Severance Season 2's finale left half the fanbase furious and the other half calling it genius — which side are you on?

• S

  Sam1mo ago

  I work in corporate America and this show is a DOCUMENTARY. Change my mind.

  202Reply
• S

  Sam1mo ago

  I have genuinely never felt more manipulated by a television show in my life. I rearranged my entire Friday night to watch that finale live and I sat there at the end like... that's IT? That's what we waited for? I'm not even mad at the storytelling, I'm mad at myself for caring this much.

  188Reply
• T

  Theo1mo ago

  I showed my teenage daughter the finale and she looked at me after and said "so what happens next" and I said we don't know and she said "then why did we watch it" and I had literally no answer and I've been thinking about that ever since

  188Reply
  • TT

    Taylor T.1mo ago

    Counterpoint: your daughter has also never had to wait a year between episodes of anything in her entire life because streaming exists. The patience muscle has just atrophied completely in younger viewers and I say this with love.

    55Reply
    • MS

      Morgan S.1mo ago

      Sir the patience muscle comment is rich coming from adults who rage-posted within six minutes of the finale ending

      143Reply
  • J

    Jamie1mo ago

    Your daughter is 16 and she's right. We've all normalized being strung along by TV and called it sophistication.

    72Reply
• F

  Feli1mo ago

  My husband and I watched the finale separately because we couldn't agree on a time, texted each other immediately after, and had our first real fight in three years. About a TV show. About whether a TV show was GOOD. I need everyone to understand what this show is doing to households.

  187Reply
• J

  Jordan1mo ago

  my coworker spoiled the finale for me during a meeting and now I'm considering severance in real life

  179Reply
• FK

  Feli K.1mo ago

  The person above this is going to watch season 2 this weekend and they know it

  167Reply
• R

  Riley1mo ago

  I work in HR. This show is assigned viewing in whatever hell I'm headed to.

  167Reply
  • Z

    Zara1mo ago

    The wellness sessions alone. The WELLNESS SESSIONS. I've been in that exact meeting. Different words, same energy.

    88Reply
• D

  Drew1mo ago

  My 70-year-old mother called me after the finale. She has never called me about television before in my entire life. She was not calm. She had questions about severance chips and corporate ethics that I was not prepared to answer at 11pm on a weeknight. This show has done something real.

  166Reply
• H

  Hana1mo ago

  I was in a really bad depressive episode when season 1 dropped and something about the Innies' complete ignorance of the outside world — their forced contentment — actually made me feel weirdly seen. season 2 brought that back. I don't fully understand why this show matters to me but it does.

  162Reply
• MR

  Morgan R.1mo ago

  Zach Cherry deserved more screen time every single season. That's my only note. Good day.

  156Reply
• DR

  Diego R.1mo ago

  What frustrates me isn't the cliffhanger itself — cliffhangers are fine — it's that specific questions that felt load-bearing to the whole mythology got quietly dropped. Like we just... moved on from them. That's not ambiguity. That's forgetting.

  156Reply
  • RM

    Riley M.1mo ago

    Which questions specifically? Because I've seen people say this and when they list them out it's usually things the show answered in episodes 4-7 and they just weren't paying attention.

    63Reply
• A

  Avery1mo ago

  The show literally depicts a corporation that traps people inside an experience they didn't fully consent to and extracts labor and emotional investment from them with no guaranteed return. And we are all. sitting here. doing that. voluntarily. for Apple TV+. The show won.

  156Reply
• Z

  Zara1mo ago

  Adam Scott is quietly doing some of the most emotionally complex acting on television and I feel like he gets zero awards attention because the show is too weird for academy voters to know what to do with. The scene in episode six alone should have been a submission reel.

  145Reply
• AK

  Alex K.1mo ago

  People complaining about the finale are exactly the type of audience that ruined prestige TV in the first place. You want everything handed to you in a bow. The whole POINT of Severance is that resolution is a lie the outside world sells you. The show IS the experience of being a Lumon employee. You don't get closure. That's the thesis.

