Later this January, probably the most intriguing science fiction exhibits of the twenty first century will lastly return. Almost three years after its debut, Severance’s second season guarantees to resolve a minimum of a number of the many mysteries posed by this sequence a couple of sinister firm with the aptitude to surgically cut up its staff’ consciousnesses between work and residential life (innies and outies, respectively) and the lives of these “severed” employees.
Created by first-time showrunner Dan Erickson, Severance would possibly by no means have come into existence if it hadn’t landed on the desk of Ben Stiller, who produced the sequence and directed six of the 9 episodes within the first season. However whereas the emergence of Stiller as a TV director was a shock to many — since when does Derek Zoolander make status tv? — it wasn’t his first try. Just some years earlier, he’d directed one other critically acclaimed sequence: Escape at Dannemora.
That present, which premiered in 2018 on Showtime, is streaming now for the primary time on Netflix. Not solely is it the proper factor to look at for those who’ve already accomplished your Severance season 1 rewatch, however it might additionally supply a touch at how Stiller and his cohorts plan to unfurl a few of Severance’s many mysteries as we head into season 2.
Escape at Dannemora is a dramatized retelling of a real-life jail break from the utmost safety Clinton Correctional Facility in 2015. The present contains a sprawling forged however focuses on three characters: Richard Matt (Benicio del Toro), a captivating prisoner who paints photos for the jail guards in return for favors; David Sweat (Paul Dano), one other inmate who groups up with Richard to flee; and Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell (Patricia Arquette), a jail worker who turns into romantically concerned with each Richard and David. (For the file, the actual jail worker denied ever sleeping with both man and referred to as Stiller “a son-of-a-bitch liar” in an interview with The New York Submit.)
After a gap scene set post-prison break the place Tilly is introduced in by the police for questioning, the sequence jumps again in time and painstakingly reveals how the 2 males managed to interrupt out of a jail sometimes called New York’s Little Siberia (the winters are fairly chilly in Dannemora). With out spoiling an excessive amount of, what makes Escape at Dannemora so fascinating is the meticulous means its story unfolds. Over the course of a number of weeks, we watch Richard and David rigorously plot their escape whereas manipulating Tilly into serving to them, solely to make some extremely weird choices as soon as they’re lastly free.
Because the director of all seven episodes (the finale is 99 minutes, however Netflix breaks it into two separate components), Stiller rigorously builds the world of his jail and the encircling city by devoting time to the individuals in it, usually specializing in essentially the most mundane elements of their lives. Via the eyes of everybody from long-serving prisoners and new inmates to the jail guards and their households, we’re plunged into this actuality simply in time to look at Richard and David escape from it.
Whereas Stiller as soon as informed IndieWire he by no means observed the similarities between Escape at Dannemora and Severance, they aren’t precisely delicate. Each Dannemora and the primary season of Severance are, on some degree, jail break tales. The innie/outie divide in Severance additionally looks like an echo of the variations between life in jail, with its distinctive guidelines and customs, and the forbidden world past its partitions. Watching Dannemora, you possibly can see how Stiller honed his abilities in bringing unfamiliar areas to life, whether or not that’s a most safety jail or a top-secret underground workplace. He takes these enclosed settings and miraculously makes them really feel like residence by means of exact, muscular digital camera work and a give attention to the characters required to make the most effective out of a scenario they had been pressured into.
However maybe the obvious comparability is the way in which each exhibits deal with their largest twists. Severance was all the time a sequence constructed on thriller. That’s baked into Erickson’s script from web page one, and Stiller (together with season 1’s different director, Aoife McArdle) fills each body with a way of foreboding. From the too-clean places of work the place the innies work to the perpetually darkish and cloudy surrounding city, all the things in Severance appears just a bit off. Escape at Dannemora doesn’t have as many twists to play with, nevertheless it delivers a minimum of one crushing reveal.
Photograph: Apple TV Plus
In Dannemora’s penultimate episode, we lastly be taught what Richard and David did to land in jail within the first place. Stiller shoots these scenes in brutal, bloody element, ensuring we care about every sufferer earlier than revealing the horrible and brutal crimes dedicated by Richard and David. After witnessing these horrific actions, it out of the blue turns into much more troublesome to root for his or her escape. (One thing comparable occurs on the finish of Severance’s first season, when the innies quickly break away from their company jail and expertise their outies’ lives, resulting in a number of mind-blowing reveals that redefine nearly all the things that occurred as much as that time.)
In a way, that dramatic episode of Dannemora tells us all the things we have to learn about Severance (or, a minimum of, nearly all the things — the goats are nonetheless a thriller). As a result of in a present the place everybody looks like a clean slate, the largest twist isn’t whether or not they’ll in the end escape from their innie existence or why they’re being severed within the first place; it’s the chance that the true nature of those characters will tarnish the variations of them we’ve come to know and love. As a storyteller, Stiller is clearly within the multifaceted nature of individuals, and the way little we may very well learn about one another. When Severance season 2 drops later this January, we’ll know a bit of bit extra — whether or not we prefer it or not.
Escape at Dannemora is streaming on Netflix. Severance season 2 premieres Jan. 17.
