Why Severance Was My Favorite Part Of San Diego Comic-Con This Year

I’m working on my Best TV Shows Of 2022 (So Far) list and at the very top are two contenders for my favorite: Showtime’s Yellowjackets and Apple TV’s Severance. I don’t know that I’ll be able to pick one over the other, honestly. They may just have to tie for the Blue Ribbon or Gold Medal or whatever it is you get when you’re my favorite TV show.

Yellowjackets didn’t really have a presence at this year’s Comic-Con (though I like to think somebody dressed up as Misty Quigley) but Severance made a very big splash, and one that I was lucky enough to attend.

Severance made itself known at SDCC this year in two ways: First, an all-star panel moderated by comedian Patton Oswalt, who’s obviously a big fan of the show (maybe he’ll get a role in Season 2?).

The panel included show creator Dan Erickson, producer and director Ben Stiller, and several of the main cast members including Britt Lower (Helly), Adam Scott (Mark), Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey), Jen Tullock (Devon) and Tramell Tillman (Milchick).

Oswalt was a great moderator. He kept bringing up how terrifying Tramell Tillman’s character, Milchick, is in the show like he couldn’t believe that someone as nice and friendly as Tillman could play such an intimidating character.

Also can we all just agree that Jen Tullock really rocks this 80s’ hairdo like nobody’s business?

One really interesting thing I learned during this panel is that creator Dan Erickson hasn’t worked on anything else. This is his break-out show. He sent the script to Ben Stiller’s production company, Red Hour Productions, and Stiller liked it so much he opted to help make it, and took a very active role in writing and directing. Erickson didn’t think the script would go anywhere and actually was hoping it would just serve as a stepping stone into the business.

Apparently the original script was even weirder and more outlandish. For instance, there used to be a pare of disembodied legs that would around the Lumon offices.

Erickson also confirmed that the goats do have significance to the show—but nothing more on one of Severance’s biggest mysteries.

Erickson actually began work on the script a decade ago, and Red Hour began work on it five years ago, so much of this was filmed during the pandemic. The panelists discussed the crazy set that was built for the show, including an entire sound-stage set up with hallways that could be changed around or have walls added, allowing the crew to film long walking sequences that made the Lumon offices feel huge and disorienting. Adam Scott talked about getting lost trying to get onto set sometimes, and apparently finding the bathroom could be a trick.

While we didn’t see a trailer for Season 2 or any exclusive Season 2 footage (bummer) we were treated to a blooper reel of some fun flubs and line mishaps that took place during Season 1 filming. Curiously, most of these involved Patricia Arquette (Cobel/Mrs. Selvig) who wasn’t in attendance.

The Severance Activation

After the panel, I visited the massive and pretty outstanding activation Apple set up for SDCC attendees. A floor of the Hard Rock Café was taken over and set up as the Lumon offices, replete with actors dressed up as Lumon office workers and goats (though these were just projections of goat silhouettes on the other side of a door—see Tweets below).

The activation was one of the highlights of SDCC for me this year. A lot of TLC was clearly put into the set-building and the actors did a great job making things funny without breaking character.

The whole thing is set up as ‘orientation day.’ I went in with a group of around 14 people who are all ‘severed’ for the first time. In the fiction of the show, people can have a chip implanted that, when activated, switches off their “outie” conscious and basically creates a separate “innie” self that only exists during the work day. This is activated in an elevator that takes the employees down to their underground offices and de-activated when they go back out.

Outies live life without any memory of their work days, essentially sleeping through the work week and living life free of the daily grind. Innies, on the other hand, exist entirely in the Lumon offices, with no sense of their outside selves, their past, etc. The show raises some pretty big ethical questions and does a terrific job imagining a near future with some very dark, dystopian elements.

In any case, we entered the Lumon offices in the conference room where we see Mark and Helly in the first episode. A man came in and gave us each a first name with a last initial. We also got a tote bag with an instruction manual and introduction to the 9 Lumon Core Principles: Vision, Verve, Wit, Cheer, Humility, Benevolence, Nimbleness, Probity and Wiles.

From here, we were taken down a bright fluorescent hallway into Optics and Design, where we were greeted by two blue-coat-wearing workers who showed off some of their handiwork as well as some Lumon paintings. This was the Christopher Walken bit, and one of the actors even looked a bit like a young Walken.

The young Burt Goodman drew me aside at one point and showed me a painting of Lumon founder Kier Eagan battling the Four Tempers (see above tweet). After he talked about this painting for a bit, he drew a book out of his lab coat. It was none other than The You You Are by Lazlo Hale (Michael Chernus) which plays a pretty big part in the show. He said he was starting to have doubts about this place, and to tell nobody about what I was shown.

Then he gave me an eraser with Lumon on it and walked off. I snagged a finger trap from the room as well.

Nobody else in my group was drawn aside like this or shown the book. How curious.

From here, we made our way into an interview room where a clearly severed interviewer picked a couple volunteers. She read them details about their “outies” just like in the show—random stuff like “Your outie loves to smile. Your outie likes to take long walks on the beach. Your outie is kind.” and so forth.

Once we left this admittedly very calming room, with its giant plants and calming interviewer, we headed back into the halls. A nervous employee had us come into the security room to show us some suspicious stuff, but his superior entered and admonished him, taking us instead to the room of smiles (see above images). Here is where we also noticed the door with the goats behind it.

The employee in this room talked about how these smiles calmed him and made him think about all the people Lumon was helping. I mean, clearly they must be since everyone in these images was smiling. I admit, this room—which was never on the show—was deeply creepy. Fortunately the actor here was also very funny, joking about how he hoped Lumon could help some of the more unfortunate smilers learn how to smile “the whole way.”

Our final destination was the Corporate Archives office cubicle itself that forms the center of the “innie” storyline in Severance. Here there were several computers setup and you could actually manipulate, or ‘refine’, the numbers the way they do in the show, though with 14 people and only 4 terminals there wasn’t a lot of time for that.

(Fun note: The computers in the show actually do the same thing, and apparently Zach Cherry, who plays Dylan, is leaps and bounds better at it than anyone else according to the panelists).

There was also a break room (not that break room) where you could buy fake vending machine food with Lumon tokens. The choices were a bit limited—just Buttered Pretzels and Shriveled Raisins. Yum!

Apparently we all did such a good job that we got our very own dance party. The music kicked in, the funky disco lights turned on and everyone danced, urged on by our very own version of Mr. Milchick.

We took a group photo and were ushered into another elevator by the young woman who had been helping us with our data refinement. She was dressed in a business suit but when we came out the other side of the elevator, she was there—now “unsevered” and dressed differently. I still wonder if they hired twins to pull this off, or if she just had a very fast costume change.

Outside, there was already our group photos printed out which we took with us, as well as printed badges with our photos on them (which we took before entering).

Between the panel and the installation Severance was one of my favorite parts of San Diego Comic-Con this year. While the convention might be dominated by Marvel superheroes and the biggest panels tend to be for giant shows like The Rings Of Power or House of the Dragon, it was cool to see something a bit more thought-provoking and subdued draw so many excited fans.

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