  143Reply
• SK

  Sam K.1mo ago

  The people calling it 'genius' are doing the same thing they accused Lost fans of doing — constructing a cathedral around a foundation that may not exist. I loved Lost. I know exactly how this ends.

  143Reply
• R

  Riley1mo ago

  I have a theory that people's reaction to the Severance finale is directly correlated to how much they like their job. People who feel trapped at work loved it. People who feel fine about their job thought it was overlong and pretentious. Small sample size, just something I noticed.

  139Reply
• N_

  Nina _x1mo ago

  I will say this and I will say it clearly: any finale that has me still thinking about it seventeen days later, at 2am, while trying to figure out if I should be angry or grateful — that finale did something. I don't have to like it to respect it.

  139Reply
• M

  Marco1mo ago

  The finale was a triumph. Full stop. If you need every question answered by the end of a season you probably also skip to the last page of a novel.

  134Reply
  • E

    Elena1mo ago

    okay but skipping to the last page of a novel is actually extremely valid and I will die on this hill

    87Reply
• N

  Nina1mo ago

  My husband and I started watching Severance together two years ago when we were going through a really rough patch at work — both of us feeling like we were leaving pieces of ourselves at the office every day. The show hit differently for us because of that. Season 2 captured something true about how work colonizes your identity even more than season 1 did. The finale made me cry and I couldn't even fully explain why to him.

  134Reply
• A2

  Alex 211mo ago

  Hot take nobody wants to hear: the finale was designed to be argued about. That's the product. The discourse IS the season 3 marketing campaign. Dan Erickson is not confused about what he's doing — he's a genius manipulator and we are all extremely willing participants. The fury and the 'it's a masterpiece' crowd are both just free advertising. I say this as someone who genuinely loved it.

  134Reply
• F

  Feli1mo ago

  Genuinely asking — at what point does 'trusting the creators' become 'enabling the creators'? Because there has to be a line. Season 3 isn't greenlit yet. This show could end here. Are you still calling it genius if there is no season 3? I want an honest answer from the 'it's deliberate' crowd.

  134Reply
• OK

  Omar K.1mo ago

  Season 3 better not take two more years or I will have completely emotionally moved on and no amount of good reviews will bring me back. That is a genuine threat directed at no one in particular.

  122Reply
• N

  Noah1mo ago

  can we acknowledge that this whole debate is essentially about whether you trust the creators to land the plane, and that trust was earned or not earned by season 1, and your reaction to season 2's finale is basically just a readout of whether season 1 bought enough goodwill with you personally. thats it. thats the whole argument.

  121Reply
  • M

    Morgan1mo ago

    This is probably the most accurate take in this entire thread and I hate it a little

    34Reply
• ZL

  Zara L.1mo ago

  The Empire Strikes Back comparison people use for every cliffhanger ending in television needs to be retired immediately. Empire had three complete character arcs, a resolved central conflict AND a cliffhanger. Those are not comparable situations.

  119Reply
• TS

  Theo S.1mo ago

  I think the issue is that season 1 had a very contained, elegant mystery and season 2 tried to expand the universe so much that it diluted what made the original special. More is not always more. The Lumon world worked because we only saw fragments of it.

  112Reply
• A

  Alex1mo ago

  I think people are conflating 'I didn't get what I wanted' with 'bad writing' and those are genuinely two different complaints that require two different conversations. One is about craft. The other is about expectation management. Both are valid but they are not the same argument.

  112Reply
• F

  Feli1mo ago

  What frustrates me is that season 1 had incredibly precise plotting — every detail meant something, every scene paid off. Season 2 introduced probably four major new mysteries and resolved approximately zero from either season. That's not a ratio that works. You have to give audiences SOMETHING.

  108Reply
• A

  Alex1mo ago

  People who say they "don't watch prestige TV" but have seen every episode of this show twice: this thread is you. You know who you are.

  107Reply
  • R

    Ravi1mo ago

    I watch exactly three shows a year. This is one of them. I still thought the finale was a mess. Being selective doesn't make you wrong.

