James Poniewozik

I mean, you know, I don't need to tell our listeners probably all the reasons that conspiracy theories have had great influence in the larger world, conspiracy theories and actual conspiracies.

Conspiracy is a great engine for drama.

There's somebody doing something, something is amiss.

But a lot of the best shows that I watched this year and the more interesting ones, in some way or another, involved often a lone or close-to-lone protagonist trying to unravel something that went way, way beyond them.

And, you know, this was in animation, it was in science fiction, it was in mystery.

There was a lot of it in the water.

Yeah, Severance is one of those streaming shows that comes around like Halley's Comet, and you need to do a refresher course whenever it comes back around.

I very much liked the second season.

I liked it enough to put it on my top ten list at the end of the year.

This, you know, truly is one of those series that's in the great TV tradition of shows like Lost, et cetera, where there is both a large conspiratorial element organization, in this case, Lumen Industries, and also just a big question of what is the conspiracy about and what is it for and why are they pushing these buttons on these computers all days?

So I was, you know, I would say not as stellar as season one, but like a welcome payoff that made me want more, hopefully in fewer than three years.

Yeah.

Did this stick with you?

Yeah.

I mean, not to get all, you know, like TV history 101 on this, but I will agree to the extent that, you know, going back to Lost, if you were watching TV around that time, you recall that what we saw after Lost were like 5,000 shows that would involve some kind of convoluted mystery and puzzles and weird random details, but sort of forgot the fact that

This show needs to make you laugh.

It needs to have engaging characters.

It needs to, like, surprise and hit you emotionally.

And for me, Severance is one of the few shows since In That Mold that has done that.

It is about a mystery, but I enjoy watching it for the relationships between the characters.