought fully into focus in this episode) and John Turturro and it lands so well because of all the character work that had been done in the first six episodes. Of course Dylan would find his existence predicated on the supposed validation of knickknacks impossible to live with when given proof of how much real meaning in life exists but is denied him. Of course Irving would have find himself enraged when the agents of his creator punish him and the man he is falling in love with in the harshest of ways for wanting to share his faith in companionship.

Emotional moments and payoffs need to be earned, and the more a story does to earn them they harder, and more satisfying those moments land. Severance is a masterclass in building to it’s moments, and “Defiant Jazz” has some of it’s best. Even better, they become the pivot point that hurtles our protagonists towards the season end with a purpose. I can’t recommend the show or praise this particular episode enough!