Lower has an even more layered role now and plays it with perfect subtlety as Helly/Helena, with her immensely complicated double life. Turturro has never had a better role or given a stronger performance, suggesting the fire beneath the apparently bland Irv. He continues to love Burt, the former Lumon employee played by Christopher Walken, who delivers delightful, pure Walken line readings. No one else could make a dinner invitation that starts “We have a ham” sound the same. Tramell Tillman returns as the Lumon boss Mr Milchick, his smile more chilling than ever. Ben Stiller directs with visual flair, contrasting the dark, snowy outer world with the claustrophobic, blinding white maze of corridors at Lumon.
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Most of the differences can’t be revealed yet. Among other things, we learn more about Dylan’s family and we discover that it is possible to find a secret place to have sex inside the Lumon offices. Guest actors breeze in and out, including Gwendoline Christie, Merritt Wever, Bob Balaban and Alia Shawkat.
Apple TV+ sent critics only six episodes of 10, so I couldn’t say more about the last stretch of the season even if I wanted to. But by midway through, the story has taken a turn involving the chips in the employees’ brains, and although that raises the stakes, the storyline is not as compelling as it should be, at least not yet. Too much sci-fi threatens to tip the show’s perfect balance.
And all along there has been too little attention paid to the cult-like aspect of Lumon, where everyone treats its 19th-Century founder, Kier Eagan, as a prophet, and whose company handbook is regarded as a religious, Bible-like document. The subservient way the employees always call Milchick “Mr Milchick” as if they were schoolchildren addressing a teacher is just the start of it. Whatever happens in the last episodes, there is a lot to savour, including the pitch-perfect scorn in innie Mark’s voice when he says, “Praise Kier”.
★★★★☆
The first two episodes of Severance season two are released on Apple TV+ on January 17, with new episodes released weekly.
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