I guess I was the only one in the world disappointed by the season finale of the Apple series, Severance.
I’m only reading rave reviews everywhere I look. People seem to be satisfied with the cliffhanger and all the unanswered questions and perfectly willing to wait a year for Season 2. But I can’t help but feel it is just the latest example of a syndrome all too common in TV nowadays – the creation of some vague conspiracy/mystery/dystopia where the questions only multiply with each episode and the true answers to what is going on remain elusive even at season’s end. Why? Because the creators don’t know the answers themselves and are just milking the weirdness until they can figure it out. It’s a cheat.
Call it The “Lost” Effect, after that series amped up the ludicrousness and made a mint doing it.
Not that Severance is not well made – the writing, acting, direction are all first-rate – or that I have not enjoyed it overall. But the “enjoyment” has hinged on suspense and wanting to know how this world operates. I knew there was way too much to resolve for the season finale to wrap everything up in a bow, but I still expected some morsels of substance, a little more meat on the bone to tide us over until it picks up again.
What we got instead was more frustrating than exciting. I’m not against cliffhangers per se, but there has to be some forward progress in the story in order to EARN that cliffhanger, and here I just felt they were vamping, filling, stalling for time. It felt like a craven act of subscription greed: “Want more? Pony up, bitches”.
Which honestly makes me wonder if it is worth coming back at all for Season 2.
I have found out the hard way that if the show runners are comfortable letting the audience down like this once, and they get away with it, then they will continue to do it again and again. Which means a lot of wasted viewing hours leading nowhere. If I think I’m being jerked around (like I did after 4 episodes of critical darling, Yellowjackets), I cut bait and move on. Wrong or right, if a show is trying to be everything and nothing, too much and not enough, its fingers in every genre with no real sense of consistency or true purpose, I feel like I’m being suckered. It has become more and more prevalent as streaming services compete for eyeballs. Shows are playing more like clickbait than well-thought-out complete stories that will deliver a proper beginning, middle and end.
It doesn’t matter how great individual episodes are if there is no overarching plan or ultimate destination for the story. I need to know you are not just making shit up as you go along – that you will explain all this crazy randomness and pay it off down the line.
So…yeah, I guess I was disappointed.
However, as I say, I seem to be completely alone in this reaction. The consensus is: “best show in years”, “well done, can’t wait for the show to return”.
I may be the one and only case of actual severence.