The third episode of Severance season 2 gives new perception into the outie lifetime of Dylan G., displaying that, in contrast to his pushed, perk-obsessed innie, the “actual” model of Zach Cherry’s character isn’t precisely a go-getter. Outie Dylan appears content material to take a seat on the sofa, learn the newest difficulty of Midlife Driver journal, and nominally look after his youngsters whereas his spouse (Merritt Wever) bears the household burden of emotional labor.
What’s much more fascinating to me, as somebody who typically obsessively dissects what’s on the TV on the TV, is the cartoon that Dylan’s child is glued to throughout the aforementioned scene. It’s an episode of the basic British youngsters animated collection Hazard Mouse — an episode that feels fairly Severance-coded.
The episode of Hazard Mouse included in that episode, “The Invasion of Colonel Okay,” is from the third season of the present and first aired in 1982. The plot includes the evil toad Baron Silas Dollar shrinking himself and his ship, the Frog’s Head Flyer, all the way down to microscopic measurement and invading the mind of Colonel Okay, an anthropomorphized chinchilla who runs the British Secret Service on the planet of Hazard Mouse.
Dollar’s plan is “to grab the secrets and techniques of the world from the mind cells of Colonel Okay,” he says, and to in the end rule the world because the puppeteer of the colonel. The titular hero of Hazard Mouse and his sidekick Penfold, with the assistance of sensible scientist mole Heinrich von Squawkencluck, likewise shrink down in an effort to enter Okay’s physique and kick Dollar out.
Hazard Mouse and Penfold journey to the mind of Colonel Okay to scrub out his reminiscence banks, the place we be taught that Colonel Okay’s consciousness nonetheless exists inside his head, though Dollar has taken management. The episode takes excessive anatomical liberties with the within of a chinchilla’s head, and Hazard Mouse winds up expelling Dollar by shouting him out of Okay’s ear canal.
Whether or not it is a clue concerning the future occasions of Severance, or only a enjoyable nod to a youngsters cartoon which will have impressed the present’s creators many a long time in the past, is unclear. Mark Scout lastly appears eager to pursue reintegration within the newest episode of the present, and the state of affairs with Hazard Mouse’s Colonel Okay could be a enjoyable parallel. However with each line, prop, and character choice seemingly a considerate, extremely intentional one in Severance, possibly even the inclusion of a 40-year-old episode of Hazard Mouse might have some deeper that means.
If you happen to’d prefer to meet up with Hazard Mouse, if solely to move the grueling weeklong wait between new Severance episodes, the authentic collection and its 2015 revival can be found to stream on Peacock.
