Severance podcast with Ben and Adam

Severance season 2 was really fantastic. That's my opinion. Not an uncommon one, though I have also seen a headline or two that seemed to possibly take the opposite view (I haven't yet made time to read or listen to those).

My ritual for this season was 1. to watch the latest episode as it dropped each week (of course), and 2. rewatch the episode on the weekend with my kids, and then 3. to listen to the follow up podcast episode with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott.

When the season ended, I was both exhilarated and sad. The ritual was done, there were no more episodes to be had.

But then! Ben and Adam dropped a bonus episode of their podcast, this one featuring a couple of really interesting guests (and Dan Erikson, Severance creator and interesting person in his own right). In the middle section of the episode, another set of Severance podcasters - two of whom are neuroscience-related medical professionals - talk about the theories and ideas that Severance posits, which is very interesting as it comes from people in the actual scientific know.

The final guest of the episode is SZA, whom I know really nothing about outside of her Superbowl halftime appearance. But she is fascinating, and highly intelligent, and philosophical, and funny, and charming. I love joyous surprises, and I loved her - and will now be seeking out her music based solely on her 20 minute conversation with Ben and Adam.

And here is my first dose.

Happy Severance Day, kids!

To paraphrase Elaine Benes: I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with [Severance]!

<-- This is what Severance is doing to me, except in reverse. It's implanted and there's no reintegration happening. Reintegration is impossible anyway, don't you know.

Never have I ever watched so much YouTube follow-up or listened to so many podcasts talking about a show, frigging cast interviews, frigging EVERYTHING. (Though to be fair I probably would have during seasons 2-4 of Lost if such things existed.) But yeah, I can't get enough. So much so that my YouTube algorithm is unshakable and I can't even open the homepage on Fridays unless I've watched this week's episode for fear of spoilers.

Beyond the story, the writing and acting and direction and cinematography and sets and props and everything, literally everything, THE MUSIC!!!, are damn near perfect on this show. I'm in love.

And I know I said as much about Shogun last year, and it was true then for them, and it can also be true now for this. Two wildly different shows, but Twin Peaks (RIP David Lynch) of peak television without a doubt.

So, happy Severance day everybody. And, hey kids, what's for dinner?

(My God Turturro is a force. And Brit Lower, and Tramell Tillman, and Zach Cherry, and Adam Scott. Chris Walken. Frigging Balf.)

(But straight up, John Turturro and Brit Lower both should have multiple awards for this season, as Tramell Tillman should have had from season 1.)

(So good.)

My brain decided it was just too chemically imbalanced, and then fixed it itself

In my dream last night I'm a high school teacher supervising a class trip to Quebec. One of my co-workers and co-chaperones is Ana de Armas. Not the Ballerina Bond girl Ana de Armas, but high school teacher Ana de Armas. We're at the end of the trip, heading home. And at the same time, at the start of me and teacher Ana's journey of dating. Without getting into details, most of which I don't remember because dream, it's that thrill of the beginning of a relationship and the electric buzz of firsts that go along with it.

And it's one of those dreams so vivid and real and immersive and the feelings I'm feeling of warmth, comfort and excitement, spill over to when I awake.

And so I say: thank you, Brain, for allowing yourself to feel happiness. Thank you for self-prescribing oxytocin, we probably needed that.

Now onto season 2 episode 2 of Severance.

(The claymation event that causes Dylan to say, 'What the shit?', is the tie in you see.)

(Yes I'm once again behind, but I will at some point write up my favourite shows of 2024. Obviously Severance was from well before, but I just did a rewatch of season 1 and listened to the rewatch podcast with Ben Stiller and Adam Scott, and I am at an all time high of Severance stokage. Like, higher than after watching the season 1 finale the first time.)

(While I'm at it, may I also say that after rewatching s1 ep7 Defiant Jazz, it really must be noted that that might have been one of the greatest episodes of tv ever made. It is absolutely top shelf.)