Severance Season 2 Episode 8 Brings Back Season 1’s Biggest Problems – SlashFilm

I have a confession. I don’t think that “Severance” is the second coming of “Twin Peaks,” or some masterful sci-fi saga, or the greatest show on television. I’m not trying to come with the hot takes — it’s just always felt off to me. Season 1 has some great moments, namely at the beginning and the end, but much of the middle to me felt like gesturing at better mystery box shows, but with very little material grounding for the bigger sci-fi ideas. It seemed untethered — a “just vibes” approach to genre storytelling that sold short its many interesting questions about identity and corporate control.

For the most part, I’ve enjoyed season 2 much more. It’s had an especially good run over the last few episodes, with dramatic changes in scenery, big character developments, and a lot of visual flair in episode 7 in particular. But unfortunately, “Severance” season 2 episode 8, “Sweet Vitriol,” brings back many of the same issues that littered season 1: Stalling momentum, untethered characters, and twists that are more confusing than gratifying.

“Sweet Vitriol” is something of a tangent episode, following Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) on a road trip back to her hometown of Salt’s Neck — a former Lumon company town left to decay after the local factory shut down. Harmony confronts an old flame and her sister Sissy (Jane Alexander) while hunting for some unnamed item from her past, which turns out to be the original plans for the severance procedure and related technologies.

Yes, Harmony Cobel invented severance, and the world has never felt smaller. All the while, episode 8 continues to keep us away from the real story of the show, which once again seems to be stalling for fear of actually revealing some answers to its ever-growing number of questions.

It has been well established that Lumon is a massive, multinational corporation. We’ve met severed employees from branches in other countries, and we’ve seen many suggestions of the scale of operations. And yet, every twist that “Severance” throws seems to shrink the world more and more. Mark (Adam Scott), Gemma (Dichen Lachman), and now Harmony are apparently the most important people in the world, or at least at Lumon, and the company’s entire evil essence seems to be focused on a single room.

Maybe that will all make sense once “Severance” starts sharing some answers, but for now, it seems more interested in taking side roads and showing flashbacks for fear of disappointing with actual reveals. And sure, you could say that everything important happens in the one office because it’s the branch based in the town named after Kier Eagan, so of course it would be more important. But that doesn’t stop the show’s twists from making the story feel absolutely tiny.

The episode’s big reveal might have worked better for me if we knew anything about who Harmony is. Though we now know a lot about what she is and where she comes from, the character still feels cartoonish and absurd. All the added details about her past only magnify the same singular, vague characterization we’ve had since the start: She’s “crazy” because she was raised in a cult. And now that she’s apparently the most important person on Earth, and I still don’t know who she is.

Let me be extremely clear: I really liked getting to see a crumbling Lumon town. Episode 8, like most of “Severance” season 2, looks great. The locations are gorgeous, the Rust Belt energy is powerful, and the new tidbits about Lumon’s disguised child labor programs add a new, nightmarish texture to the company.

But the actual story of “Sweet Vitriol” is borderline nonsensical. Harmony shows up in Salt’s Neck after being fired from her old job, clearly angry at Lumon despite seeming happy to return if she were given her original job as severed floor manager back. In other words, we don’t really know where Harmony’s loyalties lie at the start of this episode, but we’re just kind of told over the course of it that she’s full-on anti-Lumon now. Okay.

She hides in an old friend’s truck bed on the ride to her childhood home and starts raging through the house in desperate search of something. It’s hugely important, but not so important that she can’t afford to take a long nap in the bed her mother died in while searching. After waking up and snorting a bit of laughing gas, she remembers her mother’s cellar and almost immediately locates her original severance plans within.

Why? Presumably so that she can prove her role in Lumon’s ascension, or more accurately, because the plot demands someone with extensive severance knowledge be able to help Mark with his reintegration.

The biggest thing that bothered me watching “Severance” season 2, episode 8 (which had shades of the worst “Lost” storyline) wasn’t that it further meandered away from the real mystery, or that the twist comes out of nowhere, or that Harmony takes a nap. It’s the whole vibe of the episode. It’s maybe the most concentrated dose of the “Severance” house style we’ve had yet, where everybody talks weird, conversations feel disjointed, and Ben Stiller apparently directs everyone to scrunch their face up and mumble aggressively. It’s like the screen has a message written it that says, “Look at how weird this is. Isn’t it so weird?”

Yes, Ben, it’s weird. I get that it’s weird. But there’s a fine line between effective surrealism and trying too hard. “Severance” has lots of fascinating, original ideas when it comes to the corporate sci-fi stuff. I love the conversations about whether or not innies have souls, and glimpses of a society on the brink of full-blown cyberpunk dystopia. But the show repeatedly insists that what’s more interesting is pointing excitedly at David Lynch and saying, “I can do that too.” Except it’s proven time and time again that it can’t. It just doesn’t have the magic.

At the end of the day, this kind of tone is a matter of taste. Your mileage will vary on what specific lines or brands of weirdness pull you into a fictional world, and which ones push you away from it. It’s clear from the general sentiment that most people really like “Severance,” and that’s great. People should like things. But I was really ready to start liking it too, and “Sweet Vitriol” tossed me right back out again, which is a real shame.