    44Reply
• J

  Jordan1mo ago

  Season 2 had the single best episode of television I watched all year — you know which one — and also had three of the most boring episodes I watched all year. It's a deeply uneven season. The finale being divisive makes total sense because the season itself couldn't decide what it wanted to be.

  103Reply
• NL

  Noah L.1mo ago

  Zach Cherry has about 90 seconds of screen time across the whole season and every single frame he's in is perfect. I just need to say that somewhere.

  103Reply
• L9

  Leo 921mo ago

  The Gemma/Ms. Cobel storyline was completely wasted this season. She was the most interesting character in season 1 and they basically sidelined her for eight episodes and then remembered she existed in episode nine. That's bad writing, not bold storytelling.

  98Reply
• M

  Maya1mo ago

  Dylan G. not getting more attention is a crime. John Turturro gets his flowers but Tramell Tillman is doing something almost impossibly precise with Milchick and people act like he's a supporting player. He IS the show's moral complexity made flesh.

  97Reply
• DS

  Drew S.1mo ago

  I've read like four different academic-style breakdowns of the finale and they all contradict each other completely. I'm not sure if that means the show is brilliantly ambiguous or just incoherent. Could genuinely be either.

  94Reply
• N

  Noah1mo ago

  I'm a novelist and the structural complaint that bothers me most isn't the cliffhanger — it's that several characters' arcs reached genuine emotional resolution and then the show kept going past that point. You can feel it. The natural ending passed by about forty minutes before the actual ending. That's an editing problem, not a philosophy.

  93Reply
• K

  Kofi1mo ago

  People keep saying the slow pace is intentional and artistic but there is a difference between deliberate pacing and just... not having enough plot to fill your episode count. At some point you have to be honest about which one it is.

  91Reply
• YL

  Yuki L.1mo ago

  hot take but Helly R is the most compelling character on television right now and it's not particularly close. The way Britt Lower plays the exact same mannerisms but makes you feel they mean something completely different between the two selves? That's craft.

  91Reply
• Z

  Zara1mo ago

  Anyone who thinks this finale was a masterpiece has not watched enough television. Twin Peaks: The Return finale was a masterpiece. This was a showrunner who wrote themselves into a corner and decided ambiguity was the same as depth. Those are very different things.

  89Reply
• DL

  Drew L.1mo ago

  okay I'll bite on the Irving thing — what that subplot is doing is showing you a character who used external structure (Lumon, routine, obedience) to suppress something he couldn't face in his outie life, and severance didn't create his repression it just made it visible. the painting. the obsession. it was all already there. that's what made it devastating instead of just mysterious

  89Reply
  • AR

    Alex R.1mo ago

    This is genuinely the best reading of Irving I've encountered and I've been on three different subreddits about this show. More please.

    47Reply
• S

  Sam1mo ago

  That take above is extremely online and also kind of brilliant and I hate it.

  88Reply
• F

  Feli1mo ago

  okay but can we talk about how Britt Lower has been carrying dramatic weight that would crush most actors and the conversation is always about Adam Scott or Patricia Arquette. Helly R's arc this season was the emotional spine of the entire show. if you disagree you watched a different season than I did.

  87Reply
• PB

  Priya B.1mo ago

  I'm a psychologist and the show's model of identity splitting is actually more sophisticated than most pop-culture treatments of dissociation. It's not accurate to clinical reality but it's philosophically serious in a way that earns its premise.

  84Reply
  • M9

    Morgan 921mo ago

    Would love to know what you make of the Irving subplot specifically, because that felt like it was gesturing at something about repressed identity that I couldn't quite articulate

    29Reply
• Z

  Zara1mo ago

  The show is secretly about the gig economy and the fragmentation of worker identity under late capitalism. The severed vs. innie divide is literally just full time vs. contractor. Once you see it you can't unsee it and the finale lands completely differently.

  83Reply
• D

  Diego1mo ago

  I think people are fundamentally confusing two complaints and running them together: (1) the finale was narratively unsatisfying, and (2) the show is bad. These are not the same. The show is extraordinary. The finale was a gamble that didn't entirely pay off. You can hold both.

