The Best Books, Movies, Video Games, and Podcasts to Check Out After Watching 'Severance'
From the moment Mark Scout (Adam Scott) first rode an elevator down to his office and became a totally different person, we’ve been obsessed with Severance .
Over two spectacular seasons, Ben Stiller’s sci-fi satire has explored the banality of corporate culture (and corporate cults), the impact of trauma, and the power of memory—or lack thereof.
The story of a group of people who undergo the severance procedure, creating a separate workplace persona called an “Innie” who is essentially a separate individual lacking their outside memories, delivered one of the best finales of all time with its second-season ender “Cold Harbor.” But it’s been a year since then, and there’s no official word on when we'll see season three.
If you’re jonesing for more of that bleak corporate vibe, mysterious and important work, and surprisingly nuanced commentary on the human condition— and you've already explored our list of streamalike shows —allow me to suggest some equally terrific books, movies, video games, and podcasts that will fill that empty space in your head.
Severance packs a lot of literary references into its scripts, adding a dense layer of subtext that makes every storyline richer (and more challenging).
Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of choices if you’re looking for a reading experience that will give you similar vibes.
One reason Severance is so compelling is the question raised by its basic premise: We are the sum of our experiences, so what would we be like if we didn’t have some (or most) of them?
In Tell Me an Ending , a corporation offers a revolutionary memory-erasing procedure, and customers can choose to either be aware that they had a memory deleted—or not.
Around the globe, people struggle with the consequences of removing crucial memories, including one character who slowly realizes he’s deleted the majority of his existence from his own brain.
If you miss the wonderfully creepy vibe of the Macrodata Refinement Department at Lumon Industries, The Room is the story for you.
Björn is a government worker who strives to be the perfect employee, driven by an almost cultish desire to do everything required of him.
When he discovers a strange room in the office—one his coworkers scrupulously pretend isn’t there—he begins spending time in it, apparently staring off into space, talking to himself.
The more he does it, the harder his peers try to get him fired—but Björn has a plan to defend himself.
And it involves what he’s discovered in the room.
The dual nature of the characters is a major aspect of Severance ’s appeal—the Innies and Outies share a body, but have diverging personalities and desires that become more and more pronounced (and tragic) as time goes on.
