We’re all nonetheless reeling from the second season’s finale of Severance, however there’s extra to unpack than that mic-drop last scene. Viewers’ reactions to an earlier episode, one which facilities on Concord Cobel—an older girl whose mental acumen and private devotion have been wholly given over to Lumon Industries—was lukewarm to hostile: viewers described it as “filler,” its character examine as “pointless,” and Cobel herself as a personality whose depth was both uninteresting or unwarranted. The collective disavowal of this episode and of Cobel as a topic worthy of narrative consideration suggests a bigger cultural unease with ageing feminine protagonists, particularly these whose ethical valences usually are not clearly demarcated.

Spoiler alert: This essay comprises plot spoilers for seasons 1 and a pair of of Severance.

After watching the eighth episode of the second season of Severance entitled “Candy Vitriol,” I discovered myself disquieted not solely by the content material of the episode however by the collective response to it, as expressed on social media. This episode facilities on the character Concord Cobel—an older girl whose mental acumen and private devotion have been wholly given over to Lumon Industries—and sparked not empathy or analytical engagement however flippancy and derision in a lot of the net discourse in regards to the present. Platforms akin to Reddit and X (previously Twitter) have been teeming with feedback labeling the episode as “pointless,” “boring,” or unworthy of its place inside the narrative structure. Some viewers went as far as to recommend that the episode’s contents might have been condensed into an electronic mail—a phrase drawn from company meme tradition. 

These dismissals stand in sharp distinction to the adulation for the previous episode, which focuses on Gemma, a youthful girl revealed to be Mark Scout’s supposedly deceased spouse. This bifurcation in viewers reception of the 2 episodes will not be solely a matter of style; it displays underlying cultural valuations and devaluations—significantly with regard to age, gender, and narrative legitimacy because it pertains to ladies’s struggling.

Severance, created by Dan Erickson and distributed by Apple TV+, unfolds (thus far) over two seasons that delve into the implications of a fictional severance process developed by the all-powerful and enigmatic Lumon Industries. This process cleaves an worker’s consciousness in two, thereby creating an “innie” self who exists solely inside the confines of company life and an “outie” self who stays oblivious to the internal workings of their employment. What unfolds is a parable of late-stage capitalism, one which interrogates the commodification of id, the totalizing scope of company energy, and the fantasy of an ideal work-life steadiness.

Towards this dystopian scaffolding, the collection constructs a multistranded exploration of how ladies particularly expertise and internalize exploitation, erasure, and the machinations of energy. Whereas the present is ostensibly anchored in Mark Scout’s journey by means of grief and company awakening, it’s within the narratives of the “secondary” characters Gemma and Concord Cobel that I see one of many collection’ most incisive critiques. Every of those ladies embodies a definite modality of struggling, one formed by the interaction of non-public need and institutional management. Their experiences, whereas assorted in tone and texture, type a thematic duo by means of which the present interrogates the violence inflicted upon feminine company.

The collection constructs a multistranded exploration of how ladies particularly expertise and internalize exploitation, erasure, and the machinations of energy.

Gemma’s story is maybe probably the most viscerally wrenching. Initially launched below the tragic specter of dying—Mark’s beloved spouse, misplaced to a automotive accident—she is later found to be very a lot alive and topic to experimentation inside Lumon’s secretive Chilly Harbor program. The narrative construction by which this disclosure is executed is itself a form of brutal poetry. Viewers are slowly made conscious that Ms. Casey, the placid wellness counselor on the severed ground—the precise ground within the workplace constructing designated for workers who’ve undergone the severance process—is in reality a severed model of Gemma. As this consciousness dawns, what ensues will not be merely the horror of bodily entrapment however the invocation of deeper, extra intimate wounds. Gemma’s earlier life with Mark, proven within the seventh episode (“Chikhai Bardo”), was formed by the quiet, cumulative devastation of infertility—a failed being pregnant, the bodily and psychologically corrosive cycles of IVF, and the emotional collapse that follows.

The collection brings this anguish to the fore in a sequence on the finish of the season that’s as formally arresting as it’s narratively revelatory. Within the Chilly Harbor take a look at, Gemma is positioned inside a simulation that compels her to disassemble a crib—the very object that after symbolized her hope for motherhood. This act will not be merely a disturbing efficiency of mourning however a corporately orchestrated ritual of dehumanization. By forcing her to unmake the symbolic middle of her misplaced maternity, Lumon seeks to eradicate the ultimate vestiges of her affective reminiscence, thereby producing a wonderfully docile topic. The crib, emblem of each love and failure, is rendered an instrument of psychological sterilization. Such scenes exemplify the collection’ acute consciousness of how reproductive trauma could be weaponized by institutional techniques.