  78Reply
• A9

  Alex 921mo ago

  I watched the finale twice and I genuinely think the last ten minutes are some of the best television made in the last five years. I also think episodes three and four were a complete waste of my time. Severance contains multitudes.

  77Reply
• C

  Casey1mo ago

  I don't understand why everyone is angry. The show was renewed for season 3. This was always going to be a middle chapter. Did people also flip tables after Empire Strikes Back?

  76Reply
• JR

  Jamie R.1mo ago

  This show made me have an actual conversation with my boss about work-life balance that I'd been avoiding for three years. I don't know what to do with that information but it happened.

  76Reply
  • CT

    Casey T.1mo ago

    okay this is either a really beautiful comment or the most elaborate ad Apple TV+ has ever placed and either way I respect it

    93Reply
• D

  Drew1mo ago

  If season 3 doesn't come out within 18 months the discourse will have completely eaten itself and nobody will be able to evaluate it fairly anymore. The wait is becoming part of the story whether the creators want it to be or not.

  73Reply
  • Y

    Yuki1mo ago

    There's something almost cruel about a show about the terror of lost time making its audience wait years between seasons. Like. You couldn't write that if you tried.

    145Reply
• T

  Taylor1mo ago

  ok hot take but i think season 2 was actually better than season 1 overall and the finale was fine. people just hype themselves into impossible expectations and then blame the writers

  72Reply
• D2

  Drew 211mo ago

  I've watched the last ten minutes four times. Each time I think I've resolved how I feel about it and each time something small shifts. I genuinely cannot tell you if that's masterful or maddening and at this point I suspect it might be both simultaneously and that maybe that's the point. Or I've lost my mind. Unclear.

  72Reply
• A

  Alex1mo ago

  I genuinely cannot tell anymore if I love this show or if I love the IDEA of this show and have been filling in the gaps with my own imagination. Which might actually be the point. Or might be a problem. I haven't decided.

  69Reply
  • D

    Drew1mo ago

    This. This comment exactly. The show is a very expensive Rorschach test and we've all been writing our own endings in our heads.

    47Reply
• J

  Jordan1mo ago

  The cinematography alone justifies every decision they made. I don't care about plot resolution when every single frame looks like that. Ben Stiller has been one of the most underrated directors working in prestige television for years and nobody talks about it enough.

  67Reply
• RS

  Riley S.1mo ago

  Patricia Arquette is doing something so specific with her face that I genuinely cannot tell if her character believes anything she says and I think that ambiguity is completely intentional and completely brilliant and she has not gotten a single award conversation that she deserves for it.

  67Reply
• E

  Elena1mo ago

  counter point: Lost gave audiences something every week and still had one of the most hated finales in television history. maybe trust is actually the point and not every thread needs tying

  62Reply
• R

  Riley1mo ago

  The 'it's genius because it's unresolved' defense is the most exhausting cope in fandom culture. Unresolved is not the same as intentional. A painter who leaves half the canvas blank isn't being bold, they're being unfinished. You can call it abstract all you want. I'm calling it what it is.

  61Reply
  • TK

    Taylor K.1mo ago

    lmao 'a painter who leaves half the canvas blank' — mate that is literally what Rothko did and people pay millions for it. your analogy destroyed your own argument in real time and I am cackling

    112Reply
• O

  Omar1mo ago

  Genuinely curious what people who loved the finale think actually HAPPENED in it. Not being sarcastic. I want to understand what I missed because I felt like I watched something entirely different from what the positive reviewers described.

  57Reply
• D

  Diego1mo ago

  The set design in Lumon is genuinely unsettling in a way that CGI-heavy shows never achieve. Those carpets. Those ceilings. The cafeteria. Ben Stiller directing those spaces deserves a separate conversation from the writing discourse.

  57Reply
• M

  Maya1mo ago

  Hot take: the people most furious about the finale are the people who theorized the most obsessively. You built a specific ending in your head across two years of Reddit threads and Discord servers and of course reality couldn't compete with that. The show isn't the problem. Parasocial fandom investment is the problem.

