It doesn’t matter to me whether there was ever a mystery because that wasn’t the interesting part. “What are they working on?” doesn’t need to have an amazing answer; it could just be accounting for all I care. What matters is who the characters are, what they have done and will do and why. And more importantly, the way it highlights issues with corporations by drawing interesting parallels within the story. Maybe people in real life will be inclined to question their own conditions and be inspired to protest for better lives.
But then there was never any mystery. The secret reveal is the core premise of the show.
stray@pawb.social 6 days ago
LilB0kChoy@midwest.social 1 week ago
The show is telling a story. Revealing the purpose of MDR propels the story. I don’t know what the plan is for the next season but I, personally, am interested to see the ethical debate about innies being “people”. Maybe that will be a plot point in the future.
azertyfun@sh.itjust.works 6 days ago
But there’s no debate out of that universe. They are people. It’s contrived as hell. I don’t care if some of Severance’s dystopian citizens think it’s Fine, Actually, that’s not thought provoking. Lumon is uncontroversially evil.
There’s interesting parallels to neocolonialism to be made and the way it trivializes human rights abuses through invisibilisation, but up to now the show hasn’t been interested in delving into that. Most they’ve done is a surface-level critique of corporate capitalism, mildly interesting exploration of cultish behavior, and lots of unexplained mystery of its own sake with unrewarding payoffs.
When a good mystery is revealed, you’re supposed to go “of course! They basically told us that, I just didn’t pay close enough attention!”. But Severance’s mystery reveals (almost) always come off as cheap thrills drawn out for too long with zero foreshadowing. Ah so Ms Casey is his wife… Okay? And redhead is the CEO’s daughter… Sure? And Cold Harbor is just an iterative improvement on Severance? That’s actually more boring than what was being foreshadowed.
I’ve said it before but without going too far into spoilers, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 does an infinitely job on themes of loss and pain and escapism and mystery than Severance ever did or could. I finished it before the show and the similar themes and love of a good mystery really made Severance’s plot look like a crude children’s drawing in comparison.