As we head into subsequent week’s season finale, I’m beginning to higher perceive the frustration some viewers really feel with Severance’s pacing in its second season. We’re 9 episodes in and never quite a bit has occurred. There have been a number of character-driven episodes in a row and never a lot motion on the primary thriller, and we’re one episode away from the present happening hiatus as soon as extra. Given the three-year hole between seasons one and two, I can perceive the fear that we’re going to achieve the top of this season with out having realized that a lot. However the season’s penultimate episode, “The After Hours,” felt like a essential little bit of housecleaning so the present could be free to focus virtually solely on its overarching thriller and the way protagonists Mark (Adam Scott) and Helly (Britt Decrease) are faring. Meaning we spent a whole lot of time with the remainder of the ensemble, wrapping up quite a few storylines with a sequence of devastating conclusions. I’m a bit bummed we didn’t get full episodes devoted to those characters just like the one Patricia Arquette’s Concord Cobel bought final week, however god, the conclusion of Severance’s sluggish burn outdated man love story between Irving (John Turturro) and Burt (Christopher Walken) has despatched me on an ongoing emotional spiral I haven’t recovered from.
How do the makers of Severance anticipate me to perform after watching these two males get to the precipice of operating away collectively and escaping Lumon’s clutches, only for Burt to emphatically and repeatedly inform Irving that they can’t? I’m getting forward of myself. However the picture of Irving and Burt’s outies standing brow to brow in a prepare station is burned into my mind. As for a way we bought right here, it seems that sure, followers’ theories that Burt’s outie was truly an secret agent working for Lumon had been appropriate. As he explains to Irving, he has been working with the company for a few years, serving to to vanish enemies of its pursuits. Now that each Irving’s innie and outie have been investigating the corporate’s corruption, the person who his innie fell in love with is in Burt’s crosshairs. He’s been given orders to ship Irving someplace to be discreetly handled, as he’s executed to a lot of Lumon’s enemies over time.
Whereas I sympathize with those that really feel that Severance’s higher mysteries have been shifting a bit too slowly, I do surprise if some viewers have gotten so fixated on the query of what the primary forged is doing on the severed flooring that they’re shedding sight of those micro mysteries which assist construct out the world by the lens of the individuals in it. In Episode 6, “Attila,” Burt, Irving, and Burt’s outie husband Fields all pontificated about whether or not or not innies and outies had distinct souls that would ascend to Heaven impartial of what the opposite character had executed. Folks rightfully assumed Burt was working with Lumon, however what may he have executed that may make him so positive he wouldn’t see the pearly gates that he’d bisect his mind within the hope that some a part of him would attain Heaven whereas the opposite burned for eternity? It seems that serving to Lumon whisk away anybody who slighted it weighs on an individual.
However now, he’s met with the particular person this harmless model of himself fell in love with, and he’s been ordered to drop him off someplace for the corporate’s nefarious functions. After years of following Lumon’s orders, he lastly hesitates, and as a substitute of dropping Irving off the place he was advised to, he takes him and his canine Radar to a prepare station, provides him a one-way ticket, and tells him to not say the place he’s going. Burt can’t know the place Irving’s cease is, as a result of so long as he doesn’t, the person his innie fell in love with can be secure.
If that weren’t devastating sufficient by itself, Irving’s personal confession had me curled up within the fetal place on the ground. Earlier than he will get on the prepare, he tells Burt he’s by no means been beloved earlier than, probably not. However at his outdated age of 60-something, it’s painful for him to know he felt it as soon as and may’t bear in mind it, and he desires Burt to present them an opportunity to really feel that connection on this life. The scene mirrors one from season one, by which Burt and Irving’s innies resolve they’ll’t have interaction in “fraternization,” and Irving says that he’s “not prepared” to interrupt Lumon’s guidelines. Seeing the roles reversed and Irving begging Burt to present them an opportunity to get on that prepare collectively and see the place issues go generates the sort of devastating angst you hardly ever discover exterior of AO3.
Irving says he desires to recollect the love they felt for one another on the severed flooring, however I think about it will break his coronary heart to know that model of him handed on the chance to like and be beloved. Ultimately, all both model of Irving has is the picture he’s shaped in his thoughts of what a life with Burt may have appeared like. Severance has all the time been for the yearners, however I can’t lie, I hoped and praying for a shot of Burt strolling as much as Irving on the prepare and escaping Lumon’s clutches alongside his innie’s love. Nevertheless it by no means got here.
If this present had come out 10 years in the past, the model of me I used to be then most likely would have been miffed that the queer love story ended so tragically when Severance is about to launch a season finale spotlighting its straight leads. However the longer I’ve lived, the extra that queer love tales like Burt and Irving’s resonate with me, tales that seize the truth that the majority relationships don’t finish properly. Statistically, extra of us take care of heartbreak from disinterested companions, assembly the precise particular person on the improper time, and discovering we wasted a whole lot of hours being too scared to take the subsequent step, than with fortunately ever after. The best, most passionate love tales typically finish with somebody on a one-way journey to god is aware of the place. I think about we’ve seen the final of Irving in Severance, and it’s becoming that Burt was the one who ensured he bought a second probability. Wherever he will get off that prepare, I hope he doesn’t waste the time he’s been given the way in which he did on the severed flooring.