  54Reply
  • JB

    Jamie B.1mo ago

    This is such a condescending framing. 'You wanted too much so you're wrong to be disappointed.' No. Audiences are allowed to feel let down when something doesn't deliver. That's not a character flaw. That's just being a person who watched a thing.

    121Reply
• P

  Priya1mo ago

  The music in this show has always been wildly underappreciated. Theodore Shapiro's score for the finale especially. Some of those cues did more emotional heavy lifting than the dialogue. Fight me.

  52Reply
• L

  Liam1mo ago

  The Gemma plotline was the show's biggest swing and I'm still not sure if they connected or whiffed. I've changed my mind four times. Currently sitting at whiffed but that could change by morning.

  52Reply
  • RK

    Reese K.1mo ago

    Whiffed. The season spent so much time building her up and then the payoff was emotionally thin. Mark deserved better. WE deserved better.

    38Reply
  • Q

    Quinn1mo ago

    hard disagree, that restraint was intentional — showing her through Mark's fractured perception meant we were always seeing a partial truth. resolving it cleanly would have been the easy choice and the wrong one

    61Reply
• M

  Maya1mo ago

  lol at people calling a show on Apple TV+ prestige. its a tech company making content to sell subscriptions. the whole thing is a very expensive ad. the show literally takes place inside a corporation and you are paying a corporation to watch it. nobody thinks about this.

  44Reply
• AS

  Alex S.1mo ago

  I've been in a writers room. Not this one. But I've been in one. The desperation to delay answers because you don't actually have them yet is palpable and it has a very specific texture on screen. This show has that texture in season 2. I'm not guessing. I recognize it.

  44Reply
  • L

    Leo1mo ago

    Nothing quite like someone saying "trust me I know how TV works" on the internet at 11pm to really nail the prestige drama of it all

    112Reply
• D

  Drew1mo ago

  The canvas analogy is wrong though. A better analogy is a novel where the chapter ends mid-sentence and the author says 'next book.' That's not bold. That's incomplete. Call it what it is.

  44Reply
• SB

  Sam B.1mo ago

  People calling this cliffhanger "abuse" clearly never watched The Sopranos cut to black and need to sit with discomfort more often. Art is allowed to leave you unsettled. That's literally its job.

  41Reply
  • N

    Noah1mo ago

    The Sopranos ending was THE ENDING. A complete series ending. Comparing that to a season cliffhanger mid-story is not the own you think it is. Chase was done. Severance is asking us to wait for MORE. Different contract with the audience entirely.

    119Reply
• M

  Marco1mo ago

  Patricia Arquette won a Golden Globe for this show and somehow people still act like it's underrated. It's extremely rated. Very appropriately rated. It's a good show that also has real problems. Both things.

  38Reply
• LM

  Liam M.1mo ago

  Been thinking about why this show gets under my skin more than other slow-burn prestige TV and I think it's because the premise makes patience itself feel like complicity. Like, you waiting for answers IS the metaphor. Lumon is Apple TV+ and we all work there now. I'm not sure if that's genius or if I need to go outside.

  38Reply
• R

  Reese1mo ago

  contrarian opinion incoming: the outie world segments are actually more interesting than the innie ones and i will not be taking questions

  34Reply
  • EL

    Elena L.1mo ago

    Nope. Hard disagree. The outie world only matters because of what the innie world reveals about it. Strip away the severed floor and you have a mid prestige drama about work-life balance.

    78Reply
• T

  Theo1mo ago

  Severance is filmed in New Jersey btw. Just something I think about.

  31Reply
• EM

  Elena M.1mo ago

  stopped watching after season 1 because I knew they could never top it. sounds like I made the right call based on this thread lmao

  29Reply
• D

  Drew1mo ago

  The music this season deserves criminal levels of attention it is not getting. There are scenes where the score is doing heavy lifting that the script simply does not attempt. Theodore Shapiro was working in a different zip code from the writers' room sometimes.

  29Reply

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