The viewers reactions I encountered to “Chikhai Bardo”—the episode that unveils Gemma’s previous with Mark—have been vociferous and deeply emotive. Reward abounded for its visible and directorial sophistication, achieved by cinematographer-director Jessica Lee Gagné, in addition to for its emotional complexity and character improvement. Gemma was broadly described as a tragic heroine, and her ordeal impressed sympathy and reverence. The aesthetic and narrative apparatuses of the episode mixed to supply what many hailed because the dramatic apex of the collection. What’s noteworthy, nonetheless, is that this reward was not merely for the technical execution however for the sort of struggling depicted, one which aligns with culturally sanctioned scripts of femininity: youth, magnificence, romantic love, and maternal longing.

In jarring distinction, the reception to the episode instantly following, which facilities on Concord Cobel, was lukewarm to hostile. That the episode was shorter in run time and extra restrained in tone didn’t assist its case. But this distinction in scale doesn’t adequately clarify the disproportionate disparagement: viewers described it as “filler,” its character examine as “pointless,” and Cobel herself as a personality whose depth was both uninteresting or unwarranted. The collective disavowal of this episode and of Cobel as a topic worthy of narrative consideration suggests a bigger cultural unease with ageing feminine protagonists, particularly these whose ethical valences usually are not clearly demarcated.

Cobel’s backstory reveals a childhood spent in Salt’s Neck, a desolate firm city whose financial and cultural infrastructure has been consumed by Lumon. Raised by an aunt steeped within the company cult of founder Kier Eagan and marked by the mysterious dying of her skeptical mom, Cobel’s early life are formed by ideological battle and emotional deprivation. Her brilliance is cultivated below duress and finally co-opted by the very establishment that destroyed her household. She is the very creator of the severance process but in addition its sufferer—a tragic determine whose life arc exemplifies the paradoxes of complicity and dispossession.

Cobel is the very creator of the severance process but in addition its sufferer—a tragic determine whose life arc exemplifies the paradoxes of complicity and dispossession.

Her story will not be one in all romantic longing or maternal grief however of mental erasure and ideological entrapment. As such, it resists simple sentimentalization. It’s no much less devastating than Gemma’s, but it lacks the visible and emotional cues that usually elicit viewers empathy. Cobel will not be youthful and never portrayed by means of the aesthetic lens of romance or nostalgia. Her struggling is systemic, not sentimental; cerebral, not corporeal. And therein lies the issue of its reception. The dearth of enthusiasm for Cobel’s episode discloses a hierarchy of affective interpretation, one which privileges sure configurations of feminine struggling whereas marginalizing others.

Gemma represents the exploitation of reproductive id; Cobel, the co-optation and dismissal of mental labor.

Collectively, the tales of Gemma and Cobel delineate a spectrum of dystopian womanhood, every characterised by completely different modalities of subjection and resistance. Gemma represents the exploitation of reproductive id; Cobel, the co-optation and dismissal of mental labor. These usually are not ancillary storylines; they’re constitutive of the present’s thematic core. That the viewers ought to reply to them with such disparity underscores the need of important consideration to how narrative buildings and viewers expectations converge.

The contrasting reactions to the characters of Gemma and Cobel reveal not solely viewers preferences however entrenched societal biases relating to which feminine experiences are deemed narratively helpful.

On this context, the reception of those episodes turns into a website of study in its personal proper. The contrasting reactions to the characters of Gemma and Cobel reveal not solely viewers preferences however entrenched societal biases relating to which feminine experiences are deemed narratively helpful. Gemma’s ache is legible; Cobel’s, much less so. This distinction in legibility is instructive, offering perception into the affective economies that govern viewer engagement. It invitations us to ask, What types of struggling do we discover shifting, and why? Whose ache is aestheticized, and whose despised?

Severance doesn’t supply simple solutions. It presents, as an alternative, a capacious and unsettling meditation on the price of complicity, the attract of erasure, and the violence of techniques that devour and discard. It insists that we glance carefully—not solely on the shiny surfaces of its narrative however on the uncomfortable truths embedded inside. As viewers, our process will not be merely to devour however to interrogate our consumption, to acknowledge the asymmetries in how we distribute our empathy.

Richard Charles Lee Canada–Hong Kong Library
College of Toronto