Spoilers beneath for anybody who hasn’t watched the newest Severance Season 2 episode with an Apple TV+ subscription, so be warned, refiners!
It pains me to assume that that final 9 months of the 2025 TV schedule might be utterly free from new Severance episodes, with the prolonged Season 2 finale dropping like an egg-shaped bomb on March 21. The second chapter on this meticulous thriller has delivered one surprising doozy after one other, and the penultimate installment took some direct inspiration from one other twisty sci-fi favourite, The Twilight Zone. Any person extra gifted than me mash these two theme songs collectively, stat.
One in every of The Twilight Zone‘s finest episodes, “The After Hours” was the thirty fifth episode that aired from the anthology sequence’ first season. (I want somebody may assure that Severance makes it to 35 episodes.) And it is the identical title utilized by Dan Erickson for Ep 209, so it is nearly as good a spot as any to start out stating similarities.
The Title “The After Hours”
At a look, the shared titles could seem to be an earthly tip of the hat to Rod Serling’s affect. It somewhat instantly applies to each Outie Mark and Helly, whose respective anti-Lumon plans require ready for motion to be taken after the normal workday has been accomplished. For Mark, it is being smuggled to the corporate’s birthing cabin with Cobel and Devon, whereas Helly is making an attempt to memorize the instructions to the Testing Flooring. It is unclear if both plan will bear fruit, nonetheless.
And if Severance seems something like the top of the Twilight Zone ep, then we could be watching all of our favourite characters pressured into accepting their doomed fates, with out a clear possibility for the best way to change their realities. However extra on that shortly.
It All Begins With A Mysterious Elevator Experience
I haven’t got to inform Severance viewers how necessary elevators are to Lumon workers, notably these with (presumably?) patented chips of their heads. So think about my shock to see that the unique “After Hours” kicking off with Anne Francis’ Marsha White hopping into an elevator that mysteriously travels to a flooring that is not alleged to exist. It roughly brings Marsha from one actuality to a different, or a minimum of one other notion of it.
Although she will not be a totally completely different particular person, every instances she exits the elevator, Marsha’s story is a fundamental reflection of the Innies’ existence, from the utter confusion in regards to the ninth flooring to the shortcoming to totally escape the overbearing partitions surrounding her.
Password: Golden Thimble
When Cobel pulls as much as the birthing cabins close to the top of the episode, she convinces the lady guarding the gate to allow them to by in two distinct methods. First by instantly referring to among the Twilight Zone episode’s dialogue, specifically that Marsha White is searching for a golden thimble on the ninth flooring. Which is a wild little bit of in-universe referencing, because it implies that somebody in command of safety at Lumon is a Rod Serling fan. ( you, Drummonds.)
Extra disturbingly, nonetheless, Cobel goes past simply the coded language and falsely alludes to Devon being the newest of what looks like many ladies who had been impregnated by Jame Eagan, both deliberately or not. I am undecided if the implication was that Cobel can be aborting the newborn, however they had been allowed in. It will make me sick to consider what number of illegitimate Eagan youngsters are strolling the streets of Kier and close by cities.
It Takes Place Inside A Sparse Office Inside A Branded Company’s Marquee Location
Talking of these hallways, the Twilight Zone episode takes place inside fairly the favored division retailer, with (a minimum of) eight flooring of wares for purchasers to peruse. It might or will not be that firm’s largest retailer, however you’ll be able to wager this is not the department they’d stick in Salt’s Neck subsequent to the ether manufacturing unit. And whereas it is made to look bustling in a single a part of the constructing, different areas are fairly empty, save for the restricted workers working there. As Marsha herself places it at one level:
The entire flooring appears so empty.
I do not assume it might be logically potential for every other firm on the planet to have as a lot unused house as Lumon does, given its labyrinthian hallways and huge, merely furnished places of work. It is actually meant to confuse employees and preserve them from discovering different departments on the ground, which is extra difficult than the division retailer’s scenario, however shut sufficient to rely.
“A One-Means Bus Ticket To Any Division Retailer West Of Cleveland”
After Marsha complains about having bought a harm thimble on a flooring that does not exist, the shop supervisor believes her to be a extremely disturbed lady, and tells one in every of his workers that he’d like to purchase her the above-mentioned “one-way bus ticket” out of city.
Granted, he does not truly get round to purchasing that bus ticket, however I believe that declaration was itself a Serverance reference, with Burt displaying up uninvited inside Irving’s home with a proposal the opposite man cannot refuse: a one-way prepare ticket to a location that Burt could not be informed about, in order that he would not have something to report again to Lumon, because it’s all however confirmed that he is nonetheless working for them within the outdoors world. I can not assist however assume that Irv will return within the finale, but additionally worry that he might need taken Burt’s recommendation to coronary heart.
The Important Character Is Revealed To Be Somebody Solely Allowed Out Into The Exterior World As A “Actual” Individual For A Restricted Time
The massive twist behind the Twilight Zone‘s “After Hours” is that Marsha White wasn’t hallucinating in any respect. Reasonably, she was truly one in every of many sentient, speaking mannequins inside the division retailer that, for one month out of the yr, are capable of escape their ninth flooring dwelling and dwell amongst actual folks. It’s fairly the escape for them, to the purpose the place Marsha legitimately forgot that she wasn’t an actual particular person.
Whereas the reveal wasn’t performed fairly as traumatically because it may have been for Marsha herself, the second undoubtedly triggered recollections of watching Gemma undergo Dr. Mauer’s psychological torture on the Testing Flooring. As a result of for all that she was prepared to return to her station with out preventing it, the longing behind Marsha’s final line undoubtedly sticks round for some time after watching. When requested if she loved herself, she replied:
Ever a lot enjoyable. [slight pause] Ever a lot enjoyable…
After which she settled into place and stopped shifting, and all of the chills began operating throughout my backbone. The episode caps off with a scene that includes the shop supervisor discovering the Marsha model, which may very effectively have its personal implications that I am simply not recognizing for the time being.
If somebody can determine the best way to make time cross by extraordinarily slowly between now and Severance‘s finale hitting, I will purchase you an actual Residing Doll. Simply do not learn the shopper opinions.